Chapter 2 Tagore and Okakura Tenshin“Modern Renaissance man” Tagore
Tagore was not merely a poet but also a great, multi-talented genius. During his eighty years’ lifetime,
he acquired profound knowledge widely covering music, novels, children’s literature, musical plays,art, education, thought, politics, philosophy, nature, religion, human rights, Oriental thought, farmers’
economy, history of the ancient Indian world, international exchanges and founding of a school. He
was versed in various fields of human activities and contributed widely and deeply to each field. He
was an omnipotent genius, well deserved to be called “Modern Renaissance man.” Above all, Tagore
wrote as many as 1500 “Tagore songs.” They are loved by people to this day and two of them werechosen as Indian and Bangladeshi national anthems.
As a Bengali, I am proud of Tagore from the bottom of my heart and confident that no one else in theworld has had as profound knowledge and thought as Tagore. His thought and action have global
expanse and universal value, far beyond India and Asia. Therefore, not only the Bengalese but also theentire Indian Continent call Tagore with the highest and deepest respect, gurudebo, in education, equal
to God, and kobigul (the poet of poets) and bishokobi(number one poet of the world).
Tagore was born in 1861 in Calcutta in West Bengal under the British rule and died in 1941 soon after
the Greater East Asian War broke out.
The Tagores were a very wealthy family, having succeeded in various businesses, including tradingwith Britain for generations. Since his grandfather’s generation, they had also been ardently working
for the modernization of India.
At the Tagore house, many Bengali poets, musicians, literary men, painters, and religionists

wereinvited, and various plays, musical performances and recitations of poems were held. Tagore’s brothers,
sisters and relatives were also talented in literature, music and painting and created great works inthose fields.
Tagore was brought up in such rich and favorable environment and obtained both modern learning andtraditional Indian education. He studied in London, the British capital, and the difference between the
Occidental and Oriental civilizations, their merits and demerits led Tagore to his universal thinking.
Since 1890 onwards, Tagore followed his father’s request and was entrusted with the management of
the family’s land and fortunes in East Bengal. Tagore must have been greatly fascinated and influenced1

by the rich natural environment of Bangladesh, especially the grand, majestic river and the sun risingand setting in the river’s horizon, far more than by learning through books. It is purely because of thebeautiful nature that Bangladesh has produced many poets, musicians, and visual creators. Tagore
describes East Bengal’s beauty:
If you don't come here, you can’t imagine how mysteriously beautiful the earth is, and how vast
the life and deep thoughts are. In the evening, as I sat in silence in my boat when the water was
still, the shore was faint, and the glow of the setting sun at the end of the sky was gradually fading,the silent, half-closed nature, I felt it touched my whole body and mind, generously, expansively,
and softly. What peace, what love, what greatness, what boundless compassionate sorrow. From
this inhabited mustard field to that deserted world of stars, every inch of space was filled with amyriad of marvelous minds. I was sitting there alone in a world of unfulfilled minds.
(“Occasional Letter dated October 1, 1891”)
In 1901, Tagore established a school at a place called Santiniketan in West Bengal, which was at thattime a barren land with hardly any plants. At first, he had many difficulties, including financial ones.
He cultivated the barren land and planted trees himself. Unfortunately, thenTagore’s wife died ofhardship and worries. The establishment of this school was Tagore’s dream-come-true, for he wasdetermined to implement ideal education, believing that for children especially, teaching nature androoting in the earth is most needed. This school eventually developed into the Visva-Bharati University,a public central university.
As mentioned later, Tagore invited to his school at Santiniketan Hori Shitoku, who visited India with
Okakura Tenshin, in 1902 and after 1905, Katsuta Shokin of Nihon Bijutsuin (Japan Visual Arts
Academy) and Sano Jinnosuke, a judo wrestler, just to mention a few.

