The Jaina Academy Publications, 6.

By

LOTHAR WENDEL
&lrla Education Trust,

PILi.NI, India.

1st)

Ed. j

ALIGANJ, (ETAH), V. P.
INDIA.

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TO BIRLA EDUCATION TRUST.

FOREWORD

If in a far future history might refer to our time, it might refer to
it as Lothar Wendcl told me once as a New Stone-Age. The difference
.between the Old and the New Stone-Age would.be so he pointed out
' that while in the Old Stone Age the tools were of stone but the souls
• plastic, the New Stone Age is marked by a growing refinement
and mobility of tools while the souls are becoming more and more
crystallised and hard like stones. In our age it seems that the mineral
part of the human body imposes itself upon the soul, rendering it
immutable and ‘stony’. This is particularly evident in ‘Justice’. The
case of Chessman is quite symptomatic. It seems that none of the
judges was able to imagine that a man before a 12 years’ span of time
is not necessarily the same 12 years after. Man is considered as immu-
table as a stone. A possibility of an inner transformation or conversion
and the fact deriving from this that a man of today might be quite
different from that what he was years ago, is, not counted any more.
We have unlearned to pardon and to forget and enjoy to sit on the
bench of the scoffers. Christianity, if it would have to be founded in
our days, would never have the slightest chance. For sinners cannot
be forgiven. And a St Paul, who, when he was still a Saulus, persecuted
the Christians and who kept the garments of those who stoned.
St. Stephen, would never have been allowed to spread Christianity. The
times of early Christianity and also the mediaevel times were marked
by a great flexibility of soul. Today not only public life but also the most
intimate personal life are infected by this static conception of justice.
From this derives alsn the growing number of divorce. Lothar Wendel.as
he told me, was much impressed by a novel of a French author Paul
Marguerite: ‘Le Tourment’, a psychological masterpiece, in which it
is described how all generous impulses tending towards forgiveness are
stifled by the growing mineralisation of our sentimental life. And he
recognised that what we need most in our days is a ‘liquidisationl’
in the sense of ‘decrystallisation' of the soul. Does this mean a
renunciation of character ? It would, if the means of this ‘deminera-
lisation’ would be cynisme and mere negation. But the ‘deminerali-
sation' as conceived by Lothar Wendel is based on the very contrary
of negation; it is founded on Faith, of course, a dynamic Faith of
real ultimacy, which means lastly harmony with the Universe. Such

it faith b dcvrik-d in Gortheb Faust and 50 it b not accidental thnl 1
new interpretation of i'tu,M b (he first chapter of (In’*. Imok amt that
thb interpretation rutu, with growing intensity, through the 3 main

parts of the book.

Faith h the real ’stone of the philosopher" redeeming »k from the
I’onynmt of v.’r.vm tpirituuhty and mere intrlbetu.'dbm, The stone
taken at symbol for stability in faith, in real authentic: ulftm.u'y, which
doe* not narrow down the tool hut is widening her, it positive white
if it rymk-dbet premature erystnltimtians ami narrow-minded dogma*
tbm it b distinctly nrgatbr.

Like myself, l.othar Wen del it a disciple of Onmptt Rat Jain who
wax r. man of dyram!.* faith and as turf: of tynihtxK He sect
enmmon feature* in th- phii t tophi ml bv.b conceptions of Jainism, of
Goethe and earn of an eminent protestant like Paul

Tillich. He c-snsi tefs lifr, this hrromer evident from hit book, at a
continuous strife toward x perfection and is covinred that if our aim is
firm end Immutable at i; it wide mid generous and nothing lent than
xrtf-actualimtbn, it xVutM no; fe.tr us if we go astray sometime.
Only if we arc looting faith then wc nor really lost, Thb {treat
conception of fair.! an dignity i*. alto the real background of Vinobs
llhave’t ’Peace Mission 1 in the Dumb Areas.

1 he idea to write this hook came first to the author at Ujjsin,
when he was a yurst of Seth f.atr.hand Sethi and when the nephew of
his host, a young student, told him that lie would like to learn German
only in order to he able to read Goethe in the original. This generous
enthusiasm inspired the author to v.rite this book which, npart from
the fact that it deals with the relations between Western nnd Indian
literature, is also indirectly a book on Goethe. In order to enhance
thc'intcrest of the book, it Im been written partly in the form of an
auto-biography, which enabled tfie author to use sometimes nnrratirve
style. His comparison of Jain Thought with Western ideals is nlso,
most interesting and Thought-provoking.

Wc are glad to thank the learned author for his kindness to give
us an opportunity to publish it in our series of *Jnin Academy Publica-
tions.' The picture on the cover of the Saraswati Temple of the Sliardu-
Pitha, Pitani, we are reproducing by the courtsey of Sri Gopal Arora.

— Kanita Prasad Jain
Hony Director

Aliganj, (Etah); The World Jaina Mission.

1 1-6-19G0

CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction: My Cultural Surroundings 1

I. GERMANY SEEN FROM THE INDIAN PLATFORM
Goethe’s Faust and Tattvartba Sutra 9

Friedrich Schiller’s Two Psychological Basic-Principles of Human
Behaviour and the Social Problems in East and West 25

Thomas Mann and Jainism 36

Hermann Keyserling’s Indian Travel Diary of a Philosopher 33
Champat Rai Jain and the German Spirit 40

II. FRANCE SEEN FROM THE INDIAN PLATFORM f
The French-German Interrelations in Their European and
Intercontinental Context 65

Hermann Keyserling’s Interpretation of the French ‘Raison’
in the Light of Jain Philosophy 59

Non-Absolutism as Bridge Between Commonsense and Mystic
Experiences-French rationalism as Skepticism and Religion 66

Romain Rolland and the Invisible Spiritual Elite of Humanity 73
Corneille’s Conception of Non-Violence 75

Napoleon and the East 79

Gardening as the Basis of French Culture 86

m. THE COMMO NWEALTH SEEN FROM THE INDIAN

Dlswu _ . platform

The Commonwealth Idea in Jainism
Jainism Abroad

Kamta Prasad Jain and the World Jain Mission

Russia and the Commonwealth

My Experiences in Russian Captivity

Encounter With a Hidden World

Virgin-Forest and Fairy-Garden

Buddhism, Origin and Mission

Small Talk on Australia and New Zealand

Dharraa and Adbarma in Politics

Kosmos and Man in American Literature

The Organisation of Human Individuality

Spiritual Trends at Pilani

The Sftraswati Temple at Pilani

Epilogue

Appendix-Les Idees Politiques de Jean Paul

q?

107

117
12 3
125
131
146
174
185
194
200
205
213
2 26
23 6
241
245

INTRODUCTION: MY CULTURAL SURROUNDINGS
AND THE FORMATION OF MY SPIRITUAL
INDIVIDUALITY.

It was the first time in the 18th century that a jretum
to nature was proclaimed as a panacea against the artificia-
lity in society and literature, and the growing frivolity of
habits. The romantic movement was engendered and be-
came the counter-part of a classicism, which, while stress-
ing intellectuality in the field of aesthetics, threatened to
stifle the whole emotional life of man. The Romantic
movement, bom with Rousseau, and inspired particularly
by his ‘Confessions’ and ‘La Nouvelle Heloise’, created a
new interest in the personality and the natural surround-
ings of man. A new humanism was bom; one began to
appreciate the simplicity and generosity of the so-called
•noble savage (see Voltaire’s Ingenu) and on the other hand
the splendid luxury of tropic nature (Augustine de Saint
'Pierre’s ‘Paul et Virginie’). Even the gulf between man &
the mute creature became bridged by this enthusiasm for
nature and it is doubtful if without the romantic move-
ment we would have such a beautiful book on wild life
like that of Andre Demaison: ‘Le grand livre des betes
dites sauvages.’ (The great book on so called wild anima-
ls). The impact of the Romantic movement provoked even
a transformation of classicism. In his ‘Birth of the Trage-
dy’ Nietzsche pointed to the Dionysian (emotional) chara-
cter of Greek- religiosity and the way was cleared for a
higher synthesis of Romanticism and Classicism, a synth-
esis which unconsciously had already been realised by the
great classics in German literature, Goethe and Schiller.

So, the time seemed to have come for a harmonic cul-
tural development and for a crystalisation of values,

Jill

1

rtcognbed as essential for Western culture. But the tech-
nical revolution of the 20th century with \U rationalism of
the calculation-machine- type brought a new upheaval;
man felt himself ns domimuor of nature, fits successes
had m:u!e him too optimistic to apprehend that juu these
achievements, if carried tm a higher and higher level could
make him as well a rlayhal! of cosmic forces. Now, by
the development of tenible means of destruction, the time
has arrived where this damper becomes more and more
acute. We feel that the macYtnkm and the mechanisation

of life which seemed to imply the sovereign domination of
the forces of nature has in reality created a gulf between
man and nature. From this viewpoint the watch-word of
Rousseau ‘Return to Nature* pains a new actuality. But a

return to nature in our time cannot mean to renounce
our technical civilisation. It means only the creation of a
new consciousness which enables us to use the beneficial
forces of nature without provoking the negative ones. This
new consciousness is created in the moment we cease to
consider nature as a playground of blind forces. Only if
we recognise that nature is not a chaos but a cosmos in
which everything is interrelated and if we feel ourselves
as a part of this underlying cosmical ‘pre-established har-
mony’, our thought and actions, instead of being destruc-
tive will become constructive & beneficial. We need a new
ethics which is embedded in a cosmological consciousness
as a basis of a new humanism.

From this view-point it is not difficult to understand
and to appreciate that many excellent scientists take a
keen and active interest in philosophy, i. c. Julian Huxley.
Weizsaker and Heisenberg. It is interesting that the views
of modern science harmonise to an astonishing extent
with the oldest traditions of humanity. This becomes
particularly clear from the study of Jain Cosmology, which
reflects these traditions. (See G.R. Jain:‘Cosmology Old &
New'). In a remarkable speech, delivered at a meeting of

2

• the Jain Student Organisation at Pilani in February, 1958,
Count Arnold Keyserling, a son of the famous author of
the ‘Travel Diary of a Philosopher’, pointed out that the
particular character of Jainism which distinguished it
from all other religions was its scientific attitude. So it
seems that a philosophy of nature, established by a scien-
tist today or tomorrow would not much differ from the
main tenets of Jain Cosmology. Now the question arises
if in the West, where we have no direct connections with
the ancient wisdom of humanity, there is a complete
break of tradition between the ancient and the modem
world. This would doubtless be the case if not the grea-
test representatives of Western culture, men like Goethe,
Schiller, Lord Byron, Bergson and Jean Jaures had not had
a vision of the Truth and reflected it in their immortal
works. They established not only a vertical link between
past and future but also a horizontal one between West
and East. In comparison with the average man these great
representatives of Western culture might perhaps be regar-
ded as forerunners of a higher species of human being
who had overcome the limitations to which pointed Kant
in his ‘Critic of the Pure Reason’ by formation of a kind
of 6th sense, called intuition, the importance of which as
a means of knowledge has been stressed particularly by
Henry Bergson.

In retracing in the present Essay these traditional links
between past and future and between East and West, we
have considered particularly the cultural heritage of those
European countries like, Germany, France and England,
which by their broad and intense cultural contacts with
the non-European world, might, if w r e take apart the impor-
tant sideline of Spanish and Portuguese culture, with its
affiliations in Latin-America, claim with some justifica-
tion to be today the most outstanding representatives of
Western culture

In England the author of this book came first in contact

3

with the world in large, having previously experienced cul-
ture and life in France and Italy. AM these experiences
abroad, particularly in India, brought him simultaneously
a deeper understanding »>f German culture and the idea
grew up in him that ail the diversity in culture is lastly a
diversity in unity, that front the viewpoint of culture, tho
world is one. This unity can be traced out and become
finally an inner experience, so to say a part of one’s own
individuality, Germany, France, England and India have
become the most important stations in my life. What they
pave me I tried to express in a flash-light manner in this
book, which, as it is particularly concerned with the ref-
lexion of the cultural surroundings on my thought and
that is in a technical aye the reflexion of world-culture,
might be termed, according, to Dilthey, a ‘Socio-Biogra-
phy’, or more simply a Biography of my thought. In such
a biography objectivity h subjectivity are closely knitted
together and ideas have a greater importance than mere
biographical datas. However at the end of the three parts

of the book ‘Germany, seen from the Indian platform’,
‘France seen from the Indian platform’ and the ‘Common-
wealth seen from the Indian platform* there are elements
of an ordinary biography. That is particularly true for the
chapter ‘Champat Rai Jain and the German Spirit’, which
reflects the impact which my encounter with C. R. Jain
had on my life. The chapter on French gardening reflects
the kind of influence exercised by my father with his
passion for gardening on my spiritual development. But
the last Chapter on Pilani where, I work since about 4
years, under the auspices of lire Goethe Institute, Munich,
as a lecturer for German and French marks a point in

my life where present and future have a meeting. It seems
to be one of the most unpersonal and is perhaps along
with the chapters on' my captivity in Russia and Encoun-
ter with a Hidden World the most personal of all.

The book starts with the chapter ‘Goethe’s Faust and

4

Umaswami’s, ‘ Tattwnrtha Sutra \ This is not merely
accidental Goethe is to the author a bit of what Virgil
was to Dante: a sure guide into the higher spheres of
the universe of culture. The book ends with an epilogue
on Arnold Keyserling who along with his brother Manfred
follows the traces of his father Hermann Keyserling, who
was the first European philosopher who tried to create,
based on cultural geography, a form of philosophy which
might be termed: World Philosophy.

GERMANY SEEN FROM
THE INDIAN PLATFORM

I

GOETHE’S FAUST AND TATTVXRTHA SUTRA

(GOETHE’S MASTERPIECE IN NEW LIGHT)

Some of the greatest achievments of Western Literature
betray a peculiar relationship to Eastern Thought. So the
cosmology of Dante’s ‘ Divine Comedy ’ is according to
Heinrich Zimmer strangely similar to Jain cosmology. In
the great philosophical novel of Honore de Balzac: “Peau
de Chagrin", we find the whole profoundness and subtlety
of Brahmin thought and it is an old Brahmin, who gives
to the hero of the narrative the miraculous, wishfulfilling
Peau de Chagrin (skin of Chagrin leather), warning him,
that at each fulfilment of a wish (self-indulgence), the skin
shrinks and indicates a shortening of life. Francois Pon-
cet, the former French High Commissioner in Germany,
has given in his * Diair e d'un Captif' a brilliant analysis of
the Peau de Chagrin, comparing the creative power, revea-
led in it, with that we find to a really miraculous extend
in Goethe’s Faust But there is also a certain relationship
of thought. Faust, in fact, is perhaps the most outstand-
ing example 'to what an extent East and West can meet in
the realm of idea, in the higher sphere of thought.

In the beginning of Faust we have the prologue in Hea-
ven, which reminds one of Kalidas, the Indian Shakespe-
are. There are also passages, which remind one of the
book of Job. But these resemblances, at last as far as
Kalidas is concerned, are more of an exterior, aesthetical
character and limited only to few passages. But there, is
one book in Indian Literature, which inspite of a great
dissimilarity of the exterior form, seems to explain and
to put in a revealing light all secrets of the Faust. In the
first chapter of the Tattvartha Sutra, written 2000 years
ago by Umaswati, the triple path consisting of the three

o

uiuutt (pcnrbr. Right Belief, Right Knowledge and Right
Conduct R revealed. These three jowls arc also the Leit-
rim if (idee Maitre'.c) of Goethe's Faust, as well as the
philosophical meaning as the exterior form is concerned.

right nt ur.r.

This becomes already evident in the prologue in heav-
en, which is marked by a subtle humour. MohRlophelcs.

* — Si's t rally haul of turn a nolle lord.

So humanly to gossip with c hr Droll V
1 -ike in the book of Job we have here a bet between
the l,ord ami Mcphisto (in Goethe’s Faust: the spirit of
eternal negation):

The Ford says to Mephbtophcles:

TinOugh, what thou has titled is gntnlt’d.

Turn off this Spirit from his fountain head
And him, with thro, hr downward led;

Then stand abashed, when thou art forced to say;

A good man, through obscurest asplrctlcn.

Has still cn Instinct of the one true way /

This instinct of the right way is already the germ of
Right Belief. It is Margaret, symbolizing Right Belief in
Its most initial form, who is the main figure in the first
part of Faust, which is concerned with the individual side
of human life.

But this simplicity of Margaret is not shallow. It is
in fact so profound that it almost overleaps the boundaries
established by school-theology. That is evident from the
scene 'Martha’s Garden’:

'•Margaret: Promise me Henry /

Faust: What 1 can !

Margaret: How is it with thy religion, pray ?

Thou art a dear, good-hearted man. And yet, 1 think,
dost not incline that way.

Faust: Leave that, my child ! Thou knowest my love is
tender. For love . my blood and life would I surrender;

10

And as for faith and Church; I grant to each his own.
Margaret: That's not enough : we must believe thereon.
Faust: Must we?

Margaret: Would that I had some influence ! Then,
too , thou honourest not the Holy Sacraments.

Faust: I honour them.

Margaret : Desiring no possession
* Tis long since thou hast been to mass
And to confession , Believest thou in God ?

Faust: My darling, who shall dare
'I believe in God V to' say ? •

Ask priest or sage the answer to declare
And it will seem a mocking play
A sarcasm on the asker. '■

Margaret: Then thou believest' not ?

Faust: Hear me not falsely, sweetest countenance !
Who dare express Him
And who profess Him ,

Saying: I believe in Him !

Who feeling, seeing ^

Deny His being.

Saying: I believe Him not /

The All-enfolding
The All-upholding
Folds and upholds He not
Thee, me. Himself ?

■' Arches not there the sky above us ?

Lies not beheath us, firm the earth ?

• And rise hot, on us shining
Friendly, the ever lasting star !

Look I not, eye to eye, on thee.

And feel' st not, thronging
To head and heart,- the force ,

Still weaving its eternal secret
Invisible, visible, round thy life ?

Vast as it is, fill with that force thy heart.

11

And when thou In the feeling wholly blesstd on.
Call if, then what van wilt.

Coll It Bits 5 I Heart ! love ! Cod /

/ have no name to five it !

Per! my is alt:

7 he name it 5 o:tnd arid smoke.

Obscuring Heavens chan flow.

Margaret: All that is fine and peed to hear if so
Much the same way the preacher spoke
Only with slightly different phrases.

Faust: * The s am e thing, in ail places.

All hearts that heat beneath the heavenly day

Each in its language -say

Then uhy not [ in mine as well ?"

This conception of God is expressed elsewhere in
the 'Orphhhe Urwortc ‘ —

IFcr. r.icht das Auge. sonnenhaft,

{If the eye were not related to sun)

Die Sonne honv.t'es nicht erh lichen

(It would never he able to perceive the sun)

Imp' nicht «« uns der Goltes Eigcne Kraft
(Were not God’s own strength within us ?)

Wie honnt'uns Gottlichcs cntzucken ?

(How else could the Divine delight us ?)

Goethe, who describes thus in a poetical way the qua-
lities of diva, the first of the six dravyas, considers the
Universe not as a Chaos but ns an harmonious Cosmos.
This corresponds to the world conception of one of the
greatest German philosophers Baron von Leibnitz and to the
Sapta Bangha in Jainism, which teaches the interdependence
of all things in the Universe. The tolerance of Faust with
the naivety of Margaret corresponds to the principle of
the Sygdvgda-Iogic. The "Right Belief, already in its initial
stage, is exposed to many . dangers by the daemonic
forces in the Universe, represented by the strange figures
in the Romantic Walpurgis-Night and the whitchhitchcn.

12

Right Belief in its initial form might still go astray
even if in the end it will not miss the scope. Margaret
commits the fault, which love commits so easily if it is
accompanied with compa ssion and simplicity. She dies
haunted by soul torments, exposed to the sneer and bruta-
lity of a selfish, hypocritical world, in prison. Her love in
its depth was a moral and spiritual love. Her last words
'Henry, Henry !’ are a mixture of love and sorrow.

RIGHT KNOWLEDGE;

The main figure in the second part of Faust is Helena,
taken like the others of this part from Greek Mythology,
who represents beauty in the largest sense, bodily, moral
and intellectual beauty. She is a creation of art, performed
by Faust, the artist according to the order of the emperor,
who is a lover and protector of art. She symbolises the ini-
tial stage of Right Knowledge. She is the bearer of light:
' The horrid birth of night doeth Phoebus Beauty's friend .
Drive out of sight to caverns, or binds them fast'. .

In the Tattwsrtha Sutra we have two ways to acquire
Right Knowledge: Pratyaksa and Paroksa-Pratyaksa is
the way of intuition, Paroksa the way of investigation. In
Goethe’s Faust we have the ‘mothers’, who stand for
creativity in art and reveal us the beauty and harmony of
the Universe due to its underlying spirituality as its rul-
ing force. And it is Homunculus, who stands for creati-
vity and Beauty of Nature and the science to explore it
and to make use of it. The secret of the Mothers is revea-
led in the 5th scene of the second part of Faust:

“Faust: The emperor orders, he will instantly
Helena and Paris here before him see.

The model forms of men and women , wearing.
Distinctly shown , their ancient shape and bearing
Now to the work I dare not break my word.

Mephfsto: '■Unwilling, I reveal a loftier mystery
In solitude q,re throned the Goddesses,

No space around them* place and time still less ,
Only to speak of than embarrasses' (for he sym-
bolizes negation)

1 hey are the Mothers /

Faust: (ten if ted) A lot hers /

Aicphtstophclcs: Hast thou dread ?

Fautt; 7 he Toothers ! Mothers /-« strange word is said!
Mtphlsicphtlts: It is so, Goddesses, unknown to Ye,
The Mortals, named hy ns unwillingly
Delve in tf-.e deepest depths must thou to reach

them

Vs thine our. fault that we for help beseech them.

Faust: Where is the i ray !

Mephfstophelts: No way ! To the IJnbesccchable,

Ne'er to be. trodden I A way to IJnbesccchable
Never to be besought l Are thou prepared ?

There are no lochs, no latches to be lifted;

Through endless solitudes shale thou be drifted.
Hast thou through solitudes and deserts fared ?"

Goethe described here the characteristical features of
Pratyaba dar-rana (intuition), which is always concerned
with the whole, while paroksha starts from the detail.

Homunculus is the form seeking cntclcchy (basic idea)
according to Goethe’s own remarks in his ‘Conversations
with Fckermann.' Homunculus is created by Wagner, the
Famulus (assistant) of Faust, in a furnace:

Wagner: ‘It brightcns-scc ! Sure , ncnv, my hopes

increase,

That if , from many hundred substances .

Through mixturc-sincc on mixture all depends.
The human substance gently be compounded ,

And by a closed retort surrounded, and fed and

slowly founded

Then in success the secret labour ends
T will be 1 The mass in working clearer
Conviction gathers, truer, nearer

14

s

The mystery which for man in Nature lies
We dare to test, by knowledge led;

And that which she jvas u>ont to organise
We cristallise, instead.'

Goethe outlines here the essential features of parohsha,
starting from the detail: from experiments and tests. The
Christal symbolizes in the most perfect way the realisation
of form in nature; it is from this aspect the highest type
of organisation in matter.— This principle of form-realisa-
tion is also active in the. creation of man ( Karmic hody) ,
as it is alluded in the quoted words of Wagner and the
following of Mephistopheles:

* Who lives, learns many secrets to unravel.

For him, upon this earth , there's nothing new can be
I've seen already, in my years of travel ,

Much crystallized humanity V

To Homunculus is associated Proteus, the principle of
eternal change of forms.

As the Universe is conceived as an harmonic cosmos
also science is concerned with beauty and is in this way
related to art. Beauty , conceived as spiritual and moral
beauty is averse to any kind of bloodshed. So Helena did
not like the command of her husband Menelaos to keep
the axe ready for sacrifice and thinks it contradictory to
the real will of god. She will find a way to avoid it.

‘'Helena: Thereafter further came my lord's imperious

speech:

Now when all things in order thou inspected hast .
Then take so many tripods as thou needful deem'st
And vessels manifold, such as desires, at hand
( Who offers to the Gods, fulfilling holy use , — '

The kettles, also bowls, the shallow basin's disk; .
The purest water from the sacred fountain fill
In lofty urns; and further, also ready hold
The well-dried wood that rapidly accept the flame.
And let the knife, well sharpened, fail not finally;

,15

YVr all besides. will 1 relinquish to thv care.

So spoke hr, urging t«y depai ture- but no of living
brecth did be, who's ordered thus, cppHnl that
shall, to honour the Olympian Cods, he slain
Tu Cr itiruh arid yet / banish further care,

And lei all things be now to high Gods referral
Who that fulfil . where to their minds may be

disposed

Whether this by men ‘cis counted goal, or whether

bad ;

In cither case we mortals, we are doomed to hear.
Already lifted oft the Offerer the axe
In consa ration o'er the bowed neck of the beast
And could r*m consummate the act: far enemies
Approaching, or G.vis Intervening hindered him .
On the other side moral ugliness symbolized by Phor-
kyns, a hideous, old woman and the Phorkyads t Daughters
of Chaos are we*-' we born in night akin to gloom alone’)
is always longing for bloodshed. The daemonic forces
represented by her arc threatening beauty at its very' root:
When Helena refuses to offer animals for sacrifice Phor-
hyas demands her own sacrifice :

Phorkyas, 'All is ready in the palace ’

Vessels, tripods, sharpened axe,

For the sprinhing fumigating '■ shore to me the

victim now !

Helena: This the king not Indicated.

Phorkyas: Spake it not ? 0 word of woe !

Helena: What distress has overcome thee ?

Phorkyas: Queen, the offering art thou.

There is some interconnection between the killing of
animals and that of men.

Phorkyas: she will die a noble death . But upon the lofty
beam, upholding rafter , frame aad roof.

As in birding time the throstles,

• ye in turn shall struggling hang !

16

■ Faust; the artist, is as all real artists, in love with Eis
own work, with Helena and the child of imagination born
from this love is Emphorion. But it is a premature birth,
the conception of beauty is still too narrow, too much
confined to bodily forms. So the child of this love is
genial but quite unbalanced and bears the features of Lord
Byron, the genial but unfortunate contemporary of Goe-
the. But in the end the spiritual beauty is conceived in
its very essence, after the death of Emphorion;

“Helena (to Faust): Also in me,

An old word proves its truth ,

That Bliss and Beauty ne'er ( mere beauty of out-
. er form, — Author.) enduringly unite.
Form is the link of life, no less than that of love-.
So both lamenting . painfully I say: Farewell 1
And cast myself agaiti-once only-in thine arms.
Receive , Persephone , receive the boy and me.

(She embraces Faust: her corporeal par disappears, her
garment and veil remain in his arms.)

Phorkyas (to Faust ) 'Hold fast , u'hat now alone rem-
ains to thee.

The garment let not go ! Already twitch.

The Demons at its skirts, and they would fain.

To the Nether Regions drag it ! Hold it Faust J
It is not more the Goddess thou hast lost
But godlike is it, For thy use employ ,

The grand and priceless gift , and soar aloft /

’ Twill bear thee swift from all things mean and low
To ether high, so long thou const endure
We'll meet again, far very far from here !"

So even ugliness (Phorkayas) has in the end to pay
homage to spiritual beauty (Right Knowledge) and betra-
ys a' longing for her. Dionysus yields to Apollo.

RIGHT ACTION.

Like the Bhagavad Git 5, Faust is the praise song of

17

action. The whole Universe i'- beaming with action, This
becomes already evident front the scene; ‘Night’:

I’ hum: Am / o ito-.i Y ...so r rn:m' eyes !
h: these p;oe features / Maid
Crcu'uv nature !omy x:>:d unfold
ll'r.ut Sps? U *:rur ;<i rr.vL'fures fasten;

77a- .vn5r* u xhn?. t/a* M;rt a dead:

D:sc:pl~\ up / nnCir ;n£, hasten
lo bathe thy hr, -nit in morning red /

How eech the whole It; iubitonce five;

■flitch in the other works end lives /

La;e heavenly forces rising and descending
i roar golden urns reciprocally lending.

Hhf/s wings that winnow blessing*

from Heave*: through Earth l see them grossing*

hilling the All with harmony tint easing /“

And then we have in Scene HI (study) this interpreta-
tion of the Bible.. .’Tis written’ In the beginning was the
word,

* Here am J hulked Who. now, can help afford Y
The word ? impossible so high to rate it;

And otherwise must I translate it.

If by the spirit I am truly taught

Then thus: 'In the Beginning was the Thought

This first line let me weigh completely.

Lost my impatient pen proceed too flcclty.

Is it the thought which works , creates, indeed ?

Til the Beginning was the power , I read
Yet . as 1 write, a warning is suggested
That I the sense may not have fairly tested ,

The spirit aids me now I see the light !

‘ In the Beginning was the Act I write'.

Goethe’s system of interpretations is dialectic and
reminds of the Syadvsda system and the Sapta Bhanga
in Jain logic. Like Jainism he denies that thought or ideas
are the origin of every thing. For after putting.

\

18

questionmark behind this explanation of the Universe he
decides finally ‘In the beginning was the Act.’ And with
this he has found a realistic principle which is likewise
valuable for the living all and for the nonliving andimplies
all possible world conceptions as partial truth, even the
negation of mephistopheles, who might stand for Shiva the
destroyer.

All existence is based on action: but on action guided
by law and never by force: but so in Act 2, Scene III
Thales says:

‘ Nature , the living current of her powers.

Was never bound to Day and Night and Hours
She makes each form by rules that never fail,
And 'tis not Force, even on a mighty scale.

And again’. ‘Y/e/d the wish so wisely stated
And at the source be thou created !

Be ready for the rapid plan \

There, by eternal canons wending
Through thousand, myrial forms ascending.

Thou shalt attain, in time, to man V

Here we have the doctrine of karma and rebirth. All
the life is determinated by past actions, (including thought
actions).*

So we have in the end of the first actMephisto saying:-
‘How closely linked are Luck and merit
Doth never to thus fools occur :

Had they the Philosopher's stone, 1 swear it
The stone would lack the philosopher.'

This corresponds to the words of the Bible: ‘what thou
sowest thou wilt reap.’

Even dead nature is dynamic and stands under the law
of action:

We read in the 2nd part Scene III:—

* Homunculus : Look yonder, where the pygmies fled !.

- #Bhava (spiritual) action precedes dravya (material) action.

19

The round HtH hat a pointed head
/ felt a huf-‘ rebound and shook
from', fro m, the moon hud fuller, the rook.

And then * without the least ado.

Doth foe and friend ^ smashed and slew.

I y.raise saeh arts as there, that show
Creation i n a nifnt full died;

That from a fare and from helow
At or.ee this mountain pite could huild !

As tHc Universe is dynamic in its very essence, the
•neatest sin is stagnation. which ends always in rotrogn-
tion. The highest form of action is Self-Perfection, as the
Self is potentially God (Bliss, Heart Love). This striving
for self-realisation meets with great difficulties as Latist.
inspite, that he cannot hear the terrible look of the spin
of the earth, who appears to him in the first scene, tha
means all the misery connected with birth and death ana
reincarnation, is attracted by him, as he lias two souls i
his breast: —

( Port I, Scent II;)

Foust : Two soul's alas. I reside within my breast.

And each withdraws from . cC repels, its brother s f
One. with tenatious organs holds in love
And din yin si lust the world in its embraces-
The other stronf.lv sweeps this dust above.

Into the high ancestral spaces. . .

The first mentioned soul is that with a karmic »
the latter mentioned is the soul, striving for cmtmcipai •
As long real as Faust is striving for self-realisa ion
isto the spirit, who is alway negating, has no P° . .
him. But he consents to become his servant an -P •
as soon as, he should say to the moment, o ay
so fair’. From the very beginning the life o ^ us
of activity. First he seems to be a play-ball e ween
lower and higher forces within his heart? later his activities

20

become more and more selfless. In the end Faust takes up
the task of a Chakravarti. Preceding the ideas of modern
socialism , he becomes a social benefactor of humanity. He
builds dykes and extracts new land from the sea. And
these activities give him so much happiness that he thinks
himself entitled to say to the moment:

'Delay thou art, so fair

The traces cannot ; of mine earthly being

In aeons perish-they are there.'

We know from the Jain Shsstras, that the danger to be
drawn back is very great in a certain advanced stage, the
Uth gunasthkna. But as important as great state plann-
ing is and Goethe takes here sides with socialism still
more important, that is it what Goethe brings home to
modern socialism, are the activities directed towards ! the
emancipation of soul. So Faust is staggering and Meph-
isto believes already in his triumph over him. But finally
it is devotion (Bhakti Yoga) what saves Faust. Devotion-
al veneration of God, of the Divine, is indirectly a help
from the Divine powers. They help by the very existence
of their divine qualities, which provoke the veneration of
the worshipper. It has a deep symbolical meaning, that
the 'penitent’ (formerly named Margaret) who represents
Right Belief, addressed . the Saint Virgin, symbolum of
compassion:

Incline * O Maiden*

With Mercy laden
In light unfading

Thy gracious countenance upon my bliss !

My loved , my lover,

His trials over

In yonder world, returns to me in this !

And then we have a beautiful description of the great
transformation of Faust to a perfect being becoming such
a symbole of Right Action and his lifting up to the Divine:
The Penitent (formerly named Margaret ):

21

‘The fpiri:*C?;-iir around him, sung.
How to himself, ho soared divines
His h'utage of tyu-botn Home.*
IF/un; isbe the Holy Host he shir,?.*,
Bt'tafo hew he rcc f > band hath chvcn

The earthly £r,rb. of other woven*

The early fore-- of youth is shoun

Vouchsafe tome that 1 im-truct him I

Still dassles him the Day's new flare

Mo, ter Glotiose t: Rise thou, to higher spheres!

Conduct him.

Who, feeling thwe. shall follow there V
So Margaret (Right Iklicf) assumes a similar role as
Beatrice in Dantes Divina Comedia.

Goethe’s Faust ends with these memorable words;

‘All things are transitory
But as symbols are sent:

Earth's insufficiency
Here grows to Event
The indescribable

Here it is done

The Woman-Sou l leadeth us

|p

Upward and on.'

The Indescribable or Unpredicable is what has no
more form or shape-the spiritual, which is the basic force
of the Universe. And even material things, as far as they
arc unpredicable are related fas subordinated) to the spiri-
tual. (see Sapta Bhanga, the 4th Bhanga.) The women
soul is the soul gifted with reccptibility, which is particu-
larly a feminine quality, for the noble and Sublime, for
the Divine. That is the way of Bhakti Yoga. It is also
the very gist of Right Belief. So Goethe's Faust ends
where it has started: with the praise of Right Belief ! as
the basis of all other achievements.

*Karmic body .- Lothar Wtndtl

22

s.

The ideas of Goethe’s Faust are so clearly expressed -
and its structure is so logical that it -is: strange that the
interpreters of this great work have gone so astray and
that they saw so many trees that they, missed quite the sight
of the beautiful in the intensity of its growth almost
tropical forest The reason is perhaps that the 19th
Century with its materialism had lost the flair for spiritual
things. But the greatest Goethe-Biographer, the only real
important among the Go ethe-biographers, Hermann
Grimm, knew that the time would arrive, when Faust
would be clearly understood. It is only a relatively short
time ago that the Western World due to Hermann Jacobi
has become acquainted , with Jaih Philosophy. This
philosophy off ers in fact a suitable platform for a new
interpretation of Goethe's main work. That is particularly
true of the Tattvartha Sutra, the most important work in
Jain literature. It is not an exaggeration to claim Goethe’s
Faust as a Jain Shastfa, writtenm a language full of poeti-
cal beauty. How is it possible, we may ask, that a Wes-
tern poet, who knew nothing about Jainism could write a
Jain Shsstra ? We are today inclined to think that only
books can be the medium of knowledge. But in this case
the explanation of this secret can only be found in the
mysterious personality of Goethe. Already in his youth he
was gifted with what is called in German, the Second face:
He would forecast things with an astonishing security. In
his Autobiography ‘Poetry and Reality’ he describes his
impressions when he saw the French Queen Marie Anto-
inette when he was a student at Strasburg; he felt at once
sure that she would perish on the scaffold, which happen-
ed in fact in the French revolution. This gift of Divina-
tion was even intensified in the old age of Goethe and it
seems that he was gifted with qualified Ksayopasama
jiiztna with the capacity to read thoughts and ideas and it
might be, that from the view point of Goethe, his conver-
sations with Eckermann were perhaps less a suit of subli-

23 ,

mu • monologues then it b generally thought. It might
not be altogether strange that a man with these superna-
turn! gifts. also his .strange supernatural experience of the
earthquake of Lisbon, when he was a boy, point*: to this*
might have found by the way of intuition the truth incor-
porated in Jainism. Faust might one tiny become the Bible
of a new Wcst-Iiastrm Humanism and the Truth of the
word in the Wc;t*!:;M;r i Divjn might erne day be felt
and nereeived everywhere:

Got tCS t.v; iJt'r Orient

(fo; fe> ty. i! ( r Ohzident
Nor* 1 * uy.ii smliichfS Gelande
Ruht ins Trieden Stiver Ida tide

To Gi>:t belongs the Orient

To Gt\l belongs the Occident

North and the Southern regions

Rest in the peace of His protecting hands.

\ 24 , -

Friedrich schiller’s two psychological

BASIC-PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
& THE SOCIAL PROBLEMS IN EAST & WEST.

In an article ‘Germans as partners’, published in the
India Magazine No. 2, the President of the Institute for
Foreign Relations Stuttgard Dr. Franz Thierfelder ' gives
an interesting analysis of the psychological differences bet-
ween East and West. He points out. One who never allo-
ws himself to rest, seldom achieves dignity, the characte-
ristic, that we often secretly envy in Orientals. The cease-
less toiler (this expression refers to Western man) puts
honour in the place of dignity and all, who have grasped
the difference, between those two concepts have learnt
much that will help them to get along with members of
Indian peoples. In the West, honour is a value to be up-
held even at the cost of life itself, the loss of honour means
the destruction of moral & social existence for all time. A
neighbour therefore may Tob a man of his honour, whereas
the Oriental can only lose his dignity through his own fault
The correctness .of this statement concerning ' the part
of dignity in the psychological-structure of Eastern peop-
les can even be observed in- Europe. For particularly in
the South and South-East of Europe the ethnological make
up of the populations, has ‘Strongly been influenced by' the
Near East and the Arabian countries. Italy i. e. was ex-
posed to influences of both sides. And due to this oriental
inheritance we find there,- inspite of all existing poverty, a
tendency even among common people, to ‘cut a good fig-
ure’. ‘Fare una bella figura’ is a very common saying in
Italy. This attitute is the source of what is known as Italian
gentilezza, that emphatic gentleness, which one finds in
all strata of population in Italy. )")ll

Z5

In Spain, particularly influenced by Arabian Culture,
we have the flnmilezza. which does not deny itself even in
trifle things of life, giving scigneuria! features even to a
simple peasant, Tn South-East Europe we find that parti-
cularly the Himgarians-practically an oriental people-have
developed a great sense for etiquette, Idle type of the
Hungarian Grand Seigneur was according to the opinion
of a great traveller, the Count Hermann Keyserling, the
most perfect in Europe. A very well known representative

of this aristocracy in the time after the first world war
*

was the Count Apponiyi. who with more than 80 years
represented his country with as much dignity as efficiency
in the League of Nations,

But we see already from these examples that there arc
different gradations and shadows in the conception of
dignity among the different peoples, according to their
historical past and tradition. Sometimes, particularly in
Spain-this is well conceived in the Cid of Corneille-it is
intermingled with a strong feeling of honour.

If, based already on our European experience, wc have
to admit, that dignity flourished particularly in the East
and that, as Thicrfclder points out in his mentioned arti-
cle, also the Indian people can only be understood if this
particular quality is taken into account, the question aris-
es, what is the particular Indian conception of dignity ?

It might be very surprising, that the profoundest, if
also only indirect answer to this question was given by r
Friedrich Schiller, the Great Classic in German literature,
in his brilliant essay: 'On grace and dignity’.

Schiller presents us with a most subtle analysis of dig-
nity. He says that 'it is the expression of a sublime senti-
ment. The will of man is a sublime conception, even if
one does not consider the moral use of it. Already the
mere will elevates the man above the animals; the moral
will elevates him to divinity • But before being able to
approach divinity he must have, left the stage of the?

26

animal. So it is no small step to. the moral liberty of will,
by breaking- within one’s own ' breast the necessity of
nature.’ '

Schiller continues: ‘The highest degree of dignity is
Majesty _ Majesty points to us a law, which compels us to
contemplate our inner nature. Only Majesty has Sainthood.
If a man is able to represent this,then he has Majesty; and
even ‘ if our knees do not follow, our spirit will fall to his
feet.’ In reading this description of dignity one thinks at
once of the great Rishis.in India’s past and present

There is according to Schiller' one unfailing test for
the degree of dignity in man: that is suffering. We are
reading here: ‘Let us take the case that we observe in
a man signs of a most painful excitement. But while
; his veins swell, his muscles are strained, his voice is sti-
fled, his breast is protruded, and his belly is drawn in, his
conscious movements are soft, the features of his face free
and eye and forehead are serene.’

‘If man would be only a sensual being, then all his
features, having a common source, would harmonize and
express in the actual case suffering. But as features of
calm are mixed with those of pain and the same causes
cannot have contrary results, so this contradiction proves
the existence and the influence of a force which is inde-
pendent from suffering and superior to the impressions to
.which we see succumb the sensual; and in this way the
calm in suffering , in which the dignity virtually exists
becomes expression of the intelligence in man and of his
moral liberty.’

This dignity in suffering is the most striking feature
in Gandhiji’s character, which might be considered if we
want to understand his great influence on the Indian
masses-as nothing else as an intensification of the Indian
character in general. This quality was the source of the
passive resistance.

If, according to Schiller, man can become Divinity due

, 27

to ’his moral will if man is potentially God-then I have
also to respect this Divinity, hidden or manifest, in all
other men. This recognition of myself in my fellow beings
in connexion with the experience of a spark of Divine
freedom fills the heart with such a joy and happiness that
it wants, also the happiness of all other fellow-beings. And
from this emotion which might he conscious or unconsci-
ous springs the grace or generosity which is the mark of
what Schiller, calls a ‘Schonc Seek' a beautiful ‘soul’,
‘Grace’, so says Schiller, ’is a movable beauty, which
can be originated accidentally in its subject and cease in
the same way. Grace can only he a dynamic quality for a
change in the sentiment can manifest itself only as move-
ment. But not all movements of man are capable of grace.
Grace is always tiic beauty of the form moved by liberty
and movements belonging to mere nature can never deser-
ve this name. ‘At last’ and here Schiller describes with
beautiful clearness the process of reincarnation-** the soul
shapes its body, the structure of which has to follow the
play, so that grace in the end is not seldom transformed
in architectonic (static) beauty”.

We read further; ‘So as a.... spirit disunited in itself,
destroys even the most sublime beauty of the form, so
that, if liberty is used in an undignified way one cannot
recognize in the end the manificient master-piece of na-
ture, so one sees also sometimes how the serene and har-
monious sentiment comes to help to the technic of the
body fettered by obstacles, endows nature with liberty,
redempting the suppressed nature. The plastic nature of
man has infinite means at its disposition, .to correct its
mistakes as soon as the moral spirit supports it in its
works of formation . . ’ Schiller goes now on in his defini-
tion of grace: ‘If the soul (spirit) affects the nature, depen-
ding from it, in such manner that it fulfills her will with
greatest exactitude and reflects her sentiments in the most
expressive way, without infringement of those demands

Count

Hermann

Keyserling j

!

i

v^P/vr^' ;3\ SrfLj v-i n ' *' v*?!**** 1 ^

h ■ . fes fr A7rXf^ r ~ ■-

r \AP r Countess Wilhelmine Keyserlmg

C °:uh thefuttor in front of the Guest House,

Canal Kothi, Pilam.

1

which nature claims from her, then we have that' quality,
which might be called grace’.

Schiller comes at last to this remarkable conclusion:
‘We speak of a beautiful soul if the moral instinct of man
has obtained to such a degree the hold over all sentiments
that it can without restraint leave to the affect (instinct)
the direction of the will without ever running risk to get
in contradiction to it. Due to this in a beautiful soul not
only the isolated actions are moral but the whole charac-
ter is it.’

And further: ‘A beautiful soul endows also a form
lacking in architectonic (static) beauty with unresistable
grace and often sees it triumphant over infirmities of na-
ture. Aik movements issuing from it become light, soft
and inspite of this animated, the eye will shine serene and
free, expressing sentiment. The softness of heart will im-
part a grace to the mouth, which no dissimulation can
produce artificially. No tension will be seen in the featu-
res, no compulsion in the voluntary movements for the
soul knows of no compulsion. Music will be the voice
moving the heart with the pure stream of her modulation’.

