Asian Studies Center, Michigan State University Journal of South Asian Literature

Infigurations and Configurations of India : Anandamoyi in Tagore's "Gora"
Author(s): Nikky Singh

Source: Journal of South Asian Literature, Vol. 31/32, No. 1/2 (1996/1997), pp. 1-31
Published by: Asian Studies Center, Michigan State University
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23234181
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Journal of South Asian Literature Volume 31, Nos. 1 & 2 (1996), Volume 32, Nos. 1 & 2 (1997)
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Gora
5S Nikky Singh
Nikky Singh
May the lovelight of her face guard my mind

from all distractions. May it be as the
reflection of my motherland and keep me firm
in the path of duty.
abindranath Tagore's ideal image of India is concretely depicted

R in Anandamoyi, the Bengali childless woman who adopts an
Irish foundling during the Indian "mutiny" of 1857. His name is
Gora (literally, white), which is the title of Tagore's 408-page
novel as well. The novel was serialized in the Bengali journal Prabasi
(Foreigner) from August 1907 to March 1910, before Tagore visited Europe
and America.1 His Gitanjali (Song Offerings), the collection of poems which
won him the Nobel Prize in 1913, and his famous play Dak Ghar (The Post
Office) were also composed around this same time.2 Gora's story starts on
a bloody night when an English lady is given shelter in the cowshed of a
house owned by Anandamoyi and Krishnadayal; the woman's Irish husband
has been murdered, and that very night she gives birth to their son and dies.
The baby is adoringly embraced by Anandamoyi. Thereafter she brings him
up as her own son with utmost care and love, his identity know to no one
except her husband, Krishnadayal.
The book does not describe Gora's childhood; instead, it begins with
his youth in colonial Calcutta: Gora has finished his master's degree and be
comes a staunch spokesperson for orthodox Hinduism. The story uncovers
the dialectic between intense nationalism and revival of traditional Hinduism
-1
on the one hand, and

globalism and progressive
reformation on the other.
Like the Bengalis of their

time, the fictional char
acters of Gora are all
caught up in the contra
dictions of a culture in
transition. In the novel, a
picture of the social, poli
tical, racial, and religious
forces working in Bengal at
the turn of the century
emerges, and many useful
studies have focused on
this topic.3 But what is
most intriguing about Gora
is the character of Ananda
moyi, especially how this Sketch of Tagore
Bengali woman moves by John Rothenstein
beyond the confines of both
Hindu orthodoxy and Brahmo Samaj modernity, how she embodies Tagore's
expansive vision of India. This paper explores the intimate relationship
between Anandamoyi and India, and the intricate way in which Tagore draws
Anandamoyi on the canvas of India's unique philosophical heritage.
Ironically, the more closely Tagore identifies Anandamoyi with her own
country, the more universal she becomes; his essential Indian infigurations
lead to a configuration of India which no boundaries can contain.
We are first struck with Tagore's allusions to Anandamoyi as Prthivi

(Earth). This association between the woman and the country stretches our
imagination such that we begin to see an India reaching out for the entire
planet. But the topography of Tagore's peninsula cannot be charted out on
any map. Which longitudes and latitudes could possibly contain it? The
ideal of the physically and mentally strong earth has been pervasive in Indian
thought, and Tagore employs this ancient image in his references to Ananda
moyi, disclosing, in turn, her uncircumferenced territories.
As an example, Tagore describes Gora standing between Anandamoyi

and her husband, Krishnadayal, "as the Vindhya mountain range, dividing
-2
their married life. On the one side was Krishnadayal with all his parapherna
lia of strict orthodoxy, and on the other Anandamoyi alone with her un
touchable Gora . . (163). The tiny white orphan whom Anandamoyi
clutches to her heart and holds even when he grows into the tall and sturdy
Gora "standing like the Vindhya mountains" brings to mind the Rig Veda
verse: "Thou bearest truly, Prthivi, / The burden of the mountains' weight;
. . . " (V.84).
Over the years, she rears Gora lovingly, sustaining him ever close to
her home and heart. At the beginning of their married life, Krishnadayal is
open to the English; he works for them and even receives quick promotions
because of his modern outlook of bringing his wife on his assignments. But
after retirement, when he converts to strict orthodoxy, even the sight of Gora
makes him cringe with the fear of pollution and contamination. The white,
muscular, and colossal Gora, very much like the Vindhya range with its
snowy peaks, becomes the protruding barrier between husband and wife.
The image of the earth was used by Lord Buddha as well. In fact, the
seventh stage of the Noble Eightfold Path is vividly expressed through the
simile of the earth:
And develop a state of mind like the earth, Rahula. For on the
earth men throw clean and unclean things, dung and urine, spittle,
pus and blood, and the earth is not troubled or repelled or dis
gusted. And as you grow like the earth no contacts with pleasant
or unpleasant will lay hold of your mind or stick to it. (Majjhima
Nikaya, 1.420)
Anandamoyi appropriates these very earth-like qualities that Lord

Buddha asks of his son and disciple, Rahula. Throughout the book we find
her with a mind which clings to no one idea or person; there is no trace of any
dogmatism or fanaticism in her person. She is Hindu, but she welcomes a
Christian maid. Anandamoyi never excludes, draws barriers or distinctions
between or among any caste, creed, or religion. She lovingly bears the weight
of Gora on herself; she is mentally strong to take any criticism that her family
(including her husband and Gora) or society may inflict on her because of her
openness to one and all. India's rich literary legacy, both Hindu and Bud
-3
dhist, with its different and separate nuances, has been used by Tagore to por
tray the physical and mental strength of his protagonist. Just as Anandamoyi
cannot be confined to any particular group, society, or ideology, Tagore's
India cannot be mapped onto any latitudes or longitudes.
Now the usage of the planet earth may be entirely unconscious, but
in Tagore we have someone who revered his past. He was well-versed in In
dian classics.4 From childhood he absorbed them, and they became a part of
his psyche. In his preface to Sadhana: The Realisation of Life, a collection
of papers he delivered at Harvard University, he says:
To me the verses of the Upanishads and the teachings of Buddha

have ever been things of the spirit, and therefore, endowed with
boundless vital growth; and I have used them, both in my own life
and in my preaching, as being instinct with individual meaning for
me. . . .5
In fact, in his first paper of this collection, Tagore claims that Bud
dha's message is the same as that of the Upanishads, the difference being that
Buddha "developed the practical side of the teaching of Upanishads..." (17).
He did not regard Buddha's teachings antithetical to his own Hindu heritage,
rather, as an intrinsic part of his whole personality. So when Tagore uses
ancient Indian symbols, Hindu and Buddhist, they merge from within. Hans
Georg Gadamer's analysis of the hermeneutical process is quite applicable to
Tagore: "What constitutes the hermeneutical event proper is not language as
language, whether as grammar or as lexicon; it consists in the coming into
language of what has been said in the tradition: an event that is at once
appropriation and interpretation."6 What has been said in Tagore's literary
heritage is absorbed by him and comes out unconsciously in his novels and
poetry.
The 1905 division of Bengal under Lord Curzon may have heightened
Tagore's perception of a unified topography. He was hurt to witness the con
flict between Hindus and Muslims, whetted by the British administration in
its divide-and-rule policy. The pain of his home province ripped asunder into
East and West must have been acutely felt during the writing of Gora. No
-4
wonder the novel is permeated by the vision of an undivided planet, a whole

and harmonious space.
Besides geographical allusions, Tagore creates a lovely equation