Tenshin’s influence over Bengal Renaissance
Tagore and his contemporary Bengali intellectuals started a movement called “Bengal Renaissance,”
aiming to restore their own tradition and culture which had been denied under the British colonial rule.
Around the end of the 19th century and onwards, painter Oponindranath Tagore, Rabindranath
Tagore’s relative, and painters Gogonendranath Tagore, Nondo Rul Posh, Osito Kumaru Hardul tried
to create a new painting trend with the theme of Indian indigenous Hindu art and Indian people
themselves. Tenshin’s influence over them was boundlessly important. In 1903, Tenshin sent
Yokoyama Taikan and Hishida Shunso to India for art exchanges between Japan and India. Besides,
Katsuta Shokin and Arai Kanpo visited India, which resulted in mutual influence between them andthe artists in Bengal. Yokoyama Taikan in particular has left masterpieces depicting the scenery of the2

sacred Ganges River, people living along the river and Hindu culture, which are now Japan’s precious
cultural assets.
Besides painters, Tagore invited many other talented people in various fields like Judo, Kado (flower
arrangement), Sado (tea ceremony), Japanese painting, wooden architectural technology, andgardening from Japan to India and Okakura Tenshin profoundly cooperated with Tagore in these efforts.
The first foreign student at Tagore’s school was Hori Shitoku from Japan, who had visited India with
Tenshin. Hori remained in India and studied at the school, which symbolically indicated how deeply
Okakura Tenshin and Tagore bonded together with each other. Unfortunately, Hori died young from
illness in India. At that time Tagore asked Tenshin to send a Judo teacher to train Indians mentally andphysically. At his request, Sano Jinnosuke of Keio University went to India in 1905 and taught Judoand Japanese at Tagore’s school. By the way, Omita Sen, mother of Amartya Sen, who was awarded
the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998, was taught by Sano Jinnosuke. Tagore mademuch of Judo as an art of self-defense for women.
Okakura Tenshin held a meeting at the Tokyo Imperial University to report his experience in India
immediately after he returned home to Japan from his first visit and spoke about India and his
encounter with Tagore. At the meeting there were about seventy professors and intellectuals in various
fields, including the President of the Tokyo Imperial University. This tells what a remarkable role
Tenshin played in realizing the first cultural and political exchange and cooperation between Japanand India.
We need to emphasize here that in 1905, fearing the rising trend of cultural restoration and national
movement, the British Governor General in India implemented a forcible policy of the division of
Bengal without any advance notice. This was a policy to divide the designated “Bengal District” ofthe combined present Indian West Bengal, Bangladesh, Odisha, Bihar and Assam into two parts to beruled as such. This clearly meant harsher oppression and control. Millions of people stood up in Bengal
against this policy at that time.
Tagore participated in this opposition movement and one of the leaders of this anti-division movement
was an activist called Aurobindo Ghose. The opposition movement lasted until the decision to create
the Bengal District was withdrawn. At that time, Ghose was a radical who dared to take whatevermeasures were needed to fight against the British. Eventually, he was sent to prison and turned to the
new Yoga movement. Ghose met Tenshin in 1902.
In my opinion, it was Okakura Tenshin who set the Indian independence movement on fire. Since3

Ideals of the East was published in English, many young Bengali intellectuals read this book and weregreatly influenced. According to some sources and statements, it is verified that Tenshin’s two-time
visits to India had a wide impact on the Indian independence fighters’ views on culture, thought,
politics and other aspects.
Tenshin visited India a second time in 1912 to see with his own eyes how India had changed since his
first visit there. By that time, Tenshin’s health had already seriously deteriorated and he died in
September 1913, the next year, without learning about Tagore’s Nobel Prize. There was no record
regarding how Tenshin felt about India ten years after his first visit.
However, an impressive event occurred. Tenshin met in Calcutta a female Bengali poet, writer, andsocial activist named Priyamvada Devi. She was related to Tagore. The two fell in love platonicallyand after Tenshin returned to Japan, they kept exchanging letters. In India at that time, a woman,whether Hindu or Muslim, was hardly allowed to act socially. However, Tagore had no such prejudiceand had Ms. Priyamvada edit a magazine and she in return donated her private fortunes to the
management of Tagore’s school on cooperative terms.
Through Tagore’s personal relationship, Tenshin met this wonderful woman. Their letters have been
kept respectively in Japan and India to this day.