If Schiller would have lived in our time he would have
been able to quote a great historical example in favour of
his psychology. We have already seen how much his con-
ception of dignity as calm in sufference applies to the
character of Gandhiji. The same is true with his descrip-
tion of a beautiful soul as a moral character and whose
actions are not isolated facts; but emanations from her. If
majesty is the highest expression of dignity, them also
according to Schiller, the highest expression Of grace is
charm. Now we know from the descriptions of Gandhi’s
life how great was his personal charm, how gifted he was,
to convert adversaries into friends.

But Gandhiji is the prototype of the Indian on a giga-
ntic scale, and so his great qualities are also those of the
great Rishis and Saints of Ancient India, of the

Trrthankaras of whom we have a dktinct historical pattern
in Lord Mahsviru and particularly also of Lord Buddha.
And in the time of passive resKtarcc even the masses
in India showed a strange capacity of dignity in suffering,
and where is more grace to he found than in the boundless
hospitality in Indian villages.

If now, ns we have seen, the two categories of Schiller:
Dignity and Grace, arc the two most important constitu-
ants of Indian character the question arises, if and to what
a degree they could also serve as idea's for other peoples
and even create a moral platform for a new west-eastern
humanism.

What seems strange for a Westerner is the conception
of the moral will, the source of dignity, as Divine or ele-
vating man to Divinity. Schiller seems to be here nearer
to Indian than to Western mind. But also modem psy-
chology cannot help to Tecognisc that a full self-realisation
of man would lead him to a superhuman state, or to a
supcrcmpirical humanity.

So Karl Jaspers, eminent philosopher and psy chologist
one of the most outstanding leaders of the philosophical
school of existencialism in Germany writes in hi^ essay:
A New Humanism... ‘An independently thinking person
wants to lift himself out of falsehood to become really
human. Searching, he is strong in love, open to reason
and prepared to read the cipher of Transcendance. In this
lifelong process not everybody does need the churches’
help but nobody can do without the help of transcendence .
And Alfred Adler, the great psychologist, points out in
his book: ‘The Science of Living’:” now, in the last analy-
sis to have a goal is to aspire to be like God. But to be
like God is of course the ultimate goal, the goal of goals
If we may use the term’.— Then he continues: ‘Educators
should be cautious in attempting to educate themselves
and their children to be like God’... As a matter of fact
we find that the child in his development substitutes a

- more concrete and immediate goal. Children look to the
strongest person in the environment and make him their
mould or their goal’. So far Alfred Adler.

Sticking to these limitating substitutes of God, con-
ceived already in early childhood, we have the idea of
honour as an incomplete premature kind of dignity. But
in last analysis, as Schopenhauer aiid Hans Driesch have
recognized, also honour will be absorbed by dignity, based
on the instinctive or conscious recognition of the Divinity
of soul.

The warning of Alfred Adler to educate oneself and
children to be like God is due to the fact that Western
psychology has, in general, not yet been prepared to exa-
mine the Divine qualities of the Soul. The cause of this
reserve might be found in its separation from religion and
philosophy and in due consequences of its deprivation of
many experiences which eastern psychology, which is only
a particular aspect of religion or philosophy, has in store.
Some of the Western psychologists like, Prof. Dr. Schmal-
tz, Frankfurt, have recognized this shortcoming and as
the title of his book ‘Western Psychology and Eastern
Wisdom’ betrays, tried to amend it Schmaltz is particu-
larly impressed by Buddhism and only relatively recently
he became also acquainted with Jainism by reading Cham-
pat Rai Jain’s book 1 Jain Psychology which constitutes an
attempt from Indian side to combine Eastern Wisdom and
Western Psychology. Jainism deserves a particular interest
as out of all Eastern philosophies, it resembles most to
Western Existencialism, the leading school of philosophy
in France and Germany, only that, as it is not restricted
to a mere rationalistic philosophy, its whole outlook is
broader and more precise. So Champat Rai Jain, based
on the venerable tradition of Jainism, can afford to go a
decisive step further than both, Western philosophy (exis-
tencialism) and Western psychology, than Jaspers and
Adler. He says in his Jain Psychology, 4th. Chapter; ‘The

33

soul is not distinct or separate from its infinite, nil-embra-
cing all comprehending ‘idea*. If they were separate, know-
ledge would be dwelling in it as a man dwells in a house.
But the soul has no vacuum inside it to admit of even
knowledge there as a tenant . And in the 3rd Chapter he
points out *. .every soul possesses potentially knowledge
infinite, that is, unlimited by time and space’ .-Schiller, as
we have already seen has described dignity as expression
of the intelligence in man and of his liberty.

Schiller's conception of diginity, ns rooted in the subli-
me, reflects an appehension of the Divine perfection and
his grace reflects the bliss emanating from a perfect being.
Dignity and grace correspond to two categories of modern
psychology of which they arc a sublimation: intoversion
and extraversion. On a low level the introvert aims at
exterior power and the extravert at exterior pleasure, on a
high level they are aiming at liberty, that is interior power
and at bliss, that is interior happiness. The highest human
expression of dignity is, as we have seen, Majesty and
that of grace is charm. Schiller considers Sainthood as
the highest degree of dignity but is it not likewise the high-
est achievement of grace of charm ? We know partly from
tradition, partly from history that the great Rishis of Ind-
ia’s glorious past, the Tirthankaras, Lord Buddha and in
our time Gandhiji were endowed in abundance with both
these qualities, they were all human patterns of dignity
and grace.

If now, as the perhaps greatest psychologist of the
West, C. G. Jung, has proved, the introvert and the extra-
vert are basic types of humanity, then their sublimations
dignity and grace are the standard virtues as- well for the
East as for the West.

The question arises now how these virtues, which con-
stitute the basis for a West-Eastern humanism affect the
human, inter-relations. Schiller has developed in his essay
'On grace and dignity’ a very elaborate social psychology.

X

32

He -emphasises: 'One requests grace from whom who ob-
liges and dignity from whom, who is obliged’. ‘One should
blame a fault with grace and confess it with dignity’ —
‘If the strong will be loved, then he should mitigate
his superiority by grace’ - Tf the weak will be respected
then he should counterbalance his weakness by dignity.’
‘If dignity and grace have their different fields they
nonetheless do not exejude each other in the same person,
‘It is the grace, from which the dignity receives its creden-
tials and the dignity, from which the grace receives its
value’. ‘Dignity proves everywhere we meet with it a
certain restriction of greed and crude instincts. But if it
is real moral self-determination, which is at work and
not bluntness of sensitivity is only put out of doubt by
the grace connected with it For grace reflects a calm
harmonious sentiment and a sensitive heart’. TLove is
a sentiment which cannot be separated from grace and
beauty’. ‘Love alone is a free sentiment, for its pure
source derives from the seat of freedom from our Divine
nature'.-The dignity impedes that love does not become
a greed. Grace impedes that respect does not become
fear. True beauty and true grace should never excite greed.
True greatness should never excite fear’.

The equilibrium between the two tempers and. the two
cardinal virtues of humanity, between introversion and .
the extraversion, and between dignity and grace,- has been
a state principle in the Far Eastern Countries like China
and Japan; In creating the type : of the Mandarin a syn-
thesis between philosopher, scholar and high official, dis-,
tinguished by the politeness and dignity to his behaviour,
Confucius has shown a deep insight into human nature.
If grace and dignity . as rules of human behaviour in so-
ciety are supplemented by a strong religious feeling, so
that they are becoming more-than rules, but impulses, if
grace is also extended to the mute creature, if both virtues
have, thus matured to Ahimsa, then their influences on the

33

whole sociological structure of human society will be
beneficial and lead to final harmony.

As far as India is concerned her main problem is the
Harijan problem. This problem is, as far as I see, to a
far extend, a psychological problem. Schillers request to
make grace and dignity elements of our social intercourse
is here of greatest importance. Those who arc in power
economically should have the generosity (the grace) to
restitute the honour of manual work. If there are good
inter-re’ a lions between employers and employees and wor-
kers in West Germany, particularly in the Ruhr district,
so due to the old low-rhenish tradition that the patron of
a coalmine or a steel plant should be able and not be
ashamed to do and also to know how to do manual work.

This readiness and capacity of the leading men in
West German Industry to respect manual works gives to
the manual worker the selfrespect and the dignity to feel
themselves as members of society and they claim success-
fully to be treated as such. It is also a good rhenish tra-
dition to avoid words of command. In the manufactures
and big steel plants you will find a continuous work but
no hasty movements betraying fear. Paying thus respect
to the workmen and requesting selfrespcct and dignity,
also in the form of good work, the efficient manager is
often loved by his men and problems of salary are discuss-
ed and solved with a remarkable objectivity.

This mutunbattitude should be the rule all over the
world. As t<i> India the residues of caste-spirit have to be
eliminated and here a collaboration between the two In-
dian religions yvhicli were always opposed to caste spirit
and are based 6n ahimsi, between Buddhism and Jainism,
would be very ifcqportant.

.. frying to sbilve the social problems in our respec-
tive countries we should never forget that the world is to-
day so interconnected that in the long run all social prob-
lems have to -be resolved o n a world wide scale. Here all

religions should collaborate in order to organize all over
the world the elite of the men of good will. Such a colla-
boration should be possible in our days & it was first Aso-
ka, who as his German biographer Fritz Kern points out,
discovered the principle of this collaboration. Asoka dis-
covered that the disagreements did not arise if the realty
essential religious contents were stressed; they derived
only from the, unessential details. This, experience corres-
ponds to a word of Goethe: ‘What is the Holiest ? That,
when it is felt deeper & deeper, unifies us more and more.’

Dignity and grace, as analysed by Schiller, are certain-
ly values, -which the deeper we feel them, the more they
are unifying us, individually ..socially and internationally.
Even such a ‘problem with horns’ as the Harijans problem,
will not resist if we approach it in the right spirit: with
grace and dignity, with love and saintliness-words which
can be. reduced, tp one single word: ' Ahimsg

I remember, well the deep impression which I experien-
ced - at the sight of two monuments of art which seem to
express the two aspects of-ahinsa: the, inner aspect: Maje-
sty and the outer aspect Grace.'. The Gommateswara sta-
tue at Shravana Belgola cannot be surpassed as an expres-
sion of Majesty while from the Dilavsrg temples at Mount
Abu emanates -a Grace which is. difficult to describe by
words. • ■ • . •

as

THOMAS MANN AND JAINISM

Among the Gcrmrin authors of the last decades there
is none who has obtained a greater world-reputation than
Thomas Mann. He hailed from a family of rich merchants
of Lubek, which was traditionally connected with the
public life of that town and a^o of Hamburg, and since
generations also much devoted to art and literature. But
in his own generation this devotion to art and literature,
so deeply ingrained in his family took a creative turn. An
astonishing number of his family-members became nove-
lists. The oldest brother Heinrich was the first who be-
came famous and his most mature work which he left
after his death is his historical novel Henry’ IV. The youn-
gest brother, Victor left, when he died, an excellent auto-
biography, “Wir waren Funf” “(We were Fife)” describing
the history of the family Mann. Klaus Mann, the most
gifted among the sons of Thomas Mann, who, a " a y s
strangely attracted by the secret of death, took unfortu-
nately his life, wrote a remarkable book on An re 1 e
and a novel on Tskaikowsky, the great Russian composer.
Golo Mann the second son is a distinguished historian
whose * German history of the 19th Century is a remar '

able achievement, . ,

The most gifted of the family Mann is however, Tho-
mas, whose great work belongs to world literature. . e
was one of the most outstanding novelists of modem times
and certainly the most universally gifted. He excelled m
so various kinds of novels like the- social, novel, the psy-
chological, the historic and antibiographical and he was
the greatest essayist in German language since Nietzsche.

The most famous of his novels are 'Die The Budden-
brooks,’ 'The Magic Mountain/ 'His Royal Highness/

V 36

Lotte in Weimar 'The Holy Sinner’, The B’ack Swan,’ and
‘Joseph and his Brothers’, 'Dr. Faustus and Felix Krull.
To mention further are his excellent short stories like ‘the
Death at Venice’ or ‘Mario, the magician’. Less known,
but very important in his narrative ‘Interposed Heads’ (The
story of Sita), in which he renarrates an old Indian novel.

One of the most i iteresting figures in this novel is
' Ksmadamana, a great -penitant, quite naked, evidently a
a Digambafa Jain: ’As, he approached the waiting group
he swept the ground before his feet with a broom, which
he had taken from the bank. This, they knew, was in order
not to crush any living creature that might be there’.

When he had to give a decision about such a strange
affair who would be the real husband of Sit?, either Shrf-
. daman or Nanda, after, due to the limitless power of the
terrible DurgT their heads had been changed, he had two
. at first sight quite contradicting sentences: the first, stro-
ngly in favour of Nanda, the son of the Smith, with his
strong arms and body, the second even more strongly in
favour of Shndaman, with the weak body and the fine
head. And the last sentence was valid and definite, as the
head, from a spiritual viewpoint, is more important than
the arms. It seems from this, that Thomas Mann was
quite acquainted with the Aneksntavsda logic of the Jains
which takes into account all possible and even contrasting
view-points.

•The most important essays of Thomas Mann are:
’Goethe and Tolstoi’, ‘Schopenhauer’, ‘Richard Wagner,’
.'Friedrich Nietzsche’ and ‘Sigmund Freud’. Shortly be-
fore he died he wrote some 100 beautiful pages on Fried-
rich Schiller.

Thomas Mann was intellectually at home in the whole'
.western world as- in the East. ; His. creativity seemed to
grow, with his age and only the death could take off the
pen from his ha id. He was great as a writer and great as
character, full of generosity.

37

HERMANN -KRYSBRUNG’S INDIAN TRAVEL
DIARY OF A PHILOSOPHER.

The name ‘Count Kcyfcrlinp* became for the first
time known to many staff me ml vers and students of Pilani,
when, two years ago. Count Arnold and Countess
Wilhclminc Keyscrling paid a visit to Pilani. The elder
generation was in the contrary not only familiar with the
name but also with the book of Hermann Keyserling: 'The
Travel diary of a Philosopher’. Count Arnold, the son of
the author of the Travel Diary' and the Countess live
now and perhaps for years to come in India. Among their
other engagements Count and Countess Keyserling are
teaching Gorman in Calcutta at the Bose Institute and a
result of their practical experience is a book which has
the title: ‘Synopsis of German Grammar’ a-book which
might be very helpful also for our students of German,
at Pilani. Previously they had written a philosophical
work: 'Combinatorics’, which \Vas published by the Birla
Education Trust, Pilani.

In our German Staffmembcr-class we arc now reading
in the German original: ‘The Travel diary of a Philosoph-
er’. It is really thrilling experience to read today these
very subtle observations and philosophical disquisitions,
written in a brilliant style which reflect the sense of form
trained by Flaubert and at least indirectly by the great
German composer Johannes Sebastian Bach, whose music
has, as Albert Schweitzer has shown us, so many traces of
poetry and who, influenced perhaps by certain mystical
elements in Martin Luther’s worldview to which points
Ricarda Huch in her book ‘Luther’s Belief’, stands in the
beginning of the galaxy of the- grcaLGcrman Composers.

It requires in fact a good knowledge of German to be able

to understand a German text which is simultaneously so
interesting and so difficult. The Staff-members Advanced
Class can be congratulated to this achievement

Fortunately there is now an opportunity also for those
who do not speak German to read the Travel Diary. It
has just been published by the Bharatiya Vidys Bhavan
under the title: ‘Indian Travel Diary of a Philosopher'
and contains that portion of the ‘Travel Diary’ which
refers to India.

This book has been published in India just in right
time. India undergoes actually a period of rapid transi-
tion. This book points to the eternal values created by
the Indian genius and shows, what is the true calling of
India. Though written shortly before the outbreak of the
first world war the book has today, when due to the indus-
trial transformation so many traditional values are in dan-
ger, an actuality which is really striking. The Chapter
Benares is of particular importance. Interesting are the
fine remarks on the strange inner relationship between
Indian and Russian religiosity.

The idea to publish the Travel Diary in India was con-
ceived in a talk which I had in 1957 at Nainital with Shri
K. M. Munshi, then Governor of U. P. The book has
already obtained an excellent review in the 'German News’
the bulletin of the German Embassy. The picture of Her-
mann Keyserling, published along with this review, is a
reproduction of pencilsketch by the painter Bhoor Singh
from Pilani who some time back, produced also an excell-
ent oilpainting of Hermann Jacobi, the great Sanskritist
of the University of Bonn, which hangs now in the Cham-
pat Rai Jain room of the Municipal library of Bad
Godesberg.

39

CHAMP AT RAl JAIN AND THE GERMAN

SPIRIT.

There was a colourful personality in German history
of literature of modern timers, whose name iv today almost
forgotten, I am thinking of Houston Steward Chamber-
Jam, who was the son of an English admiral and grandson
*of ficldniarshaU with an Indian past, who was brought up
in France, and came to Germany, when Ire was already 2d
years' old. After a short time he mastered the German
language so well, that he was able to write voluminous
and also remarkable books on ‘Kant’, 'Goethe* and Rich-
ard Wagner, who became his father-in-law, -on 'Christ' and
• at last an autobiography ‘Life ways of My Thought.' with
a very enthusiastic and sincere as well as expert apprecia-
tion of French literature.

He was a man of strong inclinations and disinclina-
tions, capable of love and, alas, also of burning hatred.
As far as his disinclinations are concerned he disliked the
Catholic Church and the Jews— originally perhaps in the
same way as Mr. Minns in Charles Dickens: 'Sketches by
Boz’ disliked dogs and little children.

But if the whims of an average person like Mr. Minns
seem to be relatively harmless -from view-point of Karma,
ofcourse, they can never be really harmlcss-it is different
with those of a man with remarkable gifts, as Chamber-
lain beyond a doubt really was.

• i So his.book: 'Foundations' bf the 19th Century / which
created so much confusion, became the gospel of all kind
of backward and atavistic tendencies. But Chamberlain
exercised also a good influence as it is certified by one of
the greatest humanists and creative minds of our time,
Count Hermann Keyserling. He calls Chamberlain his

'-■40

Late Lamented Shri Champat Rai Jain, Bar-at-Law.
( A Great Jain Philosopher of Twentieth century ).

Minister Uno
Handing over
Oil-painting of
Or. Jacobi to
the Burper-
Mcistcr Hop-
man for ^ 1C
Library.

(In the backgr-
ound h Col.
Sinnh of the
Indian Military
Attachec at
Bonn, (W.

‘ accouncheur spiritueV (liberator of ideas) and expresses
in bis book ‘Men as Symbols’ the opinion, that his friend,
with whom he broke, when whose racial prejudices be-
came evident, was greater as man than as author. It was
Chamberlain, who encouraged the then 24 years old geo-
logist, Count Keyserling, to publish his first philosophi-
cal work: ‘The Structure of the World’, which in a certain
sense was a foundation stone for all his other works.

As to myself Chamberlain’s influence was contradic-
tory. In a good sense which became more and more pre-
vailing-I was influenced by small booklet, titled ‘Arian
Belief', which is a real praise of the Upanishads and betrays
particularly the influence of Paul Deussen.

The reading of this book awakened first my interest in
India and induced me to read Tagore’s ‘Ssdhans’ and the
‘Bhagawat Gtta\ available in the beautiful translation of
the Viennese Indologist Leopold von. Schroeder.

This interest was temporary lost when, during my stay
in France in 1930-31, I came under the spell of the French
rationalists. My adjoining stay in Italy brought other
influences. My intellect was attracted by the Machiavelly
of the 'Principe' as well as by the Machiavelli of the
‘Deche’, but my heart was attracted by the prigioni, of
Silvio Pellico and particularly by the 'Promessi Sposi’ of
Alessandro Manzoni, who in his Don Christoforo has
certainly created one of the finest figures of world-litera-
ture; we have in this masterpiece of Italian prose literature
Christian form of Bhakti Yoga. My stay in Italy was
followed by a half year’s stay in London during the second
half of the year 1932. And here I had for the first time in
my life an opportunity to come into closer contact with
Indians. I came particularly in contact with an Indian
economist, who was a devout Jain. Good patriot, as he
was, he did not approve my reading of the ‘Memoirs of
Lord Roberts,’ whom he considered as a prototype of
British imperialism, not knowing how superficial my

41

X

interest Tor these memoirs already was, due to the reawa-
kening of my interest for Indian philosophy, first engend-
ered by the reading of the mentioned booklet of H. S.
Chamberlain and now provoked again by the psychologi-
cal atmosphere of my London surroundings with its come
and go of Indian students and scholars. Nonetheless my
Jain economist had the good grace to introduce me to his
uncle, Barrister Champat Rai Jain, who impressed me
atoncc by his extraordinary personality uniting the quali-
ties of a prophet with those of a scholar, and the qualities
of a philosopher with those of a man of action, of a mys-
tic with those of a man of the world. I had atoncc the
impression that he was a man of destiny with a great miss-
ion for his people and for the whole humanity. After so
many years which have passed since 1932 this impression
has matured into a firm conviction.

His great importance for India is evident from tire fact
that after the publication of his great work ‘The Key of
Knowledge’ in 1915 lie was honored by Slid Shankarzrchrt-
rya of the Dharma Mali!! Mandala, the most conservative
Brahman organisation of Banaras, the spiritual center of
Hinduism, with the title ‘Vidy^-V-tridhi,’ ‘Ocean of Wis-
dom.’— It seems that the Teal outstanding importance of
this gesture has never been fully understood neither
by the Jains nor by the Hindus in their majority.
If the spiritual successor of the famous Shankars-
chgrya, who in the Indian middle ages was the great
antagonist of Buddhism and Jainism, bestowes a similar
honour upon a Jain scholar, so is this more than a mere
formality. If we consider that Champat Rai Jain was
firmly rooted in the doctrine and tradition of Jainism,
that he was even in 1922 elected at Lucknow as President
of the Digamber Jain Mahasabha and that he never aban-
doned any of the tenets of Jainism, then the logical con-
clusion can only be that the award of the distinguished
title ‘Vidhya Varidhi' means nothing else than a philoso-

42

phical rehabilitation of Jainism. After such a solemn
rehabilitation of their scriptures, as this is implied in this
recognition of- the 'Key of Knowledge,’ the Jains are at
liberty to consider their Shastras, without loss of prestige
and deviation from their tradition and the principle of
truth, as a fifth Veda. — It needs sometimes particular his-
torical situations to bring a similar position into conscious-
ness. The award of the title Vidys-Vgrdhi, is due to its
implications, a gesture of such an importance that even
inspite of the fact that the ‘Key of Knowledge’ is now out
of print— this is certainly not very complimentary for the
enlightenment and the farsightedness of the actual leader-
ship of the Jain Community-it might lead, if interpreted
with broadmindedness and generosity, to a promotion of
the cultural unity of India, whose ideal has always been a
unity in diversity, based on tolerance.

As India due to its old and unbroken tradition is the
spiritual treasure house of humanity any cultural effect,
beneficial to India, will also be beneficial to humanity. In
this sense Champat Rai Jain’s importance for India
implies already his importance for humanity. His particu-
lar importance in our time will become evident from a sur-
vey on the cultural development of Germany, which due to
its geographical situation between Russia and the Western
powers & due to its historical experiences might be consi-
dered, as Hermann Keyserling expressed it in his 'Spectral
Analyse of Europe' as the great laboratorium of humanity.

Humanity is threatened today by mechanism as a result
of technical advance. This is particularly true for Germa-
ny where industrialisation and the heritage of a long mili-
tary past worked together to this issue. Man was consi-
dered more and more as a mere cog in a machine and was
evaluated only according to his professional efficiency.
This principle has lead to great achievements in Science
and Engineering. This does not mean that the old Ger-
many of spirituality was out of existence. The 19th and

43

20th Century was marked in Germany also by the advent
of great musicians like Richard Wagner and in our days
Carl Orff, by a dramatist like Gerhard Hauptmann, by
novelists like Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse and a
poet like Rilke. But these great representatives of German
culture did not determine the inner life of the nation to
the extent as this did the great classics of German litcra-
tcurs Goethe and Schiller. It seemed much more that the
scales of the balance were in an equilibrium. Today there
is only one alternative: either materialism in its nude form
or in its many disguises, will become victorious, or the
German nation-this is the only way left-will turn to an
idealistic Tealism, the tenets of which correspond as well
to the achievements of science as to the German tradition
of spirituality.

The right way can only be this one, which corresponds
most to the true genius of the German people. And here
there are three great events in the cultural history of Ger-
mans, which have also affected to a large extent the cul-
tural consciousness of the whole humanity. There are
three discoveries in the cultural field which had not the
quick effect which have usually the discoveries and inven-
tions in the material field like i. e. the invention of the
steam engine or the discovery of the atomic power, but
which as they affect the inner man, might one day prove
even more effective. And as discoveries in the cultural
field arc much less casual than those in the material sphe-
re, as they generally correspond to our own unconscious
longings and cravings, these three great discoveries might
supply us the correct information about the right way for
which we have to decide now without further delay.

The first discovery was that of ancient Greece, which
might be divided into two phases: The discovery of the
appolloniah Greece, the Greece of clearness, harmony,
temperation and intellectual beauty, connected with the
name of Joachim Winkelmann (The Art and Culture of

44

the Ancient Greeks) and the discovery of the Dyonysian
Greece. The Greece of passion and emotion, connected
with the name of Friedrich Nietzsche, (The Birth of the
Tragedy), whose emphasis on the unconscious and sub-
conscious was already preceded by Schopenhauer.

The discovery of the appollonian Greece establishes
partly already a contact with Ancient India in so far as
the Buddhist Gandhara School was already to a far extent
influenced by Greek art. And the discovery of the Dyony-
sian Greece, representing the emotional side of man hel-
ped to create and to stimulate modem psycho-analysis,
which with its stress on introspection might bring the
modem thought in a closer contact with the mystic of past
and present days and its great relative, the Indian Yoga.

So the whole discovery of Ancient Greece, was already
a discovery of Ancient India which might also be divided
in two parts. The discovery of the Arian India connected
with Max Muller and Paul Deussen and the discovery of
the pre-Arian India connected with the names Hermann
Jacobi, Heinrich Zimmer, Willibald Kirfel and Walter
Schubring. The discovery of the arian India had a great
resonnance in Germany and the Bhagavadgita was hailed
with enthusiasm. A book like that of the elder Heinrich
Zimmer ‘Eternal India’ made a deep impression on the
German Intelligence.

The discovery of the prearian India, which is almost
identical with the discovery of Jainism has not yet obtain-
ed, the publicity of the first one, that of the arian India.

But it carries along with it so much enlightenment for
all sections of human knowledge and provides such a pro-
found insight into human nature that in the long run it
cannot fail to impress the best parts of humanity.

The same might be said of the third discover}': that of
the cultural identity of the ancient Orient with the ancient
Occident. Here again we can apply a subdivision into two
parts. The first part concerns the close original relation-

45

ship of philosophical Si religious ideas. Here the books of
C. R. Jain ‘The Key of Knowlegch of Dr. Radha Krishnan
‘Western Thought and Eastern Religion’ and of Reno
Grousset: 'L’homone et son histoirc: 'Man' and liis his-
tory’ are very enlightening. The researches of Prof. Kirfcl-
scc his essay ‘The Prehistoric settlement of India’-supplics
most valuable details. The second part concerns the
ethnological relationship between the Indians and the
peoples belonging to the mediteranean branch of the
European peoples. These interrelations have been particu-
larly established by Baron Egon von. Eickstedt.

This discovery of the cultural identity of the ancient
Orient with the ancient Occident takes all arguments from
those who pretend like Rudolf Steiner that there is an un-
bridgeable ‘West-Eastern World-Antagonism’ and creates
the psychological conditions for a West-Eastern cultural
collaboration, which might one day lead to a reestablish-
ment of this old )Vorld Unity, putting an end to the cul-
tural anarchy into which humanity has sunk.

The fact that these three discoveries that of Ancient
Greece, from where issued the Mediterranean & European,
culture, that of India, the motherland of Asiatic culture,
to which the previous was only a preparation and that of
the cultural identity of the ancient Orient with the ancie-
. nt Occident have been made particularly by Germans im-
plies the important conclusion that first the attitude which
is most natural to the German genius is that of a world
citizenship as it has been conceived by our classics Goe-
the, Schiller and Jean Paul and that 2nd that there is a
close spiritual relationship between Germany and India.

The facts foreshadow the nature of the next Id isco very.
This fourth discovery will be the discovery of the cultural
Germany itself and as the discovery of the Indian culture
has been performed from the German platform so that of
the German Culture leading to a new understanding and
appreciation of our classics, will be performed from the

Indian platform.

If for instance we compare Goethe’s 'Faust with the
Tattwartha Sutra of Umiswati (see my essay in this book),
the whole structure and content of this masterpiece of
Goethe will be quite easily understood and appear in a
clearness worthy of the author who has been called the
last Greek. Margaret appears then as a symbol of Right
Belief in its initial stage and Helena, who stands also for
intellectual beauty, symbolizes Right Knowledge and Faust
in his inner development increasingly influenced by Right
Belief and Right Knowledge symbolizes Right action lea-
ding in the end to redemption. God-Father represents the
symbolum of love in its two forms: creation and conserva-
tion, in which he goes so far to tolerate even Mephisto, the
principle of eternal negation & to use him for good ends.

Indian philosophy sheds also a new light on the philo-
sophy of Friedrich Schiller, (see the 2nd chapter: The two
psychological basic principles). His conception of dignity
rooted in the sublime and expression of the Divine in man
combines already Right Belief and Right Knowledge and
his grace is perhaps the most subtle form of Right action.

In the same way, as the interpretation of literature in
the light of Indian philosophy is bound to reveal its hidden
philosophical and religious treasures so also a similar in-
terpretation of Christianity might lead to a religious ren-
aissance. There is actually a great danger deriving from
the rising tide of materialism. And the great temptation
of the church is to take up a competition with materiali-
sm on the same level of thought and to admit an materi-
alistical interpretation of the Bible in the spirit of 19th
century rationalism. Typical for this attitude is a book of
Werner Keller: ‘Die Bibel hat doch recht’ ‘After all the
Bible is right’. Our apologists in the spirit of the 19th
century rationalism should keep in mind that already an
apology based on the l.Sth. century rationalism has proved
to be a failure and that a similar interpretation is contra-

47

dictory to the words of Christ, who said that spiritual
things have to be spiritually conceived and of whom it is
said that he did not speak to them (the Jews) without
parables. Instead of searching support from the materia-
lists in a direct or indirect way the Christian churches
would be better advised if they would collaborate with
the spiritualists. Hc^re the works of Champat Rai Jain
deserve greatest attention by alt sincere Christians. Based
on the Antcnicine Christian fathers he comes to the con-
clusion that there is a close kinship between Christianity
and Jainism, nay that there is an inner relationship bet-
ween all great religions in the world which lias found its
particular expression in the writings of the great mystics
of all countries and of all ages.

When Champat Rai Jain wrote his main works: ‘The
Key of Knowledge’, ‘Confluence of Opposites', ‘Jainism,
Christianity and Science’, ‘The Gems of Islam', the results
of modem psychological investigation performed by the
great Swiss psychologist C. G. Jung, were still quite un-
developed or little known. Today it would be possible to
explain the strange similarities and identities between the
esoteric teachings of all great rciigions-C. R. Jain has sub-
jected all of them to a detailed analysis-by that what has
been called by C. G. Jung archc-types and from there to
conclude to their cosmical reality. The works of C. R. Jain
are such an important integration of this discovery of the
archc types that they deserve the full attention of C. G.
Jung & his followers. On the other hand the Jain scholars
should pay greatest attention to the psychological discove-
ries of the great Swiss scholar. A similar co-operation
would create a new and stable basis for all those who are
opposed to materialism in its theoretical and vulgar form.

The reading of the works of C. R. Jain is also a plea-
sure from the literary point of view. C. R. Jain was a real
master in the representation of most difficult thought with
a clearness that every one not quite devoid of logic could

48

easily follow. And the fire of enthusiasm, bestowing an
inner warmth to his exposition, was the more, effective as
it always went along with noble objectivity and most de-
licate tactfulness; And behind this style one feels a per-
sonality of an uncommon moral and intellectual size. His
strong character manifested itself in fact already in his
early youth. When he was 9 years old ' it happened that
for some reason the teacher spanked the whole class. And
also C. R. Jain was not spared. His reaction to the span-
king was very characteristic. He stopped to go to school
and when after 5 days the teacher came to his house and
asked him in presence of his parents why he did not come
to school he answered; 'You have taught me a lesson
which I am not willing to learn'. Then the teacher tried
another method. He told him in a tone of soft reproach:
'Why have you become like other boys?' and now he was
successful. The strong feeling of honour of the boy was
satisfied by the compliment implied in the reproach. He
started again to go to school but the teacher never dared
again to spank him. There is some aristocratic feeling, so
characteristic for the later C. R. Jain, already developed in
the boy. To this inborn aristocracy in the best sense of
the word C. R. Jain owes perhaps the suggestivity and
noble rhythm of his style. Another characterisitc feature
of C. R. Jain was the originality of his thought. He never
took a thing for granted before he had tested it. Being a
Jain by birth he had to become a Jain by faith by his own
effort. And this gives his style the whole freshness of an
immediate religious experience. A sense of originality is
always related to a sense of reality. And this sense, which
was perhaps inborn to C. R. Jain, was still enhanced by a
strange experience he had when he was 32years old. An
astrologer predicted him that he would live only 20 years
more. This prediction was quite wrong but it made a pro-
found impression on him. By this prediction his strong
imagination came in touch with the great reality of death.

JQ

He learned to face it in his thought*. And from thence
his whole life was a preparation for death.

l ie started to study all great religions or the world in
order to I ind out how they were facing death and the
icsuli of his researches has been laid down in his numer-
ous works, the most important of which are 'The Key of
Knowledge’ and the 'Confluence of Opposites’, All these
books have the mark of their authors acquaintance with
the two greatest realities in life; Death and Love, the
eternal triumphant over death.

All these qualities, as well as, the quantity ofhis books
are expression of a seemingly boundless and unrelenting
energy. Energy can never be detached from emotion. Al-
ready Spinoza recognised that emotion can only be over-
come by another emotion. So energy or will power is the
art to stress one single emotion. This is very evident in
the case of C. R. Jain. The profound religious emotion
which he experienced at a pilgrimage to the Pnrasnnth-hill
in Bihar, from where 21 Tirthankaras obtained liberation,
enabled him to give up from one day to the other the habit

of smoking; previously he used to smoke about 20 cigars
a day.

For the German reader C. R. Jain’s books have still a
particular attraction. They are full of references to Ger-
man philosophers with whom he was as much acquainted
as with French philosophers like Henry Bergson. Their
importance for Germany consists in two different effects.
As far as they reflect the strong personality of the author
they might lead in this age of mechanisation to a new
appreciation of personality and of moral values - in public
life. How much C. R. Jain was concerned with this be-
comes evident from his four rules of conduct for journalis-
ts* He requested that a journalist should stress and culti-
vate 1st. friendship, 2nd. veneration for scholars and sava-
nts, 3rd, compassion for those who are miserable and 4th.
neutrality towards those . who are against him. The

50

journalist should exercise and teach devotion, veneration,
compassion and objectivity, at the right place, an objecti-
vity which is not the outcome of mere calculation, unfor-
tunately so much spread in the west, but the expression of
an inner equilibrium, the mark of real distinction and
nobility.

Considered from their religious contents the books of
C. R. Jain might lead our people to rediscover its true
religious self which is expressed in the philosophy of the
Christian mystics like Meister Eckhart, Suso and Angelus
Silesius as well as by the philosophy of our great classics
Schiller and Goethe. This would be the very crown of its
own rediscovery from the Indian platform. The propaga-
tion of C. R. Jain's works in Germany would lead to a
greater stabilisation of our cultural life the superficiality &
irritability of which was marked by the exaggerated atten-
tion to and evaluation of books like that of the French-
man Gobineau about the ‘Unequality of races’ and Hous-
ton Stewart Chamberlain’s: ‘Foundations of the 19th Cen-
tury,’ while the first’s colourful book on the Renaissance
and his charming ‘Nouvelies Asiatiques' and the latter’s
works on Kant and Goethe and his book on Christ have
always been less known than they merited.

Champat Rai Jain’s intention to stay for a longer
time in Germany, which, great traveller as he was-besides
England, France and Italy he had travelled in the Skandi-
navian countries, America and Palestine-he knew only
from a short visit, duringhrihkhjie^was guest of Professor
v. Glasenapp, in Berlin -outbreak" unrealisable due to the
out was-break of world War II and his premature death •%
in 1942.^1 his Memory the Champat Rai Jain library at
Bad Godesberg has been established, located due to the
generous initiative of Herr Hopmann, the Mayor of Bad
Godesberg in a particular room of the Municipal Library.
May the day arrive that its bookshelves will also contain
the works of C. R. Jain in German language.

p/7

51

\

FRANCE SEEN FROM
THE INDIAN PLATFORM

THE FRENCH-GERMAN INTERRELATIONS
IN THEIR EUROPEAN AND
INTERCONTINENTAL CONTEXT

‘ Les Idees Politiques de Jean Paul'.

• An article under this heading, the French original of
which is given as appejdix to this book, was written shortly
after my release' from Russian captivity of war, which last-
ed for almost 6 years. It was a fortnight before Christmas
19.49 when I crossed with other co-prisoners the border
between Poland and East Germany. I had lost everything.
My only possession was my uniform of a prisoner of war,
one of the last batch, which was then released. In those
days I learnt to appreciate the generosity of my people. In
the German reception-camp at Helmsted (Low Saxony) I
had received a small amount of pocket-money. But till I
had reached Godesberg, where I was bound to meet my
aged mother, there was everywhere a noble competition to
help me and to advise me. When I was about to pay the
railway-fare some unknown person, who remained incog-
nito, had already paid it. If I wanted to pay my expenses
in the waiting room, this happened at several railway-sta-
tions, I was told that the amount was already paid by
someone. On the streets at Godesberg I was stopped again
by quite unknown people, offering me compassionately, at
the sight of my uniform of a prisoner of war, food, money
all imaginable kinds of help. It required sometimes a lot
of tact to refuse so many wellmeant offers.

The new realities of life did not hesitate to present
themselves after about 7 years camp life as soldier or pris-
oner, when I had changed my dress and was to wear civi-
lian clothes. The most urgent problem was to find an

55

employment. My profession was that of a journalist. But,
as with the lost war the number of newspapers had dwind-
led down, it was quite a hopeless enterprise to look for a
job as editor. The idea came to me that I should try to
use my knowledge of the French language, which, even in
Russian captivity I had an opportunity to cultivate, parti-
cularly due to the kindness of a co-prisoner, a young Fren-
ch graduate from the Sorbonne, Maurice Hber, who as an
Alsacian han been conscribed for the Germany army. He
should never return to his country. I lost sight of him
when he was transferred to another camp; his brother
informed me later that he had not survived captivity. As
an Alsacian he had a predilection for a catholic writer who
was his countrymen, a Benedictine monk whose pscudony-
me was Pierre L’ Hermitc, now a high octanogarian, but
still creative as writer. And some novels of this author
were the first French books which I read after my
repatriation.

Looking for a job I remembered that my contact with
French people had generally been quite happy. Even the
time of occupation after the first world war, did not leave
any disagreeable impression. A French tank-officer from
Nancy- he was in his private life a lawyer, M. Louis Cor-
bier, whom we children called ‘Monsieur Loulou’ took
quarter in our house and aquired the particular esteem of
my father for the extreme delicacy with which he respected
his national sentiments. And then I had my experience
from my time in France during the years 1930 and 31, I
remember well that good French landlady of mine Mada-
me Mauvillier, Besancon, rue Charles Nodicr, who had lost
one of her sons in war and who used to call me with a
typical French expansivencss of feeling ‘mon petit fils ' , my
little son. Now a second war had shaken the world and
again France and Germany had faced each other as enemi-
es. How difficult would it be to restore friendly relations
after the experience of two wars !• Apart from all material

56

considerations my aim to do work in the French High
Commission, was strongly stimulated by a deep desire to
contribute to repair by services the damages of war and to
overcome in the limited surroundings of my activities which
•I hoped to be entrusted with the natural feelings of resent-
ment and distrust. I succeeded in my efforts.

I was employed first as secretary in the Bureau d’ am eu-
blement at Bad Godesberg, then as translator in the Sec-
tion d' Agriculture (Agricultural Section) and finally in the
same quality in the Bureau des Organismes de Zone, at
Bad Neuenahr, the central office for the administration of
the French enterprises in the Zone of Occupation, where I
had to translate juridical texts from German into French.
At the same time I wrote articilesforthe official press Organ
of the French High Commission 'Realites Allemandes'.
The article ‘ Les Idees PoHtiques de Jean Paul ' which was
published in the issue of November-December 1950 had
certainly contributed to create a feeling of sympathy and
understanding. As it deals with the French and German
relations not only in an European but even in an inter-
continental frame, it might well serve as an introduction to
. this second part of the book. In reproducing the text as an
appendix to this book it was for technical reasons not po-
ssible to take account of the French accents, a deficiency
for which the indulgence of the readers is implored.

Hie quintessence of the reproduced article is this: Johann
Paul-Friedrich Richter, alias Jean Paul 1768-1 S25-5s
one of the great German writers who have almost remained
unknown abroad. His very individual but picturesque
and musical style which offers already enough difficulties to
the German reader makes a translation of his works into
a foreign language very difficult. Nevertheless it is not use-
less to read him even now as we can learn much from him.

As a txm u gentilhomme de lettres' he prefers the heart
tothecold reason ( raison raisanantc ) Gifted: with a strong
intuition he followed as man and as poet the call of his.

57

heart. This docs not mean that he took no interest in the
events of his time. On the contrary, his heart pave to his
interest a deep human touch. His political ideas have
found their expression in the Palitischc Fastenpredifiten
(‘political fasting sermons'), Fricdcnsvrcdipi an Deutsch-
land (Peace sermon for Germany) and the Dainmerunficn.
He thinks that one day the armaments would become
too heavy a burden for the different nations, compelling
them to replace the armed peace through a superstate
(world state) which Henry IV, whom he considers as
the noblest of the French kings, had already desired.
Jean Paul recommends the replacement of the anarchy
of nations by Jarge continental and intercontinental orga-
nisations and implores in this sense Ncpolcon, his contem-
porary, to achieve by means of science the unification of
Europe. In the frame of European politics Jean Paul lays
greatest stress on the German-French relations. He desires
a patriotism which is purified from all kinds of 'chauvinism .
What is the natural platform, so he asks, in his peace ser-
mon , of a German patriotism ? 'The quality of the Ger-
man/ so he says, ‘must be based on faithfulness and hone-
sty. Our love of liberty is nothing else than love of hone-
sty. As long as this virtue is alive, we will hate slavery and
love our country.’ He thinks that a French-German un-
derstanding should have its roots in a sincere love of hu-
manity. He wants that certain qualities which he observes
among the French should by education also be developed
in Germany: like their delicate sentiment of personal and
patriotic honour, their cautiousness, their gaiety and their
resolution’ —But how strong his interest in the German-
French relations might be, he secs them never apart from
the Great European and World problems.

5S

HERMANN KEYSERLING’S INTERPRETATION

OF THE FRENCH ‘RAISON’ IN THE LIGHT
OF JAIN PHILOSOPHY.

In his book ‘Recovery of Faith 1 at the end of Chapter
‘The Need for Belief’, Dr. Radhakrishnan points out:
‘We need a philosophy, a direction, and a hope if the
present state of indecision is not to lead us to chaos. The
agitation of minds, all eager for light, suggests that we
may be on the boundaries of a new life. We are in search
of a religious message that is distinctive, universally valid,
sufficient and authoritative, one that has an understand-
ing of the fresh sense of truth and the awakened social
passion which are the prominent characteristics of the
religious situation today.'

It is the same sense that Champat Rai Jain, the pro-
foundest exponent of Jain philosophy in modem times,
writes in the first chapter of his Confluence of Opposites :
'Comparative Religion is a science. It is that department
of rational knowledge which seeks to ascertain the views
of different religions to reconcile their teachings to one
another,, collecting, sorting and interpreting ancient lore
to great truth. It proceeds upon a policy of criticism that
is constructive in its ultimate nature, is so far, atleast, as
it seeks to find out the element of truth behind every' form
of belief, though, naturally, a great deal of destructive
work is to be performed in the beginning to get rid of the
cobwebs of superstition & error adhering to diverse faith.'

We have in these words a fervency for rationalism which
in a similar way we find only in French philosophy. In
our days the question arises, if this French rationalism and
religion could be united as they form one great unit in
Indian thought, in other words if there is a higher form of

59

■X

French rationalism which surpasses iTu limits of

human thought. A very important answer to t question
gives Count Hermann Kcyscrling in his “Buck : >n\ Urs-
prung” (To the sources of life.)