between Anandamoyi and philosophical India, the sanatan, or Eternal, India.
As he argued in his Harvard lectures, Indian civilization is unusual in that it
was bom in the forests, and Hindu philosophy owes its distinct character to
that ever-growing and open environment. Even the word "Hindu" properly
refers to Indian religions in general rather than the particular religion of one
group. According to Tagore in Sadhana, the aim of the forest-dweller "was
not to acquire but to realise, to enlarge his consciousness by growing with
and growing into his surroundings" (4). He felt that western civilization, in
contrast, had been shaped from the time of the Greeks as a city culture, nur
tured within walls which set up the principle of divide and rule: "We divide
nation and nation, knowledge and knowledge, man and nature" (3). Ananda
moyi is brought up in the very different atmosphere of the open Hindu culture
originating in the forests. There are no borders or barriers or definitions here.
She personifies for Tagore the primal and comprehensive wisdom of India.
Born in a Brahmin family, she inherits the life of spirit, which remains
the same past, present, and future. She represents the lineage of Vedic seers
(the Sanskrit root vid is related to the Greek oida and Latin videre), dwelling
in the sweeping forests, for whom knowledge and seeing constituted a single
process. Wisdom in this tradition is not knowledge of facts that change from
century to century but rather an intellectual and lived experience of the in
finite, which is timeless. "The past is always with us, for nothing that once
was true can ever depart," says Binoy, restating his friend and leader Gora's
point of view (88). Not for a moment can Binoy imagine that Anandamoyi is
not their mother: "she was the image of all the mothers in the world!" (161).
Even though she does not literally give birth to Binoy (or Gora either), there
is total love and understanding between them. The very fact that she is not
his biological mother takes Anandamoyi out of the contingencies of the three
tenses of time, and she becomes the eternal mother who has been for every
one, forever. The orphan friend derives great physical and psychological
solace from Gora's mother and he almost worships her in return. While Gora
takes Anandamoyi's maternal affection for granted, he, like Binoy, associates
-5
her with his Hindu heritage: "How many possess a mother like mine! But if
I once begin to show disrespect for tradition, then one day perhaps I shall
cease to respect my mother also" (14). Gora and his patriotic friends under
score the link between the Mother and the "Hindu tradition," which for them
denoted a very narrow and regimented way of life and thought.
As the fatherless granddaughter of a famous Benares pandit (21),

Anandamoyi has many generations of erudite wisdom naturally ingrained in
her. Interestingly, Tagore portrays her in the same way as he does Pandit
Vidyavagish, the scholar with whom Gora enthusiastically studies Hindu
scriptures, and whom the young Gora deeply admires: "he had never ima
gined that anyone, read only in Sanskrit lore, could have such a keen and
open intelligence" (23). A few pages earlier in the novel, Tagore traces
Anandamoyi's face with similar features: "the impress of a pure and keen in
telligence" (11). Sanskritic background and keen intelligence mark both
Gora's mother and the scholarly pandit, setting Anandamoyi firmly in the
Brahminic framework. Even though we may not hear the recitations or expo
sition of Vedas or Upanishads from her lips, Anandamoyi is regarded by the
various protagonists in the novel as the true enlightener. In fact, the per
ceptive Binoy reverses the roles of the scholarly grandfather and his young
granddaughter: "I believe that the students of your grandfather's school used
to look on you as their tiny little mother, and that it was really you who had
to bring up your grandfather! "(171). Through this open and fluid reversion of
gender and generations, Anandamoyi becomes the signifier of the timeless
ness of Hindu philosophy. It is Binoy's wish that "I could give back to God
all my book learning and take refuge in this lap of yours as a child once more"
(171). Anandamoyi is for the young Hindu orphan wisdom personified, that
perennial experiential knowledge which brings comfort and peace.
Anandamoyi's Brahmmical pedigree is important for Gora. Like

many cosmopolitan Bengalis of his time, he had embraced the Brahmo Samaj
but became disillusioned with its imperialistic orientation. When Gora and
Binoy reject this renaissance movement and return to orthodoxy, they begin
to stress preservation and absolute respect of the Brahmin:
-6
Other countries want generals like Wellington, scientists like

Newton, and millionaires like Rothschild, but our country wants
the Brahmin, the Brahmin who knows not what fear is, who hates
greed, who can vanquish sorrow, who takes no account of loss—
whose being is united with the Supreme Being. India wants the
Brahmin of firm, tranquil and liberated mind. . . . (87)
In this rebuff of Wellington, Newton, and Rothschild, he rejects the

militaristic, scientific, and material power of the West. These western
models are wrong not only because they are too technological, but because
they are male-generated and male-dominated. These powerful men domi
nated a narrow technological field in which they used only a certain part of
their personality. They mastered the techniques of strategy, science, eco
nomics, but never came to terms with the fear, the sorrow, the greed which
lie behind those fields. As opposed to these western models, Gora and his
group look for the whole person, and it is the spiritually strong Brahmin who
is their ideal against oppressive colonialism and imperialism. According to
Gora, "India wants the Brahmin of firm, tranquil and liberated mind—when
once she gets him then only will she be free!" Anandamoyi possesses the
Brahmin character so prized by Gora and his friends. "Such power and peace
such unwavering patience and depth" are in her very genes.
As Binoy m his own reiteration of the Upanishads says above, the

being of the Brahmin is united with the Supreme Being. The individual, the
microcosm participates in the macrocosmic fullness of the Supreme Being.
This "being" is not a static noun but a dynamic verb as radical feminist theo
logian Mary Daly would say,7 one which is retained in the Sanskrit term
brahman itself. The root (brh) denotes an ever-expanding, ever-flourishing
mode. The Upanishadic paradigm of union of the individual with the
Supreme is a state of absolute liberation, one in which the finite experiences
the Infinite, without being subject to space or time. Anandamoyi lives out the
Upanishadic paradigm of absolute freedom, and Binoy is quick to perceive
it:
"The more I know of you, mother," exclaimed Binoy, "the

more astonished I am at you! However do you manage to have
-7
such a clear mind? It seems to me that you don't have to walk. Has
God given you wings? Nothing seems able to obstruct you!" (253)
Not bound by the walls of caste, creed, sect, or religion, Anandamoyi

seems above all bifurcations and divisions. Interestingly, the liberation that
she symbolizes is not just from colonial rule but also from psychological and
spiritual oppression. She embodies that heaven of freedom which Tagore
prays for in Gitanjali:
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow
domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary
desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mmd is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought
and action —
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake."
The clear thinker who can enter any house and accept water from any
hand, Anandamoyi is Tagore's paradigmatic figure for his vision of true free
dom. Freedom for his country is of course freedom from British colonialism,
but it is also freedom for Britons, which is why this poem from the Gitanjali
is used by Bertrand Russell as a motto for his pamphlet on peace.9 It is of
course civil, political, and economic freedom, but most of all, it is an awaken
ing which shatters blind ignorance and dead habits. The ideal of both Hindu
ism and Buddhism is moksha, freedom from ignorance. Blinded by igno
rance we are stuck in the wheel of life and death, but by seeing the transcen
dent self, tat, of all phenomena (Hindu) or seeing that all appearances are
utterly empty, sunya (Buddhist), we attain ultimate freedom. At the heart of
Hindu and Buddhist philosophy is mental and spiritual liberation, which
Anandamoyi lives out in her everyday life.
Indeed, Gora's adoptive mother is the "clear stream of reason" for the
"dreary desert sand of dead habit" of her family and society, especially for
-8
people like her husband, Krishnadayal, and Sucharita's aunt Harimohini.