Tagore’s Nobel Prize in Literature and GITANJALI
Tagore had published many books of poetry until then and in 1913 he was presented for the first timeas an Asian, a Bengali in British colonial India, with the Nobel Prize in Literature. At the time when it
was generally believed that the Western civilization was the best in the world, an Asian’s Nobel Prizemade an enormous impact on the world. He received the Noble Prize for Gitanjali (Song Offerings),
collected poems written in Bengali.
All the poems in the collection are accompanied by music composed by Tagore and they are popularlysung in India today. Tagore was 52 years old then. Let me introduce the following, one of the most
famous poems in Gitanjali:

On the shores of Bharat,
Where men of all races have come together,
Awake, O my Mind!
Standing here with outstretched arms,
I send my salutations to the God of Humanity,4And in solemn chant sing His praises.
At whose call no none knows,
Came floating streams of men
And merged into the sea of Bharat.
The Aryan, the Non-Aryan, the Dravidian,
The Huns, the Pathans and the Moghuls—
They have all merged here into one body.
Today the West has opened its doors,
And from thence come gifts.
Giving and taking,All will be welcome on the shores of Bharat.
Where men of all races have come together.

In mad exultation, singing songs of victory,
Have they come, crossing deserts and mountains;
They all dwell within me
And in my blood echo their varied melodies.
O Terrible one!
Let the heavens resound with your music;
Even those, whom in disdain we kept apart,
Will gather round thee, O Bharat,
Where men of all races have come together.
Here one day in the hearts of men
The message of the One resounded.
In the fire of Tapasya all differences were forgotten,
And the many forged into one.
Round that fire of sacrifice,We all have to meet with bowed heads
And unite—
On the shores of Bharat,
Where men of all races have come together.

In that fire,5

The blood-shot flame of suffering is aglow.
O mind, bear this suffering
And hear the call of the one.
Conquer all shame, all fear,
And let vanish all humiliations.
What great life will emerge
At the end of the days of suffering!
The night ends,
The great Mother is awake
On the shores of Bharat,
Where men of all races have come together.

Come, O Aryan and Non-Aryan,
Hindu and Moslem,
Come, O English and you Christian,Come, O Brahmin,
Purify your mind and claps the hands of all;Come, O downtrodden,
And let vanish all burdens of your humiliation.
Tarry not, but come you all
To anoint the Mother,On the shores of Bharat,
Where men of all races have come together.

Tagore’s Nobel Prize made a great impact on Japan, too. Not only intellectuals and artists, but also
people in general came to be interested in Tagore and wanted to meet him and listen to him. In responseto people’s requests, the Japanese Government worked to organize Tagore’s visit to Japan, but due topolitical reasons, the visit did not take place at the time.
At that time the Anglo-Japanese Alliance had been concluded and it was not easy at all for Tagore, aperson considered dangerous to Britain, to be granted a visit to Japan, where Okakura Tenshin andother Pro-Asianist intellectuals and activists were acting for their cause.
However, Tagore’s poems were translated into Japanese from the English edition and his other books
6were introduced to Japan one after another. Tagore had such immense impact because it wasinternational common sense that if anyone from Asia was to be celebrated with the Nobel Prize, itwould be a literary man or a scientist from Japan, the only advanced country in Asia. In reality,
however, an almost unknown Indian under the British colonial rule won the first Nobel Prize in Asia.