We read here:

“Among the words still alive, which incarnate the
European tradition tracing back to a itiquity, the French
word raison corresponds most to reality. The word con-
fuses as much as it hypostasizes a function, but the con-
fusion of those who arc not capable of understanding can-
not be avoided, if nouns arc used at all; also contempla-
tion, conception, sense and so on, mean if misunderstood
in the same sense a deceit. But the French word raison is
already due to the uncertainty of the limits of that what
it implies, something very difficult to hypostasize; not
less so than the German Vernunft or the Greek Nous.”

Kcyscrling continues: “It implies simply the totality
and the essence of that what is rationally understandable
and explainable, what becomes by clarification more lum-
inous and simultaneously more real, from the realm of
commonsense to the totality of enlightened experience up-
to intuition, and all this on the basis of the concretily un-
derstanding personal subject; so it means essentially not
an algorithm, no artificiality. If the raison refers to some-
thing superhuman, then it is considered as an attribute
of the Divine substance. The more profound thinkers
among the Greeks conceived it in the same way. The
correctness of our definition seems to me to be proved
by the fact that the rationalistical Greek has a particularly
small understanding of technics in the sense of utility and
the same is true-in our modem world-for the 'raison
obsessed 1 French. The luddite francaise means enlighten-
ment and self-illumination in contrast to the inclusion,
with help of abstraction, of an unperceivable concrete rea-
lity into sharply defined but not more perceivable con-
ceptions, the prototype of which is the as . such senseless

60

mathematical equation.”

If we use this passage as a key, we discover in fact
a common basis between Descartes, Voltaire, the rational-
ists in the narrower sense of the word and Pascal (the rea-
sons of the heart) and Bergson (the conscious use of in-
tuition as a medium of knowledge) who might be taken
according to Keyserling’s definition as rationalists in a
larger sense, as they consider intuition as a means to reco-
gnise reality, four thinkers who have exercised the greatest
influence on French thought

With regard to Descartes, Felicien Challaye gives an
impressive example in his book ‘Les philosophes del'Indeh
In the chapter ‘The main representatives of the Brahma-
nic schools’ Challaye points out: ‘The substancial reality
of purusha is, as in the Vaisheshika, proved by a kind of
intuition which one has compared with the Cogito of Des-
cartes (Cogito ergo sum, T think, so I am.’) According to
Vijfiabhiksu ‘The existence of the soul is established by
the idea: T know.'

This conception we find also in Voltaire. This is evident
from his story of the Good Brahmin to which Will Durant
who is along with Northrop one of the greatest champions
of an understanding between East & West in the realm of
American Philosophy, refers in ‘The Story of Philosophy.'

Die good old Brahmin says, ‘I wish I had never been
bom’-And now the story (see Will Durant; ‘The Story of
Philosophy' Chapter Voltaire pp 233-34) runs: Why so?'
said I. ‘Because,’ he replied, ‘I have been studying these
forty years, and I find that it has been so much time lost. .

I believe that I am composed of matter, but I have never
been able to satisfy myself what it is that produces thou-
ght. I am even ignorant whether my understanding is a
simple faculty like that of walking or digesting, or if I
think with my head in the same manner as I take hold of
a thing with my hands . . I talk a great deal and when I
have done speaking I remain confounded and ashamed of

61

what 1 have said.'

/ ‘The same day I had a conversation with an old wo-
man, his neighbour. I asked her if she had ever been un-
happy for notunderstauding how her soul was made? She
did not even comprehend my question. Site had not, for
the briefest moment in her life, had a thought about these
subjects with which the good Brahmin had so tormented
himself. She believed in the bottom of her heart in the
metamorphoses of Vishnu, and provided she could get
some of the sacred water of the Gang;! in which to make
her ablutions, she thought herself tlie happiest of women.
Struck with the happiness of this poor creature, I return-
ed to my philosopher, whom I thus addressed:

‘Are you not ashamed to be thus miserable when not
fifty yards from you is an old automaton who thinks of
nothing and lives contented T

■** ‘You are right’, he replied, T have said to myself a
thousand times that I should be happy if I were but as
ignorant as my old neighbor; and yet it is a happiness
which I do not desire/

'This reply of the Brahmin made a greater impression
on me than anything else that had passed.'

We find here the difference of a happiness on, a low
level-the lowest would be the mere satisfaction of bodily
instincts-and on a high level which is most difficult to
obtain, but after which the good Brahmin is striving.

This importance of Knowledge as a proof of our spiri-
tual-existence is also stressed by Pascal: In his Pensees
pp 397-398 he emphasizes: ‘Man is only a reed the weake-
st in nature-but he is a thinking reed. It is not necessary
for an entire universe to arm itself to crush him, avapour-
a; drop of water is enough to kill him. But, even if the
universe crushed him, man would still be more noble than
that what kills him, because he knows he is dying, and
knows the advantage which the universe has over him
while the universe knows nothing of it all.’

'■ For Bergson- Knowledge or Consciousness-scsms"pro*
portionate to.- the living being’s power of choice. It lights
up the zone of potentiality that surrounds the act. It fills
up the interval between what is done and what might be
. done.’ in reality’, Bergson says, 'a living being is a center
of action; it represents a sum of contingency entering into
the world; that is to say, a certain quantity of possible
action’. So man, is for Bergson not a passively adapting
machine; he is a ‘focus of redirected force, a center of
creative evolution.’

Life is, so interpretes .Will Durant, the French philoso-
pher, that which makes efforts, which pushes . upwards
and outwards, and on: ; ‘always and always the procreant
urge of the world,’ This persistently creative life, of which
.every individual and every species is an experiment, is
what we mean by God. God and Life are one. ' But this
God is finite, not omnipotent, — 'limited by .matter, and
overcoming its inertia painfully.’ . . ‘Our struggles and our
. sufferings, our ambitions and our defeats, our yearnings
to the better and stronger, than we are. are the voice and
the current of the ‘ Elan Vital' in us, that vital urge which
makes us grow, and transforms this wandering planet into
a theater of unending creations’.

Bergson’s attack on the materialistic mechanism has
been very effective and has been much appreciated also in
Eastern countries. So Champat Rai Jain was a great ad-
mirer of Bergson. And I still remember the enthusiasm of
my friend Ngugen Ba Kuong, a young Anamit Student,
whith whom I passed the year 1931 at Besancon, when he
spoke, about Bergson, who appeared to him almost as an
Eastern philosopher. But by all what is' ‘Eastern’ in Ber-
gson, his philosophy is lacking a final scope and this lack
is also the reason for his misinterpretation of Indian philo-
sophy. ‘We must get beyond both points of view-mecha-
nisms and finalisms-as being, at bottom, only standpoints
to which the human mind has been led by considering the

- work of men.’ He speaks in tins context of an inverted
mechanism, a fatalism as destructive of human initiative
and creative evolution as the sombre surrender of Hindu
thought to India’s heat.’

There is an clement of unrest in the world conception
of Bergson which, it seems, docs not allow him to consi-
der a finalism in the sense of redemption otherwise than
as a static condition, which leads him to put it in a line
with mechanism. This unrest has much in common with
the conventional ‘Faustian* spirit, which is of course a
-conventional misconception, as in Goethe's Faust, as poin-
ted out in 'Goethe’s Faust and Tattw.rrtha Sutra’ the rede-
mption of Faust is an integral part of Goethe's Drama.
Certainly it is the condition of absolute liberty and full
bliss, sat-chitdnanda, something which cannot be measu-
red with human conceptions like static or dynamic.

This state of absolute liberty, a synonym for absolute
interior power, which is the real power, of absolute know-
ledge, omniscience, and of full bliss as a necessary coroll-
ary to Bergson’s ‘creation continue’ (continuous creation)
and the proper scope of the ‘c/an vital' is aptly described
in Champat Rai Jain’s book: ‘Faith, Knowledge and Con-
duct’ under the heading omnisccncc. We read here: —

“The one huge idea which is characteristic of the soul
substance is infinite in respect of its contents. It represen-
ts all things of all times and places. This is so because
things are only known through the response of conscious-
ness to the incoming stimulous. Further, since the soul is
a substance and since the attributes and properties of subs-
tances are the same in all cases, therefore, all souls have
t e same capacity in respect of knowledge. Hence what
one soul knows can be known by all others. This is really
an amount to saying that every soul has the capacity to
w f s known to any of the souls in the past,
a » hat which is known to any one today-and also that
w 10 s hall ever be known to any one in the future. In

64

other words, every soul possesses, potentially knowledge
infinite, that is, unlimited by time and space. In plain
language, every soul is potentially omniscient”

This is essentially what, according to Hermann Keyser-
ling is implied in the French word raison. ‘It implies,’ so
he writes, as mentioned above, 'simply the totality and the
essence of that what is rationally understandable and ex-
plainable, what becomes by clarification more luminous
and simultaneously more real, from the realm of common-
sense to the totality of enlightened experience upto intui-
tion, and all this on the base of the concretely understan-
ding personal subject’

This inner relationship between the French conception
of raison and Jain philosophy proves again that, Truth
conceived in its very depth, is always one. But this depth
is so immense and unmeasurable that it requires the whole
variety of human arts and forms of expression to approa-
ch it. And here the keen aestethic sense of the French is at
home. The French are particularly brilliant in literature.
And the French raison has found an expression of highest
literary value in the works of the great French Indologists
and philosophers, who have been attracted by Indian phi-
losophy like, to mention some of the modern writers, Feli-
cien Challaye, Louis Renou, Rene Grousset and Jean Her-
bert. These writers distinguish themselves by their pro-
found understanding of Indian philosophy as well as by
the brilliance of their exposition. And it is perhaps in
their works that the ‘raison' has found its highest expre-
ssion as it is here set free from all narrowness-and shines
in its very essence.

65

NON-AfcSOLUtlSM AS BRIDGE BETWEEN COM-
MONSENSE AND MYSTIC EXPERIENCES-FRENCH
RATIONALISM AS SKEPTICISM AND RELIGION.

British Liberalism seems to have a similar destiny as
Buddhism and Jainism in India. The time has gone, when
it could form a Government; it is now the professed creed
of a small minority as Buddhism and Jainism are in India
from where the former has almost disappeared. But, as it
was the ease with Buddhism and Jainism in India, its
shrinking to a numerical minority meant already a victory,
as its main tenets have been accepted and absorbed as
well by Conservatives as by Labourisls.-It can be said to-
.day that due to this it has been possible to transform the
British Empire in a Commonwealth. One of the first and
certainly greatest Commonwealth Builders was-perhaps
along withMacauly, inspitc of the prejudices to which this
great historian was subjcctcd-he was absolutely devoid
of any understanding for Indian eulture-the father of the
.theoretical Liberalism, John Stuart Mill, whose work: 'On
Liberty’ is still, today the charter of the free world and
created the intellectual platform for great politicians like
Atlee and Lord Mountbatten, who recognized in right time
the necessity to render freedom to India.

To this liberalism corresponded beautifully the Indian
tradition of religious and philosophical tolerance, which is
already rooted in the Indian systems of. logic, which are,
according to the view of a great French Indologist Jean
Herbert, more subtle than European logic, based on
Aristotle.

This is particularly true of Jain logic, the system of
non-Absolutism, of Anekuntavada, of many-sideness,
which has reached its highest development in the Sapta

Bhanga (The Seven predicaments). This system of aneka-
ntavuda had in India the same effect as Liberalism in
England, as has been particularly pointed out by Saletore
in his work ‘Mediaeval Jainism'. But the finest flower of
this system; Sap* a Bhanga , is with regard to its real mean-
ing and importance still almost unknown. There was re-
latively recently in 1954, one great attempt to reveal its
real meaning, undertaken by S. Mookerjee in his book:
‘ The Jain Philosophy of Non-Absolutism'. But this atte-
mpt was on a merely logical basis. And the Sapta Bhanga,
is as we shall see, much more than a mere system of logic.
It is in fact a complete synthetical system of thought and
of Yoga, based on the most subtle psychology.

Let us consider the Bhangas , one after the other: There
we have first:

1. A Thing is; in a certain context. This statement corr-
esponds to a philosophical realism or even materialism. It
does also justice to the common-sense view point, without
which no action would be possible.

2. A thing Is not; in a certain context That means, no-
thing can, from the real viewpoint, as distinguished from
the mere practical view-point, be isolated; the very fact,
that a thing has limits-we recognize it in fact as a distin-
guished object only by its very limits-proves that it is bor-
dered by other things, visible or invisible as, i.e. air, ether,
or space, which is, according to Jainism, a substance, con-
sisting of mathematical points. This leads us to a view of
the whole universe as a Great Unit. This philosophy has
a pantheistic, but still materialistical character.

3. A thing is and is not. In a certain context. Wc have
here combination between the rcalistical common-sense
view-point, which could also be termed, atomistic and
pantheism.

4. A thing Is unexpresslble In a certain context. We have
a philosophical scepticism, which precedes, to certain ex-
tent, that of Montaigne (Que sais jo) and of Kant or the

67

great Buddhist philosopher Nagsrjuna. But the word in-
expressible docs not imply that a thing is not knowablc.
On the contrary the word incxpresiblc presupposes that I
know something, which cannot be expressed. A material
thing, which has according to the Biblical expression ‘num-
ber, measure & weight’, can always be expressed, be it even
by a mathematical formula. Only something ‘spiritual' is
uncxpressiblc. The Bkanga: "a thing is u inexpressible”
from a certain aspect corresponds to the World-conception
of idealism. This world conception, as a non-matcrialistic
world-conception, implies the recognition o r intuition.fwhich
according to Hermann JCeyserling means first and last to
perceive a whole from one’s own whole, without intermedia-
tion and to polarize one’s own originality ('immediate be-
ing with a foreign originality’), as a medium ofknowledgc.

5. A thing Is ond Is uncxpressiblc; In a certain context.
We have here a combination of realism, and idealism).
That is not a contradiction, if wc consider with Jainism the
Universe as dualistic or with Goethe as subjected to
the law of polarity. But the more fact, that a thing is recog-
nizible, that recognizibility is one of its qualities, puts it
into relation to the spiritual reality. It is a subject (spirit-
object (non-spirit) relation and implies an aristocratic bend
in the structure of the Universe.

6. A thing Is not and Is unexpresslble ; In a certain context.
This statement implies a pantheism on idealistic basis.

7. A thing Is and Is not and Is unxhresslble; in a certain
context. Here we have a great synthesis of combined ato-
mistic materialism and pantheistic materialism on the one
side and idealism in all its varieties on the other side. All
possible world- conceptions are included in this statement,
which implies all previous statements, which keep all their
separate validity; it is the final result based on the previous
statements. We have also here, as the 7th Bhanga is still
an abstraction, the addition, ‘in a certain context . Only
those who have obtained kevaljnana (omniscience), have

68

the capacity of full vision: to see the whole along with the
concrete.

It is easily recognizable that the whole Sapta Bhanga is
a guide to perfection and as such a complete system of
Yoga. We are starting with a common-sense realism and
are lead gradually to the intuition of the whole Universe
based on Spirit, which is according to Jainism and also to
Keyserling (Das Buchvom Ursprung), something substan-
tial. We might also say, that starting in our research from
our outer (physical) being, we are arriving gradualy to our
spiritual essence.

Way and scope have already been outlined ay Goethe:

The way:

If you want to progress in the infinite: go only in the
finite in all directions ! ( Non-absolutism ).

The Scope:

‘What is Infinity ?! How canst thou so torture thyself.
Look within

If there thou lackest infinity in being and thought; Ho
help for thee l

French rationalism as skepticism would (see Keyser-
ling’s definition of French rationalism) correspond to the
way (non- Absolutism). French, rationalism as religion
would in its highest form correspond • to that experience,
which Northrop calls the contempatioh of the ‘aestctic-
continuurn*, to the nirvutia as experience of Sat, Chit .
Ananda:

Existence, Knowledge and Bliss.

As the philosophy of Liberalism has pmmoted the crea-
tion of the Commonwealth, so the Sapta Bhanga, if rightly
understood and interpreted, might once become the Dhar-
ma of a United World, as it reunites flexibility with depth.

This universality, based on our cultural heritage, would
imply, as far as the Commonwealth is concerned, an open-
door-policy in the sense, that each nation might join it.
This would also mean a greater influence of the Asiatic

69

Commonwealth-Countries, particularly of India, with
whom two non Commonwealth Countries, France
and Germany, entertain closest cultural relations. The
principle of cultural integrity and the general development,
with its growing tendency, to surpass narrow nationalistic
or, what might be even more dangerous, continental boun-
arics demands logically, seen from the platform of an open
minded Commonwealth policy, an inclusion of these coun-
tries in the Commonwealth, another name could be Co-
federation des Nations Amies /of Friend nations) as a first
step towards its true universality. But it seems that reality
as far as it presents to us its postulates, has anticipated to
such an extent the imagination of most of us indulged still
in the prejudices and sentimentalities of the past, that a
political Jules Verne, if he would make himself speaker of
these ideas, would be less of a prophet, than of an imagi-
native realist. All what we can do today with all our con-
ceptions and institutions of the past, is to run after the
facts, in order to recover them. -Never more than today
realism demands some power of imagination. It is there-
fore not astonishing that particularly artists like Anatole
France in ‘Thais’ and Remain Rolland in his works on
‘Rsmakrishna’, ‘Vivcksnanda’ ‘Gandhi’ and in his master-
piece ‘Jean Christoph e’ are the true representatives of
universalism.

Among the French philosophers of modem times there
was none who was more universal than the great socialist
Jean Jaures, whose ideal was a World Union on the basis
of social justice. His world-conception was almost identical
with that expressed by the Sapta Bhangha. His soul was so
rich that he was able to unite Skepticism and Mysticism to
a higher synthesis. Nobody understood better than he the
skeptic Montaigne of whom he says: ‘one does him wrong
if one sees in him only an easy going epicurism. His liber-
ty as a skeptical mind allows him to discover the various
forms of human greatness and the virtue (of tolerance).

70

without bitterness, which he prefers, is well adapted to life,
so. diverse and so. mixed.’’

Influenced by, the. German philosophers Leibnitz and
Hegel, Jaures was a dialectical thinker. But he added to
the rationalistic dialectics an element of mysticism, of love,
as it is evident from- these beautiful words, quoted by Feli-
cien Challaye in his brilliant hook, on -‘Jaures’: ‘By a scien-
ce . in which is ; love, by a . tender, , deep, profound and fra-
ternal science* humanity will penetrate the nature and abso-
rb it from the .Ocean wpto the stars I” .

And the ethics emanating . from this lofty philosophy
are outlined by Jaures with- these iem ark able . words : ‘If the
absolute .consciousness: (in Jain Interpretation omniscience)
is the reality then it is the. ideal reality to which the souls
and the living forces can only approach if they do not de-
sert their modest individual destiny linked up with other
destinies: that means that their contacts with the other
neighbouring forces and souls should be regulated in har-
mony and mildness.’

This corresponds strikingly to the Jain principle that
Right Knowledge as it is conveyed by the Sapta Bhanga,
based on Right Belief, is followed by Right Action-Ahimsa!
The one of the most striking features of the Sapta Bhanga
is that it starts with the statement of the reality of sense-
impression: ‘A thing is-in a certain context.’ This might
be called a commonsense statement And seen from this
aspect the whole Sapta Bhanga has one feature in common
with the 'esprit francias \ the highest expression of which
we find perhaps in Voltaire, that it is common-sense in the
highest sublimation. Voltaire opposed in his 'Candide’ to
the metaphysical speculations of Leibnitz; but it seems in
the light of the 'Sapta Bhanga', that there is no unbridge-
able gulf between mysticism and metaphysics on the one
side and Common-sense on the other.

As to the number seven (Sapta Bhanga-Seven Chains),
we find the following interesting passage in the book of

71

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72

ROMAIN ROLLAND AND THE INVISIBLE
SPIRITUAL ELITE OF HUMANITY

Romain Rolland is wellknown in India not only as a
great and outstanding author but also as a sincere friend
and admirer of Indian culture. He is one of the profoun-
dest biographers of Mahatma Gandhi, of Rama-Krishna
and of Vivekananda. And in the same way, as he was the
champion of an understanding between Europe and Asia,
of which India; is the heart, so he was also, a great con-
tributor to the cultural unity of Europe by his understan-
ding of Germany revealed in his biographies of Goethe,
Handel and Beethoveu and also in his masterpiece of fic-
tion, his great novel 'Jean Christophe'. Seen from the
Indian platform the profound religiosity revealed in this
novel is particularly appealing.

So, Jean Christophe, the German hero of this work,
bom in a small rhenish town during a thunder storm, had
a peculiar religious experience: 'By a flash of lightning he
saw in the depths of the night, he saw-he was God. God
was in himself. He burst the ceiling of the room, the
walls of the house. He cracked the very bounds of exis-
tence. He filled the sky, the universe, space. The world
coursed through HIM, like a cataract. In the horror and
ecstasy of that catalycsm, Christophe fell too. Swept al-
ong by the whirlwind which brushed away and crushed
like straws the laws of nature. He was breathless: he was
drunk with the swift hurtling down in God . .He God-abyss!
...‘Another profound experience he had when he was at
Paris and had to struggle hard for his existence:... To
whom did he pray, to whom could he pray ? He did not
believe in God: he believed that there was no God. ..But
he had to pray-he had to pray within his soul. Only the
mean of spirit never need to pray. They never know the

need that comes to the strong in spirit of taking refuge
within the inner sanctuary of themselves. As he left be-
hind him the humiliations of the day, in the vivid silence
of his heart Christophe felt the presence of his eternal be-
ing, of his God. The waters of his wretched life stirred and
shifted above Him and never touched Him: what was there
in common between that and Him? All the sorrows of the
world rushing on to destruction dashed against that rock,
Christophe heard the blood beating in his veins, beating
like an inward voice, crying: ‘Eternal. ..I am... I am.;.’

Romain Rolland knew that there was an invisible
worldwide elite including all races, formed by those con-
scious or unconscious mystics, whose style of life was
formed by love: ‘The people have their aristocrats just as
the upper classes have their vulgarians. The aristocrats
are those creatures whose instincts and perhaps whose
blood, are purer than those of others: those who know and
are conscious of what they are and must be, true to them-
selves. They are in the minority: but, even when they are
forced to live apart the others know, that they are the salt
of the earth.’ The convalescent Christophe was nursed by
those two good foster-mothers ‘Liebe und Not’ (Love and
Poverty). And this unvisible aristocracy to which he be-
, longed was limited by no nationality and by no religious
community as she included a Russian anarchist, as well as
a catholic priest, as the broadminded and kindhearted
abbe Corneille.

One of the greatest of the modern leaders of this invi-
sible elite is certainly our author Romain Rolland himself,
who wrote once to a young Indian student: Shri P. Perma-
nand from Gwalior, these remarkable words: ‘Work to
understand the great artists, the moralists, the powerful
spirits and the heroes of ancient European society. Devote
yourself to the Mission of uniting Orient and Occident. We
must create Universal Soul. It is not yet existing, but it
will exist.’

\ 74

CORNEILLE’S CONCEPTION OF NON-VIOLENCE

In his ‘Decline of Middle Ages' Huizinga depicts the
character of the mediaeval man as entirely emotional, ca-
pable of cruelty and of generosity. It seems, that also the
man of antiquity was of a similar cast and as far as the
Romans are concerned gifted with remarkable political
acumen and great natural cunning.

In his Roman dramas Corneille depicts a lot of similar
characters. The most important is that of Augustus in his
Cinna. He has to cope with problems which seem to be
quite modem.

Augustus is depicted as a dictator, who has used-in
order to come to power-all means of Machiavellian policy,
as treachery, deceit, terror, and bloodshed. Having obtain-
ed his scope and established the Pax Romana his better
nature gets the upperhand. He is weary to shed blood. He
tries to appease his adversaries by acts of generosity. And
now he discovers that these acts are not understood and
not appreciated. Cinna, the son of his enemy, whose fa-
ther he had killed, is harbouring revenge against him. ins-
pite of the fact, that after having brought him up. like a
son, he had made him even his confident.

And now Augustus is a dilemma. Should he return to
the old policy of violence or should he withdraw himself
from the world and commit suicide taking thus from his
adversaries all political reason and possibility for revenge,
or is there still a third possibility ? His heart cannot find
any resolution. In this moment Livia. his wife interferes.
‘Your severity has produced no fruits.' she says. ‘Having
tried without success to punish their insolence try it to-
wards Cinna with clemency. Make the confusion, produced

by clemency, his punishment’ So Livia advises him. But
Augustus fears that this clemency would be considered as
weakness: ‘To govern and to caress’-so he says, ‘such a
treacherous hand that means to show instead of virtue
weakness’. Livia answers: ‘It means to dominate

yourself and to practise by a noble choice the most digni-
fied virtue of a king.’ . • " ’

But it seems that these words leave no impression on
Augustus. Livia’s advices seem to be typical advices of a
woman. And his reply is in the line of political routine:
‘The whole people is hit by such an attempt on my life.

' The simple thought of it is a crime of state: an offence
which one makes to the whole empire needs revenge or
abdication of the rule.’

But Livia who as a wife has not the male instincts of
destruction and self-destruction (Hermann Keyserling
thinks it not impossible that one day a man might try to
, destroy our earth by atomic power stimulated by the mere
destructiveness of his instincts), maintains: “Clemency is
the most beautiful mark, which makes the whole Universe,
know who is a real prince.” And Augustus is not only a
politician in the routine sense. Being a great statesman
he recognizes: 'Une tete coupee en fait renaitre mille :’ A
cut head gives birth to 1000 others. Should he commit
suicide ? His sense of duty as an emperor-he is not more
Octavian but Augustus-would never admit this. .

So there is only one way, the way which. Livia has
shown. Not only to continue the way of clemency, but to
double generosity and to confound his adversaries by a
very miracle of forgiveness. • :

Augustus takes this step but he feels that this is a
quite uncommon, one, quite out of line with ordinary stat-
esmanship. He says, as to himself: ‘O centuries, a- memo-
ry, conserve for ever my . last victory, I triumph today over
my most justified anger.’ And then he offers friendship
to his mortal enemies.

76

And this miracle provokes another miracle. He trans-
forms his enemies into friends. And the result, as predict-
ed by Livia, will be: 'No more murderers and conspirators.
You have discovered the art to become the master of the
hearts.’ And this is in fact the only alternative to the
government by fear, as taught by Machiavelli. The more
violence has been committed, as in the case of so many
dictatorships, the more courage and generosity is needed,
to start and to go on with a way of liberalisation, which
is necessary, as violence creates a static condition which
contradicts to the laws of a dynamic Universe.

It is not important, if the Augustus of Corneille corr-
esponds to the Augustus of History; the real Augustus, as
depicted for instance by Lord Tweedsmere in his great
work. ‘ Augustus ’ has perhaps never acted with such an
astonishing amount of generosity. But also he was too
clever not to respect the forms of democracy. But the
Augustus of Corneille goes beyond that. If wc consider
that in his character generosity is combined with political
sublety then we arrive to the conclusion that he was the
first great exponent of a conscious policy of non-violence
in French, perhaps even in European literature. Napoleon,
who had read Cinna, was skeptic about forgiveness as a
political principle, when he was still emperor. But he
might well have changed his mind, when he was on St.
Helena. Corneille’s Cid. where he shows the impasse, resul-
ting from vengeance and his Cinn3. this eloquent plea for
generosity, seem to belong together as the negative and
positive pole of the same idea.

With regard to the negative way to express a positive
meaning it seems, that this literary form has not yet found
sufficient attention among our historians of Enropcan
literature. One has taken too often the face value of the
real meaning. In Germany e. g. one contrasted the virtue
of honour and loyalty expressed in the Nibe'.unzcnlicA to
the virtues of love and forgiveness, as preached by Christ.

The result was a ‘Trauma,’ a cultural split in the consci-
ousness of a whole nation, instead of a synthesis between
'Eagle and Cross’, recommended by Hermann Keyserling,
a synthesis which was realised e. g. among the Kshatriyas
of ancient India, from whom descended. Lord Mahavira
and Lord Buddha. Also Lord Jesus was in a sense a Ksh-
atriya as he descended from the royal line of the house
David and not from the Priestline of the house Levi. This
was well understood and naively expressed by the author
of the 'Heliand'. It might sound venturous to propose to
consider the Nibelungenlied not only as a praisesong of
Honour and Loyalty but also as a negative way to preach
the most dynamic of all virtues: Love, by showing the
impasse into which hate must necessarily lead, a method
which Corneille masterly used in the Cid. This is perhaps
a possibility which should not be overlooked. The positive
counterpart of the Nibelungenlied in the field of German
Literature might be Goethe’s Faust which as an art-monu-
ment of love stands in line with Corneille’s Cinna.

NAPOLEON AND THE EAST
A HISTORICAL REMINISCENCE

The problem, to establish a durable World Peace Is
closely linked up with the establishment of world-unity. It
is not necessary to think at once of an economical, politi-
cal or even administrative world-unity, which could be
styled a "world state ,, J Much more important and the
very basis of all further developments is the cultural world
integration, which is identical with the building up of a
cultural realm combining East and West.

If we consider that according to tradition and recent
researches there was in very ancient times an indentity
between East and West in times, when travelling was
much more difficult and dangerous than it is now-a-days
it becomes evident that in our time of world traffic and
technical achievements, which allow us to shift easily
from one country, nay, from one continent to another,
the actual state of international anarchy and nationalistic
particularism must be considered as a strange absurdity,
which can destroy or at least seriously disturb the equili-
brium of our world.

- There was no lack of daring attempts to reconstitute
world-unity, which is a legacy of ancient times and in
Jainism connected particularly with the name of the first
Tirtharpkara, Lord Rishabha Deva. To reunite the world
from an Asiatic platform was the aim of the kings of Per-
sia, when they invaded Greece three times. Their attempt
failed. But it was repeated in inverse direction— -from
West to East-and with more success— by Alexander, the
Great But he too failed completely to get hold of India
and when his successors tried to continue his work they
were defeated by the famous Chandra Gupta Maurya,

who, according to a well established tradition, was a foil
wer of the Jain religion and died as a monk at Shravan
Belgola. Remarkable is that Alexander seems to have felt
that it was not sufficient to build up and conserve an em-
pire by sword but that it was necessary to base it on eas-
tern tradition. It is also remarkable that at the end of his
life he had even a Jain-Guru, Kalanus, who replaced the
Mentor of his youth Aristotle. So he tried to become an
Eastern king and his native country, the small Macedonia,
became a mere annexe of his vast empire.

This attempt to transfer the balance of might from West
to East was repeated by one of the most important Roman
Emperors, by Constantine, who founded Constantinople,
the actual Bysance. But he committed the great blunder
to consent at Nicea, instigated by religious fanatics, to
the ruthless persecution of the Gnosis, with its two wings,
the Egyptian and the Asiatic, both of which, the latter
even more than the first, betray eastern, particularly Indi-
an influence, obstructing thus a mutual West-Eastern cul-
tural interpenetration.

In modem times it seems that the German statesman-
philosopher Baron von Leibnitz had quite a clear concep-
tion about the close interrelations between East and West
in their political and military aspect, when he advised the
French King Louis XIV to try to destroy the English do-
minion in India as this would bring the end of English
power also in Europe.

The last great attempt to unite East and West by force
was undertaken by Napoleon I. He dreamt of a conquest
of India. Being according even to Jaques Bainville, the
famous royalist historian, 'un -grand liseur', a great reader
of books, he was certainly much inspired by Plutarch’s
‘ Alexander the Great’. But -this attempt, which started
with the campaign in Egypt, (which by the way prevented
the young Alexander von Humbold to travel with Lord
Bristol to Egypt and India) could not be realised, due to

the fact that he failed to break the English sea-power and
had to face, without supply from sea, inspite of his mani-
fested sympathy for Islam, the growing hostility of the
Arabian tribes, instigated by Mrs. Hester Stanhope, a
niece of the Younger Pitt, ("she appears even in a novel of
Pierre Benoit: La Chatelaine du Lihan ) who played at
that time a similar role as Lawrence of Arabia. He succee-
ded merely to reunite Europe for some time, so far as its
western part is concerned. In the same way as Alexander
during his Indian campaign created by his brushing-away
of many small principalties a basis for the further reunifi-
cation of Northern India through Chandra Gupta Maurya,
so Napoleon created by the reduction of the small, inde-
pendent territories in Germany a platform for the later
reunification of Germany performed by Bismarck. He was
admired by Goethe, who was in his very outlook a world
citizen and enthusiastically supported by one of the great
writers in German literature, unfortunately much neglect-
ed in our days, the poet-philosopher Jean Paul Richter,
whose political views, established in his political writings,
were very advanced and prophetic in an astonishing way-
he predicted even the possibility that due to technical
achievements the day might arrive when a single shot of
a cannon might decide a battle or even a whole war-as in
a similar way it has happened at Hiroshima-and that due
to this development one day all warfare would be obsole-
te and technic would be overcome by technic. But he was
well aware, that this stage had not yet arrived and so he
hailed Napoleon for his brushing away of the relics of feu-
dalism and requested him only to protect the liberty of
the old Hanseatic towns like Lubek. Hamburg and Bre-
men, with their venerable tradition of independence and
liberal democracy.. As far as Germany is concerned Na-
poleon had fulfilled certainly a revolutionary mission. But
basing himself on the French nationalism he lost his cro-
wn, fighti tg against the tides of the upstirred nationalisms

of the other countries, engaged in the play of power-
politics of that time. His personality was so powerful, that
even defeated, he exercised a magic influence and inspired
W. Hauf to write his ‘ Picture of the Emperor \ one of the
most marvellous narratives in German literature. The Rus-
sian poet Lermontow, the author of ‘A Hero of Our Time 1
composed a great poem on Napoleon. Heinrich Heine too
paid homage to him in his poem. Even among his grea-
test enemies, the English, Napoleon found a great biogra-
pher like Lord Roseberry who was full of admiration for
his genius.

After his first defeat Napoleon was treated, perhaps due
to the chivalry of his ancient friend, the Tzar Alexander II
of Russia, with a generosity, astonishing in our time of
war tribunals and international courts for war-criminals.
He became ruler of Elba, a small beautiful island in midst
of the Mediterraneon, quite similar to his beloved native-
island of Corsica, which, due to the mediterranean
clearness of atmosphere, he could perceive with his naked
eyes. He had now the possibility to attract like a prince
of Renaissance great scholars and artists as he had done
during his campaign in Egypt, or philosophers and theolo-
gians, like Akbar at Fatehpur Sikri and Agra. History
would have praised him as a great philosopher-king and
having himself the qualities of a great writer, (and parti-
cularly of a great journalist H. S. L. Fisher calls him even
in his book ‘ Napoleon ’ the father of modern

journalism) he would perhaps have influenced the course
of history as the great creative forces of human culture
have done. But it seems that he never contemplated this
possibility. He was still too much attracted by the pageant
of military glory. So he left Elba to challenge again his
destiny. In the famous campaign of 10D days he unfolded
all the resources of a military genius. But he was peres-
cuted by misfortune and had all odds against him. At
— ^ ast he lost, due to the unreliability of one of his generals.

W 8 ?

the Marshal -SouR, the battle of Waterloo. This put a de-
finite end to his attempt to establish an universal Empire,
To this dream points also Martin Buber, in whose narra-
tive ‘God and Magog ’ we iead in the chapters ‘Kosnitz
& Napoleon’, 'Napoleon, of whom the people but also the
soldiers pretended, he were passing, via Russia, to India’

It seems that the last period of the life of this great
adventurer on St. Helena, where he dictated his famous
memorial, was full of profound spiritual experiences. He
found beautiful words of recognition and appreciation for
the personalities of the great founders of religion and par-
ticularly for the divine love-power of Christ-so much akin,
as pointed out by Champat Rai Jain in many ofhisbooks-
to the Ahinsa philosophy of the Essenes and Amaritans,
derived from Indian and most probably Jain sources. How
deep the Katharsis was, he had undergone, is evident from
the new attitude to war. Being a bora soldier it had been
difficult for him to imagine a world without violence. He
laughed, once so Ludwig based on Las Cases reports, in
his brilliant book “ Napoleon ,” incredulously at a traveller,
who told him a tale of a Chinese island where there were
no weapons !”

“What do you mean ? But they must have weapons !”
‘No, Sir e’

'Pikes, anyhow; or bows and arrows ?'

‘Neither the one nor the other’.

‘Daggers !!

‘Not even daggers.'

‘But how, the devil, do they fight there T
‘There has never been a war on the island.’

‘What, no war ?’

Towards the end of his life Napoleon came to the con-
clusion: ‘War is an anachronism. Some day. victories will
be won without cannons and without bayonets. Whoever
troubles the peace of Europe wants civil war.'

War has in our modern times lost all its romantic

apparel. The ancient spirit of chivalry has more and more
disappeared and it has degenerated into a mere process of
mutual extermination as we find it in the lower strata of
nature. Peace on the contrary will not fail to exercise a
magic attraction if we give a concrete sense to this word:
connecting it with the idea of World Unity, based on the
common cultural legacy of East and West.

Hut the time to organize peace is short and requires
quick and bold actions. ‘ Activite , activite, vitesse !’-this
dynamic word of Napoleon might find here a new and
more creative application.

It seems that certain predominent features of Napoleon
were already foreshadowed in Goethe's great stage-poem
‘ Torquato Tasso’, which points also prophetically to the
main problem of modem time: the organic relations bet-
ween reason (in the sense of rationalism), directly fostered
by the development of science) and emotionality, indirectly
fostered by it as a reaction to it. The rational side in Na-
poleon is foreshadowed in Antonio, the soberminded stat-
esman. This side corresponds to the creator of the Code
Napoleon and to the organiser of the administration and
builder of roads. The emotional side is forecast in Tor-
quato Tasso, the hero of the piece, depicted as an exube-
rant poet. In Goethe’s poem both forces are finally har-
monized. Statesman and poet become friends, but it is a
friendship in which Antonio, the representative of reason,
has the guidance. In Napoleon, the emotional side, sti-
mulated by the imagination of a poet and fascinated by
the pageant of power and glory, got the upperhand. In his
youth Napoleon had read and admired Goethe’s novel
“ The Sorrows of the Young Werther” in which the hero,
due to his unrestrained emotionality, is driven to. suicide.
The same motive in a different form we find in Goethe's
‘Selected Affinities'. Passion is restricted here to the pri-
vate side of life. In this respect Napoleon was finally al-
ways master of himself. But in public life his passion was

M

bound to lead him in the end to St. Helena. What wc can
learn even today from his history is that no aim, high as
it may be, even world-peace itself, can safely be placed on
the points of bayonets, as violence provokes violence.
There should be no military, no political, no economic or
even cultural conquest but only partnership and mutual
stimulation by the great creations of art. In the history of
poetry we have such an example: Hafiz, the Persian poet,
stimulated Goethe to write his unsurpassable poem, the
West Ostlicher Divan; the West-Osticher Divan stimulated
Iqbal, one of the greatest poets which the East has pro-
duced, to write his immortal ‘ Paynm-i-Mashriq ' or the
‘Message of the East.’

In 1931 when I studied in France, I had an opportunity
to pass a fortnight in Corsica. In that time banditism flo-
urished there, with Spada, the most noted of the socallcd
. ‘ Bandits par Vhonneur’ (Gentlemen, turned robbers). The
scenery of this Island left a deep impression on me. What
a dramatic contrast between the loveliness of the vineyar-
ds, the dark blue of the sea, with its ever changing moods,
the caprice of the cactus shrubs, the great variety of flo-
wers, the hospitable chestnut trees and the half majestic,
half threatening aloofness of the mountains stern to the
pitcti^cruelty in their nakedness, headstrong and willful in
their fantastic forms, spelling pride and ferocity in midst
of undescribable beauty. What a contrast between the sal-
ty odour of the sea and the sweet smell of the cist-roses !

I understood then that only this nature could have
produced a phenomenon like Napoleon Bonaparte.

GARDENING AS THE BASIS OF
FRENCH CULTURE

<A PERSONAL REMINISCIENCE)

A> Peres de families . inspirez la jardo-mani a vos en -
fants. Ils en deviendront meilleurs".

M.OTTO: “ Fathers of family , infuse a fanatic love for
gardening in your children. They will become better by
this". — Prince de Ligne.

Prince 'Billow, who according to the great French no-
velist Paul Bourget, is one of the greatest Psychologist
since Shakes peare-this opinion does not omit the rather
apologetic character of his memoirs — expresses in the first
volume of his reminisciences the view that the gaiety is a
- dominating feature of the French National character. This
judgment is in a certain way confirmed by an amusing
line of Voltaire: l Un monstre gaie.vaut mieux qu' un sen-
timental ennuyeux !’ ‘A gay monster has a higher value
’than a boring sentimentalist.’

This ‘gaiete’ has often been taken as a proof for a cer-
1 tain superficiality of the French character and as the
world is accustomed to judge from the outer appearance,
this opinion is only 'too comprehensible. But all those who
know more about France and the French know better. In
fact one cannot separate a Frenchman from France and if
we take France as the basis of a deeper understanding of \
the. French national Character, then we will find out that
the ‘French’ gaiete is the exact reflex of the charm and
gaiety of the French . landscape and scenery. And there
are gay landscapes but never ‘superficial’ landscapes. Na-
ture in. all its aspects is never superficial but full of unfa-
thomable secrets. Tt reflects eternity and the man whose
character is shaped by it can never be a superficial type of

man. And there are in fact many features in French cha-
racter which testify its real deepness. So there is particu-
larly one feature in French character which refutes all
commonplace prejudices. That is particularly the absolute
reliability of the average Frenchman in friendship, a fea-
ture which has for instance been recognised by Houston
Steward Chamberlain (Life-Ways of My Thought) who lias
passed all his youth in France and whose developement.
which made him an intellectual leader of racism in Ger-
many and as such a critic of France, should normally have
lead to a severance of his relations to that country. So %ve
see that in friendship the French man is really at his best
and that he shows here a remarkable capacity for genero-
sity, broadmindedness & indulgence. ~I mentioned already
that we have to rely upon France in order to understand
the Frenchman and that the soul of France is revealed in
its landscape. Those who have never been in France might
read Michelet’s book ‘Le tableau de France (A Survey on
France) or the excellent essays on French landscapes, wri-
tten by the socialist Friedrich Engels, particularly that on
the Loire (the district of the Loire is also called Le-jardin
de France the garden of France), which is the national river
of France as the Ganges is the national river of India. En-
gels was deeply impressed by the harmony of French natu-
re and the serenity and gaiety emanating from it. Perhaps
the harmonious landscape has induced very early the
French to cultivate gardening, which is. considered as an
art, in the particularly harmonious scenery of France, a
creation of harmony within harmony. And beauty and
practical purposes are often combined. Already in the
thirteenth century the Italian Brunet to Latint wrote: ‘The
French have large houses, with good paintings and good
rooms, they are skilled in making green terraces, vegetable
gardens and apple orchards'. So with regard to gardening
France has become for Europe what Persia Ivas been for
Asia. In India we can retrace this Persian influence in

the beautiful park of Sikandra with Akbar’s tomb.

The great artistic endowment of the French and their
inclination to very articulate formulation have lead to a
great variety of styles. The classic, style has for a long time
been considered as the typical French style of gardening.
They have also been called by Corpechot: jardins d’ intelli-
gence: gardens of intelligence. Like in Japanese garden-
ing there is a tendency to prescribe laws to nature, accord-
ing to the structure of human mind. Clearness and order
are conceived as the basic features of human mind and the
gardens a la Francaise, according to the great gardener Le
Notre, should be a pattern of strict order.- Le Notre belie-
ved that order incorporates already in itself a moment of
.'-.beauty. He was a master of garden-planning endowed
.-with sure instincts for right distribution of space and a
French author Pierre Lavedan assures in his book on
French architecture, that he was supreme, by the size of
his composition, vast schemes, comparable to the most
vast architectural schemes and by his recognition .of the
importance of trees, which he treated in masses, so as to
obtain clear cut volumes. With him the French gardening
conquered the third dimension. He could not bear the
limited views. This description of Le Notre’s jardin a la
Francaise would be insufficient, if we would not mention
his particular treatment of water. In Italy the cascades
and the play of fountains gives impression of perpetual
movement. Le-Notre had a feeling, so assures Lavedan,
for the tranquil splendour of great, calm pools.