There are powerful scenes in the novel which juxtapose Anandamoyi to such
uptight and dogmatic characters. In one of them, Anandamoyi is standing by
her window, watching Krishnadayal return from his morning bath,
. . . with the sacred Ganges clay smeared on his brow, his breast
and his arms, muttering sacred mantras. While so purified, no one,
not even Anandamoyi, was allowed to come near him. Prohibition,
prohibition, nothing but prohibition! (164)
Such forbidding constraints and exclusions are a part of Harimohini's

existence as well. When Anandamoyi is visiting her, little Satish comes to
meet them with a dog. Reacting strongly in the Krishnadayal preposterous
mode, "Harimohini moved farther and farther away from the untouchable ani
mal," but "Anandamoyi drew Satish towards her, dog and all, and taking the
puppy in her lap said, 'So you are Satish, are you our Binoy's friend?'" (218).
Through their polarized movements, the one strictly ostracizing and the other
freely embracing, Tagore presents the conventional and liberated type of per
son. While people like Krishnadayal and Harimohini mold Hinduism into a
dead habit and become personal slaves to it, Anandamoyi openly and ener
getically lives it as if it were an ever-dynamic and accumulating tradition.
The others are not able to understand her nature and try to cast her in some
category. As she herself exclaims:
"I have long ceased to take pride in my caste. Why, when our
relatives made a fuss at Mohim's wedding because of my
unorthodox habits, I simply kept at a distance without a word of
protest. Nearly everybody calls me a Christian and whatever else
come to their lips." (27)
Not congealed or frozen in time, Anandamoyi wears the traditional Indian

sari but with a fashionable bodice. Her dress symbolizes the way in which
she blends the old with the new. Ever mindful, Anandamoyi is that body of
India which is One, infinite, without boundaries, walls, and fences.
In fact, her very name, Anandamoyi (mother of joy) discloses the

Upanishadic concept of the Self.10 She seems to guide the reader through the
-9
five layers of the individual Self—body, senses, mind, consciousness, to the

absolute state of bliss. In the chariot parable from the Katha Upanishad this
ultimate experience corresponds to the tiny intrinsic spark who is the owner
of the chariot, sitting blissfully. The body of the chariot corresponds to the
external self, literally known as anna (food); the horses that run in different
directions to the senses; and the mind is analogous to the reins which are
controlled by the charioteer, consciousness or buddhi. Persons who recog
nize their transcendent core (ananda) know their true Self, which is their
identity with the Supreme Being. As the Upanishads reiterate, the microcos
mic atman equals the macrocosmic Brahman. This identity entails an abso
lute knowledge that the particular self is the spaceless, timeless, universal
Self, an awareness of it, and its utter enjoyment (satchitananda). The great
sentence, or mahavak, of the Upanishads, Tat tvam asi (That you are), is put
into practice by Anandamoyi. Stepping out (ekstasis in Greek), this Brahmin
Bengali woman expels herself from all her finite social and cultural figura
tions into a transcendent mode of being. Anandamoyi is always in joy.
Her joy and freedom encompass the five dimensions of life {pancha
kosa)\ physical, intellectual, emotional, moral, and spiritual. Here again
Anandamoyi incorporates the pancha kosa concept of the Upanishads." In
the physical sphere, her life is marked by balance and harmony. Her actions
are free and courageous. No one and no thing can bar her entry anywhere.
Anandamoyi blissfully walks over to and visits anyone she wishes. We saw
how her gait is interpreted as "flight" by Binoy. Intellectually, Anandamoyi
is not burdened by prohibitions and conventions. We see how different she
is from Krishnadayal and Harimohini. The knowledge of the macrocosmic
unity leaves no room for parochialism or prejudice. Anandamoyi's emotional
sphere is fused with spontaneity. Her emotions are not subject to external
rules and regulations. Her joy, sorrow, and sympathy flow freely from within
her. In her love for family and friends, she is not attached selfishly to anyone.
Whenever she feels overwhelmed, she does creative work, such as her patch
work quilt. Morally, she is free of all worldly entanglements and morass.
Anandamoyi recognizes and acknowledges the full humanity of her fellow
beings and is determined to doing good for them. At the spiritual level, she
feels an affinity with everyone around her. The fundamental Oneness of her
-10
vision lifts her out of provincialism and narrowness into a vaster and a more
profound cosmos.
Ironically, this joy and freedom of Anandamoyi is developed through

her encounter with the Other. It is Gora, the white foundling, the son of the
western couple, indeed the Other, who shows this Indian Hindu woman her
path of absolute Oneness. Repeatedly in the novel Anandamoyi claims that
she received her knowledge and strength from Gora:
"But do you know that it was when I first took you in my arms that
I said good-bye to convention? When you hold a little child to
your breast then you feel certain that no one is born into this world
with caste. From that very day the understanding came to me that
if I looked down upon any one for being of low caste, or a
Christian, then God would snatch you away from me. Only stay in
my arms as the light of my home, I prayed, and I will accept water
from the hand of any one in the world!" (13)
and:
"If Gora had been like an ordinary child to me, from where could
I have got the strength myself?" (178)
and:
"Whatever I have learnt comes from Gora all the same! How true
man is himself, and how false the things about which his quarrels
divide man from man." (183)
Physically and mentally and in their manner, no two people could be

more apart. Tagore writes, "To see Anandamoyi no one would think she was
Gora's mother. She had a slender but well-knit figure.... Her spare contour
was devoid of all exaggeration. . . . Her complexion was dark, without the
least resemblance to that of Gora" (10-11). Gora is a conspicuous contrast to
his dark and slender Indian mother. He is called the snow mountain for his
outrageous whiteness:
-11
. . . his complexion unmellowed by even the slightest tinge of

pigment. He was nearly six feet tall, with big bones and fists like
the paws of a tiger. . . . His face seemed needlessly large and
excessively strong, the bones of his jaws and chin being the
massive bolts of a fortress. ... (6)
Whereas everything is well-knit and proportioned in Anandamoyi's

person, Gora from head to foot is out of proportion. His height, complexion,
strength, and features are all overcharged.
Their manner is blatantly different as well. Throughout the text,

analogies with "thunder," "tiger," "wolf," "mountain" delineate Gora's violent
will, ruthless manner, and overwhelming force. He is constantly defending
and aggrandizing orthodoxy. "At the time of an argument Gora never felt the
least pity for his opponents, he rather felt a malignant cruelty against them
like that of a beast of prey" (312). We always find him operating in a dualistic
framework: there is either Brahmo or Hindu, either India or Britain. Gora
has an attitude that Diana Eck and James Hillman have described as a "mono
theistic consciousness," an attitude that is very western. Distinguishing
between India and the West, Eck observes that all westerners, even those who
consider themselves secular, "participate in the myth of monotheism: that in
matters of ultimate importance, there is only One-one God, one Book, one
Son, one Church, one Seal of the Prophets, one Nation under God."12 She
cites the psychologist James Hillman who speaks of "a monotheism of con
sciousness," which has shaped our very habits of thinking. As a result, we
value single-minded decision making and believe in the supremacy of the
independent ego. Whether arguing and debating on issues at Paresh Babu's
house or on the terrace of his house, Gora is shown operating entirely within
this monostructure.
Gora's concept of India is again one-sided. In his attitude towards

society, he sees only one gender. Women are excluded from his vista, which
is both male chauvinistic and national chauvinistic. Binoy reminds him that
"in our love for our country there is one great imperfection. We only think
of the half of India. ... We look on India only as a country of men; we
entirely ignore the women . . . (82-83). Gora becomes very defensive about
-12
this remark. His friend has touched a raw nerve. Gora's love for India is
marred by his hatred of Britain and his fear of women. He chides Binoy,
saying,
"Like the Englishmen, you want to see women everywhere: in the

home and in the world outside; on the land, the water, and in the
sky; at our meals, our amusements and our work, with the result
that for you all women will eclipse the men, and your outlook will
remain just as one-sided" (83).
When Gora is criticized by his own friend and countryman, his two
phobias of nationalism and sexism coalesce. Perhaps he is shamefully aware
that in the late nineteenth-century, the British were fairer in giving more
space to women. The British dominion of New Zealand was, in fact, the first
country to give women the right to vote (19 September 1893).13 Seeing that
the British are becoming more open to women, Gora becomes all the more
rigid about circumscribing them to the house.
In his anticolonialist commitment as well, Gora is single-minded.

