Monday, January 04, 2010

Some lines of deep thought, solitude and contemplation I’d read recently, took me back to this poem.

Taught to us by the ever-patient Mrs. Arora in Class 10. Thirty years ago.
Almost every word difficult, every word underlined for meaning.

The line that stayed with me was--
“Jivan ka antim dhyey svayam jeevan hai”

Thanks to googledevta, I found the entire poem here:

http://www.prayogshala.com/poems/dinkar-Vijayi-ke-sadrish-jiyo-re

(The title in our text book was Parshuram ke Updesh.Yes, I remember.)

The verse has the mighty roar of battle in the way the words build up.
It took me all these years to understand the meaning.Somewhat understand.

This is just that critical stanza, my version with due apologies:

The purpose of life is not fame or wealth
Not peace, not a search for truth, not even an insight divine
Not science, not knowledge, not mighty strength nor philosophy
In the final summing up, the purpose of life is life itself.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

A good stanza worth translating indeed.

Happy New Year's, Austy!

-Nimh

PQ said...

Will keep this in mind...its going to take me a while to get some of that gyaan :-)
Aur Googledevta :-)....totally agree...nice name...i liked it :-)

AmitL said...

How true! Can you believe it, the EME Temple Panditji was talking on the same topic a few days back?Coincidence..Indeed, the purpose of life is life itself.That's the answer for all those moments when we feel depressed and wonder what our existence is all about.
---
Will check the full link shortly.(Mite tied up with emailing work with Dxb office):)

Anonymous said...

The essence of ontology, das Sein ist, life is. Sounds easy and trite, but puts a lot of things in perspective and relations.
It is absolute.

Arunima said...

happy new year and what a translation! thanks. I wouldn't have understood had it been in hindi. I speak hindi but I am weak at the shudh hindi so to say.

crab said...

belated new year greetings ben... :)

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austere said...

Nimh---For that blast of positive, clean energy-- gratitude. Much gratitude.

PQ- go read the rest of it.Abhi jao.

Amit- padha? Its just terrific.

mago- :)) is there such a thing? Ontology?

Arunima- how we had struggled with Hindi! So I remember. The poem is stirring, builds up the shaurya, go break a path through mountains, do this n that
etc etc. THEN it says- but after all this, the purpose of life? is life itself.

crabbbbbbbiekins! happy happy new year. Delighted to see you. kem cho?

crab said...

Me maja ma cho ben and hope uve been keeping good as well...yday had stopped by here after some while..thought would drop in my hellos n wish ya :)

Anonymous said...

Yes.
"One of the troubles with ontology is that it not only isn't clear what there is, it also isn't so clear how to settle questions about what there is, at least not for the kinds of things that have traditionally been of special interest to philosophers: numbers, properties, god, etc. Ontology is thus a philosophical discipline that encompasses besides the study of what there is and the study of the general features of what there is also the study of what is involved in settling questions about what there is in general, especially for the philosophically tricky cases. How we can find out what there is isn't an easy question to answer. It seems simple enough for regular objects that we can perceive with our eyes, like my house keys, but how should we decide it for such things as, say, numbers or properties?"

austere said...

mago- thank you. muchly.
Now to unravel the connotations of this line of thought...particularly for intangibles.

Option is to take it as it comes.Minus the analysis.