To this French, garden one has often compared the
. English garden. But the so-called English . or Romantic
. garden — also known as landscape garden — was spread in
France already at the life time of Le-Notre. The basic ideas
: of the Romantic garden, which in reality was invented by
: the dramatic author and garden designer Charles Rene
Dufresny, a contemporary of Le-Notre, are well explained
.by Lavedan: ‘To. leave or rather to seem to leave nature-

•88

free, means substituting sinuous paths for straight alleys
and of course, renouncing the symmetrical axis, it means
giving up the treatment of trees in masses, still less in
geometrical masses, ceasing to arrange in systematic con-
trast shade with light, letting the two' interpenetrate and
the trees stand isolated or form irregular groups on green
turf; preferring lawns to flowerbeds; giving up the horizon-
tal terrace; excepting as a setting for a garden a site as
irregular as possible; if necessary creating such irregulari-
ties. But to leave nature free does not mean to exclude
architectural ornaments: ‘There is, inspite of all differences
one thing in common between the Classic and the Roman-
tic garden, to which lastly also the Italian Barack garden
belongs: that is; a predilection for large vistas. The Ro-
mantic garden, which corresponds perhaps to Rousseau's
particularly conception of nature, adds to this by its very
irregiig^pf creation. In Germany this type of gardening
has been introduced particularly by Prince Pucklcr. But
the taste for gardening in a modern sense (third dimension)
was first originated in France. Gardening has become an
ingredient part of European culture and some of its grea-
test representatives were passionate gardeners. So Voltaire,
Goethe, Swedenborg and Maeterlink.

The influence of gardening on the France's national
character has perhaps been discovered for the first time
by Count Hermann Keyserling who calls in his ‘Europe’
the Frenchman a typical gardener. In fact gardening con-
fers to its lovers that kind of joyful harmony from which
originates the French gaiety. And this nature bound har-
mony creates perhaps the sense of tact and delicacy, which
is typical for the Frenchman and of which the most beau-
tiful and of course seldom flower is the dclicatescs tie
cocur' the ‘delicacy of heart'.

The French love for gardening has also r eund an expr-
ession in French literature, the most charming perhaps in
the novel of Andre Theuriet: "Dsns ics Rcscs'. And this

• this love of nature has rooted the French spirit into the
earth, which is conceived as something living and almost
spiritual, ‘La terre de nos morts ’ as Maurice Barres puts it,
■‘The earth of our deads’. If the intellect detaches itself from
earth it is lost and the spirit of the earth takes its revenge.

• This is beautifully described in Paul Bourget’s famous no-
vel , ‘Le Disciple ’. Onesided rationalism provokes here one-
sided emotionalism. The crimes of the young scholar, who
'has lost his attachment to the French earth and has become
•unrooted are avenged by the young aristocrat who repre-
sents the spirit rooted in this French earth and French tra-
dition. That this French earth with its prevailing harmony
is still the dominating factor in French culture is proved
by mere fact, that there is no nation in the world, even
China is here not excepted, where a good style in writing-
style in itself an expression of harmony-is, more apprecia-
ted than in France.

Heinrich Mann tried, when he was President of the
Dichterakademie at Berlin to- introduce these French, stan-
dards also in Germany. Already Fichte tried in his famous
‘Speeches to the German Nation’ to create a deeper feeling
.for the spoken and written word and particularly for the
qualities of the German language. And stimulated by the
language-philosophy Gurdieff, Arnold and Wilhelmine
Keyserling make in their ‘ Synopsis of German Grammar ’
interesting suggestions regarding the essential features of
the German language: as the use of the three genders in
the sense of Trimurti: creation, and perceptivity as mascu-
line and feminine and neuter as the common bed of origi-
nation and result^of the interaction of both forces and the
four cases as the quintessence of the relations between in-
dividual and society. The great qualities of the French
language have been emphasized by Frederic the Great in
his essay on French Literature and most brilliantly expos-
ed by Rivarol in his treatise: ‘ Sur La Superiorite de La
Langue Francaise’. Precision, elegance, musical sound and

grace are most essential features of French.

The appreciation of a clear and elegant form of expres-
sion has become a kind of philosophy in France. The
French are here the heirs of the Roman tradition. The
basis of Cicero’s interpretation of rethorics (De Oratore) is
that the public speaker, if he deserves the name of 'orator',
must as well be a good man as a good speaker. This
corresponds, as Right Action (Goodness) must always be
the corollary of Right Knowledge, to the views of a great
philosopher of Ancient India, Bhrtarhari, that in last ana-
lysis the word is the expression of the supreme Teality.
Gaurinath Shastri develops this idea in his interesting
book ‘ The Philosophy of Word and Meaning’. The Sup-
reme Reality in the philosophy of Sanskrit Grammar lias
been called the Eternal Verbum or the Supreme Word,
which is a highly subtle and metemperical principle which
transcends all that comes within the ken of human experi-
ence. .The Eternal Verbum is beyond time and space, it is
non-relational and featureless, and eludes all descriptions
by means of positive and negative predicates Now. accor-
ding to the grammarian-philosophies, the Ultimate Reality
is Word and Word is Consciousness....’.

After the 30th years war, when French language and
Culture became fashion in the whole of Europe. French
gardening was cultivated, particularly, by the European
Princes whose taste was modelled after the French pattern.
First it was the classic, later the Romantic style, which
was preferred, the latter particularly in the middle and
north of Europen countries where Latin and German in-
fluences blend each other, stimulated perhaps by the for-
mative power of the Germanic forests where one almost
feels creation at work in spite of a harsh climate. Typical
for the Romantic style in France is perhaps the Bois dc
Boulogne, established by Napoleon III, who was influen-
ced by English patterns.

Both styles were pervaded by that particular charm

91

which corresponds to the Gaiete Francaise. Typical for
his kind of gardening are also Holland and Belgium which
possess beautiful parks and gardens. In Belgium particu-
larly there is a strong French influence, as in this country
Romantic and Germanic culture have mixed as nowhere
in the world.

I might include here a personal reminscience. My
father was well acquainted with Dutch as well as with Bel-
gian gardening. When in very early age, at the end of his
20th he became mayor of Homberg. an industrial town of
medium size in the low Rhine district. West Germany, he
passed his first holiday at Spa in the Romanic part of Bel-
gium and it was in Belgium that he had his first decisive
. impression of French gardening. He created a beautiful pri-
vate garden and the house in its center was a real garden ho-
use. Since that time he tried also with Low-Saxon assiduity
and the sure taste of a bom artist to hide, and to counterba-
lance the aesthetic defects of industry by creating beautiful
: parks. His masterpiece was perhaps the park cemetery of
Homberg, by which he created quite a new type of cemetery.
Here the natural terraces of the territory are used to create
change and variety. It has always been a German tradi-
tion of piety-Madame de Stael certifies this in her book
‘De V Allemagne ’ - to bestow a great care on cemeteries.
We find sometimes even a decadent sentimentality,— Gus-
tav Freussen describes in his novel * Klaus Hinrich Baas'—
a perverse love for the places of death and decay as which
the cemetaries necessarily appear. By placing the graves
in a beautiful park surrounding them by small hedges
the impression of decay was counterbalanced by . that of
growth and creation. He suggested according to the Ger-
manic tradition of the ‘Findlinge’ (Foundlings) to use a
simple slab of stone as a grave stone which created an
impression of cosmic monumentalily pointing to eternity.
A tank with water flowers in the centre of the park created
an atmosphere of calm and contemplation. It was like a

92

melancholic simile of nature-perhaps a simile which the
French gaiety has wrestled from Germanic seriousness. A
beautiful spiritual atmosphere was created by this, which
leads the visitor of the cemetery to an almost Indian spiri-
tuality. We feel the sublimity of the three great cosmic
laws decay, creation, and conservation: Eternity !

Is

A

THE COMMONWEALTH SEEN EROM
THE INDIAN PLATFORM

DISRAELI AND THE COMMONWEALTH
OF GOD

*' There is a mystery with whom relation
Durst never meddle in the soul of stale ,

Which hath an operation more divine
Than breath or pen can give expressure to."

— Shakespeare
(Troilus and Crcssida )
The most important cultural event in our days is the
publication of a work of history: ‘ History of the English
speaking peoples' by Churchill. This book is not only re-
markable for its high scientific and literary qualities but
also for its political importance. We have here an attempt
to overcome the scission of the anglo-saxon world power
into two blocks by the creation of an unique conscious-
ness of history common to both. Now it is significant that
Churchill is also in England the most important champion
of the idea of an Unified Europe. Perhaps lie feels that
without linking England with Europe her part might be
too ‘second rank' with regard to her big partner, the more
as this bigger partner has by his generous economic help
for India become a kind of invisible Commonwealth
member.

There was even a time when Churchill thought to in-
troduce even France into the Commonwealth and after
the French defeat in the second world war lie made a co-
rresponding offer to France which however at that time
had there no great resonnance. Perhaps he might nurse
now the idea to melt together directly or indirectly the
whole European continent along with America to a new
world-wide Commonwealth in order to concretise the idea
of the United Nations in a new way. With regard to this

scope the cultural moment with its innate capacity to bri-
dge sometimes even longstanding political antagonism has
the greatest importance.

And particularly a politician with so outstanding inte-
llectual gifts as Churchill would be the last to underrate
the importance of the cultural moment in politics, what
could perhaps after a higher development of humanity, be
reduced to the equation: the importance of the political
moment in culture. And accordingly Churchill uses also
the intellectual means of publication in order to realise
his vision.

In stressing the spiritual moment in politics he takes
the same position as the Indian. So Dr. V..K. R. Rao,
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Delhi, points out in
his remarkable article: ‘India’s Attitude to Commonwealth'
published in the * Asian Review ’ after having adduced the
political and economical reasons for the. remaining of
India in the Commonwealth: ‘But all this is not the really
basic cause of India’s staying in the Commonwealth. The
basic cause is much more imponderable. If you don't mind
my using such a phrase, the tie is spiritual rather than
material. It rests in the world of ideas and attitudes rather
than in that of commodities and services. The sooner, this
is realised by the British people the better it would be.’ .

And he continues: ‘I believe that the Commonwealth
will grow in number and prestige and would stand out in
the world as a mosaic of white, brown, black and yellow
peoples of sovereign nations linked in freedom and demo-
cracy. It will no longer be Empire Commonwealth: it will
just be a Commonwealth; and the empire, to the extent it
remains a memory, will be a selective memory of pleasant
things characteristic of the best in British culture and civi-
lisation and economic development of the under-developed
countries of the world; rather than use of the unpleasant
concomitants of colonial rule and it will also work for
them as long as it is necssary to do so !'

A similar view we find also expressed by Arnold Toyn-
bee in his essay ‘ India and the West'. ‘No doubt.’ so he
points out ‘these same Asianstates men will continue to
demand that, in a ‘free world’ that is to be the common
home of Western and Asian peoples, there shall be no
unfair and invidious discrimination against the Asian mem-
bers of the family, and we Western members are bound to
give satisfaction to our Asian fellow members on this point
if, calling our world ‘free’, we are smcere’.

Rao goes a step further than Toynbee. He sees the in-
tellectual interconnection limited not only on political and
humanitarian ideals. He desires nothing else than the en-
counter with the best in English culture and civilisation.
The question rises here if such an encounter in the dimen-
sion of depth is possible ? Kipling answered it in the ne-
gative. Is here any solution? It is in this context of impor-
tance that a statesman of the Victorian era, who, like Chur-
chill, was conservative and man of literature, might serve
here as a guide.

Benjamin Disraeli is often considered as an imperialist
par excellence. Joseph Schumpeter however lias rightly
emphasized in his brilliant essay ‘ Imperialism as a catch-
phrase' that the imperialism of Disraeli had something
‘catching’ in it and served him in his polemics in parlia-
ment and in the electoral campaigns as a catch phrase. In
fact, in Cypria he preceded the Russians and the Russian
menace to India- even Trolzki dreamt of an invasion of
India-might have urged him to buy the Suez-eannl shares.
But in the bottom of his heart he thought always much
more univcrsalistical than impcrialistical. In a sense he
has always been loyal to a phrase which he coined in his
younger years, that he considered colonies as millstones
round the neck of England. He who at least according to
his own consciousness descended from a family of Spanish
jews who had settled at Venice and only very late in Eng-
land, felt himself always as an Oriental. The largeness of

his views is particularly striking in his novel 'Coningsby .' .
Sidonia, the man behind the seenes, an Oriental jew hai-
ling from Syria symbolises the idea of an universalistic
leadership, free from nationalistical bias. Syria stands evi-
dently for Eastern wisdom. In this conception of authority
based on the spiritual we have an almost brahmanical fea-
ture. As politician and a man of the world to whom the
variety of cultures gave rise to an aesthetical satisfaction
he embraced synthetically the greatest opposites. He was
a Christian in a mystic sense, but taken in a wider sense,
he remained always loyal to Judaism which, in a very
indogmatic sense, he considered as the germ of Christiani-
ty. The discovery of the 'Dead Sea Scrolls' by which, as
the excellent American critic Edmond Wilson points out,
in his book ‘ The Dead Sea Scrolls' , the originally close
interconnection of the antenicine Christianity with the
‘Jewish sect of the Essenes’ has been established,
means a late justification of the apprehensions of Disraeli.
As a politician Disraeli united conservativism and so-
cialism. This synthesis found its expression particularly in
his novel ‘ Sybil , or the two nations'. He loved England and
felt himself as an Oriental. He saw it in such a deep sense
that he was able to absorb the very best in Judaism and in
Islam. The heroes of his novels make pilgrimages again
and again to Jerusalem. We have here a conception of the
crusades in the opposite sense: His heroes go not to the
East in order to conquer or to convert but to find there
wisdom. The spiritual side of Disraeli’s nature was so
strong that often enough it can serve us as a key to the
deeper reasons of his political actions. The coronation of
the Queen Victoria, as empress of India, has often been
considered as a mere political reaction provoked by the
‘mutiny’ of 1857, aiming by an unfolding of pageant and
solemnity to flatter the asiatic sense of dignity and etique-
tte. But already in his novel ‘Tankret' Disraeli had expre-
ssed the view that the royal court should shift form Lon-

100

don to Delhi. Evidently he had in view a fusion of East
•and West as it was perhaps already conceived by Alexan-
der the Great. Disraeli thought however not only of a
•meeting in the dimension of breath but also of an encoun-
ter in the dimension of depth. In a time marked by the
materialism spumed up by the discoveries of the 19th cen-
tury he remained the champion of a profound religious
• spirituality. His word coined with regard to Darwin that
‘in the fight between monkeys and angles he would be on
the side of the angles’ has often been persiflated and pro-
voked many cartoons. But what he wanted to express was
only this: that man had to overcome his animal —nature
in favour of the Divine spark within him.

The belief in the Divine in man is reflected in these
words: Science may prove the insignificance of this globe
in the scale of creation but it cannot prove the insignifica-
nce of man. The religious attitude of Disraeli is still more
emphasized in the words, spoken by the wise Syrian, in
his novel 'Lothair’i To the objection of Lothain 'But there
are people who tell there never was any creation and there-
fore there never could have been a creator,’ he replies 'And
which is now advanced with the confidence of novelty
though all of it has been urged, and vainly urged, thou-
sands of years ago. There must be design, or all wc see.
would be without sense, and I do not believe in the un-
meaning. As for the natural forces to which all creation
is now attributed we know they are unconscious, while
consciousness is as inevitable a port uni or on*- exisicncc as
the eye or the hand. The conscious cannot be derived from
the unconscious. Man :> Divine !'

Creation is for Disraeli evidently the expression of
formation of the unconscious through the conscious; con-
sciousness is to him a part of our existence From this
cxistencial-character of cur consciousness, from this inner
spirituality of man he infers, like the mystics of all times
and of all continents, to its substancial spirituality.

It is well known that Disraeli was so deeply influenced
by Lord Byron that one could speak of a reiattonship bet-
ween Gum and disciple. In religion he ; had dike By_
ron a disliking for narrow orthodoxy and hke hi
jected also a Luciferian trend of mind, as it is expressen

iDB S wa^ disciple of Lucifer, by whom he was
introduced into the realm of spirit and eternity ^abo ra-
te that of death. On a mere intellectual basis he J ec ^

.the interconnection of all life. He dete f ’ “ 00 , d ^ aC ^'

And that It is what he reproaches to Abel. Tho smoky
harbinger of thy dull prayers—' Thine altar, with the blood
of lambs and kids, which fed on milk, to be destro ?£ d “
blood 1’ But his love and that is the particular Lucifena
feature-is not strong enough, it is parahse J ,j
.pride and greed for power-to realise this knowledge in

realms of life. The intellectual narrowness and the niu

dogmatism of Abel excites the wrath which leads to t
feticide. Only after this Cain recognises the ! m P™' a . n "
of pardoning love and renouncing of all exterior pun
ment. This love is expressed in the words of the angel, l n
feticide might well engender parricide.-But it shall n
so-the Lord thy God and mine commanded! me o
seal on Cain, so that he may go forth in safety.^
he is only exposed to the pain of repentence. . e 1
love is also most beautifully glorified in the V1 ^ 10 ^

Forum Romanum bathed in moonshine ( Manfred). ^ Al-
fred the sublimation of religion reaches in fact 1 s su
'The mind which is immortal makes itself
Requital for its good or evil thoughts
Is its own origin of ill and end
■ And its own place and time: its innate sense
When stripp'd of this mortality , derives
No colour from the fleeting things without,

But is absorb'd in sufference or in joy
Born from the knowledge of its own desert.

102

Is this conception leading to the idea of reincarnation?
The following passage in Manfred betrays a profound
insight into the character of Karmic forces, as we find
them particularly in Jainism:

‘This man is of no common order , as his past and presence
Here denote:his sufferings have been of an immortal nature,
Like our own, his knowledge, and his powers and will.

As far as compatible with clay, which clogs the cthcral

essence

Have been such as clay has seldom born\

With this description of the Karmic forces Byron
establishes a spiritual link with the East as already Goethe
had done. It seems that to the influence of Byron on
Disraeli corresponds an influence of Goethe on Byron. So
Goethe might have contributed indirectly to the world
conception of Disraeli. With regard' to the influence of
Goethe on Byron we read in a work of Fritz Strich:

‘ Goethe and World Literature 'But in 1817, when Goethe
first read Byron’s Manfred he at once recognised the son
of Faust. He wrote to Knebel: 'The most wonderful event
has occured for me in the appearance of Byron's tragedy,
brought to me the other day as a gift by a young Ameri-
can. This unusal and gifted poet has absorbed my Faust
and has got from it the strongest food for his hypochon-
dria. He has used every theme in his own fashion, so that
none remains as it was; and for this in particular I cannot
sufficiently admire his genius. This reconstruction is
entirely of a piece; one could give most interesting lecture
on its similarity to the original and its departure from it.'

Goethe’s public review in ' Kunst und AUert urn's o
comments Strich, began with these words just quoted.
Byron denied, too, that his Manfred tragedy h3d been
inspired by Faust . He had known nothing of it. he decla-
red, and did not even understand German. It was not
Faust, it was the 'Jungfrau' of the Berner Oberland that
had inspired him to write it. But a knowledge of the

103

German language was not necessary , and Byron- himself tells
us that just before he wrote Manfred his friend' Monk
Lewis read him aloud a viva voce , a literal translation of
Faust & that he, Byron was greatly moved by it.' ■ •

, Also Butler in his ‘ Goethe and Byron' cannot deny
this fact. However things might be: The similarity ; bet-
ween Faust and Manfred is still greater as Strich supposes
and the difference, less than Bulver imagines if we take
into consideration the profound inner relationship of both
great poems to Indian philosophy, (see chapter: ‘G-oethe’s
Faust and Umasvati’s Tattvartha Sutra’). We have here a
striking ralationship between Goethe and Byron and a
relationship of both with the mysticism, understood as
a higher form of rationalism and Eastern, particularly Indi-
an thought.

So Disraeli might have received by the mediation of
Byron who by all his intellectuality was deeply moved by
his subconsciousness, important ideas for the political
future of humanity, which has its deepest cultural backgro-
und in a religiosity, accessible to inner experience-which
corresponds to the real character of mysticism.

• The influence of Goethe on Disraeli is however not-
only indirectly retraceable. We can, with certain restrict-
ions, speak even of a direct influence of Goethe on Byron.
This becomes evident from an interesting passage of the
‘ Lothair a novel written by Disraeli in his mature years
;after having been English Prime Minister. The passage
-runs ‘Goethe a Spinozist who did not believe in Spinoza,
said that he could bring his mind to the conception that
in the centre of space we might meet with a monad of
pure intelligence. What may by the centre of space I leave
to the deadal imagination of the author of Faust; but a
monad of pure intelligence, is that more philosophical
than the truth amid these everlasting hills, that God made
man in His image ?'

Disraeli calls Goethe a spinozist. He felt that Goethe’S

104

■world conception- was more dynamic than the geometrical
and static of Spinoza. The conception of a monad of pure
• intelligence in the centre of space appeared strange to him
for a center of space presupposes a finite Universe, as it
results from the theory of Einstein. The conception of
a monad of pure intelligence reminds of the abode of the
Gods on the topmost part of the Universe, (Siddha Shilii)
in Jain Cosmology. The conception of man as Divine
corresponds to Goethe's world-conception and antagonizes
rightly understood, not in the least the conception of a
spiritual world-center in Jain cosmology.

From these spiritual interrelations between Disraeli,
Byron and Goethe we get an idea, at least in rough lines
of the fine network of culture which is spread today over
the whole world. It is au-fond the believe in the inner
relationship of all life and the dignity of man which
coordinates today the different cultures to a whole. All
those who are rooted in this world-culture could be con-
ceived as members of a world-wide inner Brahmanism
that means a Brahmanism free from all outer restrictions
by birth, class or caste, spread over the whole world, who
being an elite are burdened, in the sense of Plato, with
certain tasks of leadership amounting to the main task to
preserve humanity from inner decay. From this viewpoint
we would even get a synthesis: Hinduism-Islam as it beco-
mes evident from these words of Disraeli: 'The Aryan and
the Semite are of the same blood and origin, but when they
quitted their central land they were ordained to follow
opposite courses. Each division of the great race has
developed one portion of the double nature of humanity,
till after their wanderings they met again and represented
by its choicest families, the Hellenes and the Hebrews,
brought together the treasure of their accumulated wisdom.

This almost Hegelian conception of history as an
unfolding of spiritual values gives also a particular chara-
cter to practical politics. The organisation into greater

103

political units must, if along with, it the final'' unity of
humanity is taken into account, serve also the spiritual
essence of humanity, which presupposes harmonic inner
condhions. A.pphed ‘Kulturgeographie,’ (geography of
uresj has to become the most important and subtle
part of geopolitics.

It has already been mentioned in Churchill’s worldwide
and humanitarian conception of the ‘History of the
English speaking peoples’ as well as his support of the
idea of a United Europe. This idea is conceived in
its widest sense, including as well West-as East-Europe.
^een from this conception, the natural center of an United
Europe could neither.be London nor, Paris, nor Strasiburg
or Brussels. The natural center could be only a town
which represents equally East and West, North and South.
Only Vienna could claim to be such a center, her charm

ti? o > \ CU ar character has be en eloquently described by

Rrashewsky in a novel-published in
rnj» nC an ^ ua S e " Sans Coeur', an excellent Spanish states-
man and author like Madariaga conceives her as an almost
Mediterranean town. \ -■

% this mediterranean character of Vienna the East
M r °^ e wou d be linked to the ancient cultural center:

*1 1 erraneau "^ n dia“the latter is considered by Kirfel.as

the most eastern branch of European cukure-which is the

with a? m thls s P ace > connected through India

like th, T C ° mm ° n V ealth ’ ^ renovations are emanating
Arabian ^ nde P ndence an d the awakening of the

Arabian and African peoples. :

nell^Curh?^ 01 ]^ ° P Godrto use this formula of Lio-
to be universal. 6 CTeated only on this platform and had

ahead v germs -of this development could

sISan the iteS ° f Disrae ’ 1 Neither

t0

m

THE COMMONWEALTH IDEA IN JAINISM

(RATNlKARA VARNTS ‘BHARTESH VAIBHAVA’

IN NEW LIGHT)

‘May heaven indeed grant thee a son , a sovereign of
the earth from sea to to sea.' — Kalidasa (Sakuntalu)
I. THE CHARACTER OF BHARAT
One of the most subtle expressions of Indian political
thought is certainly Chanakya’s l Arthashuslra\ It is a
deep study not only in the methods but also in the psy-
chology of politics. Among those virtues considered as
necessary for a king particularly intellect, cnergyand spiri-
tual attainments are emphasized. In addition to this the
‘Atthashastra’ is a manual of administration. In Tamil
Jain literature there is particularly the ‘Tirukural/ recently
published in English and commented by Prof. Chakrava ti
which has a certain resemblance with the Arthashastro
and seems to be considerably influenced by it. These
classics of political thought are not isolated. Even the
Gnu is to some extent a political book.

Political thought takes here cosmological proportions;
the reality of the earth is incorporated into a highcrcosmo-
logical order, to which in her very depth also the human
soul belongs; conceived as immortal. This does not take
the reality from our earthly life.; bui deprives it from the
monopoly of reality, so that we can act as our duty
describes us with composure and inner dentchmcni. This
cosmological outlook distinguishes also a great Jain poem
of the 16 th Century ‘Bharat cm Paihhara'. the Glory of
Bharat\ written by the famous poet RntnlTkam Yarn!
originally in Kannada and revrently translated into Hindi
by the eminent Saint Ach-mya Dcshtoshana and into
English by Prof. Shyam Singh Jain, M. A. With regard

107

to its psychological subtlety the work has also much in
common with the Arthashnstra. But it has one feature
which is quite particular to it and distinguishes it from the
Arthashnstra as well as from the Git n '. While the Artkasha-
stra emphasizes the idea of the state and while the Gun
stresses the cosmical outlook the Bharteva Vaibhava,
without neglecting both outlook’s, brings to the fore the
idea of. the unity of mankind. It is essentially a gospel of
.humanism.

The first part of the poem deals particularly with . the
character . of a ruler of men. Bharatesa, the 1st Cha-
-kravarti, who is the eldest son of Lord Rsabha Deva, is
.described in a way as a prince of Renaissance who lives a
; full life, but with the decisive distinction that he knows
.to sublimate the strong impulses with which nature has
.endowed him. The poet Ratnskara Varm says of him:
“Even though engrossed in the humdrum of daily life and
■the functions of his kingship he attained omniscience, at the
.mpment he was renouncing the worldly possessions !”

In another passage we read: “He was one of the sixteen
^Manus’ and the first » Ghakravarti (the - conqueror of the
;World). He was engrossed in the insinuating charms of
ninety six thousand queens, but even then he was the
;attainer of Nirvana (liberation) in the same birth and from
the same body.’'

- : In ancient India-as well as in European • antiquity-
; numbers were often used as a means of emphasis in order
■to stir up imagination. Henry -Thomas Buckle points in
•his 'History of Civlisation’ to this rethorical habit particul-
arly with regard to India. <-

;".-v “The king’s actions,’’ we read further “were well bal-
anced. He was considerate and soberminded. Sobriety; and
-.-considerateness are the essential quality of a King . and a
: Saint. The King possessed both of them.”

• A strong soul-power emanated from him. He was a
. .great inspirer of ar|, particulary of music. So _ we read in

108

our text. 'Just as the ocean rises in tide at the sight of
the full moon, so did the heart of the musicians with
joy at the sense of Bharat-and here he is quite in line with
the tradition of ancient Greece and with the philosophy of
Confucius-Music is a means to purify soul: ‘The morning
praise of the Lord was sung in such an excellent manner
and in such a sweet tone, that it purified the very soul of the
audience. They sung songs in different measures (Bhopata
Dhanasri) and tunes in the presence of Chakravarti Bharat,
the Lord of Kingdom in praise of every one’s Karmas f

‘Even stones, trees, snakes and birds got charmed by
the song, what to say of men and women’. And this
music makes a man conscious that a person who docs not
realize the soul (his innerself), but hankers after external
objects and tries to derive happiness from them, is ‘like
the buffalo which eats the leaves of a sugarcane, but docs
not suck its juice.’

The spirituarattainments of Bharat arc closely linked
up with his worldly conquests. This is thus expresse j in
our epic: ‘Some Rsjss achieve worldly conquests, while
some spiritual victory. Those who can achieve both arc
very few. Only you can do this, since, oh King, for this
right knowledge is needed,’

From this quotation one might already guess, that the
conquest of Bharat is essentially of spiritual nature.

We mentioned already that the profound spirituality
of Bharat could not induce him to lead as long as he was
king-the ascetic life of a monk. Being a potential king of
the Universe he was much involved in every day life. So
his only way out was that of sublimation of his strong,
lion like instincts. This subtle attitude is thus expressed
by our poet Ratnirkara Vamr. ‘The Rajs should be adept
in both kinds of conduct, that of enjoyment of worldly
pleasure and that of contemplation of the qualities of the
soul. He should adopt the conduct of attachment and
non-attachment to the worldly objects at the same time.’

This combination of outer attachment with inner non-
attachment,, which found also expression in the Gita
reminds the psychological realism of the Chinese who
recognised clearly the danger of an unspirited suppression
of natural instincts, a realism which we ' find in Europe
only after the appearance of a galaxy of great psychologists
like Freud, Adler and Jung in modern times.

Therefore Ratanakara says of a man with the nature
of the Raja: ‘He should enjoy the pleasure of the world
and at the same time he should follow the tenets of
Dharma with zeal.’

The word of Christ that ‘for a rich man it is more
difficult to ascend into heaven than for a camel to pass
through the ear of a needle’ finds an interesting variega-
tion: ‘O Rajan’, 'so exclaims the poet, ‘there must be
numerous saints in the world . who have given up all
worldly pleasures and possessions and realize their inner-
self. But there will be few, who like you possess all the
glory of the worldly possessions and still are able , to
realize their innerself.’

Then we have a beautiful simile: ‘With a pot balanced
on her head just as a dancer dances to the tune of musical
instruments, but keeps her attention fixed on the pot lest
it might fall down, so do. ypu Raja keep your attention
fixed on moksa inspite of being engrossed in. the affairs
of the state.’ The author of the poem described ’ with these
remarkable words the attitude of a spiritual. Commonweal-
th builder-Such a dancer was, e. g. the Zarathustra of
Nietzsche so often misunderstood and misinterpreted
whose profound spiritual background has been thoroughly
recognized and exposed to an astonished . publicity by
Felicien Challaye in his genial work of interpretation
‘Friedrich Nietzsche .’

Ratnakar’s viewpoint is further ^elucidated by this
passage: ‘Just as a housewife keeps the servants satisfied
but takes full work from them, so do you Rajan, although

n«

indulging in sense gratification, use your senses in a con-
siderate manner to enable you to concentrate on mchsha
This little passage precedes the whole results of modem
psychoanalysis. But we find in our epic much more then
mere analysis, what we find here is essentially
*\ psychosynthesis

Bharat’s relations to his body are expressed in these
generous words which reflect a true Kshatriya spirit, and
betray the bom 1 grand seigneur (grand Lord): ‘Like a
person who after entertaining his guest and giving him a
send off, returns to his house with a feeling of relief, Rrrjft
Bharata used to treat his body as if it were a guest and
after giving it meals, absorbed himself in his soul with a
feeling of relief.'

'He was offering’ so we read, ‘the delicious food to his
body so that it may help his soul in crossing the ocean of

transmigration ’ He was placing food of different

tastes; sweet, sour, saline, pungent, bitter etc. on his ton-
gue. At the same time he was offering the food of know-
ledge, bliss and power through his mind to his
soul. Most interesting is Bharat's conception of his royal
duties: ‘Just as the beauty of the moon is not blurred by
the dark spot in it, so Ruja's glory was not t3mishcd by
his worldly duties.' We have here a profound wisdom
expressed in words full of poetical beauty.

Such is the character of Bharata. the first Chakravnrtt.
He has the knowledge of a true initiatc-he has ‘a third
eye’:— ‘The possessor of the knowledge of soul, has three
eyes, a person who has three eyes is the conqueror of the
Karmas.’ He sees this world with his two ( physical \ eyes,
but he cannot get even a glimpse of the soul with tho^e
eyes. The third eye of inner vision is needed to divulge
the secrets of the AtmJ. He can attain the position of
Siddha if lie has all the three eyes, and not otherwise.*

The true knowledge of the soul is identical with a true
knowledge of the world: ‘Only that person who has

in

realized his soul is capable' of experiencing through con-
templation that he has entered the innermost region of
the world or is standing in the coolest light. Through
regular practice of this concentration and selfabsorption
'he begins to experience the bliss of the siddhas whose
abode is at the uppermost of the world. Soul neither has
speech nor movement, nor body, nor the five senses. It is
bright 'knowledge and bliss with which the entire body
{glows?

II. THE MISSION OF BHARAT '

' In order to understand the Mission of Bharat we have
to keep in mind that he was the son of Lord Rsabha Deva
who, according to Jain tradition founded human culture.
He taught 72 arts to men and 63 arts to women. The most
important of his worldiy teachings was the cultivation of
grains'. He Was the father of agriculture and the founder
of culture, the greatest achievement of which was the
•recognition of soul. Lord Rsabha Deva was the first
Tirthankara of this cycle of time. His "' 1 teaching's had a
worldwide resonance." This conception of Rsabha Deva
as the teacher of the whole human race reflects the unity
of the ancient Occident and the ancient Orient, to which
haVe recently pointed great scholars like father Heras and
Prof. Willibald Kirfel. After the foundation . of human
culture Lord Adinatha according to Jain tradition retired
from life, became an hermit and obtained omniscience.
As the first Tirthankara he preached those exalted teach-
ings, which we find still in different shadows and grades •
of intensity in Jainism, Buddhism and the great mystics -
all religions.

Raja Bharata was in his activities as king the faithful
"performer of the work started by his father. His father,
has founded the cultural unity of humanity. It was his
task to shape the political unity as the natural result of
this cultural unity. Raja Bharat’s world conquest was
essentially h spiritual’ conquest. His Urihy' became wictor-

ious without any bloodshed.

We read that Raj? Bharata was sitting in his palace
when suddenly, the minister Buddhi Sagar came to him,
making the following prayer: ‘O Lord the rainy season has
come to an end. It is proper time for the mobilisation of
the army. So for removing the idleness, it would be in
the fitness of things to plan for the victory over the world.'
He continues: ‘please, oblige the subjects of the six realms
by your visit.’ This means nothing else than it was the
desire of the whole world to have this visit. The minister
suggests also a means to get the support of the rulers: ‘You
may also consider the desirability of marrying the beauti-
ful daughters of t h e kings of different realms.' This
correspondants to the marriage-policy of Akbar, or in
Europe, e. g. of the Habsburgs. The idea of world conquest
is approved by Bahubali, whose colossal statue at Shrn-
vana Belgola is one of the greatest masterpieces of art in
India. 'He has heard’, so reports the Minister, ‘the news-
of your ambition to conquer the world and he very much
appreciated it' Bharat starts his world conquest with the
blessings of his mother who expresses the wish that he
might conquer the world without difficulty. She predicts:
'You can rest assured that not one member of your army
not even horses and elephants will come to the slightest
grief. The rajas of all the six realms will bow their head
at your feet !'

So Bharat has only to make a political use of the cultu-
ral unity of mankind, established by his father. Lord
Rsabha Dcva. Then, according, to the prediction of
his mother the great rulers of the world arrived to pay
him homage: so the rulers of Angadesha, of Paliava Desh.
the King of Kerala, the King of Kanauj, the ruler of
Karhat and the Chieftain of Snurnvtra. the ruler of Kashi,
the ruler of Tigul and the Chief of Telgu. the king of
Munja and the chief of Persia, the King of Ber and the
king of Sindhu, among the countries which are represented

113

and still known under the same name we find Nepal,
China, Turkey and Malaya.

The conception of unity of mankind is in Bharat clos-
ely connected with his feeling of nature: ‘Since yesterday,
ever since I saw this ocean, my heart is thrilling with the
idea of meditation. Forests, rivers, sea shore and mounta-
ins are the places considered most suitable for meditation.’

From meditation Bharat draws the strength to overcome
his enemies, that means to convert them into ‘friends.’
Hearing these words, king Bharat said ‘why do you fear
so much ? Is Magadhakumara enemy? What does an owl
matter to the sun ? If I sit down for meditation, he
himself would come and surrender himself to me.’

Bharat is not only a great peacemaker in the interna-
tional but also in social field. Having received so many
presents from foreign kings he leaves, on advice of his
minister to his son the decision, what should be done with
these presents. And here the prince acted in the spirit of
his father: ‘Having heard the father, the. prince pointed
towards yonder servants.’ Then the king wondered at the
discriminating intelligence of the child. These presents,
it might be mentioned, signified not only a material value
but also an honour in which in this way also the servants
take part. This social attitude is also reflected in the way
how Jaikumara, the Commander of Bharat’s army, treats
his soldiers: ‘Jaikumara the commander of the army, is
taking the army ahead very affectionately, halting them in
the same way as a father treats his sons affectionately.’
And even more expressive it comes to the fore in the foll-
owing passage: ‘What a wonderful power Bharat had.
Wherever he went he obtaine i wonderful glory. He ousted
even the most terrible calamities very judiciously. He
always thought of the welfare of his people .’

Having established international and social peace Bharat
had still to ovorcome one great obstacle. He had to break
open a cave called the Vajrakaputa of the mountain

Vijayardha-Giri. It seems that this cave has a profound
symbolic meaning.

It is evidently the symbol for our unconscious. The horse
Pavananjar, which symbolises consciousness carries easily,
like a bird Bharat on the top of the Vijayardha-Giri-mount,
which evidently symbolises the soul. But much more
difficult than to dominate consciousness is the mastery
over the unconscious aspect of it: ‘Bharat inspected the
ground for a while. After that the emperor climbed to
the top of the hill and saw there 'Vajrakapirta' the centre
of all troubles.’ That fearful ‘Vajrakpata looked very quiet
from without, but was full of fire of anger burning within
it The emperor examined it well’ ‘Before the ‘Vairakapata’
was broken Bharat remembered Lord ‘Adinatha.’ Then lie in
his pure heart meditated about parambrahma paramntmn.'

Then he attacked the gate ( this seems to point to
austerities, tapas). Chakravarti Bharat struck upon the
Vajrakapata so vigorously that it broke into several pieces
like a thin earthen brick. This breaking up of ‘Yajraka-
pata produced a thundering sound.’ The attainment of
full consciousness after the breaking up of Vajrakaputa is
hinted to by these words: ‘After that the horse flew into
the sky.’ So the story’ of Bharat, starting with the conqu-
est of the world, proceeding to the establishment of social
peace, ends with conquest of his own sou!-with Mcbshc*.

Bharat is also the sacred name for India. This seems
to point to the fact that in India national feeling and huma-
nism collaborate and are almost identic. Also for the Ind-
ian, who is living up to his cultural standard it is true what
the Prince v. Loevcnstcin in his excellent ‘German History’
has stated with regard to the Germans. ‘A true German can-
not be only a German, but must also be a woridcitiren.'

And also the Historical experiences of the English spea-
king peoples (Sir \V. Churchill’s book) point to the
necessity of a political humanism based on the cultural
world unity. If the actual Commonwealth would ovrecome

IT:

nil static energy and become more and more dynamic it
would certainly become a decisive driving power towards
the end of world-unification, without which there can
never be a lasting peace.

It is astonishing to observe to what an extent certain
leftists in there polimics against the Commonwealth
become involved in contradictions. It might be remin-
ded that, according even to the most orthodox marxist
view. Capitalism is a progress in comparison with feudal-
ism. So -the actual Commonwealth with all its defects
should be considered as a progress in comparison with a
narrow nationalism. To dismantle it would be cultural
and political atavism. As in the Marxist conception Capit-
alism should lead to socialism, so the actual Commonweal-
th should lead to a Commonwealth, which includes the
whole human race. This progressive character of the
Commonwealth has at least been recognised by an impor-
tant personality like Auenrin Bevan, whose stay at Pilani
some time back, is still remembered as a most positive and
pleasant experience. This broadminded conception of the
Commonwealth requires of course a dynamic attitude. But
we have now to take our decision under the pressure of a
great danger consisting in the possibility of human self-
destruction through atomic bombs, a danger growing from
month to month, which can only be relinquished by the
final establishment of a World-confederation. Unfortunat-
ely there is not much time to loose. Courageous steps sho-
uld be undertaken. The situation is such that e.g. it would
be quite conceivable today, that a free nation like West-
Germany, which is not committed in any kind of colonialism
and has traditionally excellent relations to India, the great-
est Commonwealth member, would join the Commonwealth,
encouraging by this bold step also other countries in Asia
and Africa to join, or perhaps in case of Burma to rejoin
the community which has now developed to a Common-
wealth: preparing thus step by step the way for a real Comm-
onwealth which has no artificial limits for: One World.

116

JAINISM ABROAD
(NOT NUMBERS BUT IDEAS)

The actual political situation in the World is marked
by the existence of two power blocs: America and Russia
kept in peace only by the delicate balance of terror. It
was a contemporary of Goethe: Jean Paul Richter, who pre-
dicted in his political writings that one day the very des-
truction power of the weapons might compel men to keep
peace and that in this way war itself would destroy war.
So, even fear, which has created so many wars might this
time become an enticement to peace. This admitted one
should not overstress this argument. For if under particu-
lar conditions even fear might be, fora limited timc.limilcd
in fact only by a real and by all partners as such conceiv-
ed equality of armament, a deterrant of war. it will never
be a solid and durable basis of peace. This can only be
supplied by an emotion which is the very contrary of fear
by hope and confidence.

And while mutual fear presupposes an equality of
means of destruction, mutual confidence presupposes
equalities of moral values. The tragedy of our actual situa-
tion consists in this that wc have today only a delicate
equality of arms which might be tilted over by some new
invention, we have not an equality of values which alone
might provide a solid guarantee of peace. Mora! value*
are in reality mere reflections of a worldwide disintegra-
tion of culture. Cultural values are not only links between
man and man. Being patterns of perfection, which wc
generally can never reach in this life they are also testimo-
nies of higher spiritual realms and the links to them. There-
fore moral values, if they are more than mere face-values,
must be religious values. From this follows that the great

117

religions of the world have a great part to play in the pro-
cess of cultural and implicite political world integration.

The great religions did not always live up to these ex-
pectations; there have been crusades, wars of religion and
holy wars. But in those times men had according to the
German author von Veltheim-Ostrau, in his Aphorisms,
‘enough religion to hate, in the name of religion’ but ‘not
enough religion to love’. Hatred can only be the compa-
nion of superficial, intensive but shallow pseudoreligious
feelings, culminating in fanatism. Today we need religions
profound enough to create love. These religions will not
be opponents, always ready to disparage each other, but
they will be friends, joined to the fulfillment of a common
task: The creation or restauration of the common values,
which according to the belief in a golden age, have
been lost.

If the task of religion in our age is such defined, it
becomes evident, that Jainism is the last religion which
can afford provincialism and narrowminded secterianism.
We are living in an age of mutual human interdependence
and it would be paradox if a religion which emphasises
ahimsa and has nursed the spirit of Gandhi would be qui-
te unmoved in face of the dangers threatening humanity.
In its greatest times Jainism excelled always through the
universality of its outlook and already the first of the
Tirthankaras, Lord Rishabha Deva, is conceived in Jain
tradition as the founder of human culture in general. This
Universalism is reflected in all the life stories of the Tir-
thankaras in which we find, without any exception, the
mentioning of the Lecture-hall, to which all races of hu-
manity and even the animal-world were admitted. In Jain
literature this Universalism has found a beautiful express-,
ion m Ratnakar’s “Bhartesh Vaibhava

Hie World Jain Mission, in assuming its activities as
such, was only following the lines of this old tradition.
Among the S'wetambaras it was Barrister Gandhi— not to

-x

118

be confounded with the Mahatma-who tried to spread the
ideas of Jainism in Europe and America. Among the
Digambaras it was Barrister Champat Rai Jain who went
abroad to lecture on Jainism. And he had such a farsigh-
ted conception of his work, that it can serve as a pattern
to all Jains, interested in the propagation of the basic ten-
ets of Jainism without regard to their particular denomina-
tion. It seems that Champat Rai Jain had a very fine feel-
ing for the basic principles of cultural geography. He reco-
gnised clearly the interconnection between India and the
Mediterranean Area. He devoted his main works to the
study of Early Christianity, Judaism, Islam, but gave also
in his • Confluence of Opposites ’ new interpretations to Zo-
roaster’s religion, to religions which preceded and influen-
ced perhaps illuminatism, which in its turn influenced stro-
ngly romanticism. World culture took its start-that is also
collaborated by the book of the Geographer Alfred Hctt-
ner: 'The Propagation of Culture Round the Earth' — in
the area between the Mediterranean and India, an area
which is also today, as the dramatic rising up and regene-
ration of the African and Arabian peoples of this region
betrays,— still full of creative life. American, African,
Chinese and Malayan cultures are in last analysis impor-
tant branches of this Indo-Mcditcrrancan culture, in which
particularly all great religions are rooted. While Russia
and America represent two powerblocks, which are kept
into the limits of peace only by mutual fear, India and
Europe, as far as it is still rooted in the ancient Mediterra-
nean cultural tradition, are representatives of values which
are able to bridge the deepest gulfs and have never chan-
ged, which even today exercise their spell and of which the
basic teachings of great religions are witness. This process
of cultural World integration, from which the very conser-
vation of our human culture depends, will receive its stron-
gest impulses from India and the Mediterranean. Among
the great religions it is particularly Jainism which, due to

11 $

Its old traditions, which without break can be traced back
to prehistoric times, reflects in the most authentic way
that old spirituality. The idea that the heavenly realm is
within us, that man reaps what he sows, that hatred can
only be overcome by love, are some of these ancient ideas,
which are in Jainism rooted in a cosmology which, in its
essentials, has not to fear the challenge of modem science.