The sole objective of his life is to revive orthodox Hinduism, and he will not
allow anything to come in the way, not even the marriage of his dear Binoy
to Lolita from the Brahmo Samaj. He unequivocally defends the Hindu caste
system, rituals, icons, and superstitions. He himself is punctilious about
bathing in the Ganges, performing ceremonial worship morning and evening,
and is extremely sensitive to where he goes, and what he touches and eats.
He will not enter his mother's room. Binoy also is forbidden to eat in
Anandamoyi's room because she has a Christian maid! But Gora is not sensi
tive enough to consider the other's perspective. That his mother might be in
pain for being ostracized by her beloved son, or his dearest friend might be
very anxious in his relationship with a Brahmo woman, just does not occur
to him. His exclusivism allows no real dialogue, no two points of view to be
aired out. Anything that would impinge on the duality between either-or is
very threatening for him. Against all modern trends, Gora is invariably
dressed in coarse dhoti with a tikka and a caste mark of Ganges clay. In his
singular aspiration, he draws an ardent following of friends and crusaders.
On the other hand, opposing currents are harmoniously sustained by

Anandamoyi. Whether at progressive Paresh Babu's or at orthodox Hari
mohini's, she is equally at home everywhere. Her openness, however, should
not be an indication of any kind of lack of meaning or integrity. That would
-13
be a gross misunderstanding of Anandamoyi's character. She is committed

to her ancient Indian tradition, which respects the varied approaches to the
infinite Reality. Anandamoyi accepts all, and she savors every particularity.
"We get distressed because we do not know always in how many ways God
has given us consolation for our sorrows" (273). She possesses a multifaceted
vision of Reality, which provides her with a multi-dimensional approach to
life and living. Mutuality and understanding mark her relationship with
others.
We watch her excitedly arranging Binoy and Lolita's "cross-religious"

marriage. While everyone around her is obsessed with the question of
whether it is a Brahmo ceremony or Hindu, for Anandamoyi, "It's quite
enough if the ceremony be performed in God's name." According to her,
"Marriage is a matter of hearts, coming together-if that happens, what mat
ters it what mantras are recited?" (183). Anandamoyi's understanding of the
power of love and marriage reminds us of the elderly character Mrs. Moore
in E. M. Forster's A Passage to India. Annoyed by all the fuss people make,
she too asks: "Why all this marriage, marriage? The human race would have
become a single person centuries ago if marriage was any use. And all this
rubbish about love, love in a church, love in a cave, as if there is the least
difference.... "14 Although Mrs. Moore sounds rather cynical, for both the
Indian and the British woman, love is the elemental force that binds people
together. When inner emotions flow, they richly fill up all fissures and dif
ferences; external rules, regulations, and institutions end up only fragmenting
individuals and oppressing humanity. Transcending all racial and societal
barriers, true marriage and love connect people through their inner feeling of
joy and togetherness.
Anandamoyi accepts that opposite currents run in our blood stream:
"It is one of the most difficult things to make bad and good
harmonise-and yet in this world they are found together-and in
that union sorrow and happiness are found-it is not always evil
that is seen but also good. . . . Will this Brahmo Samaj of yours
not permit two people to unite if they wish to? Will your society
keep apart, by its external decrees two beings whom God has made
one in heart?" (256)
Astounded by her enlightened remarks, Binoy wonders: "however did

you come to have such a liberal attitude?" With her natural grace, Ananda
-14
moyi replies, '"Why, from Gora of course!' '"But what Gora says is exactly
the opposite,'" protests Binoy. '"What does it matter what he says? . . .
Whatever I have learnt comes from Gora all the same!'" responds Ananda
moyi (183). In this dialogue, what would appear to many as a blatant anti
thesis, Anandamoyi regards as a mysterious synthesis. The white foundling
makes her a genuine heiress to her own intellectual heritage. In spite of the
terrible hatreds aroused during the Indian "mutiny," she did not question who
the baby was; she simply took him in her arms. Again and again, she
attributes Gora as her real guide: only after loving the Other, the totally
different Gora, does she gain insight into the essential "Oneness" of
Upanishadic philosophy. Through Gora she learns to live authentically;
instead of an either-or logic, both-and marks her gentle and balanced
personality. To repeat her words, "'But do you know that it was when I first
took you in my arms that I said good-bye to convention?"'
The Oneness of Anandamoyi's Indian imagination is inclusive of

diversity and multiplicity, and as Diana Eck has splendidly said, "the state
ment that God is One does not mean the same thing in India and the West"
(24). In the West, there is only One God, and this One God excludes all
others. Apollo, Krishna, or Kuan Yin could not be part of this One. India,
however, recognizes the oneness of all divine manifestations. In fact, the One
includes 333,000,000 (or more!) deities. The Ultimate may be experienced
as an impersonal Absolute or as a personal deity; it really is the One and the
Same. India has always held a pluralist model of religious experience and
Ultimate Reality. The Formless (nirguna) is vividly seen in a particular form
(saguna), which, in turn, constitutes the infinite variety. A magisterial scene
in the Bhagavad Gita captures this paradox:
I see the gods in Thy body, O God

All of them, and the hosts of various kinds of beings too
Lord Brahma sitting on the lotus-seat
And the seers all, and the divine serpents. (XI. 14)
Arjuna here beholds the various gods, beings, seers, serpents—all

within the singular body of Lord Krishna. No person or thing is apart from
Him. The beautiful lotus-eyed Krishna with dark blue complexion is, in fact,
the Absolute One. And He could also as easily be seen as Radha, Vishnu,
Lakshmi, Rama, or Sita.
-15
Those who suffer from a paranoia against idolatry do not grasp that
Hindu art, poetry, and philosophy are different media of expressing the inter
connection of the vast plurality into a single Form. The Brahmo movement
was extremely critical of divine images, so Paresh Babu's household is totally
inimical to them. We have the prime example of Sucharita, the modern and
westernized young woman, who is devoted to scriptures but is frightened to
enter her aunt's room which has an "idol." Such people do not realize that
when Arjuna beholds Krishna in his cosmic form this is but another version
of the metaphysical statement Tat tvam asi. Or that Kali, when she vigor
ously dances, holding both life and death in her hands, represents the omni
potence of the Divine.
Now Gora is a staunch advocate of idols, and as he becomes more and

more enlightened through Anandamoyi, he recognizes the parallel nature of
the verbal and visual processes. Towards the end of the novel he does a won
derful job of explaining to Sucharita the analogy between "words" and" im
ages." Just as the ideas are read into a text and not the physical letters (surely
not their length or number on the page), similarly it is not the stone or bronze
that is literally seen but rather the idea that the figure represents. As Gora
continues to explain, '"The unlimited character of the idea is a far greater
thing than that of its extent in space! That small idol is to your aunt more
truly unlimited than the endless sky decked with the sun, moon, and stars'"
(312). Gora's words could very well be a summation of Tagore's own point of
view. They certainly represent the view of Vinoba Bhave (1895-1982), a
modem Hindu leader who is in tune with Tagore's thought. Bhave expresses
this view in his beautiful and oft-quoted statement, "The worship of an image
is the art of embracing the whole universe in a little object."16 It is intriguing
that we never come across Anandamoyi reading scripture or worshiping an
idol. Could it be Tagore's subtle way of showing that she is not taking any
sides in this petty dispute of words and images? She is not a seeker arguing
about paths to the Divine; she has already found the Absolute.17
Many European and American writers have been greatly attracted to

the Indian vision of Oneness, and some have even succeeded in recreating
such enlightenment for their western readership. For example, E.M. Forster
in A Passage to India has created jaded Mrs. Moore, for whom the moon was
dead and alien in England. When she comes to India, she is caught in the
"shawl of night" which wraps her tenderly, giving her a "sudden sense of
unity, of kinship with the heavenly bodies . . ." (29, repeated on 208).
-16
In Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha as well, "Govinda saw this ... smile

of unity over the flowing forms, this smile of simultaneousness over the
thousands ofbirths and deaths-this smile of Siddhartha..(151). Again, in
W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge, the disenchanted young Ameri
can Larry Darrell travels to India. On the morning of his birthday he goes to
the mountains and is "ravished with the beauty of the world. I'd never known
such exaltation and such a transcendent joy."18
As a final example, we have the young heroine of Ruth Prawer

Jhabvala's Heat and Dust. She retraces her step-grandmother's life in India
where she experiences a sudden unity with her surroundings. Upon her
arrival in India she exclaims, "I have never known such a sense of com
munion. Lying like this under the open sky there is a feeling of being
immersed in space "19 All these western accounts share a mystical expan
sion in which the protagonists do not experience the world in divisions but
rather as a harmonious whole of which they are a part. Subject-vs.-object
dualism is shattered, and a kinship with the cosmos acutely felt.
Certainly, Tagore tried to embody the best of India in the figure of

