Bhagavan Sri Krishna – The Divine Perfection : 6. Swami Krishnananda

02/04/2019
(Spoken on Sri Krishna Janmashtami, August 25, 1978)
6.

It is only art, an aesthetic sense of presentation, that can, to some extent, stir our being to the realities of our aspirations more than logical presentations and mathematical disquisitions. The epic of the Mahabharata is an artistic portrayal of perfection in which the author has beautifully knit together the pictures of personalities who went to form a completeness by themselves, who threaded themselves into a beautiful artistic presentation.

The Ramayana and the Mahabharata, to mention two of the epics of the world, are magnificent edifices of artistic achievement. But only an artist can achieve that perfection; the layman cannot understand it, and even an appreciation of it is difficult. A magnificent painting, for instance, can be appreciated only by an equally great painter. A person who is not acquainted with the secrets and the principles of art and aesthetics may not be able to appreciate the paintings of Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci or Ravi Varma, etc. We will only say it is a beautiful picture and go away, but the man’s genius is there and he has painted not merely a pattern through colours but a picture of human mystery.

By art, I do not merely mean painting but also literature and any kind of symbolic presentation which alone is capable of revealing the mystery of life to some appreciable extent. The great plays of Shakespeare, for instance, the dramas of Kalidasa, the epics of Homer and Virgil, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Tulsidas Ramacharitamanasa, the Mahabharata of Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa, and the Ramayana of Valmiki are not ordinary writings. They are not mere stories. They are revelations of the longings of the human spirit in its completeness, and there was no better way of presenting them.

In this great work of art which is the achievement of Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa, he centralises his theme in the personality of Bhagavan Sri Krishna, who is the spokesman of the Bhagavadgita, which is the pendant in the garland of the whole Mahabharata. The Bhagavadgita is a small microscopic Mahabharata by itself, and its spokesman is Bhagavan Sri Krishna. In his personality, the author of the Mahabharata, or the Gita, as we may say, has brought into focus the total aspirations of all humanity, a perfection which could not otherwise be explained than by a style of presentation and a language which will simply rouse us into the empyrean of delight. This is the work of art. The mystery of art, the peculiarity of art, the greatness of art is that it simply ravages us completely. It enraptures us, catches our spirit at the very roots, and we do not know where we stand at that time. It happens sometimes when we look at a vast ocean, or when we look at the full moon in a clear sky, which are principles of art. We are ravaged and possessed by a spirit which is not merely logical, and which is more than human. Such was the picture that was presented in the personality of Bhagavan Sri Krishna.

To be continued ...