This was and is exactly the position from which the
World Jain Mission has to start its work. This work can
roughly be divided into three parts. The one is the establish-
ment of libraries like the Champat Rai Jain Library at
Godesberg and a reading room in New York, the sending
of books on Ahimsa to interested scholars and e. g. to
' latin American Universities, where Jainism is taught as a
branch of philosophy.

Another branch is the publication branch. The World
Jain Mission is publishing the monthly magazine: ‘The
Voice of Ahimsa' which publishes regularly certain special
numbers like ‘Tirthamkara Numbers, Peace Numbers and
Nationality Numbers. (Nationality considered in the sense
of Friedrich List as a link between Individual and Huma-
nity). With regard to Nationality Numbers there have so
far been published: an Indo-German Special No., an Indo-
French Special No. and an Indo-Commonwealth No.
These issues have the tendency to integrate the aims of
Champat Rai Jain to revoke the Old Cultural Unity: Msdi-
terranean-India, which in last analysis is a Unity India-
Europe. An America Number has been based on the
same culturalpolitical conception as, from the viewpoint
of World Culture, America is ontologically part and parcel
of the Mediterranean-European Culture. In preparation
is an Africa Number.

- Another field of activity of the World Jain Mission is
the occasional publication of books. There are particularly
three books-one published and introduced and two written
by Kamta Prasad Jain, the Director of the Mission, which

120 .

cover a far field of ideas. The one is * Self Realisation' by
Raj Chandra, who was the Guru of Mahatma Gandhi.
This book is particularly interesting, as it shows the strong
influence of Jain philosophy on Gandhi. Another book,
this one written by Kamta Parsad Jain, deals with Ahin-
sa philosophy in all its various aspects. The 3rd book has
the title ' Some Jain Kings and B crocs' and deals with an
aspect of Jainism which is today often forgotten or negle-
cted: with heroism based on soul power. This book, ns it
deals with the life of statesmen and warriors, is also a
confession to our social duties in this world.

A book of the German Scholar J. Kohl 'The physical
and biological world conception of the Jains' was published
in German language.

All these activities of the World Jain Mission arc
simultaneously also activities of the ‘Intcrnationl Academy
of Jain Wisdom and Culture’: as this institution represents
only a particular aspect of the World Jain Mission, as far
as the organisation is concerned. It is the particular aim of
the Academy, to find out the intellectual forces in the
World which are really creative and contribute to the form-
ation of a World Unity based on ethical values. In proclai-
ming this scope the International Academy has obtained
the collaboration of some of the most alert and active
intellectual circles in the whole world. Men like Schub-
ring, Kirfel and Glasenapp, to mention only some of our
members, who have been selected Hon. Members of the
Academy, are the leading scholars of Jainologv and have
obtained World reputation. Kirfel is also leading in resea-
rch, regarding titc common features of Indian and Medit-
erranean cultures.

In this field also the anthropologist Baron von Eicks-
tedt has great merits. Of groat importance is the concction
with the Keyserling Society in Wisbadin (West Germany).
The Academy counts Countess Keyserling and Baroness
von Dungem as its honorary members. It will be a task

121

of the future to describe the particular spiritual and ethical
values, represented by the individual members of the Inter-
national Academy. A symbol of the growing international
importance of the International Academy is the fact, that
she has been mentioned in the 2nd volume of the great
work of our generous well-wisher Dr. Franz Thierfelder,
‘The German language in the World , which has just been
published by the Institute for Foreign ' Relations, Stuttgart
(West Germany).

As perhaps the greatest success of the World Jain
Mission-International Academy might one day be consi-
dered the close contact which now could be established
with the World Council of Culture, presided by Prince Om
Lind Schemrezig, whose members including Dr. Albert
Schweitzer and Lord Bertrand Russel, selected the Hon.
Director and the Hon. Secretary of the International
Academy to its Honorary Members for life time. The Hon.
Director and the Hon. Secretary for Foreign Affairs rec-
eived also invitations to take part in an International
Conference of the -Universal Religions Alliance which
includes 140 religions committees, presided also by Prince
Om Lind Shernrezig, and efficiently lead by Prof. Dr. Ras-
enberger Koch, which ■ in the meantime has been held in
the month of October 1959 in Havanna. The little time
left to us, to organise the forces of peace should be used
before it is too late-If it is fear which is so far the only
deterrent of war we should hasten now, to complete and
to consolidate in love what till now has been obtained by
mutual terror which any moment might give way to cynic
overestimation of one's own forces. Only what is based
on love is permanent, Jainism abroad is not represented
by numbers and registration but by ideas which fit in the
doctrine of any religion so far as this religion is . still loyal
to the teachings of its founder. In stressing the ideas of
the divinity of soul and ahimsa Jainism advances to the
mystic heart of each and every religion, creating between
all creeds a link of mutual understanding and sympathy.

122

KAMTA PRASAD JAIN AND THE WORLD
JAIN MISSION

Jainism-this is today often forgotten-was one c a reli-
gion which was spread in large parts of India. It has along
with Buddhism considerably influenced Hinduism. This is
particularly true with regard to the most modem current
of Hinduism, with Gandhism. How great the impact of
the Jain scholar Sri Raj Chandra on Mahatma Gandhi has
been, becomes evident, if we compare Gandhian philosophy
with the answers which he gave to 26 questions of the
Mahatma (see Raj Chandra’s. 'Self-Realization’, introduced
by Kamta Prasad Jain and published by the World Jain
Mission, Aliganj, Etali.) The influence can also easily be
retraced in the teachings of Vinoba Bhavc which have
found a most beautiful and profound expression in his
“talks on Gita.”

But Jainism has not only exercised an influence on the
Indian scene; it exercised a rather hidden but nonetheless
very important influence on the devclopcmcnt of the ethi-
cal character of the great world religions and has by this
paid an important contribution to world-culture. This
historical role of Jainism is well pointed out in tire differ-
ent books of Cliainpat Rai Jain.

Jainism without this unobstrusive missionary character,
which contents itself to suggest, to inspire and io interpr-
ete, instead of converting and of subjugating in the spiri-
tual sphere, would not be the Jainism, which hails from
the Tirthankaras.

The World Jain Mission is in this way important for
the inner development of Jainism itself in this, that purifies
it from selfishness and sectarianism and restores its Univer-
sal outlook, so characteristic for ar.eicm Jainism. Jainism,
this is stressed H again and agian by the We: Id Jain Mi-

V":

ssion is also important, due, to its antiquity, which is also
recognised by Arnold Toynbee in the Chapter 'Shravana
Begola’ of his book ‘ Travel Round the World\ as a plat-
form of interpretation of the development of the different
religions on the basis of ahimsa.

• This double aspect of the World Jain Mission has* to
be recognised if we want to come to a true understanding
of the role which a personality like Kamta Prasad Jain,
the Honaery Director of the World Jain Mission,, plays in
actual life of the Jain community.-

By his combination of otherwise contradictory qualit-
ies and- like nobel zeal ^-patience, which has deve-
loped in him to an .admirable sense of right timing, he has
managed to build up under most different circumstances
and inspite of sometimes a really chaotic individualism
Within the Jain Community, an organisation like the World
Jain Mission, a mission by the way, which does not aim
at conversion but at a new and broad interpretation of
the different religions. It includes as important instruments
the International Academy of Jain Wisdom and Culture, the
representation center of which is now at Indore and the
foundation of a periodical like the ‘Voice of Ahim-
sa’ which, particularly by its special Numbers, has made
important : contribution to a better understanding of Jain
philosophy and World Culture.

These achievements are finally the fruits of the high
qualities of intellect and character which distinguish the
Director of the World Jain Mission, qualities which are
also reflected in his writings, which have established his
reputation as a firstrate scholar in Jainology. Living in a
beautiful farm house in Aliganj, a small town with rural
surroundings, and closely connected with agriculture he
devotes all his time and even his health to the service of
his high ideals, which can be summed up in one final aim*.
Inner and outer peace, as basis of human progress to a
true spirituality.

RUSSIA AND THE COMMONWEALTH. '

it

.The Berlin crisis reveals once more that the request for
World unity is more than an airy construction, established
by dreamers. It becomes more and more evident that it is
a final solution of all our political and economic difficul-
ties and as such an absolute necessity. There are three
ways to establish world-unity; the first way goes via Mos-
kow. But this way means a communist dictatorship all
over the world, a scope which could only be realised after
a defeat of U. S. A. in an atomic war. It was an English
geographer, Sir Halford Makinder who first pointed to the
great importance of the long stretch of Land from Europe
to Asia covered by Russia. He thought that the pivot of
history was lying in the vast inner land mass of Eurasia to
which he gave the picturesque title of the Heartland. And
he articulated the warning: 'who rules East Europe comm-
ands the Heartland, who rules the Heartland commands
the World Island (Asia plus Europe): who rules the World
Island rules the world.’ 'This thoughtful condensation of
much human history and accurate observation of the influ-
ence of geography on history,* so we read in the book of
Edmond A. Walsh, S. J. "Total Emyirc" was conceived in
an age. when air-power had not yet become a major com-
ponent of military potential. Hence the theory has been
modified but not entirely cancelled out by the'eoming age
of air power.’ — From this viewpoint the Berlin question
takes a world-wide aspect and can only at best rrori.n-
onally be solved when the question of European Security
is connected with it. This would mean that some time B

gained for the preparation of a. peaceful realisation of
World uni tv. There are. in fact, onlv three ros^ibilities :o

create One World. The first might be term

way. It would mean, as already mentioned, a communist
dictatorship all over the world, after elimination of the
American power; the second way would be the American
way, which would only be workable after a Russian defeat
in an Atomic war. The only peaceful way would be the
gradual extension of the actual Commonwealth to a World
Commonwealth. The UNO should be closely connected
with the Commonwealth. In order to understand this we
have to take two facts into account. The first is that India
is as far as its popoulation is concerned the greatest Com-
monwealth Country and that its importance will grow with
its fulfilment of the Five Year plan. The second is that
Russia becomes more and more an Asiatic Country, this
was already predicted by Colin Ross in his ‘ World on the
Balance due to the spread of education among its asiatic
population and due to the growing importance of China
as a potential competitor-(the danger of Chinese infiltera-
tion becomes evident from the book of Arseniew: Through
the Deserts of East-Siheria ) and India, if not duly antago-
nized, as a potential friend and mediator. If we combine
these two facts we arrive to the conclusion that Russia,
inspite of the Iron Curtain, is not quite unassailable so far
as its Asiatic masses are concerned, the relatively small
representation of which in the party leadership seems to be
less a result of some hidden racial policy, even if this could
not entirely be ruled out, but a necessary consequence of
their smaller inclination and perhaps capacity to believe
party doctrines (Marxism is extremely European in the
19th century sense) like the European Russians, whose
rigidity of thinking has already been observed by Maxim
Gorki. This growing importance of the Asiatic masses in
Russia along with the growing importance of India and
China creates a new political situation. Russia becomes
more and more sensitive to public opinion in Asia. This
can be observed by certain political facts:

(1) An attempt to come to terms with U. S. A. by direct

negotiation, as it was perhaps intended by Mikoyan and
to do things without MacMillan, has failed. It was then
significant that as well Russia as America felt the necess-
ity of an English mediation which finally paved the way
for Camp Davies and it is perhaps not too bold to infer
that the particular strength of the position of the British
Prime Minister might derive from the fact that he repre-
sents the Commonwealth and that, in a certain sense.
Nehru is always his invisible partner.

(2) The position of Yugoslavia immediately after the
breach with Stalin was extremely dangerous. It would be
wrong to infer that a direct or indirect support of U.S.A.was
the only reason of the gradual strengthening of Tito’s posi-
tion. It seems much more that Tito was the only European
statesman who. as a first rate expert on Russia has recognis-
ed the great importance of public opinion in Asia in the field
of European politics as far as it is connected with Russia.

(3) During his stay in the United States Mikoyan was
also interrogated in connection with “Pasternak'*. His atti-
tude was entirely uncompromising. He called Pasternak’s
book ‘Dr. Zhivago, a bad book’. But according to the
‘Indian Express’ of the 21 si February 1959 there was then
a readiness to rehabilitate Pasternak and to rc-clcct him to
the Union of Sowjcl-writcrs. Interesting is herc the timing.
This news, irrelevant if it is true or not, -at any rate it
points to a corresponding tendcncy-appcars at a time when
preparations are going on for a visit of a Russian Goodwill
Mission with some members of the Supreme Soviet to India.
It seems at any rate to be very difficult to-day. not to
have the impression that in the case pastemak the Indian
reaction had a moderating influence.

These are very striking facts which fit well in thcgcncrai
picture projected by K. M. Panikar in his 'Asiz arj ike
Imyaci of Western IinpcrniUstr),' which reveals that the
Russians were already under the Tsars psychologically
more skilful in dealing with Asiatic peoples than the

! Western powers of that time.

•«', Itis now, in the actual conjunction of events, most im-
portant 'not only to. avoid to repeat past mistakes but it
is essential to make'a practical, use of Asiatic and particu-
larly Indian Public Opinion in tne interest of world peace.

From this viewpoint the suggestion * of Dr, Meyer,
the former Ambassador of the Federal Rupublic: of Germ-
any in India, to request India along with Sweden to>, offer
its good services as mediator in the conflict about Berlin, -
in reality it is the question of European security which is at
stake-is most interesting. It is in fact interesting for its sound
realism which is so rare to-day. The experience of Yugoslavia
should betaken into account. Indeed by joining the Comm-
onwealth and endowing by this bold step the Indo- German
relations with an institutional, that means with an absol-
ute constant, reliable character, we could pursue Tito’s
policy even more thoroughly than Tito himself, who on
the basis of the Marxist doctrine of revolution opposed
to evolution, would find it difficult to join an institution
like the Commonwealth which is based finally on liberty.
The great economist Adalf Weber ( World Economics )
recommends a close collaboration between the European
continent and England which he considers as the most
important link between Europe and world-economics, a
view, supported recently in September 58, by M. de Man-
thon, president of European Assembly at Strasbourg.

A similar step of Germany would give an additional
security to Europe; it would allay also the fears of Russia
as a linking up with the Commonwealth would compel
the Western powers to coordinate their policy with the
Foreign policy of India which is at friendly terms with
Russia. It would give a new strength to the Commonweal-
A th and emphasize its evolutionary character, directed

- - towards. World Integration: only this character justifies

- the. existence of the actual Commonwealth and takes away
fr° m it the stigma of Imperialism. It would be a contribut-

S 128

ion towards a peaceful working of the process of world
integration and secure its democratic character. It would
accelerate to the process of liberalisation in Russia and
approach it to the tradition, which developed in the Mcdi-
teranean countries, the Near East and India and which
are determinating now the character of our world culture.
It would with regard to U. S. A. give an additional streng-
th to its position as an invisible Commonwealth-Country.

The role of Germany in this process is evident. Due to
its particular strategic position after the 2nd World War.
the most essential features of which is the loss of East
Prussia to Russia it is from the view-point of defence
according to current military thinking entirely linked
up with the West. But its political interests, which
include finally in a broader sense also the strategic
interest,-one would even not be so wrong to sav its necessi-
ties of self-preservation-demand the consolidation of its
relations with the Soviet-Union, without of course sacrific-
ing its western alliance, upon which in face of the militar-
ised masses of an empire ten times as big as Germany our
very life depends, that means a continuation of Bismarck's
policy of friendly relations with Russia by different means.
Already Bismarck recognised the importance of kind
relations with the Near East and in collaboration with
Disraeli he supported on the Berlin Congress 1S7S the
Turkey against the ambitions of the Tsarist Russia, which
was his ally. Now according to the new world constellation
wc have to include also the Far East in a system of peace
warrants, offering a greater scope to Indian policy and
creating by this a larger platform for Gandhian policy
and the implementation of Punch Shila, leading finally to
disarmament and abolition of atomic weapons.

Even when, the danger of a new war will be avoided we
should learn one thing from this crisis: Wc should not fur-
ther rely upon the delicate balance of Terror ; armament
race). Selfdestruction of the whole human race win almost

be sure if the Anarchy of national states will not soon be
replaced by a federative order of the world. It is the first
duty of the great religions like Christianity, Hinduism,
Islam, Buddhism and Jainism to collaborate with each other
and to throw their weight on the balance in favour of peace.
In his ‘Book of Personal Life’ Hermann Keyserling has po-
inted out that, if the art of diplomacy consists in bridging
gulfs between opponents, the great founders of religions had
been the best diplomats. He thought particularly of Christ
and Bnddha. But after the advent of Gandhi and his
liberation of India by non-violent means we should
include the last of the Tirthamkaras from which he drew
particularly his inspirations: Lord Mahavira, whom he
considered as the greatest expert of Ahimsa.

MY EXPERIENCES IN RUSSIAN CAPTIVITY.

SOME REMNISCIENCES, SOME REFLECTIONS.

A lot of books have been written, describing the dreary
life of a prisoner of war in Russia; they have been read in
Germany, by those who had a similar fate and by those
who were by ties of family or friendship, interested in
prisoner-life in Russia, than they have been forgotten. I
do not think that even only one of these books has really
got an international reputation. The reason might be
found in a certain prejudice.

People prefer to read books which reflect society in
which they live. And a prisoner camp is something like an
artificial world. And then there might be some urge of
revenge which impelled the author of a similar book to
present the account of his sad experiences and which is
lurking in each and every line.

With regard to revenge I do not think that these fears
were ever justified. If one reads books on captivity in
Russia, one can generally not help to be impressed by the
soberness and objectivity of the authors.

With regard to the artificiality of the world, a prisoner
of war lives in, it cannot be denied that there is some truth
in it. We were isolated from the rest of the world even
physically by a high wooden wall which encircled the vast
area of the camp, we were cut off from our families to
such an extent that for whole years even a correspondence
was not permitted with our beloved ones, leaving us in the
dark about their destiny sometimes with gloomy apprehen-
sions. But we soon learnt to discover a new reality behind
the walls of our camp at Michaclowka. a small village at
the middle Wolga- reality which was frightening and which
challenged our whole will for existence. But about this I

1*1

will refer at the end of these reminiscences. Previously some
observations which might appear trivial but which have
from the viewpoint of psychology, a great practical value.

We were mainly engaged in forest work which went on
with short interruptions for about 8 hours, in addition to
this about two hours walk (two ways: to our work-place
and return), The nutrition was very scarce and so we
suffered from undernourishment. Our daily talk were parti-
cularly concerned with cooking prescriptions the quotation
of which had no end as the patience of the listeners seemed
to be inexhaustible. Sometimes the German doctors, who
were in the camp, warned us that by stirring up our ima-
gination in this way, the empty stomach was set into work
to produce digestive stomach-juices without having material
to digest. Certainly the doctors were right in this: but they
overlooked an important psychological fact. We had to over-
come a tremendious monotony in which the kind of our
work & the melancholic character of the plain in the vastness
of which we seemed to be lost, competed. We had at least
in the first years of captivity no books to read; we were
reduced to most simple and primitive activities. Under
these circumstances, it seems to me that, these .‘kitchen- .
talks’ were a sound instinctive reaction to keep us mentally
alert. Tasting something means distinguishing some thing
from another one and all our intellectual life starts and
ends with distinction. The French have well recognised
this and by accepting the famous cooking-book of Brillat-
Savarin as one of their classics they have really incorporat-
ed the art of cooking in their culture. The experience of
captivity proves again the correctness of this view which is
also reflected, in Rathnakar’s poem: Bhartesh Vaibhava
(See Commonwealth Idea in Jainism). Educationists should
learn from this experience and particularly vegetarian food
should reflect not drabness but refinement of taste.

Another experience might interest here. In school we
were sometimes reprimanded by our teachers if we read

132

the adventure-books of Karl May or even Captain Marri-
at. In captivity there was a great demand for good story
tellers and I remember still, how happy I was. that my
neighbour in the sledge team (we had to do real horsework
in training sometimes at a temperature of 20' minus,
sledges, covered with giant logs of wood), was able to
narrate the whole story of Karl May’s: 7n the Entire a*
the Silver-Lion

From this experience I would advise our teachers to be
a bit more lenient towards Karl May; or other writers in
this vein. If he does harm to some, he docs, in my opinion
in spite of his exaggerations and occasional trivialities -no
doubt Avenarius, the noted professor of German Literature
was right in condemning him from a mere literary point of
view, -more good than harm, by creating in us the capacity
of a contemplative mood in midst of danger, that means of
presence of spirit and inner readiness for action. That was,
what we needed most in captivity, where our activities
lack that sovereign freedom, which is the hall-mark of
action. I might induce here a little amusing story. The
best story-teller was beyond doubt Heinrich Hcrbcrmann, n
brother of Miss Nanda Hcrbcrmann, Secretary of the famous
Jesuit father Friedrich Muckermann. whose book “The Bliss-
full Abyss’ describing the suffering in Hitler’s Concentra-
tion camps, is one of the most upstirring documents of our
time. Also Heinrich Hcrbcrmann is mentioned in this book
and his sister describes, how, impelled by brotherly affect-
ion. she managed by his adroitness and psychological 4a!l.
to get even access to the criminal Himmler, the head of
the Gcstato <& to induce him, to release her. perhaps in the
calculation, to impress the Catholics by an act of theatrical
generosity. What distinguished Hcrbcrmann from all other
story tellers was this: while other storytellers narrated stor-
ies which they had read somewhere. Hcrbcrmann invited his
own stories. He had pliant astic adventures with elephants,
tigers and Maharadshas. He had been in the Near and Far

East, in Australia, the whole of America, nay in the whole
world.’ His complete ignorance of foreign languages was no
serious handicap for him, for he was rich enough to pay
quite a host of secretaries and private interpreters. He
had been in his private life Director General of the Klost-
ermann Warehouses, spread in the 20th in all big towns
in Germany. He knew of course also H.H. the Pope and Dr.
Adenaner personally. I do not know, what -was true in all
this but I think that his job as Director-General belonged
a bit to his story; for after all, for travelling round the
world with so many interpreters, one must have some finan-
cial background. Everybody supposed that Herbermanns
stories were invented from the beginning to -the end, but,
when he narrated them,- ; he did it with so much dignity
and selfassurance that everybody forgot; for a time his
scepticism.-One day a strange thing happened. There was
a guest from Moscow and a very dangerous one. Major
Stem was reputed to be one of the, most terrible and shre-
wd interrogators in the Soviet Union. Some people, parti-
cularly former big landlords, were interrogated; and their
descriptions of these interviews increased the general fear.
Suddenly it was about 8 p.m., also Herbermann was
summoned for an interrogation. He returned late in
the night, humming a gay song:* we heard only so
much, that Stem had offered him in the end of the inter-
view some strong Wotkas, the rest was , secret, which
was partially lifted the next day. It seems that Stem had
been much impressed by that, what Herbermann described
him as his functions as a Director General and also by the
fact that in his military carrier he had been, as he assured,
incharge of the cloth department of a whole army. He was
also impressed by the fact that Herbermann kne\y H. H.
the Pope and Dr. Adenaner and could not get enough infor-
mations about their personality, their views and habits. After
these preliminary talks Stem changed over to the direct
method and came out with an attractive proposal: In East-

'V 134

Germany a Democratic Republic was in formation Sc they
needed an experienced economist for guidance and advice.
If Mr. Herbermann would be kind enough to put his great
experience at the disposal of the coming new government
still in formation.-Herbermann, after some dignified rcl-
uctance, accepted almost, requesting only few days time
to think over it. The second interrogation assumed the
character of a private conversation. What was he working
in the camp?’-the major asked him. He had to do the forest-
work. In future he would not have to go any more to the
forest. What about his intellectual interest? ‘Art and litcra-
ture’-said Herbermann promptly. In future he should
devote his time in the camp exclusively to art and litera-
ture. 'A brain like you' he added, with real ‘grandezza’-d oes
not need to work in the Soviet Union.’ For the next even-
ing the Major, with solemn formality, invited Herbermann
to an official dinner in order to give a dignified conclusion
to these negotiations: served was Wotka bread with butter
and sugar, which was taken from paper-bags. As long as
the Major was in the camp Herbermann was in fact exem-
pted from work; then we: he. myself and some other prison-
ers, were transferred to Kineshma a small phee at the Wolga
where we had to do some particularly hard work. Herber-
mann was deeply depressed physically, near to a break down he
seemed to be without any hope. Then some thing very surpris-
ing happened. Herbermann was called & the German camp-
commandcr told him, that lie was very lucky, the Russian
commander had ordered him, to give him the best cloth,
available in the camp-he had to leave for Moscow. Herbcr-
mann thought he would be transferred to some punishment-
camp in Siberia Sc asked me, to inform his sister, at my rel-
ease when 1 had last seen him. In December short!)
after my repatriation I wrote accordingly to Miss Nan da
Herbermann. In her reply she informed me that Iter brother
had been transferred by plane to Moscow and from there
to East Berlin, Few days later I received a letter from

Heinrich Herbermann, informing me, that as his Christian
standards of morality 'did not allow him to serve under
a communist dictatorship he had shifted over to West
Berlin, where he was living now with his family. Unfortu-
nately he should not enjoy for a long time his liberty.
Shortly after his arrival at West Berlin he died of cancer.
This is the story of Heinrich Herbermann, who was in
reality, as a character, most honest and sincere and who
by his talent for story-telling, has cheered us up, when we
were near to despair.

If the quotation of cooking-prescriptions kept us mentally
a ert when monotony, hard mechanical work and the lack
of books threatened to stifle all individuality, so the narr-
ation of adventure stories conserved and protected our
Vitality. But all this was not enough to face the new cruel
reality which we gradually discovered: This terrible lonel-
iness in midst of companions of suffering which perverted
sometimes to hopelessness; the strangeness of the large
melancholic plains in which we were living and which see-
med to devour us; the terrible uncertainty of our final
fate.-Will we ever be repatriated?-There were many attem-
pts of suicide, which in most cases failed. It is contrary to
the current view, most difficult to commit suicide in
surroundings which seem hostile to us. Every one wants
to die at home or at least in an equivalent of a home;e. g.
as a member of a military unit, but never earnestly in a
pnsonercamp. And then gradually, as a reply to the stran-
geness of our surroundings and the fear emanating from it,
new sense of metaphysical consciousness, or better
u consciousness, came into being. One felt it is one thing,
o le in fulfillment of that what is conceived as a duty and
another, and very different from it, to die by his own hand,

a + n i rea * 0r social function and it

+ a , e ^ riore ter rible and hostile the world is appea-

Sfe , rnW ’ U SS We Can COnCeiVe as OUT usual WOrid,
ger ecomes, as a reaction, our metaphysical ins-

136

tmct, compelling us, to accept our fate and to go on living.
The first reaction to the new reality: an almost cosmic
loneliness, was, to indulge in reminiscences, to take refuge
into that, what was reality to us in the past. We were think-
ing of our beloved ones’s at home I thought much of my
mother,' always nursing something, looking after the
flowers in the large garden surrounding our house, or those
in the winter-garden, a room with large windows much
exposed to sun and a paradise for even subtropical
plants, or birds of most various species. Or I thought of
the principal of the High school in St. Goarshansen who
taught me German, French, History and Geography, who
was in comparison with C. R. Jain, whose outlook was
cosmical, a man of this world, with a classic almost latin
bend of mind, clear thinking, quite the type of a Prussian
Officer, in his clearness of decision and his power of co-
mmand, but with a mind, broadened by deep culture and
far travelling in different European and non-European
countries, particularly in France, Italy and Switzerland,
in Egypt and the Sahara.With the stately shape of his body
with his strong but tremendously intelligent face and mart-
ial beard, he looked a bit like a combination between Lord
Kitchner and the Grand Elector of Brandenburg. He taught
us duty in a Kantian way, not as inclination, but as a
sacrifice and liked to use a particular rough Prussian expr-
ession difficult to translate into English to make clear how
he understood duty: ‘Die Verdamntc Pflicht und Schuld
gke'it ,’ the damned duty and devotion to service. He tried
particularly to keep in balance individuality and teamspirit
and tried to inspire our energy. How well lie succeeded in
this is evident from the fact, that sometimes, in captivity,
it was sufficient for me to think of him to keep fit and
erect, if hunger, cold or tiredness threatened to overwhelm
my resistance. Strong or beloved personalities of the past,
that means the life before captivity, did at any rate not
loose their reality like particular social and professional

surroundings and even landscapes. The longer time we had
been in captivity the more dreamlike appeared the past
preceding it and the harsher and more imposing appeared
the drab monotony of the new reality with its hidden or
evident dangers. We became soon aware, that the old
reality of our life in freedom was - fleeting away and that
we had to cope with the , new one. The reaction was in
many cases an awakening of the religious feeling: on the
one^ hand we were attracted by a kind of Christian Bhakti
Yoga, and felt stimulated by a love for Christ, on the other
hand we tried, & this was a very rationalistic longing to find
our position in the Universe; we had a longing for cosmo-
logy and we felt, that our particular education was proved
as a failure, if extra-ordinary situations, like war & captivity
arose in life. In future we might have to face again and
again dangerous situations and a religious cosmology,
which is sustained by science satisfying heart and brain,
might prove more and more necessary. We felt this reality-
mastering spirit particularly in the pre-revolutionary Russ-
ian literature. This realism of Russian literature correspon-
ded much to our feelings of distress and dangers, a realism,
which disclosed us the secret of the great Russian capacity
for suffering. We followed with great interest a series of
lectures,- on Russian Literature, delivered with great eloque-
nce by a co-prisoner, Professor Aro, former Prof, of Music
and History of arts at the University of Dorpat. I remem-
bered these lectures, delivered under most different and
depressing circumstances, when last year on my trip to
Germany, I took tea with Mrs. Wanda Berg-Papendick,
who was a long time lecturer for Russian at the University
of Bonn, and has written ‘Rossija’,- a beautiful book on
Russian literature.

. The grandeur of Russian literature, the capacity to. see
things from such a large angle, that even depraved persons,
like assasins, are not without some hidden virtues, had a
great appeal to a friend of mine, with whom. I. shared for a

longer time the hardships of captivity. Colonel Dr. Bittner
from Vienna was the type of the cultivated Austrian Offi-
cer of old style. He had obtained his doctorate in political
science under the guidance of Othmar Spann, then
Professor at the Vienna University and author of a controv-
ersial book ‘Der Wahre Staat\ ‘The True State’. Dr. Bittner
was much interested in philosophy, he was particularly
well acquaited with mediaeval philosophy. He liked
music and drawing and conversed easily in French. His
great liking was Dostowjewski and before war, he
had delivered, lectures on this great author at the
University of Vienna. It was this broadmindedness of
Dostowjewski's outlook on life, which enabled Dr. Bittner
to face with courage the dreary reality of a prisoner-life in
Russia. When I had returned to the camp after hard work
in the snow covered forest (Dr. Bittner as a staff-officer was
exempted from this), I listened sometimes, tired as I
was, to his lectures on philosophy, delivered secretly to an
auditorium of 4 or 5 prisoners. Dr. Bittner took also great
interest in Jainism; I told him about C. R. Jain and I
explained him as good as I was able to do... the essential
features of Jain Cosmology. His reaction to all hardships of
captivity, including his later condemnation to 25 years
labour camp for happenings in his district of command,
which were entirely out of his control, his earlier release-
all this, he took with philosophical equanimity and a
religious kind of humanism.

Another interesting personality was Colonel Heigl, a
Bavarian Officer of Air Force and some time quatcrmas-
ter-general in the Mediterranean and in Africa. A sportly
appearance, (he had once been the leader of a German
Officers-team at the Olympic games,) he was much
interested in fine arts and literature; he conversed easily
French and English and was able to quote by heart long
passages from Verlain's 'Fleurs du Alai'.

In the camp he discovered his endowment for art. He

had a fine sense for colours and could reproduce from
memory paintings from Rafael; but his real strength was
in wood carving. He produced a beautiful Negroplastic
which obtained the admiration even of the professional
artists, who were in our camp. What sustained him in
captivity ? It was, I think, apart from his intellectual
alertness, particularly his strong vitality as a descendant
of an old Bavarian peasant stock.

A quite different type of man was Helmut Bohn, who
was a subofficial in the army, but, in his civil life, in spite
of his youth-he was the about 29-already Chief Editor of
a paper for factory workers: Der Ruhrarbeiter. Intellectually
very flexible, with a certain sense of adventure, he played,
motivated by the fear eventually never to be released, as
an intellectual and experienced Journalist, and in order to
escape from this fate and also to help other comrades, a
very daring double game', posing as communist activist
in the camp. Due to his astonishing self-mastery and prese-
nce of spirit he played this game successfully and wrote,
when he was released an excellent book: ‘/n Front of The
Gates of Life’. This book excells by its uncompromising
frankness and the author, revealing without the slightest
personal vanity all hidden motives of fear;, and hope which
directed him,, shows a sense of. personal selfsacrifice,
which should by respected. After my release from captivity
I met Bohn in the beautiful Rhinish town Koenig^-winter
opposite of my actual home-town Bad Godesberg. I told
him that my impression was, that, after his double-life in
the camp, he was taken by a frenzy for truth and that his
book was the outcome of this. He admitted that I was
correct in my statement.

We have here different patterns of reaction to captivity.
In the case of Dr. Bittner it was essentially a philosophic
and religious, and, as such, also a deep emotional reaction;
in the case of Heigl it was a tremendous and quite
uncommon vitality, which ■ supported .him and in the

case of Bohn it was his intellectual flexibility which,
in common with a certain sense of adventure, enabled
him overcome, almost playing, all difficulties till his
release from captivity. The most solid and deepest reac-
tion was perhaps that of Dr. Bittner. This experience of
danger and correspondingly of fear which was a common
experience among the prisoners, is spreading now in this
age of atomic weapons, over all spheres of civil life. The
old feeling of security has gone. So we need a religion,
which giving support and relief to our emotions, satisfies
also our critical sense and is on good terms with science.
If we have once overcome the wrong feeling of the security
which induces us to lethargy and recognize that the whole
world is today threatened by a potential danger, (hen not
only our religious feeling will be deeper but also our atti-
tude towards our neighbour will be more tolerant and
more peaceloving.

My 5 years and six months of captivity from July 1944
to December, 1949 gave me not only an opportunity to
make interesting psychological studies among my German
co-prisoners but also among the Russians.

And it was astonishing how certain features of human
character are persisting everywhere without regard
to the political system. In the camp were-with regard to
nourishment, striking distinctions between soldiers, officers,
staff-officers and Generals. The higher ranks got more
sugar and butter. This corresponded, so we were told
to certain regulations of the Red Cross. But we could not
altogether, ignore that other regulations of the Red Cross
were less strictly observed. Things become only clear if one
considers that in the Russian army were at least at that time
rigid distinctions in this respect not only between soldiers
and officers but even between soldiers and subofficers. The
Justice of these regulations might have appeared in a dou-
btful light if prisoners would have been treated on an equal
level without regard for their particular rank.

141

' As prisoners of war we were exposed to frequent
interrogations, which took place particularly at midnights.

In these interrogations the Russians showed themselves
as skilful psychologists; but in the long run we learnt also
something about their psychology. There was a certain
tendency to try to convert us to Materialism. I myself argued
sometimes by referring to Jain philosophy. And sometimes
I got' the impression that these attempts to convert us were
often enough a mere pretext to hear a bit more on religion.
One could not help to feel that our interrogators felt them-
selves imprisoned by this materialistic world-conception
which is a mere relict of the European 19 century with all its
limitations. Sir Bernard Pares is certainly right if he assures
in one of his books that the Russian is in his heart of heart
of a spiritual nature. Astonishing was the great sensitivity
of the Russians for certain waves of thought and feeling.
Shortly before I was released from captivity I was interroga-
ted by one of the most experienced interrogation officers in
the camp. In the end he wanted to know where, jnvp&ie,'
tary unit had been stationed. It was in a rather {ront of The
called Chaisi. or Shaisi: I was requested to shinpromising
map.I could not find it & also the captain searlhe slightest
Could it be, that this village was non-existant, We which
invented the name ? The captain grew impatiertQfsacrifice,
tion of confidence arose & I felt that my whole fmcaptivity
dom or continued slavery, depended from this veS-wnUer
ent. I did not cling myself to a petty play with smwt.told
in this terrible situation. I abandoned each and evelfcfe in
and faced the fate what seemed to expect me: n» his
return to ! my country and to be burried, after yelt'as
toilsome work, in some snowfield, together with <m
anonymous prisoners. In this moment I thought of \
vast Russian sky covering us, the grandeur of which foil
med such a strange contrast to the pettiness of our priso\
ner-life. I felt suddenly that one should accept one's fate as \
it is ordained by destiny and • this resignation gave me

confidence in the forces of life, which are not limited by
time and space and to which by its very nature our soul
belongs. And I felt the strength to look with perfect compo-
sure, calm and even with serenity mixed with a certain
compassion on my interrogator, who had, so I conceived
situation, also his part to play which destiny had ascribed
to him. The officer caught my gaze. His attitude changed.
From his facial expression I gathered that he had apprehen-
ded my thoughts and that he appreciated them. He search-
ed again on the map, but this time very calmly. Suddenly
he said: 'Chaisi is here’ and put his finger on the spot.
And after a while he continued in Geman language: 'Sic
werdne nach Hause fahren ’ ‘You will travel home'. After
more than five years of captivity I could hardly believe it.
Christmas was approaching and under the guidance of
Willi Rau, minister of the protestant church and during
war interpreter for Arabian Iauguagcs, I learnt by heart
the Greek text of the Biblical Christmas message. At that
to would not have been able even to imagine that
make interesrl would not only be at home but live in India
co-prisoners litrast to the snow fields and the winterly
And it w.sia, appeared to me like a enchanted country
character are and that I would one day see the Vicc-Presi-
to the polity, Dr. Radhakrishnan and talk to him about
nourishmeweitzer and Italy, in whose culture I was once,
staff-offic<ears back, introduced by my fatherly friend Dr.
sugar anlis, the fine connoisseur of Italian art, who had a
to certaule talent to discover in all peoples the positive
altogetb

were lerihg the long years of captivity there developed
consy some emotional links between the German prison-
rigiand the Russian Guards. The Russians were generally
anid of German Music and, if work in the. forest-camp,
X’here during summer we lived in tents, was over and we
gathered round the camp fires, roasting mushrooms, the
Russian guards requested us often to sing some songs. -

143

one of the guards allowed us on our way to the working
place to collect berries, which was against the regulations
and exposed him to the danger of harsh punishment but
he used to say: ‘How sad would be the life of a small fish,
if he would always fear to be swallowed up by a big fish.’
Once we were surprised by a heavy rain. We had to interr-
upt our work and gathered in order to go home. Suddenly
the Corporal perceived that one man was missing. It was
a Russian civilian, a doctor, who had been arrested by the
Russian Occupation army, at Vienna. We were searching
and searching in streaming rain. At last, after 4 hours we
found him, sleeping under some heap of Hey. we all were
hungry and chilly, our cloth drenched; the Corporal had in
case that the prisoner had escaped, to expect to be put
before a tribunal of war and to be sentenced to a long
imprisonment. So, we all expected, that the corporal, an
Usbeque from Tashkint, would give him a sound tongue-
lashing and get him punished. Nothing like this happened.
The Corporal shook merely his head and said with lenient
reproach: ‘Doctor Doctor ?’. In this moment we admired
him. There are of course also a lot of cruelties to report, not
less than 800,000 German prisoners of war died in captivity,
most of them after war. But it is much better to forget bad
things and to remember the good ones, which if. the
universe is not a mere chaos have a much deeper reality.
And the Russians have many good qualities.

Living among them we discussed sometimes the ques-
tion: do they belong to East or to West? In fact this
alternative does not work here. By their historical tradi-
tion, their Byzantine culture, they are linked to the West
particularly to the Mediterranean. On the other hand, in
this time of easy communications, Russia is geographically
almost a neighbour of India, with a strong set of Asiatic
peoples. For her cultural integration Russia needs
Indk as Europe. Tremendously gifted and full of vitality
Russia needs a free intercourse of ideas in order to bring

V

144

her own qualities to the fore: The Iron curtain violates
those laws which are emanating form Russia's geographi-
cal position. Russia should in the interest of peace play
a Jedding part towards world integration in the sense of
a word coined by Wilhelm von Humbold, which his bro-
ther Alexander inserted in the first volume of the Cosmos:
' ‘ ‘If we want to single out one idea that emerged from
history with ever increasing force, it is the concept of
humanization: the tendency to break down barriers of
prejudice and religion and the belief in mankind as one
large community capable of evolving its inherent capaci-
ties. This, then, is the ultimate good of society, one in
which man himself recognizes visions of indefinite
expansion.’

ENCOUNTER WITH A HIDDEN WORLD \
LOOKING BACK ON PREDICTED REALITY

In 1927, when I studied at Bonn, I sometimes attended
also lectures from Professor Dr. Johannes Maria Verweyen,
who taught along with Professor Dyroff, philosophy at
the University. At that time there were among the Pro-
fesssors of the University of Bonn some outstanding per-
sonalities like Hofrat (Councillor of Court), Prof. Oscar
Walzel, hailing from Austria and at that time the head of
Department of German literature. There was Prof. Fritz
Kern, the doyen of the History section, who wrote later
an excellent book on Asoka. There was particularly Her-
mann Jacobi, who taught Sanskrit and performed his
great and pioneering researches in Jainism, and a profou-
nd scholar like professor Kirfel, who later succeeded him
as Head of the Sanskrit Section. One of the most fascina-
ting personalities was Professor Wilhelm Worringer, who
had written his great book on Gotik and who delivered at
that time inspiring lectures on the Art of India and East
Asia. Professor Philipson, who had written a standard
work on the Mediterranean, was then the Head of the
Geography Department. Among all the teachers of the
Friedrich-Wilhelms University of Bonn Verweyen was the
most controversial figure. He had written some books
which had given him a name in philosophical literature
like: ‘ Thomas di Aquino’,. ‘Philosophy of Nature \ ‘ The
Noble Minded Man and His Values ’, ‘ The Social Man and
his Values,’ ‘The Religious Man and his Values’. All these
books were more or less favourably accepted, particularly
the first work on Thomas di Aquino which was considered
as one of the profoundest books on this subject. Before
he wrote his last book ‘ Heimkehr in which he describes

Late-Prof. -Dr._G. .

Muller,

(Proprietor & Head
Master of the Public

School-Hofmann

Institute-at St.
Goarshausen. Author’s
old teacher in German
literature, French,
History, Geography,
Hon. citybnship of
St. Goarshausen).

OLD EUROPE:
A Fine conoisseur

of Italian Art &

\

the Pla^E

i

V^chio at Flor-
ence. (Author’s
Friend Dr. C. F.
.Willis is seen
standing).

\

the reasons for his return to the Roman Catholic Church,
lie had many spiritual adventures; from theosophy he tur-
ned to Liberal Catholisnr.he became even Bishop of the
liberal Catholic Church and received his initiation as such
by the Liberal Catholic Bishop of Australia who was at
that time in Europe.

He was also a highly gifted artist; he wrote poems and
composed religious songs. He had a liking for psycholo-
gical experiments and possessed a Biski-apparatus,
an invention of a Russian physician Biski, with help
of which one could measure, he thought, the different
intellectual qualities which, according to a German Doc-
tor Gall w r ere located in particular parts of the head. By
applying an electric plug on the sculJplate one would feel
from the reaction the intensity of certain endowments. —
Verweyen had a most tragic end. He died, as I heard
some years after the war, when I was released from Russian
captivity, in a concentration camp, where he had been the
light and moral support of his co-prisoners.

In my time at Bonn, about 1927. Verweyen took an
interest in Occultism and Parapsychology, and started to
make research in this field and even to deliver lectures on
these topics.