Anandamoyi, so the unity romanticized by western authors and poets is
naturally experienced by her. But rather than special moments or epiphanies
that mark the cosmic harmony of western protagonists, T agore's Anandamoyi
lives it out as if it were normal routine. The vision of Oneness is an integral
part of her personality and of her social reality. The kinship, which in
western literature is marked in and through nature, receives a social-political
dimension in Tagore's novel. In Anandamoyi's case the ultimate unity is not
primarily expressed through idyllic nature—be it the river (Siddhartha), dawn
(The Razor's Edge), moon (A Passage to India), or sky (Heat and Dust)—but
rather, through her encounter with her family, friends, and acquaintances.
The mystical embrace with nature is translated by Anandamoyi into

interrelationships here and now in our secular world. If we are all part of that
Oneness, how could there be religious, racial, class, ethnic, and gender
inequalities? What is admirable about Anandamoyi is that without theorizing
or philosophizing, her simple actions tellingly illustrate the concept of Upani
shadic unity. Even Paresh Babu, the acme of universalism in Gora, is heard
reading and expounding his ideas as he is grandly seated in his drawing room,
study, or garden. But we always see Anandamoyi actively putting the ideal
of Oneness into practice, whether she is cooking, stitching, chatting, visiting,
hugging, walking, laughing, arranging ceremonies, or patting a dog.
-17
Throughout the novel, Tagore presents his protagonist as a living embodi

ment of the Upanishadic statement: "In the midst of activity alone wilt thou
desire to live a hundred years."20
So traditionally Indian is Tagore's Anandamoyi that her contrast with

Gora reveals a fundamental difference between India and the West. Scholars
have searched for the paradigm for Tagore's fictional creation of Gora.
Tagore's biographer Krishna Kripalani sees Sister Nivedita, the Irish Margaret
Noble (1867-1911), who became a disciple of Swarni Vivekananda (1863
1902), as the prototype. A passionate advocate of Hinduism, Sister Nivedita
was "more Hindu than the Hindu," lecturing even Tagore on Hindu ortho
doxy.21
In her excellent study of Gora, Lalita Pandit traces the very masculine
and revolutionary idealist Brahmobandhab Upadhyay as another model for
Gora (216-20). The important issue is not the unique features of Gora that
would relate him to a specific person, whether Indian or not, male or female.
What is striking are Gora's stereotypical features. Tagore is creating a typi
cally "western" character, and for that purpose some very general and stereo
typical images are used to depict Gora. For example, he is so white, strong,
one-tracked, forceful, overwhelming that his otherness from the Indian
protagonists is obvious. The other great irony of the novel is his absolutely
western attitude and manner, although he propagates a fundamentalist Hindu
ideology. But it is in their encounter with the Other that both Anandamoyi
and Gora realize their true self. As Tagore's novel unfolds, through a sincere
engagement with the Other we discover our real identity. The opposite
becomes a mirror which reflects the Self. It is as if Tagore were saying that
the true worth of India is recognized not in isolation but in relationship with
other cultures. In this particular instance, an Indian and an Anglo-Irish are
"welded together." Anandamoyi becomes a fictional context for Tagore's
political aim, which is to transcend nationalism and move towards inter
nationalism.
Anandamoyi's artistic creation of the patchwork quilt is a vivid illu

stration of Tagore's internationalism. The patches show us the varied quarters
of the globe coming together. Anandamoyi's quilt gives a colorful rendering
of Tagore's goal expressed in "Nationalism in India" in the volume
Nationalism: "I am not for thrusting off Western civilization and becoming
segregated in our independence. Let us have a deep association."22 The
union of East and West was important for Tagore—not segregation. For a
-18
brief period, however, Tagore was involved in the Self-Rule (swadeshi)

movement that soared in Bengal with Lord Curzon's declaration of the parti
tion of Bengal. He even became an inspiring voice for the Bengalis, express
ing anti-British sentiment. But the violence that erupted with Hindu-Muslim
riots and bombs killing British officials horrified Tagore. Although he was
called an apostate by his fellow Bengalis, he publicly denounced the move
ment. By 1907, the year that Gora began to be serialized, Tagore, Datta and
Robinson tell us, had returned to his holistic image of India, the land that
synthesized East and West, and began to urge his companions to fully join the
noble endeavor "to build a most wonderful temple of humanity out of the
fusion of diverse races and religions and sciences" (142).
As Binoy pictures Anandamoyi working on her quilt at the beginning

of the novel, the reader also imagines a vast and colorful India:
Bending over her work, Anandamoyi must be stitching

away with different-coloured threads at the patchwork quilt, with
the maidservant Lachmi sitting at her feet and chattering away in
her queer Bengali. It was this quilt that Anandamoyi always
worked at when her mind was troubled with anything, and Binoy
fixed his thoughts on the picture of her calm face absorbed in her
work. (16)
The quilt becomes a symbol for linking different cultures together.

It stands for diversity and creativity. In Tagore's social consciousness, it is
important that Anandamoyi does patchwork rather than spin. Spinning,
which was a specific expression of Mahatma Gandhi's satyagraha (truth
force), was condemned by Tagore. While spinning for Gandhi was a state
ment of his rejection of British Raj and a means of establishing equality
between Indians rich and poor, Tagore saw it as no more than an instrument
of coercion. According to Gandhi:
I can only think of spinning as the fittest and most accept

able sacrificial body labour. I cannot imagine anything nobler or
more national than that for, say one hour in the day, we should all
do the labour of that the poor must do, and thus identify ourselves
with them and through them with all mankind. I cannot imagine
better worship of God than that in His name I should labour for the
poor even as they do. The spinning wheel spells a more equitable
distribution of the riches of the earth.23
-19
For Tagore, however, spinning perpetuated monotony. There are no

colors to work with and there is no change or creativity, just laborious spin
ning. He found this kind of mechanical work to be devoid of variety and joy.
David Atkinson notes Tagore's negative estimation, "the depths of my mind
have not been moved by the charka agitation" (81).
So the patchwork quilt that Anandamoyi is engaged in with her

Christian maid sitting beside her discloses Tagore's picture of India full of
different races and religions. The warmth and comfort of the multi-colored
quilt is symbolic of an India embracing a variety of cultures, languages,
religions, and races. The depth and richness of the varied colors emerge from
their integration and harmony, which creates perfect rhythm. In "The
Religion of an Artist" Tagore defines rhythm in terms of "the stars which in
their seeming stillness are never still, like a motionless flame that is nothing
but movement,"24 a definition which inspired T. S. Eliot so much that he
expressed it almost word for word in those justly famous lines from Four
Quartets: "Like a Chinese Jar / Still moves perpetually in its stillness." In
the patching with different threads there is motion and movement—not
monotony and stasis of the spinning wheel. The patchwork quilt carries the
pattern of a pluralistic and polycentric India. We can see Anandamoyi's quilt
as a visual rendering of Tagore's poem "A Hymn to India":
Come ye Aryan, come non Aryan, Hindu, Muslim, come,

come ye English, come ye Christians, welcome everyone, come
Brahmin, cleanse your mind and clasp the hand of all, come ye
outcaste, come ye lowly, fling away the load of shame! (Quoted in
Raj 51)
For T agore his country's arms are open to people of all different races,
castes, classes, and religions, and what a rich and intimately woven design
their clasped hands would create!
In A Passage to India, Tagore's model of India is reproduced by

Forster: "She calls 'Come' through her hundred mouths, through objects
ridiculous and august. But come to what? She has never defined. She is not
a promise, only an appeal" (136). India is vast and alluring. Like Tagore,
Forster senses India's welcoming nature, and he too hears Her invite in a hun
dred different voices. However, the typical colonial may be disappointed in
India's lack of definition and promise. But Forster does understand that the
multiplicity and fullness with which India seethes cannot be neatly compart
-20
mentalized like Anglo-Indian life with its Turtons and Burtons who set up
railroads with screeching trains. India for Forster is the country, fields,
jungles, hills, much farther than the reach of any mechanical device. He
brings to mind the primal forest atmosphere of Tagore's Harvard lecture. For
ster aptly remarks in A Passage to India: "How can the mind take hold of
such a country? Generations of invaders have tried, but they remain in exile"
(136). Turtons and Burtons may have come to India, ruled Her people, but
they could never penetrate Her true depths. Indeed, they were in exile, for
they left their own homes and resided in segregation in the country they
migrated to; far away and cut off from the vast and welcoming India of
Tagore and Forster, they restricted themselves to their own uniformly and
sensibly planned civil stations built along roads intersecting at ninety degrees.
Anandamoyi's patchwork quilt has the depth and immensity of