Tagore’s visit to Japan and the beginning of new Indo-Japan relationshipAnd finally, in 1916, Tagore’s visit to Japan came true. Shibusawa Eiichi, the then Chairman of theJapan-India Association established in 1903, sent a letter of invitation to Tagore. After their firstmeeting, Shibusawa came to see Tagore every time Tagore visited Japan, which indicates how
respectful to Tagore Shibusawa was. Tagore stayed for nearly three months from the end of May tothe end of September at entrepreneur Hara Tomitaro’s Sankei-en residence in Yokohama and visited
the students at Karuizawa, a resort town, following the invitation by Naruse Jinzo, who had establishedJapan Women’s University. In addition, at Izura in Ibaraki Prefecture, Tagore met Okakura Tenshin’s
bereaved family, went to Rokkakudo-hall, built by Tenshin as the center for his international activities,
and left memorial writing there. A grand reception was held at Ueno Kan’ei-ji Temple by artist
Yokoyama Taikan, poet Noguchi Yonejiro, Tokyo Imperial University professor and founder ofMusashino University Takakusu Junjiro, scholar on Buddhism and priest Kawaguchi Ekai, judo
wrestler Sano Jinnosuke, Buddhism scholar Kimura Nichiki, and others. About 300 notables, including
Prime Minister Okuma Shigenobu, and the President of the Tokyo Imperial University, attended thereception. Welcome of this scale and fever was the first in the Japanese modern history.
I want to point out here that when it comes to speaking of Tagore in Japan, there is a trend to overly
emphasize that during his stay in Japan, Tagore criticized Japanese nationalism and the government’s
military policy. However, what Tagore critically pointed out was that as symbolized in his criticism of"nationalism", Japan lost its historical tradition amid the rapid modernization process and took afterWestern modernization and imperialism. His clearest view was stated in passages of serial lectures hegave in 1916 in the United States after his visit to Japan, “Nationalism in the West,” “Nationalism inJapan,” and “Nationalism in India.” The following is a passage in “Nationalism in Japan.”
What is dangerous for Japan is, not the imitation of the outer features of the West, but theacceptance of the motive force of the Western nationalism as her own. Her social ideals are
already showing signs of defeat at the hands of politics. I can see her motto, taken from science,“Survival of the Fittest," writ large at the entrance of her present-day history—the motto whose
meaning is, "Help yourself, and never heed what it costs to others.”“I am quite sure that there are men in your country who are not in sympathy with your inheritedideals; whose object is to gain, and not to grow. They are loud in their boast that they have7

modernized Japan.”(“Nationalism”)
Tagore thought that Western nationalism was characterized as conquest and struggle andmechanization of human beings and criticized the way this Western trend affected Japan. His criticism
seems to be too severe in my view, as a fellow Bengali with Tagore.
Japan from the end of Edo Bakufu government, Meiji Restoration to the early twentieth century, when
Tagore’s lectures were held, was in the world where amid the imperialism and competitive power
struggles, for each country to maintain its independence, there was no other way but to strengthen the
country’s military power, industries, and potentials through modernization. Japan was no exception
and resourceless Japan had no other choice but to expand overseas in order to keep its nationalfoundation.
Victories in the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War liberated Asian peoples from Qing’s
sovereignty and the European and American colonial regime and opened the road to modernization.
Thus, the wars were certainly meaningful in a sense. In this respect, Tagore’s criticism against
modernization and Japan as a country cannot have helped but invite repulsive reaction from Japanese
intellectuals at the time for being too idealistic.
As Okakura Tenshin radically criticized Japan during the Meiji period for the trend to worship Europe
and the United States and at the same time to deny Japanese tradition, Tagore’s warning that Japanmight have lost its own merits in the midst of the modernization process had better be taken as avaluable suggestion to Japan.
In 1907, during a rally held in Chittagong, a port town in East Bengal, Tagore called to Indian youths
to wake up from sleep, referring to Japan’s victory over the whites in the Russo-Japanese War.
Probably, Japan’s annexation of Korea might have changed Tagore’s recognition of Japan.
To Japan, the Korean Peninsula was the key to its national defense and there was threat of Russia’s
southward advance. Considering the situation at that time, I don’t think it is fair to see Japan’s positionin parallel with Western Powers’ colonial control.
However, we must not forget that when it comes to Japan’s merits, Tagore always evaluated them as
highly as ever.

8

“The Japanese have acquired a whole kingdom of beauty. The Japanese cherish everything theysee, and they never neglect it.” “The sense of beauty that was seen among the good-natured andthose with a real sense of humor is growing and reaching all people in this country.”“Traveler to Japan”“The Japanese make their own worship offerings to beauty, inside and outside their homes, andeverywhere.” I have never seen such wholehearted respect for beauty anywhere else. No othernation has learned in such careful manner how to approach beauty while preserving purity.”“On Personality”“Because of centuries-old customs, the Japanese do not finish any job somehow in a just-fine
attitude. To them, work is aesthetic, and they work with a completely focused mind. All you cansee is that the Japanese are learning to establish their state of mind throughout all of their work.
This is what meditation is all about.”“Japan as Zen Meditation”
Tagore went to the United States after his first visit to Japan. In February 1917, the next year, herevisited Japan on his way home. His third visit to Japan was in June1924, and his fourth was in March
1929. After his fourth visit he planned to go to the United States and Canada, but owing to sometrouble, he returned to Japan again and stayed in Japan in May through June, 1929.
With respect to exchanges between Tagore and Japan, we must not forget one memorable encounter
between Tagore and Wada Tomiko, a student at Japan Women’s University. While working as aninterpreter and translator for Tagore, she devoted her lifetime to studying Tagore’s thought withprofound knowledge and respect and thus played a great role in spreading the recognition of Tagore
in Japan. After she married, she, Koura Tomi by name, closely communicated with Tagore in Japanand the United States. She wrote about her encounter with Tagore in his late years in India in 1935 inher autobiography. On that occasion, Tagore fondly talked about his memorable experiences in Japan,
and told people around him how much he wished he could visit Japan again and write poems at
Karuizawa, his favorite town. In 1981, Ms. Koura Tomi, with other voluntary members, erected astatue of Tagore at Karuizawa, a dear place to Tagore. On the bronze statue, Japanese words meaning“No Wars for Humans” were inscribed.