These lectures had a great attraction for me and arou-
sed in me a strong curiosity. One day, when the lecture was
over, I went, a bit reluctantly, to Prof. Verweyen, whom I
had never met privately, and asked him if he would give
me advice of how to get a practical experience in the field
of parapsychology. He understood at once and without
any hesitation he gave me the address of a simple, but fine
old lady, living in the Roscngassc, who would be able to
tell me things which would give me the feeling that my
mind had stopped to work. So, one afternoon. I went
there. I conveyed the greetings of Professor Verweyen and
was asked if I would like to hear a description of my fami-
ly surroundings. I accepted the proposal and soon I was

147

almost dumbfounded at what I heard: -a. vdry .detailed - desr
cription of my family, my father, mother, brother-, and
sister, with their most hidden features of character, -even
habits were rightly pointed out; age and appearance were
rightly indicated. And then something very strange: *You*
will go home very soon for holidays’, so I was told. ‘Then,
you should not worry, if your sister, one hour after your
arrival, will fall ill. She will have to be taken to a hospital,
where an operation, which she had to undergo recently,
has to be repeated.’-The next day I went home. I narrated
the interview to my parents, omitting only the prediction,
that my sister would fall ill, one hour after my arrival, a
forecast in which I did not believe.-One hour after my
arrival however my sister fell ill; iny father phoned the
hospital. The operation had to be repeated, due to a put-
rifaction formed after the first operation.-With regard to
my brother I had been told that, in connection with him
my father would lose much money. I could not imagine
then how this ever could happen. But it happened like
this: My father derived from old Low-Saxon peasantry
stock with its old tradition of freedom and independance.
His father had also been the mayor of the place and would
have become Landrat, which corresponds to District-
Magistrate, if he had not been so much devoted to the
royal house of Hannover; in fact, as a proud Welfe, he
declined a corresponding offer from the Prussian Govern-
ment, when, under Bismarck, it took over Hannover. It
seems, that my father, the youngest son of a big family
and son from a second marriage, was much inspired by
the strong personality of grandfather and when, after the
premature death of his idol, he, still a young boy, left with
his mother -the farm in order to settle at Gottingen, his
aim was, to imitate his father: to become Mayor and per-
haps towards the end of his life, to return to the country-
side. He frequented the gymnasium at Gottingen where
he took up 5 languages: French, English, Latin, Greek and

148

Hebrew and entered the Municipality where he specialised
particularly on finances. Then he joined the Prussian
Ministry of Finances at Berlin, where he became a favour-
ite of the then Minister of Finances, the Baron Von Rhc-
inbaben. From there he was transferred to the Government
at Dusseldorf of where he was entrusted particularly with
the financial administration of church affairs, which might
have had also a certain sentimental attraction for him. as
he had received his first lessons in Latin from an uncle
who was a village-parson. Then, when the Municipality of
Homberg landed into financial difficulties, he was appoin-
ted, at the age of 29 years, commissarian Mayor by the
Government <and, one year later, he was unanimously
selected Mayor. He was perhaps, at this age, the youngest
Mayor in Germany. He stayed in this office for almost 40
years. Then the real tragedy of his life began. He had
always cherished the ambition to lead an active life after
his retirement and he thought it possible, to return from the
life as head of a modem industrial town, opposite Duis-
burg, perhaps the biggest river-port in the world, to a quid
countryside-life. He bought an estate in North Germany
near Flensburg and he thought Jochcn, my younger brother,
whom he knew to be very' practical would manage to keep
it running. My brother was indeed practical by nature; but
simultaneously he was imaginative and endowed with a
keen senseof adventure, his whole longing was to go abroad.
His* desire to go to sea could not be realised, as he failed
in the colour-test. He frequented then the colonial-school
at Wilzenhansen and studied tropical agriculture. He made
then a lot of friends whose parents owned large estates and
was often invited out To manage a small estate he perhaps
particularly lacked patience and experience. And he had to
invest more money than was currently available. So our
estate had to be sold and that was only possible with losses.
There is no doubt that the ctherial old lady of the Roscn-
gasse, to whom I was sent by Professor Venveyen. referred

14?

to this event which happened so many years after this
prediction.-My brother went later in the employment of a
Hamburg firm which owned large coffee plantations in
Latin America, to Mexico. From there he went one year
later to Havana and it seems that this was the most beauti-
ful time of his life which he passed in the paradisic island
of Cuba. He returned to Germany shortly before the out-
break of the second world war. He was mobilised and soon
promoted lieutenant, then 1st lieutenant and lost his life
one month before the end of the war in fulfillment of his
duties as a! soldier. When I was in Europe in the summer
of 1958 I visited the soldiers cemetery at Lomel in Belgium
where he had found his last rest.

I have to return to my adventure with this mysterious
lady. She told me that my imagination was such that
sometimes I would perceive with my spiritual eye pictures
of sceneries which I had never seen in reality. This
strength of imagination which I cannot deny would per-
haps have involved me in strange adventures if not like in
Dandet's ‘Tartarissde Tarascon' the Don Quichote in my
soul would have been checqued by a very soberminded
Sancho Panso, preventing or ‘localising’ l a coup de mirage '
She described my ordinary mood by comparing it with
a ball, floating slightly under the surface of the water but
never going down. A state of slight depression is in fact in
my case happily counterbalanced by a profound optimism
rooted in the capacity to believe malgre tout in the positive
aspects of life, a belief which did not desert me even during
the years of my Russian captivity. As leading features
in my character she described honesty and a sense of hon-
our. I think that these qualities depend upon a certain
sense of psychological reality. She told me that my whole
inner development would be stimulated by an encounter
with two outstanding personalities. Today I have no doubt
that the one was the Headmaster of my school in St
oarshausem, the other, whom I should meet much later

150

was Barrister Champat Rai Jain. She predicted that I would
always find auspicious social surroundings and excellent
friends with outstanding qualities. This has proved true
particularly on three occasions. At first during the rule of
Nazism in Germany and particularly during the war. Some
years, before Nazism came into power I had already started
my career as journalist. My general attitude was a mixture
of liberalism and conservativism. So my first reaction to-
wards Nazism was entirely negative. But at the same time I
became more and more conscious that the democracy of
Weimar with its rigid formalism, untempered by any ing-
redient of natural law, or common philosophy, would not
be able to stand for long against any radicalism. The book
of Sorel:‘On Violence’ which I read at this time confirmed
mein this idea. Along with the growing unemployment the
Communism was growing. And behind this rising tide of
communism stood the power of the biggest continental
state, of Russia. In Italy, where I attended in Rome the
lectures at the Scuola diGiomalismo (Journalist School) at
the Piazza del Popolo, Previously I had passed some time
in France as a student of French Literature at Besarcon; there
were several representatives of the Intelligcntia, like Dr.
Willis, then representative of the Hamburg Frcmdcnblatt,
who nursed the hope from the fact that Hitler wanted
' friendship with Italy and that a Latin-Gcrmanic synthesis
would also cover all fields of culture. Mussolini was at that
time considered as the stronger and intellectually more
important personality and it was known that in some
important questions, like the question of the Jews, his
views were entirely different from those of Hitler. And it
was expected that from this viewpoint Fascism which had
brought to the fore the frontline-soldiers of the 1st world
war and the old Roman type, as far as he had survived in
the Italian people.-(this view is also reflected in Franz
NVcrfel’s novel’ 4 Die Gcscb.vistcr yon NrupTfThe Napoli-
tanian Family) - would curb the radicalism of Nazism, so

151

that it might appear in comparison with Communism,
with Russia behind it, as the lesser evil/ These ponside-
rations received a new justification by the friendly book,
which Emil Ludwig, who, himself a descendant of an old
Jewish family, was the favourite child of the democratic
press in Germany; wrote on Mussolini. Another interes-
ting fact was that Giovanni Gentile, then officially
recognised as t h e leading Italian philosopher; was
originally a liberal. According to him the aim of
education is self-formation, culminating in philosophy; the
highest form of selfconsciousness. In the same year,
(it was in 1932) I went to London, where I met Barrister
Champat Rai Jain. And in the beginning of 1933 I return-
ed to my country just when Nazism had entered into
power. For a state official and a journalist there was not
much choice left. There was practically only one course of
alternative left: -collaboration or starvation. It was quite
clear that in a modern autoritarian state an individual was
as powerless as a slave in ancient Rome in face of Caesar.
Certain hopes, which I nursed in London, that there might
be some backdoor in Nazism for religious thought, -I ima-
gined like the Indologist W. Hauer, who was in a sense
the German counterpart of the Italian philosopher Julio
Evola, that the swastika might open the way to Indian
influences-soon vanished. There was nothing other than
naked bureaucracy-state and party bureaucracy-moved by
demonic powers in the background, a sociological structure
which has been forecast in the genial novel of Franz
Kafka ‘Das Schloss ’ (The Castle). At that time I was
journalist in Duisburg and I read then for the first time
the * Travel Diary of a Philosopher ’ and * South American
Meditations 1 by Keyserling, which were available in the
Municipal library. In that period I translated also C. R.
Jain’s book ‘ Jainism , Christianity and Science’. I went to
Cologne to find a publishing house and called on Professor
Honigshein, the Sociologist of the University of Cologne.

152

He was an extremely refined Jew and by his very nature
helpful and well wishing. When I came to see him he had
just taken leave of his social-democratic friends and I
hear still the words with which he tried to console them:
“Do not worry, the whole rule of Nazism will be over after
4 weeks." We went then together to a cafeteria and had an
interesting talk. I gave him an outline of the principles of
Jainism. Later on our talk returned to politics: he hoped
that the rule of Nazism would end soon and I hoped that
Nazism, under the compact with the world in large, in
which the liberal ideas were predominating, would under-
go a transformation, while offering rcsistcncc to commun-
ism. We both were mistaken. With regard to the book lie
could not help me. T never got it published. But three years
later I succeeded in finding a publishing house for another
book by C. R. Jain: ‘Christianity Rediscovered’. With
permission ofC. R. Jain, I omitted a passage containing a
quotation of Moses Maimonidcs, in order to avoid the
wrath of the ‘Sturmcr’, the notorious antiscmitic paper of
Streicher.

I had to write, in order to get the book passed through
so many control organs and ccnsorty-officcs a foreword,
of which I sent the text to Mr. C. R. Jain, requesting his
approval which he gave with the remark, that he found my
introduction very subtle. He understood that I had to
manuoever and evidently approved of it. Later on it be-
came still more difficult to work in this sense and the
book of an Italian Giuseppe Loverdc. ‘7/ National-socia-
lism" which I read much later, gave me the impression,
that from the viewpoint of philosophy and religion Nazism

was similar to Bolshevism, as it appeared then in the rigi-
dity of Stalin's dogmatism. At that time {it was in l?3o)- 1
discovered in the Municipality a sociological periodical
with a contribution of Hcnigshcim and I read under his
name Professor of the University of Panama I was happy
that he had at last recognized the dancer. In 193-4 mv

friend from Italy, Dr. C. J. Willis, had been appointed
Italian-Referent (Head of the Italian Section* in the
Department for Foreign Affairs, of t h e Press-section
of the Government which was something between
Propaganda-Ministry and the Ministry for External
Affairs. He wanted to have some one in the Press-
section of Government, who knew some thing about Italy
and spoke Italian. So I was appointed lecturer in the
periodical Department of the Press-Section of the Govern-
ment. I accepted this, partly out of regard for Dr. Willis,
who later, disappointed with Hitler, quitted his services
in the Ministry and joined the army as Major in the Head-
quarters. Those, who really knew something about foreign
countries were generally suppressed and among those, who
kept key-positions, there was certainly not a single one,
who could have written a good book on ‘publicity abroad’
lik ^Propaganda in Future War’ by. Sidney Rogerson, publi-
shed just before the second world war, a book which was
simultaneously imaginative and sober and therefore
prophetic. Then I remembered .also that in Kafka’s ‘ Das
Sehloss’ the main figure, the ‘landsupervisor’, also tried to
enter the ‘Castle’, the center of power, in order to obtain
a bit of independence and to have some say in the shaping
of things; but, . what I particularly felt was that there might
be an indirect tvay to create values by helping other people.
By entering the Press Section of Government, I did not
become an official with the right of pension, I remained
just a journalist. At that time and even more after the
out-break of the second world war, all journalists were
confused by the Sprachregelungen' (language regulations),
which needed to be interpreted. A lot of enquiries were
sometimes necessary. And the lecturer in the press-section
became in this way the intermediary between Press and
Government, and given my particularly liberal and cosmo-
politan attitude, which under the pressure of a tremendous
government-power, implemented by a skilfull secret police,

154

f I could not show to openly; it required a lot of patience,
assiduity and diplomatic skill to keep the press working
at all and to obtain, if possible, the broadest interpretations
of these Sprachregelungen A lot of rather dangerous work
had to be done to ward off interference by the secret police,
S.S. and other party Organisations. The situation was
paradoxical enough:one had to do the positve in the negative,
certainly not a very grateful task. The only journalist who
enjoyed a certain freedom, was the old, deeply religious
Count Reventlow who attacked even the S.S. in his weekly
* Reichswart ’ and challenged Gunter d' Alqucn, the head
editor of the S.S. paper, ‘ Das Schwarzc Korps', to a pistol
duel when he felt offended by him. But Reventlow enjoyed a
particular prestige as one of the early, but now disappointed
supporters of Nazism. So his case was really an exception.
My own situation in the press section of Government
would have been still much more difficult than it already
was, if my Chief, Rcgierungsrat (Government Councillor)
Paffrath, would not have been a Rhinish character: with
the inborn tolerance and commonscnse of the Rhinish
people, which Alfons Paquet has so well described in his
book ' Der Rhein als SchichsaV (The Rhine as a Destiny).
He had in fact little in common with a Nazi and might
have preferred the Iand-supervisor-tactics a la Kafka to
Martyrdom, which would not have changed anything in
the whole situation. It seems that untimely resistcnce
performed with methods which lack subtlety and elabora-
tion, only serves dictatorship, as is expressed, in the
‘Cromwell’ of Victor Hugo: 'intern no lui manque enfin il
a cc qu'il lui faut. Nos efforts n' out servi on' a le placer-
plus haut . On Vosccj: vein braver; on Vosc cn vain cemra-
ttre . 11 pent Vun apres V autre a present alatirc' (Our

efforts have only served to place him still higher He

can now strike down one after the other.’) This flexibility
of Paffrath does not mean that he was unable to take
courageous initiatives. When once a Nazi-go!dmcdal-bearcr

1

and so caHed old fighter was imposed on us as a new
colleague he managed to fire him after two days and he
was careful that ho fanatics should enter his staff. He was
after all kind and benevolent, but very shrewd. The merits
of Paffrath have been recognised in the Federal Republic.
The' president of the publisher-organisation, who had to
deal with him during the Nazi-period, and who had learned
to appreciate his character, managed to get him a job as
editor of a daily paper when, after the breakdown of the
Nazi system, he was without employment

Among my colleagues with whom I had friendly rela-
tions I mention particularly Miss Dr. Annemarie Wettstein.
She was blind and in charge of social questions. She came
from an old Swiss family and one of her ancestors represen
ted Switzerland in the peace negotiations at Munster and
Osnabruck which put an end to the 30 Years^War. I had
often to guide her if she had to visit a ‘Home for the Blind’
or an Asylium for aged people. She was a Doctor of
literature and had written a book on the Swiss poet and
novelist Jacob Schaffner, whose autobiographical novels
‘ Kindheif , : Sturm und Reife' make him the greatest represen-
tative •: of modem Swiss literature. She was on friendly terms
with him. One day she introduced me to him and since
then we were from time to time his guests for tea in his
villa near the Fehrbeliner-Platz. He showed a particular
interest in Jainism. Schaffner died during war at Strasburg
as a victim of an air raid. One day I made through her
also the acquaintance of a certain Dr. Wemer, the former
Mayor of a middle sized town, who had been dismissed
by the Nazis. He received, as he had refused to hoist the
Nazi Swastika flag, only half of his pension. He was much
interested in Theology and Philosophy and delivered some
excellent lectures on these topics, which we, Annemarie
and myself, used to attend. In order to ease his financial
situation we recmmended him as Contribrtor to all perio-
dicals in our reach. One day, in Russian captivity, I heard,

156

that Germany had capitulated, at that time r also heard
that a Dr. Werner had become the Lord Mayor of Berlin.
Was it the same Dr. Werner, to whom Dr. Wettstein had
introduced me? I was not quite sure about it. At any rate
I wrote him a postcard with congratulations. For a long
time I did not hear anything. Then, after more than a year,
I received a postcard with the emblem of the Municipality
of Berlin, with greetings and best wishes from Dr. Werner,
who had remembered well our talks on religion and philo-
sophy. This postcard had been written spontaneously in
reply to my congratulations but had been retained by the
camp commander or the Russian authorities in Moscow
or Iwanovo, for a whole year. Along with the lectures of
Dr. Werner we listened in the Swcdcnborg-societv ttC'o
interesting lectures on Swedenborg whose bsautiful books
‘ Angelic Wisdom concerning Divine Providence' and
‘ Divine Love and Divine Wisdom ’ reveal a striking simil-
arity with Jain Cosmology, which should be further explo-
red by competent Jain Scholars.

Annemarie Wettstein had a keen psychological obser-
vation. After the war, when she had to earn her livelihood
in a new way. she studied psychology and brilliantly passed,
inspite of her blindness, her examination as a professional
psychologist. To day she enjoys a great reputation and
has a good practise in Freiburg. Another of my colleagues,
Dr. E. W. Lehmann, who was formerly professor of Perio-
dical-Science at the University of Berlin, and had written
several interesting books on the sociological importance
of periodicals, turned to psychology and is now psycholog-
ist at Stuttgart His appointment in the periodical section
was perhaps one of the strategies of Paffrath to ward off,
based on scientific grounds, the continuous attempts of
the S. S. to limit still more the freedom of the periodicals
and to bring them down to the low level of the d.rlv
newspaper-press. Another colleague, with whom 1 was on
friendly terms, was Miss Dr. von Kieseriutky. She haded

if

from Riga, had been to aRussian School there and studied
later French, English & German Literature. She was liberal
and broadminded and of a sincerity which makes it almost
a wonder that she did not get into serious trouble. She is
today a school teacher of English and German literature
at one of the famous Waldorf-schools, founded by Dr.
Rudolf Steiner.

Mrs. Liddy Woelfel, another colleague of mine, was
the daughter of a Colonel and also her brothers were ljigh
ranking officers in the army. I had first met her in Rome
and we had become good friends. She had studied in
Grenoble (France) and lived for a long time in Italy. She
knew Italian like her mothertongue and was author of a
fairytale, written in Italian and published in the Nuovo
Antologia the noted Italian periodical. She had also
translated a novel of the Italian author Mrs. Grazie
Delledda and was friend with Rocco Cartoscelli, the Italian
novelist, in whose novel “Ombradi Mezzodi ” she was
depicted as a Young Lieutenant, while the old colonel of
that novel reflects the noble character of her father. Later
I was introduced to Rocco Cartoscelli and was much im-
pressed by his profound veneration of Goethe. He spoke
fluently German and head read twice in the German
original Goethe's autobiography “Poetry and Reality”
which had a permanent place on his bedtable.

Among the periodical journalists I met, the two most
important were perhaps Friedrich Wilhelm von Oertzen
and Joachim Moras. Both were quite at home in the stimu-
lating atmosphere of Berlin. Oertzen, the editor of i Wir
and die Welt' (We and the world), was certainly one of
most spiritual writers among the journalists of that time
and particularly a master of psychological and a sociologi-
cal analysis. In his sense of sacrifice and duty he was the
most typical Prussian I have ever seen, and at the same
time he was a man of broad, liberal and humanitarian
ideas. This mixter was well reflected in his book 1 Junker.*

He had been a collaborator of the 'Vossische Zeiiung,’ one
of the most important daily paper as the time of the
Weimarian Republic and he had been at good terms with
its chief editor, the powerful Georg Bernhard, whom he
described as broadminded and good-natured. In his treat-
ment of different types of man he was a master psycholog-
ist. But with all his intellectual flexibility and aristocratic
non-chalance, there was something indomitable and proud
in his character. He had the soul of a Prussian gentiihomme,
as it is reflected in Theodor Fontane’s • Schach von IFute-
now’ and in Ernst von Wildenbruch’s touching story “Das
edle Blut ” (The noble blood). His health was of a very
delicate nature. He had suffered from T. B. and his cure
was rather incomplete. When the war came to the turning
point he was mobilized and sent to Russia. T am sure that
he had relations enough to influential circles, to avoid to
be sent to a country, the rough climate of which spelled a
sure death to him. But the idea, that one might suspect
him of not taking his full share in all hardships and dang-
ers of war, was too much for his strong feeling of honour.
So he went consciously into a sure dcatli which reached
him soon after his mobilisation. I was deeply attached to
him and feel grateful for the cordial friendship and the
unrestrained confidence with which he honoured me. He
was for me an eye-opener who took away my illusions. He
gave me a clear account of the murderous persecutions of
the Jews by the S. S. and had enough influence on me. to
prevent an un-reflectcd reaction which have brought me
surely into a concentration camp, while the war was going
on, which, T deeply hoped, would not be entirely lost. This
hope, which I nursed as a German, was connected with
another one which I shared with another acquaintance of
mine, the well known Journalist Hans Erniann. that the
soldiers, who had fought in war. would, after the peace,
not tolerate the continuation of Hitler's dictatorship.

Along with von Oertzen it v.-as Joachim Morns who

impressed me most among the journalists with whom I
had official contact. He was certainly the best informed
journalist I have ever known. Intelligent and alert, he was
a great organizer and a strong believer in the cultural
unity-of course a unity in diversity-of Europe as the basis
of a future political unity. He worked for this cultural
synthesis as if Hitler did not exist and had never existed,
and this was certainly the only possible way to work at
all and I still believe that the work, performed by a period-
ical like the Europaische Revue (European Review), has
created values, which are effective even today.-When I
returned from Russian captivity I learned that J. Moras
in company with the distinguished journalist HansPaeshke
was editing a periodical ‘Der Merkur \ published in Freib-
urg. I wrote him a letter and received soon his reply in
which he assured me of his profound gratitude for all what
I had done for the Europaische Revue during the difficult
times of Nazism.

It seemed to me, that my particular task and responsi-
bility required intellectual surroundings, where it was
possible to breath freely. An accident came to my help.
I made the acquaintance of an Egyptian Journalist of high
culture, Hassan Fakoussa. He lived at that time in the
Hamack-house, the guest house of the Kaiser-Wilhelm
Gesellschaft (Today Max Plank Gesellschaft). Due to his
recommendation I got a room there. Later on I shifted over
to a beautiful small garden house, in the Fishleachtal
belonging to the Baroness von Saenger. But my relations
with Fakoussa and the Hamack Haus were not affected
by this. Fakoussa is today Director of the office of the
Arabian League in Bonn. We are still in correspondence.
In the Harnack-House lived at that time Geheimrat
(Secret Councillor) Sethe from the Ministry of Exetrnal
Affairs, Consul-General Reinhard and his family and
Professor Dr. Nieland and many other interesting person-
alities. With these people and with Fakoussa I was on

friendly and confidential terms. Sethe and Reinhard had
been a long time in United States. Both were much inter-
ested in literature. Sethe had a beautiful collection of
Porcelain and Persian carpets. He had also a Turkish coffee
machine and knew to prepare an excellent Coffee. His
radio was first class and he was a lover and connoisseur
of classical music.

Reinhard too was a man of great experience, who also
knew Latin America and had written a book on it. He
also had written a charming book on Italy: ‘ Schwalb fliegt
nach Italian’ (A Swallow flies to Italy) and a novel, which
played in America: ‘Love in the Far I^est’.In the Reinhard
Family I also met the old Baron von Weichsmann, who
had written a book on Brazil, perhaps one of the best in
German language, under the title: ‘When 1 and the world
were still young’. His pseudonym as author was: ‘Son of
the ‘Wilderness’-While Sethe and Reinhard belonged to
the world of diplomacy, Professor Nieland was attached
to the Headquarters of the Navy, where he was the head
of the Science Department During World War I he had
been Captain of a submarine and after the breakdown he
had left the Navy and studied chemistry and mincrology
and was now Professor of Petrography at the University
of Rostok. In his younger years, as a navy officer, he had
widely travelled and when my brother one day visited me
in the Harnackhouse they had an opportunity to exchange
their reminicences of Havana. Another guest of the Harn-
ack-IIaus was the elegant Italian philosopher Ernesto
Grassi who has become famous now particularly by his
philosophical book on Brazil: 'Rciscn Ohnc An -ihenunen'
(Travelling without arriving). He amused us sometimes at
his own expense by narrating anecdotes from his time ns a
conscript. I remember still one. He was on duty as a sentry.
Suddenly the idea struck him that it would be very nice
to have a cup of good coffee in some cafeteria and forget-
ting that he was on duty he went, a gun on his right

shoulder, into a cafeteria. While he was enjoying his
coffee he suddenly, remembered (that he was supposed to
be on duty. He at' once rose an$ left, with as much haste
as his dignity would permit, the- cafeteria; after having
finished the rest of the coffee. On the way he met his
Lieutenant, who asked him, where he was coming from,
but he remembered in time that for a soldier on duty as
sentry it was prohibited to speak ; ^.nd kept silent. We asked
him if this absentminde.dness had not had very disagreeable ;
results for him. No! TJie .Commander had indeed been
informed but the final position he took was: ‘Let him
pass,!, He is a philosopher 4’

I owe it largely to these friends, who, were cOsmopolb .
tan in their outlook, that I always *kept ;'my independent
judgment. -In 1943. when The. military situation became-
mpre and more .tough I w^s mobilised and went to Russia.
We had to fight partisans, (Civilians under t/aining^ a gue-
rilla-}yar)and, i .to keep the railway track, free from mines. In
addition to this we were used as a reserve and disposed cf
wherever there was a critical spot in the front-line. In May
1944 1 received the order - to take up the function of an,
information officer in my unit. I conceived this ta^k in, my
own way. I firmly decided never to do or to say anything, .,
which was or could be interpreted as. prppaganda for Naz- ,
ism, ' neither could there be forme any work ,on the line of
the one or other Christian denomination. I found a.way out.

I knew from Jainism that the soldier can also base his life
on ethical values. I introduced talks on the virtues of a
soldier, based on commonsense, military tradition, a bit
of philosophy: ethics and Metaphysics simplified for the
common use of soldiers and all this mixed with some news
and applied to practical situations; our attitude towards
each other; our human and moral duties towards the
population of occupied countries, God, Life and the duties
of a soldier. The idea struck me, that the latter topic had
never been so beautifully treated as in Indian philosophy.

•v 162

particularly in the Gita. I wrote a letter to the Indologist
Professor Hauer with whom I differed in many things but
whose interpretation of the Gita I appreciated much. I
felt that Christianity, which had accepted so much from
Plato and Aristotle, could also accept something from the
Vedas and from Jainism. I expected from Hauer not a
doctrine but suggestions. Some years ago I had met Hauer
after one of his lectures and spoken with him on C.R.Jain
whom, as he told me, he appreciated as a scholar. Hauer,
who is retired now, has published recently an excellent
book on Yoga, with a whole chapter on ‘Yoga in Jainism*,
Hauer’s reply to my letter was very friendly and from his
periodical, which I later received I got, without indentifv-
ing myself with the whole tendency, many variable sugge-
stions. Our Unit owned about 5 Blockhouses along the
railway-lines and it was my task to go from Blockhouse
to Blockhouse, to give my talks, which soon became quite
popular and which had certainly a good moral effect and
I conceived it as a great advantage of a teacher who knows
to appeal to his students, that he can create his own intel-
lectual surroundings. T had been already incharge of this
function for two months when suddenly my Unit was
ordered to join the fighting in the first lines into which
the Russians, who had started a general offensive, with a
superiority of 10 to one. had already entered. Tire situation
seemed to worsen from minute to minute. At our arrival
the Russians had occupied a hill, which we were ordered
to reconquer. We had heavy casualties and got not only
fire from the hill-top but were also exposed to side-
fire. At last wc were compelled to retire. Suddenly 1 heard
a groaning voice. A comrade of our Unit was lying at one
of the most exposed spots, unable to move. What should
wc do ? I felt all my responsibility as human being and a?
a soldier. I looked round me. 1 was alone. So it arpe.red

to me. Most of the Unit had already

reached

the foot of

the hill. To my great relief I heard a step. It was

of the Company. He was from Berlin. I shouted, that he
should wait a minute, and that I would try to rescue the
poor fellow. The barber stopped and I advanced, expecting
every moment to be hit by a bullet. But now I felt, and
that was perhaps the influence of Jainism, that the soul
was superior to death. Nonetheless, my nerves were exposed
to a terrible tension. When I touched the wounded man
and tried to draw him back he cried of pain. At last we
were a bit more safe. I relaxed and feeling the whole danger
from which I had just escaped, I kissed the soil. It was
about one year back that in a similar danger, when we had
been exposed to a sudden machine-gun attack from a hill,
I had been wounded. Then I was seized by the fear of a
primitive. But this time, when I was concentrated on my
rescue work, I had mastered fear. From this experience
I infer that, if one dies, it is of a tremendous importance
in what state of mind one is dying.- We bandaged the woun-
ded man and brought him to the emergency hospital. The
dissolution of the front was now at its summit. Our Top-
Commander, Major-General von Wustenhagen, an officer
of the Old Prussian type, who had been a week ago in our
line, could not put up, so I was later told, with this compl-
ete breakdown and shot himself. It was a painful spectacle
to see this panic, which seized even otherwise brave soldiers
when they saw, that the law of action was taken away
from them. I shall never forget the mute despair of the
faithful horses, dragging sometimes, in a wild flight, cars
without drivers, frightened to death. I felt, this was the end
and I had to start a new life, and I felt some consola-
tion that I had ended the old one by a good action, which,
as every action sets a new standard of conduct, had so
much importance for me, that could not have it omitted
in this narrative, without falsifying my whole life.

I had already had an opportunity to describe how the
prediction, concerning auspicious surroundings, came true
even in the time of my captivity. And when I was released

frpm captivity and became a translator in the agricultural
Section and later in the administrative central office: ‘Bur-
eau Central des Organismes de Zone’ I had to work under
the guidance of a Frenchman of excellent qualities ojf
character, a Monsieur Chauvau, who hailed from Brittany
and had much of the natural kindness aud cordiality which
distinguishes the. Britons. Then, after establishment oftli£
C. R. Jain library at Godesberg, I went in 1 953 to India,
and found again those laws confirmed which seem to nift
my life. I was first a guest of some distinguished Jain farnf-
lies and I remember with particular gratitude the generous
hospitality pf.my host in Delhi Shri Rajendra Kumar Jain
and Shrimana- Jain from Delhi where I devoted myself
to the study of Jain religion in the Jain Sanskrit school;
situated in one of the narrow, picturesque Bazars of the
old town, ^ince 1954 l am teacher for German and French
and was first for U years at Agra, and then as represent-
ative of th,e Goethe-Institute, Munich, at Pilani in Rajas-
than, where now have been living for about 5 years. Along
with this. go my activities as secretary for Foreign Affairs
of thp. International Acadamy of Jain Wisdom and, Culture
and as Associated Editor of.the ‘Voice of Ahinsa’.

...Jf I review my life, I wonder, how it was possible, that
even. in times of distress, like captivity, mv social surround-
ings were always ideal and the very best one could imaging
and this in a time, which might be called, the age of the
masses, when human relations become more and ‘more
drab and colorless. And I am. based on my own experien-
ces, inclined to believe, with A. K. Sinha. our philosopher
at Pilani (see his book*. A World F;V:r Through Reunion of
Philosophy and Science ), in the existence of immortal
protective spirits.who somctimes.fthis is my own suggestion)
interfere in our favour, when there seems to be no more
hope. My adventure which I owe to Professor Yerweyens
kindness, to introduce me to a medium of sued an unco-
mmon sensitivity, implies also a philosophical -experience.

km

- . , *■ -v % .

If it is possible, to forecik for. such a long space of time
general trends of eyep'ts and even the concrete events them-
selves whith such;aso'mnamb'olic security /.then there must
be relations of a particular kind' , between time ’ah r d the
human soul. Jainism teaches that there aire "two kinds of

time: quantitative time", and qualitative time; time as Infi-
nity and time as Eternity and it s'eems that it is this Eter-
nity-or Dravya-side ’.of time, which enables ‘ us, instead of
calculating it, to contemplate if' 'to see it ' like a picture in
a single moment.. , . • ,

am - becoming more and more conscious of one idea:
that there, are 'surroundings' whi6h are independent Trom

MiV PU.AJA1V11 Vi iUVj uuu mv*w*v*v A* » T » A V**

nopleel a complete loneliness even in a cave id the Himal-
ayas. There would he certainly before my spiritual eyes
the picture of, my mother, now &3 and endowed^ with’ wis-
dom of old age, of my sister. Margot, alert, practical' and
giving content to things through inner life dnd feeling, of
my brother-in-law^ Wilhelm Fink, the experienced Doctor,
not only by profession but. also by chhfdctdr," balanced,
/wellwishing, near to nature' ahd observing ail'd my nephew,
Hans Jochen, now at the age to become a young ' gallant,
.already an excellent horseman; well-natured and enterpris-
ing. Having already so many Indian perifriehds, he might
one day well turn up to see his, uncle in India. ’ .
t * .A topic like ‘Encounters with a Hidden World’ that
means with a world which is Veal but veiled and- not' easily
accesible,. leads automatically Ho India. A lot' ' has been
written on the performances' of Sadhus 'and ' Saints,
sometimes it is the will for power, admirably analyzed in
‘L’ Illustre Magicien’ in the ‘Nouvelles Asiatiques' of
Tocqueville, which is the driving-force of such performan-
ces. A real saint will not easily show his magic power; so
it will be extremely difficult, to lift the veil as far as
white aaagic, which is of a benevolent nature, is concerned.

166

Paur'Brunton, with regard to : India and Mm. David-Ned
with regard to Tibet, have done some astonishing research
work. Mrs. Yalvanhe, the wife of the" former Finnish
ambassador in India, practical and sobefmindcd, gives' ih
her book: ‘In Love with India’’ some startling facts. I my-
self have seen 'some saint’s 'who might have had a Supernat-
ural power. I think' particularly to the late, the 83 years old,
naked Saint Shanti Sagar, whom T met near Kolhapur and
with whom I exchanged cocoanuts, as ‘a sign of affection.
Some dominating will power emanated from him and did
credit to certain stories, which circulated about him, so
that once, when he was absorbed in Samudhi (meditation)
a poisonous shake crept over his body, encircled his neck
and stayed with hint for about an hour without disturbing
him. I met also the famous SwamiShivTtnanda at Rishikcsli
which, situated ’in a lovely valley on the shore of the river
Ganga, is a real island of peace. When wc crossed the river
on a boat and fed t he fishes, I marvelled how tame and
confidenf’they followed the boat and took the food, we
offered them, almost from our hands, as if they knew tha t
they wenksafe.-I saw Swami Shivnnanda in his Ashram
in the 'evening, attending the Usual evening prayer and in
the morning I saw him at work, in his office, giving direc-
tives "to his Secretary. He has a strange but expressive
face. You think that you are looking at him from a far
distance, but at the same time his face appears very near to
you. There is something of a Roman mounmcntnliiy in his
stalely outer appearance.Fcw daysb 3 ck T heard a strange story
which Icannot doubt, as I know the person, who told it to
me. I paid a visit to the headmaster of a School, who is a
fartravellcd intellectual, well versed in psychology and of
a high moral standard, an educator in the best sense. He
told me, that he had had a strange experience. In the
night he had seen the face of a person whom he had never
seen in his life, either in person or on a photo and he felt
that it was Swnmi Shivnnanda from Rishikesh. The

147

next day a Sadhu, .coming from -Rishikesh visited him
applying for a job as ^teacher of music, which could not
be granted, as he wanted to teach only religious songs.
The headmaster toKLhim about the vision hehad had, the

Sadhu recognized- his 'guru and was touched, to tears. The

next day he went back to Rishikesh. Few days, later there
came a postcard ,frpm Swarm -Shivananda^ inviting the
Headmaster to pay » him a visit at Rishikesh: ^

It seems that our view of reality needs some revision;
that it covers a fai> larger- field than -many .of us apprehend.;
Perhaps ounwhole> development is an -adaptation dp reality,
so far it has been an adaptation to ' a reality which we
could grasp almost entirely with our senses, a Reality . of
‘measure, a number and weight’. But now we are., entering
into; a. new age of discovery/ The age of planetary, discovery
has long ended and now we are entering an -age ,of cosmic
discovery. We have finally- discovered-; What- was known
since ages in Jainism, that there is invisible matter. Our
whole conception of the outer reality is 1 'marked by new,

. dimensions and. it seems, that the more we\know, the more
powerful is the challenge of the unknown; hd might be that
this situation will; lead one day to a greater Refinement of
the-human race, when a new reality, which- jr> still hidden
to most of us, will- rise from the waters-, and rkjjat the great
thinkers and seers of all ages and races- are th© forerunners
of this great event. ■' r *, ■■ \

The common man has already an experience of the
relativity of time if he grows ‘older. Certain events of his
Youth- he remembers with a clearness as if they haVi happe-
ned yesterday. I myself e. g. remember very well tsome of
my teachers of my first High ^School-Years: thil£ gentle
Prof. Yorbruegge who taught us Greek History at theVHigh
School at Homberg and who in describing the events of
those ancient times seemed to become himself an Anci&pnt
Greek. And how I remember well Dr. Finkenwirt, a brill-
iant narrator, who. taught, us Prussian history, and whos^.

V

style, if he, as usual, had to deliver an official lecture at
Kaisers Geburtstag: (The Birthday of the Emperor) had
the terseness and clearness of the style of Clausewitz or
Schlieffen.

There are two events, which T remember well because
they made a particular impression on me. The one happe-
ned in 1918, half a year before the end of the first World
War. Due to the British blockade the food-situation in the
industrial part of Germany, particularly in the Ruhr-
territory, had become very bad. My father in his stern
sense of duty lived with his family strictly according to
the regulations. I myself was affected by this situation.
Due to undernourishment the left glanl at my throat bec-
ame swollen and I had to undergo an operation. T was then
sent for recovery to a boarding school at Bad Sachsa in
the South of the beautiful Harz Mountains, where due to
the vicinity of the Goldene Aue (Golden Meadow) which
is one of the most fertile districts of Germany, the food
situation was much better. The boys of this school came
particularly from families of army officers, government
officials, estate-owners. Kipling in his ‘SuAkv and Cff has
described the atmosphere of such a school. Boys of such a
school have their own moral standards. What matters
most is a good companionship, a certain liberality and
courage. What was despised most was misery, lack of
reliability, particularly 'snitching', and fear. Infringements
of these standards were generally harshly punished by the
students themselves by collective spanking. There is an
innate rudeness in the behaviour of boys in this age. In

1 Stalky and Co' Kipling gives some examples of this
‘savagery’ and also Houston Stewart Chamberlain disliked
the English Schools of his childhood for this reason.
1 still remember such a cave of collective spanking. I have
forgotten of what the boy who had become the victim of
a general indignation had been guilty. At any rate all of
us were expected to give him a How. It was a kind of

* v

collective duty. To our great surprise one boy refused to
participate in this cruelty. It was a Count Hardenberg who
came from an estate in the vicinity of Bad Sachsa. He was
then perhaps 13 to 14 years old. And to the general stan-
dard of our acknowledged virtues he added in his personal
life a great gentleness, grace and sense of dignity. -I adm-
ired him very much when he refused to take part in this
general beating and I found then the courage to join him.
This ‘defection' from the general standards filled my heart
with an undescribable joy which as an early little victory
over moral cowardice I still remember and which I would
not like to miss in my life. The other event which I remem-
ber happened one or two years after the first World War.
Prof. Dr. Muller, the headmaster of my school at St. Goars-
hausen, was a strict disciplinarian and his particular aim
was to get us accustomed to discipline and to a strict
fulfillment of our duty. But he was much too clever and
too strong a personality not to know that there might be
sometimes a clash between the official duty and the moral
duty. Once he asked one of my classmates, whose sense
of duty and reliability he appreciated very much: “what
would you do if you had to guard a prisoner who is suffe-
ring from thirst and you were strictly forbidden to give him
anything to drink ?” Would you give him water or not ?”
After a short hesitation the boy answered: “I would”. An
exclamation of relief ‘Gott sei dank’ (God be praised) was
the short but eloquent comment of our teacher. Another
episode of the time when Prof. Muller was our guide rises
in my memory: Waiter Rathenau had been murdered by
rightist fanatics. He had been one of the real spiritual
leaders of his time, a philosopher statesman of highest
standard, brilliant as economist-he was one of the greatest
industrialist-a great linguist, -he was able to deliver his
speeches in a flawless French or English; he was also a
profound philosopher and he had a strength of imagination
which reminds of Lord Beaconsfield-Disraeli. It was

professor Muller who exalted these great qualities of
Rathenau, who was simultaneously one of the greatest
representatives as well of Jewish as of German spirituality,
in a short but most impressive speech, which induced me
to read later Rathenau's book: ‘Von ‘Kommchdnc Dmgrk
(On Events to Come).

Rathenau pleaded for anew monumcntality dcs Leber .? -
gefuhls (of Life Consciousness'. Never has such a monum-
entally been more necessary than in our time which has
witnessed so many changes. In our time of international
interpenetrations this new monumcntality of life-conscious-
ness must be of a cosmopolitical order. That there arc already
symptoms of such a new moumcntality proves the mere fact
that I was able to establish without financial means in God-
esberg the Champat Rai Jain Library, taken over now bv tire
Municipality of Bad Godcsbcrg and to get book-donations
(books on Jainism and India) from friends in India and
in Germany, from the Indian and the French Government.
When I was in 1°^8 during my vacations in Germany I
could convince myself that this library is flourishing and
that we needed in fact much more books in order to satisfy
so many readers. An interesting fact is also that-as I was
told Ernst lunger the most important representative of
presenuime German literature, is taking now a great inter-
est in Indian philosophy and religion. It would perhaps be
a happy event if Ernst Jungcr would find it possible to
come to India and to live there for some time. 1 would have
liked when two years ago 1 was in Germany to make him

personally this proposal, but the time was too short to get
introduced to him. But I had an opportunity to see my
venerable friend and wellwisher Professor Dr. Kir feu who
with his 75 years, is one of the most precious assets of the
Indo German Cultural Relations. In the large ken of his
interests he has much similarity with the distinguished
Bengali Scholar Dr. Halidas Nag. His latest publications
arc ‘Symbolic of Hinduism cm; Jcinisr:' and ‘Symbolic o :

Buddhism,’ two masterpieces of subtle interpretation and
lucid representation of the matter reflecting an universal
knowledge. Another extraordinary personality which I
had the honour to meet in Germany was Colonel-General
von Falkenhausen, who belongs to a type of soldier-states-
men, which today is relatively seldom to find but which
flourished in Greek and Roman antiquity. He was for
about 5 years military advisor of Tshiang Kai Chek a post
which he left only when Hitler threatened to take punish-
ing measures against his family, living in Germany. He
became Governor-General of Belgium, a post which he
kept only in order to prevent a direct rule of the S. S. in
that country and to save as many human beings as possible.
He was involved in a tragic conflict. This situation has
also been recognised in Belgium and witness-letters of
Belgians who had been saved by direct interference of clever,
manipulations of the Governor fell like snowflakes on the
desk of the judge and the sentence was more or less a
token sentence and practically an acquittal. When I met
the General at Nassau, where my brother-in-law has a
country-house, he was already at the verge of 80 years. He
was living in a pretty small Villa, belonging^© the Count
Kanitz and surrounded by a huge garden. We had tea on the
Verandah, The two hours which I stayed with him passed
in no time. I seldom met a more fascinating causeur coining
brilliant formulations & sparkling with wit, speaking with
ease several languages, English, French and even Chinese. He
has a deep knowledge of the Near and Far East and obser-
ves the development of the Non-European peoples in Africa
and Asia with a real sympathetic interest. With many
statesmen of these non-European countries he entertains
a friendly correspondence. He was conscious of the fact
expressed in a book of Egon Vietta, whose recent death is
a great loss for our relations to Asiatic countries that
‘Europe, is embeded in Asia’. He took also a great interest
in India and admired the great constructive work of

N 172

Dr. G.D. Birla in Pilani.-I felt that a deep intellectual interest,
if it is positive as it was the case with von Falkcnhausen,
is also the expression of a Great humanitarian love. Ltivc
is also the basis of Goethe's great Art of Living, and as it
is a conciliatory force, enabling him to find the right bal-
ance in society and the inner equilibrium between the
diverging tendencies of his character. It is particularly a
French writer Robert d’ Hacourt who has rightly recogni-
zed that love is the true nature of Goethe's art oflivinc.
Goethe’s equilibrium is an organic one which can only be
established by love which is the core of Truth and not a
mechanical one, which is the aim of La Perouse, the psy-
chologist in Bernanos’-novel La Joie, and which can only be
obtained, by calculation. In his book ‘ Goethe eu ‘V or: <•?,■
la Vie ' he mentions that the last word which Goethe spoke
before he died was not ‘MehrLicht’ (more light), this was
only one of the last words, but these simple, tender words
of endearment, addressed to his daughter-in-law Ottilie:
'Gib mir dein Pfotchcn’ (Give me thy little paw). Faust is
a great expression of this love; it is a cosmic love, bribed in
Satwa, the highest reality. Goethe has been called the great
Pagan, but Faust is the greatest emanation of a cosmic
Christianity in the sense ot St. John: according to whom
‘we live, move and have our being in God.’ ‘Streben: to
aspire to a higher form of being, is the most active form of
love. It might err in the beginning ai d imcKc us in many
risks: ‘Es irrt der Mensch so lang er strebt’ (Man errs as
long as he strives). Errors are the ransom of all actions,
but the final truth is: AVer immer strebend rich bem.uh:
den konnen wir erlosen’ who always aspires towards higher
forms of life can be redeemed’. I have no doubt that
the sinners with whom Chrbt felt compassion. we;e the
men of action and tint the pharisees, taken in a wide
sense, were all those people who never dare to do nn> thing,
who are quite static. Their righteousness j< simply the
result of non-action and therefore dead. Men of action
have the humility of sinners but also their hope.