Forster's India. The quilt is created with Anandamoyi's delicate hands, with
her poor Christian companion sitting beside her. Within it is a center that
freely merges with another, without angular divisions. The colorful patches
resound in a hundred voices. Their interlacing designs reveal human hands
joined together too. The essential unity of its pattern cannot bear any seg
mentation or stratification. As her artistic patterns cannot be logically
fathomed nor their expansive rhythm be defined, the message of Ananda
moyi's quilt would be lost on any well-equipped colonial mind. The quilt,
like Anandamoyi and India at large, eludes all definitions and promises which
demand specificity and precision. Definition entails a cutting off; promise
requires commitment to a particular fact. Devoid of a specific focus, the
varied patches draw the senses and mind away from narrow confinements
into infinity. This vast and variegated quilt is the India imagined by Tagore,
and this work of art he touchingly synchronizes with its maker, Anandamoyi.
Whosoever meets Anandamoyi is shown the way to live freely—without being
enslaved to any specific idea or action. Her relatives try to wrench her from
her universal setting and label her from their fixed standpoints, but Ananda
moyi withstands all their definitions of Orthodox, Brahmo, or Christian. And
she is not a promise either. Taking a vow or limiting herself to any specific
position would not appeal to her universal sensibility.
Although universal, Anandamoyi's universalism is not imperialistic.

The imperialist notion of universalism has been very well put forth by Lalita
Pandit as "nonempathetic, fixed, and hegemonic." According to Pandit,
-21
Journal of South Asian Literature Volume 31, Nos. 1 & 2 (1996), Volume 32, Nos. 1 &2 (1997)
. . . the imperialist umversalist expects to see only its own reflec

tion in the Other, tests the validity of the Other solely in terms of
an already established normative self. In its most aggressive form,
it seeks to annihilate the Other. Tagore's universalist philosophy
developed as an antidote to this annihilating, nonassimilative,
separatist universalism. (207)
Obviously, as an Indian, and as a symbol for India as a whole,

Anandamoyi clearly rejects this imperial mode. There is no question of her
giving up her Indian identity and assimilating to the British imperial model.
But this is only half the story. If assimilative imperialism is a danger, so also
to her identity is nationalism. Nationalism may also tend to impose norms
and insist that everybody assimilate to its ideals. In Nationalism, Tagore
opposed nationalism, which for him was nothing but "a hydraulic press"
exerting an impersonal pressure (10). In lectures and writing, notably in
Nationalism, he repeatedly said that a nation is a political and economic
union of a people organized only mechanically, draining people of their
spiritual and creative energy (66).
Indeed, the big, muscular Gora with his thundering voice and manner
is an embodiment of the mechanical hydraulic press. He is guilty of enforc
ing nationalism. He sets up arbitrary norms and expects everyone to live up
to them. But Anandamoyi never—never—imposes her will on anyone in the
entire novel. She listens to others, and she tries to understand them sympa
thetically from their own and different perspectives. Gora is brought up with
utmost love as her son, while his own personality and identity are allowed to
develop independently. Gora, as well as all the other characters in the novel,
are fully recognized for who they are and affirmed for their particularities and
differences by Anandamoyi. She shows the way to love India with intensity—
without narrowness or nationalism. Indeed, Anandamoyi represents Tagore's
deep love for his country, which extends to all her inhabitants, native and
foreign. Tagore may have written and spoken against nationalism; but both
India and Bangladesh adopted his compositions as their national anthems.
Tagore's love of his land has the depth and intensity of a national anthem, but
it also has the broadness and generosity that can embrace the secularism of
India, the Islam of Bangladesh,25 and even the royalism of the old Imperial
Power.26
Yet, Tagore's heroine Anandamoyi is the catalyst who transforms the

mechanical Gora. Interestingly, she does not impose any pressure to change
-22
him; she does not coerce him in any way. The change is wrought by himself
In Chapter 56, Gora mysteriously identifies Anandamoyi with India, an
identity which moves and stirs him, awakening something deep in him. Gora
has just finished his jail term, and has not even seen Anandamoyi for a
month. His servant comes with the message, '"Your mother is calling"'(269).
This simple message becomes resonant with great significance for Gora, and
the poor servant, who is simply doing his job, becomes some sort of a
prophet. Although Gora obeys the call by going to his mother's room, he is
charged with great emotion. He "confuses" his mother with India: Ananda
moyi's voice rings in his ears while "India seemed to be stretching out her
arms towards him, and he saw spread out before him all her rivers and
mountains, her cities and oceans, and from the infinite there poured a clear
and stainless light in which the whole of India shone radiantly" (269). In this
fusion of the mother with the nation, the meditations, abstractions,
restrictions, mind and body dualisms of the unemotional Gora dissolve.
In this charged state, Gora palpably hears and sees and feels. It is a
heightened sensous experience. The clear, bright, all inclusive light of his
mother enables him to get rid of hostility towards others: "all despondency
vanished from his mind." But the experience is also positive for it fills him
with happiness and harmony: "In the midst of this joy Gora felt the presence
of Binoy and Abinash as though they too were not separated from him—all
the trifling differences of that day arms towards him, and he saw spread out
before him all her rivers and mountains, her cities and oceans, and from the
infinite there poured a clear and stainless light in which the whole of India
shone radiantly" (269). In this fusion of the mother with the nation, the
meditations, abstractions, restrictions, mind and body dualisms of the unemo
tional Gora dissolve.
In this charged state, Gora palpably hears and sees and feels. It is a
heightened sensuous experience. The clear, bright, all-inclusive light of his
mother enables him to get rid of hostility towards others: "all despondency
vanished from his mind" (269). But the experience is also positive for it fills
him with happiness and harmony: "In the midst of this joy Gora felt the
presence of Binoy and Abinash as though they too were not separated from
him—all the trifling differences of that day vanished from his mind." But the
-23
experience is also positive, for it fills him with happiness and harmony: "In
the midst of this joy Gora felt the presence of Binoy and Abinash as though
they too were not separated from him -all the trifling differences of that day
being merged in a complete harmony" (269-70). In the light of his mother,
Gora senses a deep relationship with his country with all her magnificent
diversity both rural and urban, and with his friends, in spite of their ideo
logical differences.
His mother's call also ushers in another dimension of reality for Gora.
The strong nationalist, who is constantly bracing himself for conflict and
discourse, is suddenly charged to behold the Wholly Other:
He said to himself again and again: Mother is calling me!