What Tagore left in JapanIn 1941, immediately before World War II broke out, Tagore died at the age of eighty. But the closebond between Japan and India built by Tagore and Okakura Tenshin never perished. In 1957, at the9call of Shimonaka Yasaburo, founder of Heibon-sha, it was decided to celebrate the one-hundredthanniversary of Tagore’s birth. Many intellectuals, one after another, expressed their prospective
participation in the celebration. Entrepreneur Okura Kunihiko, who once welcomed Tagore to Japan,
was eager to take part in the celebration and led the preparations for the anniversary. Tagore Memorial
Society was established by contemporary leaders in culture, literature, education, religion and financial
world and they planned various ceremonies, seminars, showing of films, music and stage
performances, exhibition of Tagore’s paintings, lectures on Bengali, study class on Tagore and so on.
Voluminous sources and materials related to Tagore were collected and memorial publications were
issued.
Other activities went on, including studies on literature and thought of Tagore, India and Bengal by
Nara Tsuyoshi, Azuma Kazuo, Azuma Keiko, Usuda Masayuki, Onish Masayuki, Suzuki Kikuko,
Nishioka Naoki, Niwa Kyoko, Watanabe Kazuhiro and others.
Among them, the most prominent scholar on Tagore is Azuma Kazuo, former professor emeritus at
Tsukuba University, whose books are often quoted in this book. He learned Bengali from Professor
Watanabe Teruhiro at Tokyo University and became a visiting professor at Visva Bharati University
in Bengal, India, in 1967 and studied intently Tagore’s literature and systematically translated Tagore’s
works, while teaching the Japanese language and culture for three years and a half. After returning toJapan, he established the Japan-India Tagore Association and held seminars and symposiums, inviting
eminent intellectuals as guest speakers through his personal connections in India.
The biggest achievement of this association is the publication of Tagore’s complete works in Japanesewith the cooperative efforts of Nakamura Hajime, Koura Tomi and others. In addition, Professor
Azuma built “Japan Academy” at Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan in 1994. Moreover, in 2007,
he established “India-Japan Cultural Center, Rabindranath—Okakura House” in Calcutta incooperation with the West Bengal Government. In recognition of his endeavors and contribution formany years, the West Bengal Government gave Professor Azuma “Tagore Award”, and Visva-Bharati
University decorated him with the honorable title of “Desicottom (Supreme People’s Merits).”
Domestically, in 2008, Professor Azuma was decorated with “The Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold
Rays with Neck Ribbon” by the Japanese Government. Professor Azuma passed away in 2011, but hisachievements will be forever marked in histories of Japan, India, and Bangladesh.
I would like to close this chapter by quoting what Tagore spoke about the influence Okakura Tenshin
had on India and Tenshin’s great thought at his lecture given during his visit to Japan in 1924.

10

“Some Years ago I had the real meeting with Japan when a great original mind, from these shores
came in our midst. He was our guest for a long time and he had immense inspirations for the young
generation of Bengal in those days which immediately preceded a period of a sudden ebullition ofnational self-assertion in our country.”“I am glad to confess to you today that one of the inspirations which acted towards the awakening of
spirit in Bengal had its source in that great man, Okakura, and I am especially grateful that thiswonderful period of our modern history had its association with Japan.”(On Oriental Culture and Japan’s Mission, Talks in Japan by Rabindranath Tagore)11