]

VIRGIN-FOREST AND FAIRY-GARDEN
(ROMANTICISM AND CLASSICISM)-FROM RAJASTHAN TO
CEYLON, FROM CEYLON TO KASHMIR.

If Banaras is the center of Brahmanism, so Udaipur
and Chittor are with regard to their tradition the centers
of kshatriya-culture. To this, as far as Udaipur is concer-
ned, another element is added. — This requires some expla-
nation. There are towns in India which, in spite of all
outer dissemblance, have a bit the spirit of ancient Rome.
Very typical for this is Delhi,the Indian capital, or on a smal-
ler scale Gwalior. But there are also towns which resemble,
with regard to their spiritual atmosphere, the ancient
Byzanze. Such town is certainly Udaipur with its four lakes
and beautiful waterpalaces, situated on the shore or on
small islands. Byzanze evokes in us not only a dream of
beauty but also of melancholy, so masterfully described
in Pierre ‘Loti’s l Le Fantome Oriental.’

But it would be exaggerated to pretend that Udaipur
lives only in the dreamland of the past. One should not
overlook that it is one of the most important education
centers in Rajasthan. One of its most interesting institu-
tions is the Vidya Bhawan, whose principal was three years
ago the actual Minister of Education Dr: Shrimali. His book
‘Adventures in -Education ’ is one of the most remarkable
publications in the educational field. This institution has
been founded by Mohan Singh Mehta, the former Indian
Ambassador in Switzerland, who was simultaneously accre-
dited in Austria and the Vatican; earlier he was also Amba-
assador in Holland and in Pakistan. He is now Vice-Chan-
cellor of the Rajasthan University in Jaipur. He is often in
Udaipur and is the real spiritual rector of the institution in
which particularly the spirit of responsibility and group
collaboration is fostered. It was a particular pleasure for

\ 174

me to be invited for tea in Mr. Mehta's home. I had an
opportunity to speak with him about the Commonwcalth-
idea as a factor of a future world unity and the possibility
for West Germany to improve its delations to Russia by
joining the Commonwealth, giving in such way an institu-
tional character to her relations to India which is at good
terms with Russia and has a quite considerable influence
on it. Dr. Mehta spoke very interesting about his experien-
ces in Europe and remembered particularly an interview
with Dr. Adenauer, whom he considers as one of the most
important personalities on the European scene, broadmin-
ded, full of vigor attd with a truly superior intellect. Few
days later I took my lunch in the palace as a guest of a
member of the former ruling house of Udaipur and one
of the descendants of Pratup Singh of whom we read in
Jayendra Manilal Shelafs book ‘Akbar’: “But Pratap was
heroic, glowing with the luminous spirit of freedom which
refused to permit his talents to be exploited in the service
of any man. Endowed with only a small and impoverished
inheritance, he proved himself, in face of insurmountable
difficulties a great leader of man. a generous enemy attd
above all, a prince among men. His name will ever have a
permanent and prominent niche in the Valhalla of valour,
patriotism and hcroi$ni.’*-Tn the West one ignores often
that India has not only a spiritual but aho a heroic tradi-
tion. I wished to get an intuitive experience of this heroic
tradition and so I passed a whole dav-lust my birth-day-
in the ruins of Chhlor. This heroic tradition docs not

contradict to the spiritual tradition. On the contrary:
Heroism and Spiritualism have always been good neigh-
bours. This has been particularly stressed in Kamtr.
Prasad’s interesting book ‘5ome Hi j: erica! dam a JC:nc<
and Heroes’.

Rajasthan is. inspite of Udaipur with its four beautiful
lakes and its exuberance of growth curing the rainy t croon,
essentially a desert area, where it is rather difficult for the

1

poor to earn his livelihood, particularly 4 P!fani\ where I
live now, is surrounded by plain desert. Also Delhi and
Agra where I lived previously for a longer time, have desert
surroundings. So I was longing for aboundance of vegeta-
tion, for the sight of rivers and of the sea. In the whole of
Asia there is perhaps no country where this wish could be
more readily fulfilled than in Ceylon. An apprehension of
the beauty of this paradise one gets already in Madras
with its beautiful Marina Beach.-The charm of Colombo,
which has a bit the atmosphere of Lisbon and also of some
Dutch town at the seaside, consists to a great extend in its
parks particularly the Cinnamon gardens and its large
avenues. Not far from this town we have the beautiful
seaside resort Mount Lavinia with its palmfiinged bay and
colourful sunrisings and sunsets. The railway to Kandy
crosses a tropical- forest. You have in Ceylon a scenery
which can compete with the most beautiful in the world,
composed of mountains covered with forests, in which,
according to an expression of Hermann Keyserling in the
chapter ‘Kandy’ of his Travel Diary of a Philosopher the
trees are blossoming like flowers, of rivers, (there not less
then 10 in Ceylon) and of lakes. The forests contain still
much wild life, so about 300 elephants, leopards, and boars.
The government took a wise step to protect the forests
against the primitive cheena culture (the burning down of
woods in order to get arreable land) and to prohibit the
shooting of wild elephants, whose intelligence and general
good nature give to them a particular status in the animal
kingdom. When I reached Colombo there was a wave of
strikes; a railway-strike and a port strike; But this did not
seem to affect much the general happiness of the popula-
tion, whose kindness towards foreigners & general courtesy,
which was really a politeness of heart, could not be surpa-
ssed. The Ceylonese people, this is the first and as such
the most reliable impression, is good-hearted and easygoing.
It is not very difficult to make friends among the Ceylonese.

176

‘Forgetting the world
by enjoying nature:
water, sun, gardens
and snow covered
mountains.’

The author
with

Muhammad

&

Shalimar

Garden

L.'V.

OV tV

\ Asoka Buddhist Stone Railing, Anuradhapura, Ceylon
(Here stood two Jain Viharas upto 2nd century, A. D.)

You look e. g. with some interest, perhaps half unconscio-
usly in the face of some-one whom you have never seen
before, and the kind reaction to your curiosity is often
enough a charming smile. My journey to Ceylon was
however not only a pleasure trip. I wanted to obtain some
insight into the spiritual life of this Country and also into
the cultural relations between Germany and Ceylon. In
this I found a sympathic support from Dr. Kunzel. the
excellent German Cultural councillor in Colombo whose
experiences of foreign countries are not only restricted to
Ceylon and India but include also Near and Far East
countries like Iran and China. I was deeply impressed by
his sympathetic interest in the spiritual life of his guest
Country. One of the most important representatives of the
intellectual Buddhism, whom I met in Ceylon was certainly
Rev. Soma Thera who lives in a small but beautiful Vaiura-
rama-Monastery. He had recently been in Europe and
appreciated particularly the interest for Buddhism in West
Germany, particularly in Hamburg. The total number of
registered Buddhists in Germany amounts to 2000 but
the number of those who are intellectually interested is of
course much bigger. The most important representative of
Buddhism in Germany was Paul Dahlkc, whose books, in
their English translations, were well known to the Rev.
Soma Thera. He appreciated particularly a recent publica-

tion of words of Buddha in German language. From the
view-point of Jainism it was particularly interesting that
the Reverend Soma Thera explained that the Nirvana or
Nibblina in Buddhism was by no means identic with emp-
tiness and did not lead to nihilism. When I took leave my
reverend interlocutor presented me with a copy of his book
Dhannashoka. in which he stresses particularly the impor-
tance of ahimsa in political and social life, referring to the
example of the great emperor, whose son Mahendra brou-
ght more than two thousands years ago Buddhism to
Ceylon. — Another interesting encounter I had in Kandy.

the old capital of the Singhalese kings. There lives in a
forest hermitage a Buddhist monk of German origin, who
now since 26 years in Ceylon, has obtained the reputation
of a great scholar in prakrit and of an excellent writer of
religious and, philosophical books. He impresses by his
noble simplicity going along with a really profound know-
ledge of the doctrines of Buddhism in their most subtle
forms. Our talk covered the recent publications on Buddh-
ism in Germany and when I left him the venerable Nyana-
jonika Thera presented me some of his books, the reading
of which was in a way a continuation of the interesting
conversation. The book of Nyanaponika Thera which
interested me most was “ Anathn and Niblctna ” (Egoless-
ness and-.,E)eliverance)-The following passage deserves a
particular. interest'.-Nibbana’ the Buddhist’s Goal deliver-
ance, has, been wrongly interpreted in the sense of either
of these extremes: existence or non-existence. But these

v , i

conceptual terms cannot do justice to the dynamic nature
of actuality and still less to Nibbana which has been decla-
red to be supramundane and beyond conceptional thinking.
In the early days, when knowledge of Buddhist teachings
had just reached the West, most of the writers and scholars
took^Nibbana as non existence, pure and simple, with a
few exceptions, like Schopenhauer and Max Muller. Today
so assures us the author, there is not a single school of
Buddhism in the whole East, in which non-existence was
preached an. aim to strife at. This has not always been the
case. There was . once a sect, called the Sautrantikas which
taught that Nibbana meant non-existence psychologically:
this view reflects perhaps a form of human despair in face
of the overwhelming exuberance of nature in Ceylon.
Against this nihilistic view a book was published in the
5th century after Christ under the title ‘The Path of Puri-
fication’ (Visuddhimagga), which is considered as the
basic work of the post-canonical Theravada literature. The
author Buddhaghosa is in many respects the Augustine of

\ 178

the Buddhist Church. For Jainism, so far as its relations
to Buddhism are concerned, the question arises how far
the Jain and the Buddhist conceptions of Nirvana ncrce
with or differ from each other. There have been several
attempts to establish contacts between Jainism and Budd-
hism. When Dalai Lama came first to India he was prese-
nted with Champat Rai Jain's book: ‘The Key of Knowle-
dge’. A most remarkable attempt to establish contact with
the Terrawaa Buddhism was Sital Prasad’s book 'Jaimsm
and Buddhism.' Tltcse efforts could be successfully contin-
ued if the Sapta Bhanfiha would be applied on the concep-
tion of Nihbana. Particularly the seventh Bhanghn: 1 From
a certain aspect a thing is and is undcscribablc, from a
certain viewpoint it is not and is undcscribablc. from a
certain view point it is and is not and is undescribable.”
This keeps the golden mean between existence and non-
existence, taken in a static sense. Like the mobsha in Jainism
the Buddhist Nibbina m cans perfect Happiness
reached through Right Knowledge. The relationship bet-
ween Jainism and Buddhism is very striking in the field of
ethics. In Nyanaponika Thera’s book. 'The Four Sublime
States ‘(an interpretaion of the Brahma-YihPral we read:
‘Love, embracing all beings: small and great; far and near,
be it on earth, in the water, or in the air. Love embracing
impartially all sentient beings, and not only those who are
useful pleasing or amusing to us; Love embracing ah beings
be they noble-minded or lowminded. good or evil. The
noble and the good arc embraced because Love, is flowing
to them spontaneously. The low and the evil-minded ate
included because they arc those who arc most in need
of Love.' This inner relationship between Jainism ami
Buddhism should lead to a close cooperation in the field
of propagation of the gospel of ahim-a and to mutual con-
sultation, when this principle of ahimsP requires action, in
social, political and economical life; then there T.e wd be
some coordination.

The idea of world federation e. g. is internally akin to
the principle of ahimsa which includes human brotherhood.
It was from the view-point of this religious Universalism
that during my stay in Colombo, where I had the opport-
unity to meet one of the most efficient journalists of Ceylon
who is now Press Officer in the Information-department
of the Government of Ceylon, I ventured to suggest that
he might lend his support to the Association of World
Federalists centered in Amsterdam and presided by Lord
Boyd-Orr and arrange for the founda tion. of. a branch of
this organisation in Ceylon. This appeal found then a
generous responese and I have no doubt that Mr. Kenneth
Sohanadar will not entirely forget my suggestion. Today
however, I consider the ‘New World Union, Commercial
Buildings, Calcutta' underjthe able guidance of Anil Kumar
Mukherjea as even more important as the whole stress is
laid on the cultural side of human collaboration. Before I
left Colombo for India I had the pleasure to meet in the
house of the German Ambassador Herr Von Pochhammer,
who with his article ‘India and the Commonwealth’ had
made a remarkable contribution to the Commonwealth
Number of the 'Voice of Ahimsa’.

During my journey in plane from Colombo to Madras
I made the acquaintance of a young Ceylonese journalist.
Much interested in religion he had been for sometime
President of the All Ceylon Buddhist Student Association
and also on my trip by Plane from Madras to Delhi I
enjoyed the agreeble company of an economics-professor of
Delhi University, who was on the verge to join the Indian
Student Organisation, which was on the way to Ceylon.

In Delhi I passed some interesting hours with the well-
known German Journalist and author Herr Walter Leifer
who has published now his 3rd book written in India.
This book ‘ World problems at the Himalayas’ -which was
preceded by ‘ India, Pakistan. Ceylon' and ‘Asia, Continent
of Decision is full of ideas and presents quite a new forai

x 180

of Geopolitics. Very interesting in his emphasis on two
power centers the one a maritime one, the Atlantic Ocean,
which is not more than a ditch, severing Europe from Amer-
ica as described by Karl Haushofcr, but a factor of unifica-
tion of the two biggest sea-powers-and a continental one:
the Himalayas, dominating the politics of big continental
masses like Russia, China and India. Very fine arc his
remarks on Kashmere and his plaidover for a new art of
synthetic politics.

There is a strange relationship between the nature of
a country and its spiritual life. In countries where nature
shows an aboundancc like in Ceylon it is particularly the
dynamic instable character of the Universe which imposes
itself on man, enabling him to feel instinctively the great
truth of Buddhism. It is particularly a natural fostering-
soil of Theravada Buddhism with its aversion for all 'static
conceptionalismh The difference between Ceylon and
Kashmere is that between a virgin-forest & a beautiful fnirv-
garden. In the virgin-forest nature prevails, in the garden,
inspite of all aboundancc of nature, still man predominates.
In the first surroundings there will be romantic attitude
towards life. Already Oscar WalzcJ. the great historian in
German Literature of Bonn University (Die Romamik 2
volumes) pointed to the interconnection of Romantic feel-
ing with moonshine, forest, solitary ponds, .and the dishar-
monic, upstirring sound of the Waldhorn (Forest-trumpet).
In Kashmir man shows more self-assertion. He concohew
nature as cosmic harmony and beauty, including harmonic
relations between nature and man. The prevailing
religion in Kashmere is now Islam, a religion which has
always stressed the beauty and harmony of nature. This is
eloquently expressed in the book 'The 5p:r:t e : Ir'r.r:' by
Ashfaquer Husain, a disciple of the late Maulnnn Arad. In
the chapter 'Chcrisher and Sustained we read: ‘With no
one to tc3ch them how to mother or nourish, one finds
animals, birds and insects performing these functions with

greater devotion and constancy than even a human mother.
There are also creatures beyond perception that have
apparently none to nourish them but nevertheless find
their nourishment provided for them from the moment
they come into existence. As one reflects on this, one is
struck by the fact that not only all the necessary ' means
of existence and nourishment are to be found, that would
be nature’s bounty-but that they are found arranged in
such perfect order that, if man does not disturb it, every-
' thing is provided in the form, measures and manner in which
it is required.” From the viewpoint of Geosociology Islam
. is not only a product of desert but also of Oasis, in which
everything is provided. In order to come into contact with
the spirit of the country I decided to stay in a Mohamma-
den family, after having ascertained that vegetarian food
would be supplied. -One day I met on my houseboat:
‘Happy Line’ an old Mullah who impressed me by a cer-
tain spiritual beauty in his face. He appeared to me like
one of the heroes of the Arabian Nights. We had some
talks about religion. One day he presented me with a stone,
which would bring me luck and when I took leave from
him he gave me a talisman, which I still carry with me in
his honour. One day I asked Mullah Shamsutdin what
main-idea he thought to be common to all religions. First
he answered: The idea of God. But Ahmed, the second
son of my host, a clever boy, who takes much interest in
religion, objects: ‘But the Buddhists do not believe in God’
Mullajih reflected a bit; then he replied with a new formu-
lation: “All men are like trees, stones, birds and flowers, they
all have their life and all living beings ressemble man.” ‘I
think, if we translate these lyrical words in a more philos-
ophical language, we would say that all religions, worthy
of this name are more or less based on ahimsa’. This adm-
ission of the venerable Mullah deserves certainly the
particular interest of the Jains, who have the most elabor-
ate conception of ahimsa From the view-point of the

182

history of religions it is interesting that particularly Sufism
which stresses more than any other religion the beauty
aspect of religion, played and, actually more indirectly
plays a great part in the religious life of Kashmere. I asked
the Mullah, if he knew some Muslim Saint living in
Kashmere ? Yes, this was Mirch Sahcb. who lived in the
Shalimar Garden. The Shalimar-Garden is perhaps the
most beautiful of the Moghul-Gardens.

A foreigner, coming to Kashmere, is perhaps most
impressed by the tremendous artistic productivity of the
Kashmeries. It seems that almost in even- street there is
some Curio-shop. It strikes one that there is a lack of
equilibrium between artistic productivity and aesthetic
receptivity. The Home market for art-products is still und-
eveloped, in spite of the fact that the Government of India
is taking up the matter with great zeal. This lack of equili-
brium between artistic productivity and aesthetic <en«e is
perhaps typical for India in general. Sometimes one finds
this contrast in the same persons. It struck me often in my
acquaintances with some eminent Indian artist that there
was a gap between their artistic mastership and a certain
middle class taste inside their homes. It seems that the Gan-
dhian principle of ‘High thinking and simple living', winch
corresponds so much to the ideal of renunciation in late
Hinduism, is sometimes too narrowly interpreted and has
led to a kind of puritar.ism which is essentially hostile to
the beauties of life, of which art is the most smvmca Here
Tagore and the tradition o r S ...ntiniketnn could hob to

overcome this onesided development.

Tni< k

r.n

aesthetic but also an economic problem. The creation
an aesthetic sense is, unlike miotic prodacthiy . Whir*
linked up with natural endowment, a question cfrdu.cr.ti
If this sense is once developed and ifc\ery Indian, v
can afford it, would consider it as a patriotic dots
the high culture of his country to ii\c in r.:t:-tle mraur
mgs. to have some nice we odours iu-cs from Ku-humr •

'to wear in winter a Kashmere Shawl, the economic probl-
ems o f Kashmere, whose population shows such an
astonishing endowment for art, would be partly solved.
The same is true for other states of India, particularly
of Rajasthan with its highly developed art-handicraft. If
we consider the experiences of Indian history we should
pay attention to the fact that the golden age of Indian art
the mediavel time, was also a golden era of economics, it
seems that India has been then to the world what France
has been to Europe, a supplier of luxury goods, like beau-
tiful cloth and handwoven'draperies, ivory work and spi-
ces. Indian handicrafts and occupational specialisation
were highly developed says Max Weber in his great work.
The Religion of India. At that timS there was a beautiful
equilibrium between artistic creation and aesthetic sense,
this means that at that time art was not divorced from life.

The India of these old times was still inspite of its
flourishing townculture covered with forests and might
have resembled in this respect to Ceylon, which is still the
green island of Lanka. — Ceylon and Kashmere evoke even
to-day two aspects of human culture: Romanticism in this
sense that nature prevails over man and challenges him
and Classicism, in the sense that man asserts himself, with
a certain ease. Even the great poverty in Kashmere cannot
adulterate this basic attitude towards life. Jainism with its
grand cosmology and strong belief in the possibility for
man to reach the ultimate goal, omniscience and happiness,

might perhaps be able to coordinate these mighty streams
, of human culture.

BUDDHISM, ORIGIN AND MISSION.

A week ago, when I took my 5 O'clock tea with a coll-
eague of mine in his Bungalow, my attention was attracted
by a photo, hanging at the waif, which he had -brought
from America. It showed my host with Professor Albert
Einstein and was taken at Princeton, U. S. A. Prof Gurteo
spoke about the impressive personality of Einstein, how he
was delighted at every opportunity to exchange a few
words in German. Then our talk took a different turn.
The question arose what might have been the philosophy
of Einstein. And here I was happy enough to get some
information which seems to me of a particular importance.
“Science," so Einstein said, according to my boh, "draws
nearer and nearer to the basic conceptions of Indian philo-
sophy. The atomic research has revealed that the fine and
invisible entities are more powerful than the gross ones
which appear to our naked eyes." It seems that Einstein
did not insist to exhaust this topic during the short con-
versation which he had with my friend. But already from
this casual remark one can draw interesting conclusions.
Many astonishing feats of Yoga c. g. which appear miracu-
lous can be explained by this principle, that the fine
entities are more powerful than the gross ones. It is after
all the will, a spiritual power, which uses the body ns an
instrument. And Einstein’s statement that modern science
approaches Indian Philosophy, suggests also the idea that
the more the world becomes seicntific-mindcd the more it

becomes mature for Indian Thought.

But in order to understand the whole spiritual <it
we have to become conscious of two facts; the or.e.
explains the conformity between Science on the on;
and Indian Religion and Philosophy on the other i

nation

both science and Indian philosophy are based on experie-
nce. In this lies their agreement.-The second fact is that
while Science, as conceived today, essentially as Natural
Science, -is based on outer experience, Religion & Philosophy,
which in India are closely interrelated, are if they have reac-
hed a higher state of development, based on inner experience.
V ~In modern Science we ‘test’ our observations by exp-
eriments. This word test is cognate with taste and touch
and in order to express that we have understood the essen-
tials of a problem we say also that we have grasped it.

! And before having grasped it we ‘groped’ ' with it. The
German word ‘ hegreifen which means to understand,
includes the meanings of to touch & to seize. All this sugg-
ests that Science is based on a refined sense of touch and
the philosopher Count Hermann Keyserling who was in
Ceylon in 1913, opines in one of his latest books ‘Das
Buck von Ur sprung’, that the craftsman is the ancestor
of the Scientist. '

Religion and philosophy, and Arts in general, are more
or less based on inner experience. We are here concerned
with spiritual values and ideas which cannot be grasped
like material bodies or conceptions related to or emana-
ting from material bodies. These ideas we can only ‘see'
with our spiritual eyes. Also D. J._ Suzuki emphasizes this
fact in his book Mysticism, Christian and Buddhist ‘We
know that seeing is very much emphasized in Buddhism,

' but we must not fail also to notice that seeing is not just
an ordinary seeing by means of relative knowledge, it is
the seeing by means of a praj» 3 -eye which is a special
kind of intuition enabling us to penetrate right into the
bedrock of reality itself. This also expressed in the word
‘Wordview’, in German Weltanschauung’. We speiak in
• German also of Einscht ‘insight’, which means ah unders-
tanding which is more intuitive than calculative. This
word insight points already to inner experience. If I see
the whole of it, that is the character of intuition, if I touch

186

something, without being able to see it. then I perceive
only a small part. The differences, between Science in the
sense of natural Science and Arts in a farther seme includ-
ing Religion and philosophy is that between indirect or
direct perception or conception: which is a kind of seeing
and intuition, which is not concerned with details but with
the whole, not with a particular detail with which I am
confronted. This idea is also expressed by Sri Bhagvanr.
Ramana Maharishi in his 'Forty * Verses cn Reality': If
one has form , the world and God will appear accordingly:
if One is formless , who is to see their form end hew? U'Vr.
out the eye can anything be seen? If truth is one cncsrif is
the eye, the Infinite eye.' I can describe the detail by
means of words or of a mathematical formula; they are
descriptions of an exterior experience. The whole, particul-
arly if I have in view the whole Universe, or supernatural
reality, can only be expressed (never described but interpr-
eted) by symbols. Particularly religious art has such sym-
dolic character. A description concerns our understanding,
a symbol appeals to our imagination, which in its highest
development becomes intuition. A mere conception is
limited to the material world, particularly to the world in
which we live; intuition is particularly our sense of orienta-
tion in the spiritual world.

To the difference between exterior experiences and
inner experience corresponds the difference made by Pascal
in his 1 Pen see s' between the * esprit de geometric" ar.d the
esprit de finesse \ About the 'esprit de geometric' he says:
Wes principes sent pcdpollcs. rr.c.is cicicncs e.e d usage
commun". ‘The principles are touchable but distant from
common use*. Thai means not every body who is not trained
can use them. And about T exvr:.:.:V ’iresse’ he \es
principos sent Jans d usage rcmmnn e: denar:’, less ear.
de tout 1c mor.de. Or. n a arc ‘.due de to:r-:er W j etc. sans
de sc leave violence; il n'cs: emotion cue a:* i

i r: e

rue ma:s

*T*“ ^

J * »* * “-^‘J

common use and before everybody's eyes. One has only
to turn the head, without taking much trouble. One needs
only a.good sight, but this must be good."

It seems that today in comparison with ancient times
the sight for spiritual things is not so good and that in our
age the * esprit de geometrie’is prevailing. But there are signs
that the 1 esprit de finesse ' is slowly gaining ground and
that we are tending towards a greater equilibrium. The
ideal would be of course a synthesis between ‘ esprit de
geometrie’ and * esprit de finesse ,' between science and
religion.

And here it seems that particularly the Indian religions
have a great task for they are recipients of a great treasure
of inner experience. As natural sience is based on exterior
experience so Religion, so far it is refined to mysticism, is
based on inner experience. Yoga is merely a systematised
form of mysticism. Mysticism we find in all great religions.
Even monothiestic and exoteric religions like Christianity
and Islam have their great mystics whose teachings are
quite similar or even identical with that of the great Indian
seers. Even Yoga was widely spread in East and West alike
in ancient times. Prof. Kirfel writes in his interesting essay;

‘ The Prehistoric Settlement of India 1 The French arch-
eologist Raymond Lanties has proved, that until 1 934 not
less than 31 different sculptures of the ancient Gaul have
been unearthed, which represent gods in the shape of a
dieu accroupi , that is in the pose of a Yogi. Yoga was
practised particularly in prearyan India and influenced all
Indian religions. ‘Indian thought', so we read in the book
of Paul Mason Oursel ‘Le Yoga 1 , existed and would have
continued to exist without Yoga, but abstract a theoretical
of a dryness which resembled the Iranian dryness. Iran was
contemplatice and hierarchic, like the Hellenism which was
dominated by Platonian ideas with the seduction of the
graces 1 Ve can see that India owes to Yoga that that what
is in its spiritual luggage ’ is not Iranian or theoretical.’

188

If Brahmanism is influenced by Yoga, so Jainisnv? and
Buddhism are the direct descendents from Yoga. Marson-
Oursel says rightly in his book: 'Lc Jin a cl lc Buddha
sont, en fait , les premiers Yogis qucrcpcrcV histcirc: deux
souverains qui ne vculcnt command cr qu a cux-mcmcs,
posseder qu'une methope de salutd: The Jina and the Buddha
are in fact the first yogis who have made history: who
wanted to command only themselves and only possess a
method leading to salvation.'

Masson-Ourscl makes then a very important statement.
He says: ‘Jainism and Buddhism offer a collective wisdom
more powerful than all the cults and valid for all men not
only for those who have spread it. Regarding Jainism he
seems to have however some objections. He says: ‘There is
also a contrast between the relative simplicity, immutabil-
ity of the Jain dogma and the extreme plasticity of Buddh-
ism. '-But it seems that also the Jainism of Ancient timet,
.when it was particularly cultivated among the nobility
( Kshatriyas ), has been extremely flexible. In Ratn“kar’s
4 Bhartah Vaibhara', a Jain Shastrn. wc read that Bharat
was able to obtain omniscience without self-mortification.
The Tirthankaras did not offc* abstractions to those asse-
mbled in the Lecture hal 1 of a Tirthankara but preached
with a singing voice in a language which was understood
by all men and even by animals. Tins seems to point to
the religious importance and purifying character of music.
Then wc have in Jainism the Sap: a Bhanga vdiich with its
final statement: ‘From a certain aspect a thing is nr.d is
not and is unexprcssilhc.’ can only be undcr.-tood as an
expression of the extreme dynamism in the structure of
the Universe. In short a contrast between Buddhism and
Jainism appears only as a result of a superficial approach:

is Jainism is rather the founder religion of Yoga, b: r.v.:
kara Rishabha was the first Yogi, to preach it. Therefore ?,
ddin.uha. The ltrahmanic '■rcr* \v> r.ba dcreubc*
Avat .ra who preached Yog.vdhnrr.'.a.

1 .•

r.

the deeper wo are delving the more the similar Vic. a. ^
prevailing. An interest in Buddhism from the viewpoint o.
Jainism can only be a very positive and sympathetic on©
and: wiU be mixed with the highest admiration for the
towering greatness and deep humanity of Lord Buddha.

What is the striking feature of Buddhism? I think it is the
very depth of his negation which leads finally to a kin o
indirect affirmation, which is situated in a . strata of our
being, which is much deeper than any rationalism can reach.

In their negation of wrong or premature assertions the
Buddhist scholars have shown a subtlety which reminds of
Schopenhauer or Bergson. This has lead the West to believe
that Buddhism was nihilistic. Nothing could be more
wrong. A Jain scholar Sital Prasad who has studied Buddh-
ism in Ceylon has devoted a whole book: 'Buddhism and
Jainism ’ to the refutation of this prejudice. A great expert
of Zenbuddhism, D. T. Suzuki, points out in his book
* Mysticism ^Buddhists generally talk about the 'egoless-
ness of all things, but they forget that the egolessness of
things cannot really be understood until they are seen with
the eye of prajnz-intuition'. N. . Gangulee refers in his
excellent book: ‘The Buddha and His Message ’ to a wor
of 'Buddha which he spoke to his disciples short before his
death, ‘I leave you, I leave you, I depart,, having made the
self my refuge.’ He requested them then not to rely upon
any external support, but to make ‘the self their refuge -
And in the Udnna it is written: ‘There is an unborn, an
unoriginated, an unmade, an uncompounded; were there
not, o mendicants, there would be no escape from the world
of the bom, the originated, the made and the compounded .
In the Dhammapada it is said: ‘One’s own self is bideed
difficult to subdue. Self is the Lord self, who else could be
the Lord ? With self well-subdued a man finds a Lord
such a few can find.' Nirvana is discussed in the Samyutta
Nikctya. The Buddha declares that it is absolute bliss
(Nibbanaip paramam sukham). It is not possible to give

190

. aiaqaato description of absolute bliss, ‘esprit de
geometne' is here at loss to find a suitable formula. The
'esprit de finesse ’ is here better off. His highest form of
expression is art. And from art we can get some intuition
about the character of Nirvana. I remember still that when
I was a student at Bonn-University.it was in 1927-1 was
much impressed by the lectures of Prof. Wilhelm Worringer
on Indian and East-Asiatic Art in which he pointed to the
beautiful expression of serenity in the face of Lord Buddha
expressed masterfully in some of the sculptures, which he
was able to show us on the screen.

But also in great poems we find a sure guide to the
highest reality. Goethe expresses it in his 'Feus:' (address-
ing Margaret):

And feeVst not, thronging
To head arid heart , the force,

Still weaving its eternal secret
Invisible , visible, round thy life?

Vast as it is, fill with that form thy heart
And when thou in the feeling whcllv blessed art
Call it then what you wilt
Call it Bliss I Heart / Love ! God !

I have no name to give it !

Feeling is all.

The name is sound and smoke ,

Obscuring Heavens clear glow'

And Shelley says in the end of his poem:' The sen si-
tivc plant —

‘ For love, and beauty, and delight
There is no death nor change, their might
Exceeds our organs which endure'.

Sir Edwin Arnold, in his poem. ’The Ugh: r* Asia
explains Nirvana with these word:

* If any teach Nimr.r.a is to cease.

Say unto such they lie .

If any teach Nirvana is to

r.

Say unto such they err; not knowing this ,

Nor what light shines beyond their broken lamps ,

Nor lifeless timeless , bliss.

Enter the path! There is no grief like Hate!

No pains like passions, no deceit like sense !

Enter the path! Far has he gone whose foot
Treads down on fond offence.

Enter the path! There spring the healing streams
Quenching all thirsts; there bloom the immortal flowers
Carpeting all the way with Joy! there throng
Swiftest and sweetest hours*

Earnest Wood claims in his book ‘ Yoga ’ that Hinduism
had an identical view of Nirvana. It could be added that
the same is true of Jainism. A beautful passage we find
also in Herman Hesse’s novel Siddhcirtha : And Govind saw
that this mask-like smile of simultaneousness over the
thousands of births and deaths-this smile of Siddhartha-
exactly the same as the calm, delicate, impenetrable, per-
haps gracious, perhaps mocking, wise, thousand-fold, smile
of Gotama, the Buddha, has had perceived it with awe a
huudred times. It was in such a manner, Govinda knew:
‘that the Perfect One smiled’.

Buddhism is, as we can see from these quotations, far
away from being, as it is often believed in the West, a gospel
of pessimism. It is in the contrary a message of hope. Lord
Buddha teaches us that man can free himself from sorrow
and pain, that he can reach Nirvana by his own force, that
by his purified will he can overcome the obstructions of
his. gross body, that, as Einstein puts it, the fine and small
entities are more powerful than the big and gross ones.

This message of hope was, due to the missionary Zeal
of Asoka, ‘Emperor and Missionary’ as his German biogr-
apher Fritz Kern calls him, spread in many parts of the
world and has influenced perhaps, along with Jainism, the
religious life of early Christianity.-A most happy event in
the history of Buddhism is its propagation in Ceylon.

192

N. Gangulee writes in his book ‘ The Buddha and His
Message ’ ‘The most ancient traditions’arc those preserved
in Ceylon. Here we have an immense mass of the early
Buddhist scriptures. Asoka’s most important mission was
the one that carried the teachings of Buddha to the king-
dom of Ceylon. The mission consisted of a group of monks
headed by Mahcndra, the Emperor's halfbrother. King
Devsnarnpiya Tissaand his Court were converted to Budd-
hism. Under his patronage the order of the Buddha(Sangha)
was established.the Mahavihsra Monaster}’ with a grant of
paddy land and a shrine for the preservation of snered
relics were built. A scion of the Aswatha tree from Bodh-
.Gaya ws planted in Asoka’s Capital, Anur.idhspura, by his
daughter. Princess Sanghamitrad

It seems that in the propagation of Buddhism in the
eastern part of Asia, Ceylon played a similar role 3 s the
small island Ireland played in the propagation of Christia-
nity in Europe. ‘India's contact with South-east-Ash and
the Far East was maintained through the sca-routc.' so we
read in Gangulec’s book ‘The Buddha and His Message'.
"Large sca-faring ships made voyages from Ceylon to Java.
‘A Chinese pilgrim S-tring who was in India and in .Suma-
tra from 671 to 695 A.D. says. ‘Many kings and feudal
Lords living in the scattered islands of the south seas came
to embrace Buddhism.’

Also in our days, Ceylon plays an important role in
the spread of Buddhism. Certain recent development*: of
Buddhism in India, a gradual reawakening of the interest
for Buddhism in this country, might well have been stimul-
ated by the help and advise of Buddhist Missionary centers
in Ceylon. This missionary real is not based on fanatism
but on its very opposite, on the innate generosity which ve
find in Ccvion in al! stratus of the population. It is hts*.
this generosity and this common interest for things spiri-
tual which humanity needs most in our cays and so there
will be a large scope for the propagation of the Truth,
incorporated in Buddhism.

SMALL TALK ON AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

In K. M. Panikkar’s book ‘Geographical Factors in
Indian History' we read in the chapter ‘India’s Geography’:
‘Geography has been at all times one of the great and most
regrettable gaps in Indian knowledge’. Only recently one
can notice a growing interest for geography, perhaps, due
to the broader historical outlook created by the works of
-Nehru ‘ Glimpses of World History’ and ‘Discovery of
India’ and of K. M. Pannikar: ‘Asia and Western Domin-
ion ’ and The Indian Ocean.’ These books have emphasized
the fact that there have been close cultural links between
India, Indonesia and Malaya, that there was a kind of
cultural Commonwealth from the Indian Ocean upto the
Pacific. This interconnection between India and the Cultural
or ethnological sphere of the Pacific Ocean is already quite
visible if we go back to prehistory and study primitive
cultures. Then we are even able to establish links with so
far of countries like Australia and New Zealand, which
are generally much neglected as far as our knowledge of
their geographical conditions and populations is concerned.

For Indians it is particularly interesting what V. J. R.
Howarth writes concerning the aboriginal race of Australia
in the Chapter Australia in a book edited by Lord Gord:
Geography, The World and its Peoples’ We are reading
here:—

'An aboriginal race of man survives In Australia to the
number perhaps 52000. In addition there are some 20000 or
more half-castes., The full-blooded aboriginals have declined
In number , like other aboriginal peoples, since white men
first came In contact with them, but so far as they now live
In reserves their numbers are believed to be growing again.
They are a primitive people , held to have affinities with the

194

Veddahs of Ceylon and with some other Indian people lew In
the scale of civilisation, and to be a race of Caucasian origin
who moved at a distant prehistoric period through Me .'eye
and Australia.

This description is rounded off by an oilier pasture in
in the book ‘ Lands and Peoples' , edited by Gladys D. Che-
well and Holland Tompson, (Chapter ‘Australia's Marie
Makers}:’

‘ A more plausible theory,’ so we read, 'Is that represent':
fives of the oldest known races of India, which farm r.e
bulk of population of southern Hindustan, were driven fr.:m
the/r home In the hills of the I ndlcn Deccan one made V c r
way south via Ceylon, and that some of them continued In
boats of bark the northwestern shores of Austrcllc. Whether
or not they found a papuan race In possession which they
drove south to Tasmania, certain It is that the Austrcllc
blacks of today minutely resemble to the Deccan tribes; they
use some of the same words as those employed by the Orca-
dian fishermen, the same t)pe of ccnce and the same unique
weapon - the boomerang.’

Today the inhabitants of Australia belong almost entir-
ely to the white race. There i> a si ran pa coincidence which
has influenced the whole history of Australia. Short after
King George III had sent Captain James Cook to find
new land in the South Pacific and Cook imd found anch-
orage for the Pndeavour north of where Sydney nova stands
calling it because of the strange plants he found there,
Botany B y. Lord Sydney made the surrender. to tra
about 7 hundred law breakers who at that time v, c:
usually transported to other lands, to the great ra.tur:
harbor down the eastern 'coast jit--: dsccn

-a-

- H

V Cook

and known today as Sydney. These new settle
them had only poached a rabbi: o: left ad... .
brought along with them, apart from the rr.ee.:> :c
ate the soil, also s.ed-wheut. cows and homes-

s . many c

Vv ♦ v ^

.r

The 7o Januarv 17ek, the dav

t...

celebrated as the birthday of the Australia. About 1793 free
immigrants began to leave the British Isles for the new
country which was in 1803 named Australia by the explo-
rer Mathew Flinders.

Today there are about 8 million people living in Aus-
tralia. With an area of 2, 974, 581 square miles. (Tasmania
included) Australia is the thinnest populated country in
the world. More and more it is realised that in our modern
world even for a country like Australia the times of insula-
tion have past. It is more and more understood that by
economic and security reasons a larger populatton is nee-
ded in a world which is suffering from overpopulation.
More and more the original position to favour exclusively
an immigration from the British Islands is replaced by an
European immigration-policy and quite recently Professor
G. S. Browne of Melbourne recommended a less rigid in-
terpretation of the ‘White-Australia Policy' and proposed
to accept coloured immigrants of a good race in limited
numbers. Still a step further went Dr. Guilbert Young,
Roman Catholic bishop of Camberra. He opined that the
admission of non-white immigrants would do more to
promote friendship between Asia and Australia than the
biggest and best Colombo Plan. And a Church Assembly
held in Melbourrne in 1944 went even so far to ask the
Federal Gevernment of Australia to revise its national
policies on Asiatic races.

The most realistic approach would be the recognition
that in this time of atomic power human affairs have be-
come so intricated that only the conception of the human
race as a joint family would be able to solve all political
and economic problems of our time. There, should be no
more any racial discrimination. A good example of interra-
cial cooperation offers Hawai where 1 a small minority of
Europeans lives peacefully with brown and yellow people.
Along with the question of immigration rises the problem
of the carrying-power of Australia. Opinions have here

widely diverted. The German Geographer Penck credited
Australia with a very high potential carrying capacity of
480 millions.

But it seems that this number has been much too
optimistic. An eminent Australian Scholar like A. Lodc-
wykx who has devoted a deep study to the Australian
problem, comes in his book 'People for Austria to the
conlcusion that the final estimate of Griffith Taylor of a
carrying-capacity of 60 Millions for Australia, would be
quite reliable, provided the tropical Northeast, explored by
the great German botanist v. Muller, would be cultivated.

Australia is interesting not only from the view-point of
sociology and anthropology but also with regard to Botany
and Sociology. The Fero-trecs arc reminding the flora of
prehistoric times. Very characteristic arc the beautiful
Eucalyptus-trccs, which shake their bark instead of their
gray-green leaves and which reach sometimes a height of
150 m. There arc the Jarrah and Harri trees, the wood of
which is hard enough, to be used for paving block*.

Among the animals the best known is the Kangaroo,
There are strange animals like the duck-billed platypus
an egglaying mammal, wood devouring ant*, nine fee* long
pythons. There are wild dogs, called Dingo*. There are the
Emus, wingless birds. And there is al*o an immigrant
among the animals:

The rabbit has been imported into the Australian Island
continent for hunting purposes. This interference into the
working of nature, which is the disease of modem time,
and which is. in hast analysis, always *him*.V (violence',
had a particular disastrous effect in Australia. The contin-
ent had no carnivora, except the Dingo. So the rabbits
increased in number and today they have become a true
nuisance and millions of dollars have to be spent for
rabbit fences. This nuisance would certainly he less if the
Continent would not be so much underpopulated.

One day. now about seven years ago. I took my tea

with the Hereditary Grand Duke of Sacksen-Weinar-
Eisenach, whose ancestor Karl August was the royal
friend of Goethe, in his lovely villa at Konigswinter, oppo-
site of Godesberg. We spoke about Goethe’s dislike of
all human interference in the working of nature. The
Duke recommended me a book of Sir Albert Howard:
‘My Agricultural Testament .’ This book gave me a full
insight into the final harmfulness of artificial manuring.
When during a short stay at Bangalore I had an opportunity
to see Sir C. V. Raman: I asked his opinion. He told me
T think that Sir Albert Howard is 100% right.’

What kind of men live in these Anstralian surroundings?
The Australian is known for his energy and sense of entr-
prise, as well as for his generous hospitality. A particular
'achievement of democratic planning was the foundation
of Canberra, which is now the federal capital. Situated
between Sydney and Melbourne it was planned as we read
‘in ‘Lands and Peoples; '• edited by Clewell and Thompson,
‘in the midst of a great waste.’

New Zealand is generally mentioned along with Aus-
tralia, as belonging to the same geographical sphere; in
spite of the fact that it is separated for about 1200 miles
from the Australian Island continent. Of particular interest
is the aboriginal population, the Maoris, who have well
survived the impact of Western civilisation and who are
after a preceding stagnation, now again increasing. Of great
interest is a passage in J. R. Howarth’s contribution to the
already mentioned work ‘ Geography ,’ published by Lord
Gorell (Chapter New Zealand).:—

“The Maoris are a Polynesian native branch of high physl~
cal and Intellectual standard among coloured peoples. There
have been many theories about their origin, Including a belief
In their Semitic descent. But the commonest view appears to
favour a source In India and either an Aryan origin or else,
Aryan contacts.'