Let me go to where the Bestower of all food, the One who
maintains the Universe is seated so infinitely far away in time and
yet present at each instant, the One who is beyond death and yet in
the midst of life, the One who sheds the glorious light of the Future
on the imperfect and miserable Present-let me go there—mother
calls me to that infinitely far and yet infinitely close. (270)
We notice that the neatly divided either-or world of his begins to col
lapse, and Gora seems ready to enter paradoxical currents where infinite
space and time begin to converge at infinitesimal junctions and moments.
The realm of the Beyond opens up for him. The image of Anandamoyi
stretches his imagination and prepares him to accept the utterly Transcendent
One intimately close by.
The inclusive light of the mother casts a clear light on all, even on the
Brahmo woman Sucharita. When he sees her sitting beside his mother in her
room, Gora's heart overflowed with happiness. There was a time when the
women of India hardly entered Gora's mind. As we observed earlier, Binoy
would constantly criticize him for ignoring half of the Indian population: "for
you the idea of our country is womanless, and such idea can never be the true
one" (83). But with Sucharita sitting beside his mother, the womanhood of
India was revealed to Gora and "he regarded her as the manifestation of all
that was sweet and pure, loving and virtuous in the homes of his Mother
land" (270). Gora comes to realize how imperfect his perception of India had
-24
been and what a lack there had been in his conception of his duty to his
country so long as he had failed to acknowledge the women of India. With
the inclusion of women in his world view, the unshakeable mountainous
personality of Gora becomes so sensitive that it begins to "tremble as though
from a blow" (272)! His mother's call stirs something deep inside him.
Anandamoyi doesn't give him any new instructions, she only reveals to him
"a great and ancient fact" (272). In Tagore's perspective, India has always
included the feminine dimension—but Indians had forgotten their rich
heritage.
Anandamoyi inspires Gora not only physically, emotionally, and spiri

tually, but also socially. Seeing Sucharita sitting next to his mother fills him
with a new social consciousness of India. His patriarchal patriotism used to
lecturing on the glory of India or fighting against modernity comes face to
face with the world of maternal love and tenderness. He views Sucharita as
. . . incarnation of the grace which shone upon India's children,

served the sick, consoled the afflicted, and consecrated with love
even the most insignificant. ... He thought to himself that it is
woman who ought to be called the motherland-she it is who is
seated on the hundred-petalled lotus, in the innermost abode of
India's heart. . . . (273)
The core of India is maternal— Vande matram! (Hail, O Mother!). Muscular

power becomes subservient to her love. Anandamoyi renders Gora's India
feminine and maternal.
Even before Gora, Bmoy knew how much women meant to their
country. When he encounters the tragic plight of a Bengali woman, he comes
running to Anandamoyi to narrate the event. He tells her how he saw a
European dressed Bengali, with umbrella, while his wife with child is
drenched in the rain. In his words,
... it seemed to me as if there was not a single woman in the whole

of Bengal, whether poor or rich, who had any protection against
rain or sun. From that moment I vowed never again to utter the lie
-25
that we treat our womenfolk with great reverence, as our good

angels, our goddesses, and so forth! (130-31)
The fact that he runs over to Anandamoyi shows that she too is the subject of
his shock. Both Binoy and Gora (eventually) realize how much women mean
to their country and how they are ignored by society at large. The disparity
between the goddess reverently worshiped on a pedestal, and the wife,
daughter, mother, or sister shabbily treated by her family and community, is
brought to light. Sadly, India the woman, India the mother is neglected not
only by people like Gora, who were busy reviving traditional India but also
by the modernized, European-dressed Bengali in Binoy's narrative. On this
bleak stage, Tagore sets up Anandamoyi, who raises the feminist conscious
ness of both the modem and the orthodox.
The identification of the mother with India runs throughout the novel.
She is her citizens. Just as the mother country nurtures all her children, irre
spective of their caste or religion, so does Anandamoyi. She herself is free
from all associations and affiliations. As a result, every woman, Brahmo,
Orthodox, or Christian, finds self-affirmation in her. She validates them, and
enables them in her own accommodating way to accept themselves for who
they are and whatever they may think. Woman in India acquires feminine
strength through her.
As a final point, Anandamoyi is the locus of Gora's epiphany. When

Krishnadayal gets sick, he becomes terrified at the thought of Gora partici
pating in his funeral rites. Lest there be pollution or violation of any caste
rules, the hypochondriac reveals the secret of Gora's Anglo-Irish origins to
him. As the reality begins to sink in, Gora sinks deeper and deeper into the
abyss of nothingness. Stripped of his mother, father, caste, country, nation
ality, lineage, God, he has nothing to hold on to. As he tells Paresh Babu,
'"From one end of India to the other the doors of every temple are today
closed against me—today in the whole country there is no seat for me at any
Hindu feast'" (405). But after going through the process of negation, he
comes out free. He realizes that the India he was searching for was an im
pregnable fortress, one that he was shaping with his unchanging and un
critical thought. He was shutting himself off from his mother's quarters,
-26
trying to erect artificial walls and barriers. Up to this point Gora had been
using the science of nationalistics; his was a political way of finding India.
Tagore seems to be saying that political ways of finding India do not lead to
her, for she is always there. Instead of a scientific search, it has to be an epi
phany. As Gora sees the fortress crumble before his very eyes, he begins to
rise in absolute freedom. '"Today I am really an Indian! In me there is no
longer any opposition between Hindu, Mussulman, and Christian. Today
every caste in India is my caste, the food of all is my food!'" (406). Segre
gations and prohibitions are dispelled, and Gora encounters the expansive
India—the very figure of Anandamoyi. The novel ends with him going to his
mother, laying his head at her feet, and saying:
Mother, you are my mother! The mother whom I have

been wandering about in search of was all the time sitting in my
room at home. You have no caste, you make no distinctions, and
have no hatred-you are only the image of our welfare! It is you
who are India! (407)
The real India is the mother—total, unified, and inclusive. India is not
known through any scientific means but through the medium of revelation.
And once the discovery is made, the individual enters and enjoys her infinite
space. All blind barriers and sickening phobias disappear. The division
between the sacred and profane, pure and impure, India and the West
vanishes.
Anandamoyi is the locus for self-discovery. By locus we do not mean

a topographical location. It is not, of course, a specific place but rather one
released from any geographical confinements. Gora opens her up as a
motherland for all peoples, a motherland recognized by Walt Whitman and
Max Muller. India is our past, our Eden, our East, our humanity, our true
Self.27 She is the destination of the ideal journey begun by westerners like
Whitman, Muller, Siddhartha, and Larry Durell:
Passage to India!
Lo Soul, seest thou not God's purpose from the first?
The earth to be spanned, connected by network
The races, neighbours, to marry and to be given in marriage,
-27
The oceans to be cross'd, the distant brought near,

The lands to be welded together.28
Even three continents cannot contain her. Free herself, people attain
freedom through her. Finally liberated, Gora sits with his mother in her room
and asks Lachmiya, the Christian maid, to bring him a glass of water.
NIKKYSINGH, Professor of Religious Studies at Colby College, has

a special interest in poetics and feminism. She has published The
Feminine Principle in the Sikh Vision of the Transcendent (1993),
Sikhism (1993), and Name of My Beloved: Verses of the Sikh Gurus
(1995). Her poem "is this my quilt?" appeared in JSAL, 32, 1-2
(1995).
-28
ENDNOTES
1. Probhat Kumar Mukherji, Life of Tagore, tr. Sisirkumar Ghosh.

Pocket Books, 1976), 132. Tagore dedicated Gora to his son Rathindranat
the English translation by W. W. Pearson published by Macmillan in 19
citations to this work will appear in parentheses in the text. The same meth
be used with all other texts as well.
2. The first English translation of the novel was not well received, though critic Leonard
Woolf-husband of Virginia Woolf and a former civil servant in Ceylon-saw through the
wooden translation and found the novel "intensely interesting." See Krishna Dutta and
Andrew Robinson, Rabindranath Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man (New York: St. Mar
tin's Press, 1996), 155.
3. I especially recommend Lalita Pandit's "Caste, Race, and Nation: History and Dialectic
in Rabindranath Tagore's Gora" in Literary India: Comparative Studies in Aesthetics,
Colonialism, and Culture, ed. Lalita Pandit and Paul Hogan (Albany: State University of
New York Press, 1995), 207-33, which shall be discussed further at the end of this paper.
4. According to Yeager Hudson, "Rabindranath participated each day in his father's morn
ing prayer services at which there were always readings from the Upanisads." When the
father and son returned from their pilgrimage to the Himalayas, "Rabindranath became a
favorite of the women's quarter in the big house, where almost daily he was invited to recite
the verses or to read the Gita or one of the epics in Sanskrit. Thus it is clear that Tagore was
thoroughly steeped in the classical writings of India" (Emerson and Tagore: The Poet as
Philosopher [Notre Dame, IN: Crosscultural Publications, 1988], 27).
5. (New York: Macmillan, 1914), viii.

6. Truth and Method (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 463.
7. See Beyond God the Father (Boston: Beacon, 1973).
8. Intro, by W. B. Yeats (1914; New York: Macmillan, 1971), 49-50.
9. NotedbyRabindrakumarDasguptain "Response to Dr. Devipada Bhattacharya" in Uni

versality in Tagore: Souvenir of a Symposium on Rabindranath Tagore, ed. Luciano
Colussi (Calcutta: Nitika/Don Bosco, 1991), 83.
10. In Rabindranath Tagore and Modern Sensibility (Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1996), Bhabatosh Chatteijee comments that Upanishadic "joy" is the deepest experience that
spreads through Tagore's works (50).
11. See Arati Sen,"The Concept of Mukti in Rabindranath Tagore's Philosophy of Educa
tion" in Universality in Tagore, 97-98.
12. Darsan: Seeing the Divine in India (Chambersburg, PA: Anima,1981), 22.
13. Kirstin Olsen, Chronology of Women's History {Westport,CT: Greenwood, 1994), 159.
-29
14. (1924; NewYork: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1984), 201-202.

15. According to Dutta and Robinson,Tagore told the story of Gora in 1904 at the request
of the Irishwoman Margaret Noble. In this initial version, when Sucharita discovers Gora's
Anglo-Irish extraction, she refuses to marry him, "whereas in the published novel the girl
accepts Gora" (154). The change highlights that the characteristic of openness embodied by
Anandamoyi becomes the most essential aspect for Tagore.
16. See, for example, Five World Faiths, ed. W. Owen Cole (London: Cassell Publishers,
1982), 21.
17. Hesse's Siddhartha makes a fine distinction between seeking and finding. "Seeking
means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. You,
O worthy one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see
many things that are under your nose" (Siddhartha, tr. Hilda Rosner [1922; New York:
Bantam, 1951], 140).
18. (London: Penguin, 1943), 275.
19. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975), 52.
20. Tagore cites this Upanishadic verse several times in Sadhana, viz., 121,122. The entire
chapter on "Realisation in Action" is interesting as it links action with freedom. He writes,
"The more man acts and makes actual what was latent in him, the nearer does he bring the
distant Yet-to-be. In that actualization man is ever making himself more and yet more
distinct, and seeing himself clearly under newer and newer aspects in the midst of his varied
activities, in the state, in society. This vision makes for freedom" (Sadhana, 120).
21. Krishna Kripalani, Rabindranath Tagore: A Biography (Oxford: Oxford University

Press,1962), 146;also G.V.Raj, Tagore: TheNovelist{ New Delhi: Sterling, 1983),42. See
also Devipada Bhattacharya, "Tagore as Humanist in His Novels" in Universality in Tagore,
78. In The Illegitimacy of Nationalism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994), AshisNandy
perceives in Gora "a touch of Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) and Sister Nivedita" (36).
22. (1916; New York: Macmillan, 1976), 66.
23. Cited by David Atkinson, Gandhi and Tagore: Visionaries of Modern India (Hong
Kong: Asian Studies Monograph Series, 1989), 80.
24. In A Tagore Reader, ed. Amiya Chakravarty (Boston: Beacon Press, 1961), 234.
25. Of Bangladesh's national anthem Amlan Datta notes: "It is quite common for a national
anthem to speak of power and the glory that power gives. But the national anthem of Ban
gladesh has nothing of glory and power in the beautiful lines of that exquisite song.... It
is like a lover whispering his love to his beloved. 'I love you,' that is all that it says. 'I love
the sky, the shadows, the little brooks, the trees, the flowers.' It is a very simple statement
of love, without any claim to power and glory" (Universality in Tagore, 119).
26. Dutta and Robinson claim that "Jana Gana Mana," the Indian national anthem, was
officially written "for the meeting of the Indian National Congress in Calcutta in December
1911, where it was sung for the first time. Most probably it was really composed for the
-30
occasion of George V's coronation for the Durbar held in Delhi in the same month—but not
sung at the Durbar because it was insufficiently loyal. . (161).
27. In his lecture "What Can India Teach Us?" to British civil servants off to administer in
their Indian colony, the romantic Max Mtiller noted the term 5 'orienter. According to him,
India provided a literal understanding of the French term, for it made one "find his East,"
"his true East," and "thus to determine his real place in the world; to know, in fact, the port
whence man started, the course he has followed, and the port toward which he has to steer."
See India: what can it teach us? (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1883), 49.
28. "A Passage to India" in James Miller, ed., Complete Poetry and Selected Prose by Walt
Whitman (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1959), 288-94. According to Hudson, "Whitman
was Tagore's favorite poet" (Emerson and Tagore: The Poet as Philosopher, 30).
-31

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Infigurations and Configurations of India : Anandamoyi in Tagore's "Gora"

Author(s): Nikky Singh

May the lovelight of her face guard my mind

abindranath Tagore's ideal image of India is concretely depicted

on the one hand, and

Like the Bengalis of their

We are first struck with Tagore's allusions to Anandamoyi as Prthivi

As an example, Tagore describes Gora standing between Anandamoyi

Anandamoyi appropriates these very earth-like qualities that Lord

To me the verses of the Upanishads and the teachings of Buddha

wonder the novel is permeated by the vision of an undivided planet, a whole

Besides geographical allusions, Tagore creates a lovely equation

As the fatherless granddaughter of a famous Benares pandit (21),

Anandamoyi's Brahmmical pedigree is important for Gora. Like

Other countries want generals like Wellington, scientists like

In this rebuff of Wellington, Newton, and Rothschild, he rejects the

As Binoy m his own reiteration of the Upanishads says above, the

"The more I know of you, mother," exclaimed Binoy, "the

Not bound by the walls of caste, creed, sect, or religion, Anandamoyi

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake."

people like her husband, Krishnadayal, and Sucharita's aunt Harimohini.

Such forbidding constraints and exclusions are a part of Harimohini's

Not congealed or frozen in time, Anandamoyi wears the traditional Indian

In fact, her very name, Anandamoyi (mother of joy) discloses the

five layers of the individual Self—body, senses, mind, consciousness, to the

Ironically, this joy and freedom of Anandamoyi is developed through

Physically and mentally and in their manner, no two people could be

. . . his complexion unmellowed by even the slightest tinge of

Whereas everything is well-knit and proportioned in Anandamoyi's

Their manner is blatantly different as well. Throughout the text,

Gora's concept of India is again one-sided. In his attitude towards

"Like the Englishmen, you want to see women everywhere: in the

In his anticolonialist commitment as well, Gora is single-minded.

On the other hand, opposing currents are harmoniously sustained by

be a gross misunderstanding of Anandamoyi's character. She is committed

We watch her excitedly arranging Binoy and Lolita's "cross-religious"

Anandamoyi accepts that opposite currents run in our blood stream:

Astounded by her enlightened remarks, Binoy wonders: "however did

The Oneness of Anandamoyi's Indian imagination is inclusive of

I see the gods in Thy body, O God

Arjuna here beholds the various gods, beings, seers, serpents—all

Now Gora is a staunch advocate of idols, and as he becomes more and

Many European and American writers have been greatly attracted to

In Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha as well, "Govinda saw this ... smile

As a final example, we have the young heroine of Ruth Prawer

Certainly, Tagore tried to embody the best of India in the figure of

The mystical embrace with nature is translated by Anandamoyi into

Throughout the novel, Tagore presents his protagonist as a living embodi

So traditionally Indian is Tagore's Anandamoyi that her contrast with

Anandamoyi's artistic creation of the patchwork quilt is a vivid illu

brief period, however, Tagore was involved in the Self-Rule (swadeshi)

As Binoy pictures Anandamoyi working on her quilt at the beginning

Bending over her work, Anandamoyi must be stitching

The quilt becomes a symbol for linking different cultures together.

I can only think of spinning as the fittest and most accept

For Tagore, however, spinning perpetuated monotony. There are no

So the patchwork quilt that Anandamoyi is engaged in with her

Come ye Aryan, come non Aryan, Hindu, Muslim, come,

In A Passage to India, Tagore's model of India is reproduced by

Anandamoyi's patchwork quilt has the depth and immensity of

Although universal, Anandamoyi's universalism is not imperialistic.

. . . the imperialist umversalist expects to see only its own reflec

Obviously, as an Indian, and as a symbol for India as a whole,