New Zealand’s capital is Wellington with 160500 inha-

x 198

bitants. The total population of the country amounts to
1,573,810. New Zealand consists of 2 main Islands: North
Island and South Island. It covers a total area of 103, 722
miles.

Perhaps the most profound and detailed study of these
Pacific Island-nations we find in Cumberland’s book
1 Australia and New Zealand’ and in the excellent work of
Lodewyk, already mentioned, ‘Population for Australia.'

Inspite of their relatively small population Australia
and New Zealand, have a weight in world-politics, due to
their belonging to the Commonwealth of Nations. This
became particularly evident during the Suez-Crisis.

Apart from all political and economical reasons the
Commonwealth partnership of a Country has the great
advantage to give to its statesmen a larger outlook and
a more cosmopolitan way of thinking than we find among
the politicians of mere national states.

England has been fortunate enough to conceive as an
ideal type of man the politician who has a deep knowledge
of the world in large. It is an important feature, which Sir
Walter Scott adds to the character of the hero of his fam-
ous novel ‘Kenilworth.’ Lord Leicester, if he equips him
with the capacity to talk in an interesting way about
foreign countries and peoples, their habits and customs.

There is perhaps a conservative type of liberalism based
more on experience than on abstractions. This is the
true Commonwealth spirit, A German statesman of this
type was perhaps the former Governor of Togo, the
Granddukc Adolf Friedrich von Mecklenburg, Even today

one remembers well his sense of justice and profound
humanity.— The greatest among the British Empirebuilders

memorable words: *The writers of the Indian philosophic-
will survive when the British Dominion in India shah lorn

was

Wat

: first

Err

wire

ins i:

phih

V f '

have ceased to exist, and when the source*; which it v-r'ded

of wealth and power are lost

1

dharma and adharma in politics-malaya,

A JUNIOR COMMONWEALTH MEMBER.

The proclamation of sl Dictatorship in Pakistan recalls
once more the difficulties, which the young democracies
in Asia have to face. The danger of an abrogation of the
democratic system seems still to be pending over several
democratic countries in Asia, so perhaps over Burma and
Indonesia. If we compare the Federation of Malaya, which
occupies the southern part of the Krapeninsula, with these
countries we find that there is considerably more balance
in the whole working of the democratic administration
than pessimists might have predicted in her hour of birth.
75 percent of the country is covered with virgin forest and
the population is composed of so many races, that a natio-
nal integration seemed rather doubtful. And very neighbo-
ured is the giant China with its population pressure.

Malaya has in fact already tasted some of the difficul-
ties emerging from its geographical and technological situa-
tion. In June 1948 a state of emergency had to be declared
in order to foil the attempt by the Malayan Communist
party to overthrow the government by armed force. A
German author Walter Leifer states in his book: ‘Asia,
Continent of Decision', that there was particularly a strong
perhaps foreign-Chinese influence in the organisation of
the Malayan Communist party and the geographical chara-
cter of the country, covered to a far extent with jungle,
made it a difficult job to defeat the rebels. But in the end
governmental forces were victorious. Since then the devel-
opment of the country is enshrouded in an atmosphere of
peace and calm.

Malaya is a democratic country, but its democracy is
shaped by the local circumstances and bears many features

200

which resemble more to our conceptions of aristocracy,
which we are accustomed to oppose to the democratic
pattern.

But already Tocqueville the Great French historian has
emphasized in his book 'Democracy in America that on
general democratic pattern, a coexistence between demo-
cracy and aristocracy is possible. He showed how democ-
racy favours the growth of manufactures and how, by side-
roads, manufacturers may bring men back aristocracy. But
Tocqueville is of opinion that the ‘manufacturing aris-
tocracy ’ is one of the harshest which ever existed in the
world. In Malaya however things are different. Here we
have still an aristocracy of old style, which gives the decis-
ive impulses to the whole style of life; and of this type of
aristocracy Tocqueville says: ‘The tcrritocrial aristocracy
of former ages was cither bound by law. or thought itself
bound by usage to come to the relief of its serving-men
and to succor their interests'.- This attitude was observed
particularly in Japan by the German traveller Count Durk-
heim who wrote a book and several essays on that country.
Karl Haushofcr, a former German Militmy Attache in
Tokyo, thinks that this type of aristocracy is particularly
spread in countries bordering the Pacific Ocean.-it is tin's,
according to him, the effect of geographical conditions
floods, volcanic powers, typhoons, sudden inroads of
the sea, making men depending on each other’s help and
he coins in his 'Geopolitics of the Pacific Ocean’ the term
‘Social Aristocracy*. Such a Social- Aristocracy, if it adheres
simultaneously to the principle of individual liberty, might,
under certain circumstances, become net only no obstacle

but even an asset of Democracy, investing it

of history, bestowing upon it the equilibrating p.nvcr of a
tradition, which has nothinc to do with reaction, but w
on best terms with progress. This synthesis between moni-
tion and progress seems to have been rcalbrd :n Malaya.

The Federation of Mala ya- A p ream e n t I?57. to v- e

read in an information from the Malayan High Commiss-
ion, by which the Federation consisting of 11 states was
to become an independent country 31st August, 1957, was
signed in Kuala Lumpur,- ‘now the capital of the Malayan
Federal State’ ‘on 5th August.’- ‘The first Federation Gen-
eral Election was held in July 1955, after a long period of
public instruction in the meaning , objects and mechanics
of democratic elections. The result was an overwhelming
victory for the Alliance of the United Malaya National
©rganisation, the Malayan Chinese Association and the
Malayan Indian Congress, under the leadership of the
President of the United Malaya National Organisation,
Tunku (prince) Abdul Rahm an. The Alliance gained 51
out of the 52 elected seats. The new Government, perhaps
the most cosmopolitan in the world, comprising six Mal-
ayas, three Chinese, one Indian and five Europeans, under
the Chief Ministership of Tunku Abdul Rahman, assumed
office in August, 1955.

The Federation of Malaya forms so a little Common-
wealth within the 'Commonwealth of Nations.’ This would
be the second time in its history that Malaya is connected
with a Commonwealth. About the first century, A. D.
many Indian Traders settled in Malaya intermarried with
the aboriginies and built towns. These Indian colonies
came under the dominion of Shri Vijaya and formed an
Indo-Malaya Kingdom with its capital at Palambang.
These Indians left the imprint of their .customs, religion,
culture and language upon the local people. The official
religion today is Islam;- one might add in its most tolerant
and generous form.

The capital of the new federation is the picturesque
Kuala Lumpur, situated in a belt of hilly country between
the granite mountains of the Central Range and the swa-
mpy jungle of the midwest coast.

In Kuala Lumpur is also the charming Istana Negara
palace of the Paramount Ruler, His Majesty the Yang di-

Pertuan Agong. The Paramount Ruler and the Deputy
Paramount Ruler are selected in accordance with the provi-
sions of the constitution by the Rulers of the eleven states
who play, in a way, a similar role as the electoral princes
in German history but with the great difference that unlike
the emperor of the holy Roman empire, who was selected
for life-time, the Head of Federation of Malaya is selected
for only five years, with the beneficial effect, that it corr-
esponds to the interest of the princes, to select, in conside-
ration that their turn might also come, the most dignified
and efficient personality.

These rulers have a strong footing in the feeling of the
Malayan people. Thomas E. Dervey. author of the book
‘Journey to the Pacific says: ‘The Malay is quiet, peace-
loving, and not particularly ambitious: he is not politically
inclined by nature and he gives his allegiance to the sultan
of his state, rather than to the abstract concept of a federal
government. It is quite characteristic for the great political
intelligence of the Malayan Sultans that they do not mis-
use this loyalty of their people for selfish purposes, but
‘ that they arc leading them according to democratic princi-
ples. With regard to discussions about constitution^ it has
become an unfortunate habit to heap up abstract theories
and to overlook simple human facts. A very shrewd obser-
ver of human nature, the Swiss author Albert Bitriu*;. alias
Jercmias Gothclf, remarks in his book: 'Uli. Jcr /Guv/;:'
that a true peasant in a hidden corner of his heart, jc ahv-
ays a bit of an aristocrat and as all men have an ancestry
of peasants, as culture is the outcome of agriculture this
inclination would mark a general tendency of human

character. Even a socialist writer. Benvenuto Traven whom
book The Ship of Death’ belongs to the classics of comm-
unist literature, made in this note) corresponding psychol-
ogical discoveries with regard to the worker. It mew that
certain pairs of opposites like -aristocratic' or 'democr atic'
'conservative' and ’prog ressit c* belong together in the -ame

way as the electric positive and negative and that, like in
electricity, only their contact creates power. That corres-
ponds perhaps to Friedrich Schiller’s 'sublime' and ‘grace-
ful' and in modern psychology to the ‘extravert’ perhaps
even to the emotional and ‘rational:’ the first, overempha-
sized, leading, according to the Rumanian sociologist
Cividy Barbu, to Fascism, the other if overstressed, to
Bolshewism. In the cosmical sphere the Italian philosopher,
Ernesto Grassi points out in his book ‘Art and Mythe ’
that the old cosmologies have a profound psychological
meaning, it might even have a parallel in Dharma, the
fulcrum of motion and in Adharma, the fulcrum of stat-
ionary, two forces, (they correspond in modern science to
the field theory in Physics) from the collaboration of which
derives all life on earth and the whole working of the
cosmic order.

It seems that the political leaders of the Malayan Fed-
eration have taken account of this cosmic law and that
therefore things are going well.

There is good hope that their enterprises, also in the
field of economics-particularly the five year plan-will be
successful.

Democracy in Malaya is represented particularly by
the Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, bom on Feb.
8,1902, who has passed his studies in England and is well
acquainted with western culture. He is a democrat, though
the son of a sultan, with a feeling for tradition and a sense
of history, a statesman after the pattern ofDaniele Cortiz,
the hero of the Famous novel of Fogazaro, which bears
this title. The paramount ruler,whose name is also Tua-
nku Abdul^ Rahman,# born on tne 24th August 1 895, is, as
the eighth in direct line of descent from Raja Melewar, a
prince from the Menangkabarn territory of Sumatra, who
founded the present dynasty of Negri Sembilan in 1775,
the representant of a venerale tradition-a tradition which
g ives natural authority and support to progress.

ftEditorail Mote this excellent prince died quite recently from a heartstrokc.

204

KOSMOS AND MAN IN AMERICAN LITERATURE.

(PARALLELS BETWEEN WALT WHITMAN AND ERNEST
HEMINGWAY.;

It is of greatest interest that not only between the
Mediterranean Basin and India but also between India
and America are very old cultural links which might give
a traditional basis to all present and future endeavours for
deeper world wide cultural understanding and collabora-
tion. With regard to the Mediterranean area and India
important pioneer work has been done by Professor Dr.
Kirfel and Father Heras S. J. For all those interested in
Jainism it might be of a particular interest what Prof.
Kirfel writes about a strange relationship between the
cosmology of the Jains and the ‘Divina Comedia' of Dante.
In his essay: 'What owes the elder Occident to India?’
published in a recent book 1 India and Germany' he writes;
‘It further might be explained with the influence of the
Manicheans, that Dante's picture of the hell resembles so
much the description of the hell given by the Jains that
one gets the impression that the hell of the Jain Cosmology
might have served as a model for the great Italian. So it
has been supposed that the Manichcan Sect of the Pauli-
cians which in his time had settled at Pisa might have
played the role of an intermediator which is the more
probable as e. g. Thomas di Aquino who lived about 40
years before Dante is not at all acquainted with this hell-
construction with its storey?; and rings. Heinrich Zimmer
Junior expresses the view in his book 'Form of An and
Yoga* that the contours of Indian Mandalas and Ynntras
were recognisable in the Paradhc. that means of certain
magic figures with a many-leafed lotus at their center, so
closely connected with India’s Magic any Mystic. Also

205

Coomarswamy refers in his book ‘ Hinduism and Buddh-
ism' several times to Dante’s i Divina Comedia .

It is now very important for the whole cultural deve-
lopment of the human race that these cultural contacts
between India and the Occident can also be extended to
America. Chaman Lai gives in his book * Hindu America ’
many instances of these relationships. In the Chapter
Cultural and Religious relations he infers under the head-
ing ‘Jain Rituals in America’ particularly to Jainism. Ano-
ther chapter deals with Buddhism in America. An excellent
American Philosopher, F. S. C. Northrop, has published
in 1947 a book ‘The Meeting of East and West’ in which
he gives a profound analysis of the cultural relations bet-
ween India, America and Europe. He points in this book
to an interesting fact: ‘‘Two squares from the Cathedral of
Mexico City is a former Eucamacion Convent, covering
an entire, exceptionally lengthy city block, now a redecora-
ted government building housing the Secretariat of Public
Education. This secular public usage of a former seclusive
religious compound typifies the influence of the modern
democratic and later positivistic French philosophy of the
nineteenth century upon the medieval Catholic Culture at
its colonial period. Passing through its main entrance one
finds oneself facing a large, open square patio divided by
three levels of open colonades from a second large, open

court beyond These four vertiele-plane truncated corner

surfaces of the patio, masking its right-angled corners
and focusing upon its center, give a unity to the square
court in all three dimensions. Upon these four . upright,
smooth' stone surfaces are cut four world figures, one only
in each truncated corner. Their primary location insures
that they signify, factors which are very important.” These
four figures are of Quetzalcoatl, the Red Indian God. who
is considered as the founder of human culture and who
has a certain resemblance with Rishabha Deva, Las Casas,
the greatest representative of Christianity in Mexican his-

\ 206 .

tory, Plato and the Buddha. "In a country such as Mexico
in which aesthetic values are primary, and rarely if ever
merely decorative, one soon learns to listen carefully when,
with architecture, it is said, ‘These four men are of primary
importance’. One realizes of a sudden that one is face to
face not merely with the roots of Mexican culture but also
with its relations to world culture'. World culture presents
itself to the Mexicans, (and this proves their fine cultural-
geographical instinct) in a synthesis between the Mediterr-
anean area, India and America. It was perhaps first
Alexander von Humbold, the friend of Jefferson and
Bolivar, author of geographical and sociological standard
works on Mexico and Cuba, who recognized fully the great
importance of the indigenous rcd-Indian culture and its
interconnection with Asia.

In our days we witness, (this was already stated by
Colin Ross in his ‘World on the Balance') in the whole
of Latin America a recreation of the Indian clement while
in the North of America, according to the psychologist
Jung, the analysis of the dreams of the average American
seems to reveal a kind of incarnation of the Indian Soul
on American Soil, which seems to have a strong formative
power. There is no doubt that, in the long run, the cult-
ural development in the New World will be strongly infl-
uenced by these trends. The latin and coloured races in
the U. S. A. arc particularly aesthetically gifted and their
task will be to integrate the American Culture in an artis-
tic sense and to contribute to a refinement of taste which

is still undeveloped. All this might lead to a new World
culture on the basis of the great synthesis Europe-Asia-
America as it has been conceived in Mexico.

In American literature wc find trends which will cer-

tainly contribute to cultural unification of humanity.
When in his ‘Do.iruvr.'/Y Sinclair Lewis pays a tribute to

the European Culture in all its different graduations Louis

Bromfield pens in his

Rair.s Cava*’ a fascinating

picture of the eternal India. Still more important is the
fact, that one of the greatest American prose writers
Ernest Hemingway and one of the greatest poets Walt
Whitman have created works which could have blossomed
on Indian soil. In his latest Novel ‘The old man and the
sea ’ Hemingway comes to a kind of cosmological fellow-
feeling and to a consciousness of guilt towards those
creatures which we kill because our customs are cruel and
we are slaves of our habits. The old fisherman from Hav-
anna has while he pursues a huge fish whom he has hoo-
ked and who tries to escape, some very strange ideas.
So we read the following passage: ‘Then he began to pity
the great fish that he had hooked. He is wonderful and
strange and who knows how old he is, he thought. Then
he remembers another great fish whom he had killed:
Then, while the old man was clearing the lines and prepar-
ing the harpoon, the male fish jumped high into the air
beside the boat to see where the female was and then
went down deep, his lavender wings, that were his pectoral
fins, spread wide and all his wide lavender stripes showing.
He was beautiful, the old man remembered and he had
stayed. That was the saddest thing I ever saw with them,
the old man thought. The boy was sad too and we begged
her pardon and butchered her promptly.’ And then idea
rises in him: ‘Perhaps I should not have been a fisherman,
he thought. But that was the thing that I was born for.’
He continues to pursue the fish: ‘Fish’, he said, ‘I love you
and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before
this day ends.’- ‘If I were him I would put in everything
now and go until, something broke. But thank God, they
are not as intelligent as we who kill them; although they
are more noble and more able’-‘The fish is my friend too'-
so we read again, ‘I have never seen or heard of such a
fish. But I must kill him. I am glad we do not have to try
to kill the stars’, ‘I imagine if each day a man must try to
kill the moon, he thought The moon runs away. But

2(33

creat noem ‘Thou Mother With Thy Equal Blood-. ‘Thee
Pi//,, cunolving all-enclosing worship-thee m no single
m thy all-supply g, saviours countless, latent within

bible saviour, mere y, , Whitman conside-

thyself, equal to any, divine as any.. .»• ^

red accordingly also humanity as a great un ,
beauty. This is expressed particularly m his poem

au Monde’. We read here: pursuing the

•1 hear emulous shouts of Australians pursuing
wild horse, the chest-

l hear the Spanish dance with castanets in

nut shade , to the reheck and guitar, _

/ fc e «r continental echoes from the Thames,

7 hear fierce French liberty song?,

■ I heZ of the Italian boat-sculler the musical recitation

° f “fheTthe locusts in Syria as they strike the grain and
grass with the showers of their terrible c ou s, sive i v

I hear the Coptic refrain toward sundown,

falling on the breast of the black venerable

tkB near the chirp of the Mexican muleteer, and the

bellS I °hear theZjrab Muezzin calling from the top of their

m °TLrthe Hindoo t caching his favour^ pupUth*
loves, wars, adages , transmitted safely ^
poets who wrote three thousand years ag poem,

Walt Whitman has also written a ^ a ^ ex ^ ecta .
‘Passage to India/ in which he ex f essed ^%^\2 P 0 p e n-
tions for a cultural unification of humanity fi

ing of the Suez Canal: „ Fue-

“/ see the procession of steamships, the V

enie's leading the van, , re

I mark from on deck the strange landscape , t V

sky, the level sand in the distance, *her*c

I pass swiftly the picturesque groups, the workmen g

210

The gigantic dredging machine s.

Tying the Eastern to the Western s<a.

The road between Europe and Asia.

Europe to Asia, Africa ioined, and the*: ir
World,

Passage to India ! Cooling airs irem Cr
soothing cradle of man,

Eo soul, the retrospect brought ‘'o^wa'd.

The old. most populous, wealthiest r : earth's
Tho streams of the Indus and the Gangs
many affluents

(/ my shores of America waiting today t-h
iv> n nil 1 ”

of infinite understanding.’

It seems that Lawrence has never understood the differ-
ence between authentic, assimilated or intensified intuitive
knowledge and merely accumulated or magnified knowle-
dge. Here are his limits also as author and these limits are
reflected in many of the confusions in his otherwise so
fine novel with a Mexican background * The Plumed Serp-
ent ’ It has obstructed also his understanding of Hindu
culture for this culture is essentially based noton accum-
ulation and magnification but on assimilation and inten-
sification. This is particularly obvious in Indian Yoga. The
French Indologist Paul Masson-Oursel in his description
of the methods of the Indian Yogis (see his book La Yoga )
emphasizes rightly: ‘Les gens ne sont sontenus ou bemes
par. aucun dogme, leur savoir’s atteste par leur pouvoir.'
(These people are not supported or limited by any dogma.
Their knowledge attests itself by their power). Yoga, und-
erstood in its broad sense is the art to find access to its
own inner sanctuary. In this sense some of the greatest
poets and also prose writers might be called Yogis. Walt
Whitman and Ernest Hemingway obtained their world-
view not through abstraction but through intuition. They
are real seers and prophets, who can guide us on right way

212

THE ORGANISATION OFHUM AN I NDIYIDl'/
LORD LYTTON’S Z ANON I AND MODERN P^YCIh ’■

One of the most alarming signs of our
increasing number of political murders or
murder in the Near East(Iraq)and in the Far Z-
History shows that there arc generally two hind
murders, those motivated by unbalanced cat Mir
those caused by a kind of overstresced rutioaa'
of all human feelings.

As to the first category of political vio::nc:
in 1941 a strange experience. I was in r caret
quarter at Bcrlin-My stay in the guest house of
Wilhelm Gcscllschaft (today Max Plank Sre
only have a contemporary character in corn-h
the fact that I was not an ordinary member o r t
One morning when I inquired in the office of
ckhaus if there was some offer of furnished ro
informed that a certain Obcrlcutnnut {1st kba*.
Vogel would accept a paying guest under corn

UTY.

A-'

- t

X. . ; > <

Baroness von Sanger. So I consented. In the evening of
the next day I was the guest of von Vogel, who was living
together with an old aunt, a Miss Von Kokeritz, who
performed the function of the landlady. There were two
big German Shepherd dogs who showed a great affection
for their master and were treated like human beings. A
collection of tropical plants had been brought from Neth-
erland’s-India (today’s Indonesia). Hen von Vogel called
this ironically his would-be Agriculture. For it gave him
sometimes the illusion that his desire to become agricul-
turist had been fulfilled. At the wall hang a picture
representing emperor William II. Herr von Vogel confessed
that he was a stout monarchist. Referring to Hitler he
spoke of the damnet republican. I came to think of him as
one of those typical Prussian outsiders, who, tired of
discipline and ‘ raison d etaV withdrew from social life like
the old colonel in the ‘Hunger pastor’ (Hungerparson) of
Wilhelm Rabe.-Then our talk took a different turn. He'
spoke about the Netherlands and the then Netherlands
India where he had lived as a political refugee. Finally he
confessed that he had been that airforce-officer who had
in the year 1919 shot Rosa Luxemburg; she was then,
along with Karl Liebknecht, the leader of Communism in
Germany. Not Hitler, but he, von Vogel, had saved Ger-
many from Communism. Seeing my dismay my host went
over to his favourite-topic, his inventions l~powder to keep
‘beer cold’ and ‘unbumable wood’. The whole time when
he mentioned these inventions he was pestering against
the patent-office, which obstinately refused to recognise
these inventions. At the end of this talk he asked me If I
could get him a male servant and he added to this request
a remark which appeared to me very revealing for his
character: ‘There exist only two types of men: ‘Lords and
servants.' It seems that is was this narrow pride which had
thwarted his humanitarian feelings.

The capacity for sympathy which he showed in his

\

214

behaviour towards his dogs, was to a far extent munre d
in the sphere of human society. This pride became the
fostering soil of intolerance and finally of a hatred wh-'rii.
destroying all feelings of chivalry, otherwise cultivated
in the strata of society from which he came, and ir.durrd
him to take away the life of a woman whom tradition "k^-
uld have ordered him to protect whatever difference- rf
creed or political outlook there might have bccn.AVho was
Rosa Luxemburg apart from her political function ? Vdc
do not know much about her. A rood biography docs r,m
exist. She has however written some poetry, which be' peak
her endowment as a IjTic poetess, great intc'kcum! refine-
ment and sensitivity. A friend of mine, Mi's Dr. von
Kiseritzky, remembered well a visit which Ron* Luxem-
burg paid to her school at Riga. She had to offer hr:
flowers; which were accepted with so much rra;r rwd
spontaneous joy that this act of courtesy obtained rn
unconventional and unique character.

tian forgiveness; engendered .not by weakness but a feeling
of sublimity which only religion can provide. The novel
of Lord Lytton, ll Zanoni" deserves a particular interest.
For it describes not only the symptoms of disease but
indicates also the cure which is needed. As today mass-spirit
is prevailing, the more it is necessary to strengthen the
individual. And here he points to Yoga as a means to this
end.- In the 4th chapter of his novel he makes Zanon who
symbolically seems to represent Pratyaksadarsana &:(esprit
definesse) knowledge acquired by the intuition of an artist
speaks these memorable words:-This, that you have facul-
ties that may attain to surpassing power; that may rank
you among those enchanters who, greater than the magian,
leave behind them an enduring influence, worshipped
wherever beauty is comprehended, wherever the soul is
sensible of a higher world than that in which matter str-
uggles for crude incomplete existence.”

‘But to make available those faculties, need I be a
prophet to tell you that you must learn to concentrate
upon great objects all our desires. The heart must rest, that
the mind may be active. At present you wander from the
aim. As the ballast to the ship, so to the spirit are Faith and
Love. With your whole heart, affections, humanity, cente-
red in one object, your mind and aspirations will become
equally steadfast and in earnest.’ And Mejnour, who seems
to stand for Paroksa-Pratiaksa (intuition of a scientist-
esprit de geometric), warns Glyndon the young English
painter: ‘Not in the knowledge of things without but in
the perfection of the soul within, lies the empire of man
aspiring to be more than man.’

And further: ..If happiness exists, it must be centered
in a self to which all. passion is unknown. But happiness is
the last state of being;... This concentration does not lead
to an estrangement from nature. In chapter of the 4th
book Mejnour explains to Glydon: “All without is prepared
but not all within; your own soul must grow accustomed

216

N

to 'Glyndon (Chapter XVTIT book III) “In the world there
have been from age to age, some brighter and happier
spirits who have attained to the air in which the beings
above mankind move and breathe.” And in book 4, chap-
ter 2 we read these words of Mejnour:"... .Do you imagine,
that there were no mystic and solemn unions of men
seeking the same end through the same means, before the
Arabians of Damos, in 1378, taught to a wandering Ger-
man the secrets which founded the Institution of the
Rosicrucians ? I allow, however, that the Rosicrucians
formed a sect which descended from the greater and earlier
school. They were wiser than the Alchemists-their masters
are wiser than they." This tradition was particularly alive
in the cultural area formed by the mediterranean countries
& India. This is reflected in the meditation of Glyndon,the
young English painter (Chapter VI, book II): “He had
noticed, as a thing remarkable, that Zanoni had conversed
with him in English and with a command of the language
so complete, that he might have passed for a native. On

the other hand, in Italian, Zanoni was equally at ease A

painter from Sweden, who had conversed with him, was
positive that he was a Swede, and a merchant from Constan-
tinople, who had sold some of his goods to Zanoni, prof-
essed the conviction that none but a Turk, or at least a
native of the East, could have so thoroughly mastered the
soft Oriental intonations. Yet, in all these languages, when
they came to compare their several recollections there was
a slight, scarce perceptible distinction not in pronunciation,
nor even accent, but in the key and chime, as it were of
the voice between himself and a native. This faculty was
one which Glyndon called to mind, that sect, whose trends
and powers have never been more than most partially

explored, the Rosicrucians Did Zanoni belong

to this mystical Fraternity, who, in an earlier age,
boasted of secrets of which the philosophers Stone
was but the least; who considered themselves the heirs

N 218

into ideas which are adequate to the challenge of the
present/’

C. G. Jung, in comparison with Freud, does not cont-
ent himself with the detection of the roots of psychologic
disturbances and their making them conscious to the
patient. He goes one important step further. He discovers a
deeper layer: the healing forces, in the form of the arche-
types. In this he approaches Yoga. This discovery does not
estrange man from religion, but it leads him to religion.
“Religion”, so we read in Chapter 2 of Jung s book, as
the careful observation and taking account^ of certain
invisible and uncontrollable factors, is an instinctive attit-
ude peculiar to man, and its manifestations can be followed
all through human history. Its widened purpose is to main-
tain the psychic balance, for the natural man has an equa-
lly natural ‘knowledge’ of the fact that his conscious
may any time be thwarted by uncontrollable happenings
coming from inside as well as from outside.-Jung considers
Religion as something based on inner experience and by
this different from mere creed. Can these inner experiences
lead us to reality ? Jung gives here an important sugges-
tion; “The helpful medieval view that man is a microcosm,
a reflection of the great cosmos in miniature, had long
since dropped away from him (modern man), although
the very existence of his world-embracing and world-con-
ditioning psyche might have taught him better. Not only,
is the image of the macrocosm imprinted upon him as' a
psychic being, but he also creates this image on an ever-
widening scale. He bears this cosmic ‘correspondence
within him by virtue of his reflecting consciousness, on
the one hand, and on the other, thanks to the hereditary
nature of his instincts which bind him to his environment.’
Religious experience is therefore nothing mere accidental
but has its roots in cosmic reality. It is the most essential
element of organisation of human individuality. And C.G.
Jung points rightly out. ‘Resistance to the organized mass

X 220

to relinquish those barriers, which prevent the formation
of an One-World-spirit. And they should be supported by
the artists, particularly by the poets to whom in a large
sense also the philosophers, might be counted in so far as
their science is based on intuition. Poetry is according to
Lytton (Zanoni Book 4 ChX) the instinctive guess into
creation. ‘‘The man/’ so says Rabindranath Tagore in his
Ssdhann , “whose acquaintance with the world does not lead
him deeper than science leads him, will never understand
what it is that the man with the spiritual vision finds in
these natural phenomena. The water does not merely clea-
nse his limbs, but it purifies his heart; for it touches his
soul. The earth does not merely hold his body, but it gladd-
ens his mind: for its contact is more than physical contact
it is living presence, when a man does not realise his
kinship with the world, he lives in a prison-house whose
walls are alien to him."

But we can find the world only when we have found
ourselves. “Without a strategic retreat into the self, without
vigilant thought, human life is impossible.” So we read
in one of the most important works of Ortegay Gasset:
‘Man and People’ And he continues: “Call to mind all
that mankind owes to certain great withdrawals into the
self ! It is no chance that all the great founders of religions
preceded their apostolates by famous retreats.’

And the reason for this we read in the work of Paul
Tillich, one of the greatest exponents of protestant theology
in our days ! “Faith is the state of being ultimately con-
cerned: the dynamics of faith are the dynamics of man's
ultimate concern/’ There are different types of faith.. Our
ultimate concern might be distorted by ambition, vanity,
by greed or the longing for worldly power. Then we might
call it a false ultimacy. Only if our faith reflects the deep-
est cosmic reality, if it is rooted in our spiritual self, if it
expresses true ultimacy, only then it deserves to be called
religious. In the chapter * what faith is’ of his mentioned

222

\

book Tillich gives a fascinatmg description of authentic
.faith:

‘Man’s experiences, feelings, thoughts arc conditioned
and finite. They not only come and go, but their content
is of finite and conditional concem-unless they arc eleva-
ted to unconditional validity. But this presupposes the
element of infinity in man. Man is able to understand in
an immediate personal and central act the meaning of the
ultimate, the unconditional, the absolute, the infinite. This
alone makes faith a human potentiality. Human poten-
tialities are powers that drive towards actualisation. Man
is driven towards faith by his awareness of the infinite to
which he belongs, but which he docs not own like a poss-
ession. This is in abstract terms what concretely appears
as the 'restlessness of the heart’ within the flows of life.
The unconditional concern which is faith is the concern
about the unconditional. The infinite passion, as faith has
been described, is the passion for the infinite.’

Those who are acquainted with Jainism will be surpri-
sed to find that the analysis of faith, given here by an out
standing exponent of protesiant theology, like Paul Tillich
agrees completely with the old Jain mantra: Right Belief
(Faith), Right Knowledge, Right Conduct. Right Belief
contains in fact as Tillich recognizes the essential elements
of Right Knowledge and Right Conduct. There is nothing
narrow in the conception of Tillich as the following pass-
age testifies:

"Faith is more than trust in authorities, although trust
is an element of faith. This distinction is important in view
of the fact that some earlier theologians tried to prove the
unconditional authority of the Biblical writers by showing
their trustworthiness as witnesses. The Christian may
believe the Biblical writers, but not unconditionally. He
docs not have faith in them. He should not even have
faith in the Bible. For faith is more than trust in even the
most sacred authority. It is participation in the subject of

orrie's' ultimate concern with one's whole being;'’ ' • .

We have already seen that this mantra: ‘Right Faith,
Right Knowledge- Right Conduct’ is also the; leitmotif of
Goethe’s Faust . We have here the fight leetween the
Higher Self (Right Belief)including already. Right Knowle-
dge' and Right Conduct as is evident from these . words of
God Father in' the first part of Faust. A man in : his obsc-
ure aspirations {faith in the initial state) is well aware
(Right Knowledge) of the Right Way (Right Conduct)
and the Lower Self(Mephisto, the spirit who always negates
the real- antagonist of Right Belief).

' So the real' center of human personality is faith. And
the purposed our life is to deepen it. We can do this by
meditation. And the beauties of art and nature might, as
Ortegay Gasset emphasizes in his book, prove here very
stimulating;'! will 'never forget one experience. Some years
ago I ! passed few’ days at Ajmer where I was guest of Sir
Bhagchand Soni: From his villa, situated on the top of a
hill,- one had a - beautiful sight on. the Ana-lake and,the
desert mountains which reminded me of the .'Biblical Sinai-
deserl Nature : seemed to be the voice of God. However
she spoke not from outside but from inside. . The next day
I paid a visit to. -the Soni Temple, built by one of the ances-
tors of my host. We have here in miniature a' representa-
tion of the whole cosmos as conceived in 'Jainism. What a
tremendous grasp of imagination 1 Whatever .the . position
of science might be, only imagination can make us feel
the grandeur of the cosmic dimensions and with this the
infinity , of our soul. Also from religious symbols we might
get inspiration. Here numbers might play an important
role; Leo Frobenius, the great German explorers of African
culture, considered numbers as symbolic expressions of a
particular culture. According to him the number is not
something found by men but something of' the world of
invisible reality which is in reach of man and from 1 this
aspect ' it has the value of a direct data for the character

of a culture. While the number three appears to him as
expression of the time-feeling of the lunarian culture he
considers the number four as an expression of the space-
feeling on the plain limited by the hori7on, which would
be the mark of the solar culture expressing position, calm
and the existing form. Almost the same meaning ns the
four has according to Prof. Kirfel (Symbolbm of the
Hinduism and of the Jainism), also the number five, which
has a particular importance in the ‘symbolism of Jainism'.
To the four cardinal points a central-point, solo say. the
zeropoint of the world coordinates has been added as a
fifth point'-By this addition a new dimension is expressed*,
that of depth, which is also a dynamic clement, quite
essential for the understanding of Jain Cosmology.

Wc have here in a nutshell a most essential feature of
Jain Cosmology, which is also the basis of Jain philosophy:
Harmony plus Dynamic. This synthesis has to be perfor-
med by each individual, which aims to be a factor in the
moral reconstruction of the world.

' : SPIRITUAL trends AT PlLANI,

: ' (THE PEDAGOGIC PROVINCE)

•‘The, wilderness and the solitary , place shall be glad;
dnd the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the J°^ 3y L

' Gandhi was not ohly important as a religions and poli-
tical leader and as an economist of original ideas,

was also an excellent educationalist. It which

it was particularly this latter side of Gandhi s £

attracted Mr.G.D.' Birla, who entertained a |

with him which is reflected in a small but rema, |^ e V :
"In the Shadow of the Mahntrm". So, apart tom other
reasons,' Gandhi’s educational idealism indue edta^to
establish the Birla Education Trust at Piiam, asm p
in the Rajasthan desert, which was his birth place.

Within a relatively short time, it took not more ton
53 years, the immediate surroundings of the small des^ _rt
village were transformed into a beautiful B
shadowy trees, well kept lawns, artificial tanks and g y

“ni'is now the main center of the Birla Education

Trust and counts not less than 3 post-graduate Colleges
Birla Science College, Arts College and perhaps to mo t
important as the only of this type at Rajasthan, the Img
neering College. In addition to this tore are the tola
Public School, the Higher Secondary School to b°ys an
a High School for girls. Quite recently the Council ot
Scientific and Industrial Research has estab hshed the Con
tral Electronics Engineering Research Institute at Pilan .
to initiate which Mr. G.D. Birla had given a donation
more than 2 million Rupee. And a big Industrial Museum

•226

Gandhi-

Statue

in

College

Campus,

Pilani.

Arrival of Shri Morarii De-ni at riium

(/'rv.v: ,Y’.* t a ric

Kulapati Lt. Commander S, D, Par.de, Mr.l. N.
Birla, Shri Morarii Dcsai, Union Minntcr
Finance, Dr. G. D. Birla.

Arts, Science &
Engineering
College, Pilani
(Birla Education
Trust)

A view of

1

Camels at
Pilani.

Birla Public
School (junior
section) This
building was
designed by Dr.
Maria Montessori
herself.

to a most interesting exchange of ideas. The idea has been
ventured if it would be possible to establish a lasting
collaboration between Pilani, and Salem not only between
the headmasters but also between the schools as such,
including students and staff. And gradually the idea sprang
up to establish a kind of Commonwealth system of schools
the term commonwealth understood in the sense, as it has
been developed by Kant, in his '■Treatise on Eternal Peace'
as a federation of all peoples on the base of liberty. It is
to be hoped that the forthcoming visit of Mr. S. D. Pande
in Germany will ripe concrete results.

. A collaboration of this kind might lead to quite new
ideas in the field of education and become the foundation
of a new more active and dynamic humanism.

An international collaboration of schools would also
enhance the interest in foreign languages. The tuition of
general knowledge on France and German in the Public
School and of the German language in t h e three
post-Graduate Colleges, is imparted by Lecturer of the
Goethe Institute, Munich, which corresponds to the Allia-
nce Francaise or to the British Council. In the spirit of
international collaboration the Goethe-Institute at Pilani
has also taken charge of the tuition of French, as long
as there is no French Lecturer. It would be a very
happy event if along with the interest in the German
language also an interest in German art and literature, the
climax of which has in fact been reached in Goethe, could
be promoted. In the line of pedagogics the views of Goethe
expressed particularly in a part of his novel Wilhelm Meis-
ter in the Chapter: Die paedagogische Provinz,(The pedago-
gical province) are most suggestive and entirely in line with
Gandhian philosophy. In this chapter we read that in the
Pedagogic province, which is, like Pilani, a place with
beautiful gardens and pleasant surroundings, the boys have
at sunrise to bow three times to express their reverence 1st
to that which is above us, to God and the higher beings.

228

these conversations, which revealed particularly a strong
religious interest. This finds also expression in several
associations on religions basis like the Sikh-Association
whose guest was a year ago H.H. the former Maharaja of
Patiala and the Jain Association. This association invited
last year the famous Jain Saint Acharya Tulsi, who delive-
red at Pilani several eloquent lectures. ' ,

There are still many other organisations and institu-
tions at Pilani, so the Rajasthan Academy of Science
whose foreign members are Prof Dr. Heisenberg, the
famous German Nobel Prize Winner, Dr. Telchow, the
President of the . administrative-body of the Max-Plank-
Society, which runs more than 40 scientific research
institutions in Germany, and Prof. Dr. Buchler, Prof, at
the Technical University of Hannover who takes a great
interest in the activities of the Engineering College.

The President of the Academy is Dr. Mitra, who is also -
the Principal of the Birla Science College, a student of the
famous Indian Scientist Dr. Bose. He is well acquainted
with European countries and was particularly in England.

The Head of the whole Education Trust and Kulapati
of Vidya Vihara is Lt. Commander Padmashn Shukdev
Pande, who is one of the greatest educationalists of India.
He established in Rajasthan not less than 500 Primary
Schools, which were gradually handed over to the State.
The Principal of the Engineering College, Mr. Lakshminsr-
ayanan, is like Commander Pande and Dr. Mitra, a man
of great experience in his particular branch of Engineering,
of vast intellectual interests, well read and widely travelled.
Mrs Upadhyaya, a niece of the former Indian Ambassador
in Germany is the Principal of the Arts College. She is a
profound scholar in History and Political Science and has '
also passed some time in England and the European
continent.

Also the Headmaster of the different schools are very -
remarkable personalities.

230

Mr. Radha Raman, the Headmaser of the Birte Pah'*:
School is one of the best connoisseurs of the educational
system of Maria Montessori. He has vPitcd many educa-
tional institutions in England and in Switzerland He i< a
personality full of ideas and enthusiasm. This could abo
be said of Mr. J.C. Lyal, the new headmaster of the Birla
Higher Secondary School who has passed many years in
the United States. The Birla Girls School stands under the
competent direction of Mrs. K Kaul, who. like many
pcrsonalisies of the Trust, hails from South India.

Closely connected with Pilani is also the Birla Yirlya
Mandir-Public School at Nainital the famous hilPlation
in the Himalayas. The headmaster Mr. Singh is a highly
gifted educationist, who knows admirably to take avail of
the beautiful, and religiously stimulating surroundings of
the picturesque mountain school to form the character of
the boys and to stimulate in a quite unorthodox way, their
religious feelings. He conducts personally the daily morn-
ing prayers, after which the hoys observe silence whale
returning to their quarters their gaze directed on the beau-
tiful scenery: the fog giving slowly way to the rising sun. the
clouds, the rocky mountains and very distant the small
lovely valley with its silver}’ lake.

But let us return to our dcscrt-place to Pilani. The whole
intellectual and moral atmosphere of the Birla Education
could never be fully grasped if the social activities of the
villageuplift organisation would be bypassed, the aim of
which it is to spread literacy and vocational training among,
the villagers. This uplift work is at Pilani very ably con-
ducted by the librarian Mr. V. P. Vnrma. by Mr. A. S V.
Pant, the Prof, of Sanskrit of the Arts College. Dr. Atar.riit
Singh from the Electronics Institute and Dr. Snutr?. the
Head of the Pharmacy Department

And this social work fits very' well in the general spirit
in which the educational work-ami in India, due to the
Hostel-system it is not abruptly interrupte

* • i i v .

the school, -is conceived by the Trust authority Sc . it is
encouraged by the Secretary of the Trust ^ f °“ t “d ents .
o D Pande who is a stout Gandhian, tha . ’

"ever mind from where they are hailing and what nught
be their social background should-instead of keeping
groom clean personally their room and pay m this way a
fair and impressive homage to manual work.

A -nlace like Pilani, fat off from the noise of big towns
is an ideal place for study and inspite of its
it is full of life, offering enough ideas to st, m ula ^° of

conversations in leisure-time. In this pecuiar

secludedness and fullness of life it resembles a University
in the style of Ancient India. And the former German
Ambassador in India Dr. EW. Meyer, compared it .ml ™
spirited speech in the auditorium to the ancient Mala

It would be of greatest importance for the development
of education in India if Pilani with its particular traditions
would cease to be a mere part of the Rajasthan niversi
at Jaipur and get very soon its own University status y
which it would be euabled to go its own way, avoiding a
certain tendency which becomes more and' more o jvious,
leading the whole educational policy of India into an imp-
ass. This tendency, already observed by Count Hermann
Keyserling before the 1st world war, has today become a
true danger. Dr. Radhakrishnan points to this phenomenon
if he says in his Foreword to the book of Jossleyn Hennessy
‘India-Democracy and Education’, A study of the work ot
the Birla Education Trust: Those who are learned but do
not possess love, they really become demonic. T ey wi
be charactercised by the intellectual arrogance, spiritual
crassness and coldness of heart ’-We observe today that m
India at a time, when the old caste system is on the decline,
a new one is appearing in a more clandestine way. e
exxagerated importance given to academic degrees as
gradually lead to this result that a degree is considered as

232

an aim in itself and once obtained in youth, invests the
keeper for his whole life with priviledges and with a pres-
tige which even the creative work docs not he stow on a
genius.

There are many examples that brilliant young scholars
after their graduation stopped to read books, other than
textbooks, loosing gradually all intellectual alertness but
were strongly convinced and consoled that this intellectual
decay was favourably counterbalanced by the mere possess-
ion of a title. When in Ancient India the Brahman caste
became sterile and indulged in mere ritualism the harmful
effect of this degeneration was limited by the existence of .a
strong Kshatriya caste who took up the spiritual leadership.
And some of the greatest achievements, in Indian Culture
like Yoga, and even the Upanishads arc, according to great
Indologists, like Heinrich Zimmer creations of the Ksha-
triyas so also the so called S'ramanic religions like Jainism
and Buddhism. But today there is no Kshatriya Caste, or
any other social groupment, which could oppose the ’Neo-
Brahmanism’ of the ‘Nothing-as graduates’, which now is
creeping up.

only spread in India but over the whole world.

But in India it is particularly dangerous as is supported
by a thousands of years old caste tradition. So we see here
that the whole make-up of academic education becomes
more and more divorced from reality. This is felt particu-
larly by the academic youth who has started a real flight
into scholarships abroad in order to recover reality in the
field of science. And this tendency is sound. There is only
one remedy, which is with great success already applied in
Germany and which might prove quite effective also in
India. This would be to appoint only professors who have
already published a book and who are prepared to continue
to publish from time to time their ideas and the result of
their researches. By this they are compelled to adapt them-
selves to the scientific standard of their time and by expos-
ing themselves to criticism they conserve their intellectual
flexibility. A professor who publishes himself books, ofcoii-
rse not mere text-books-wiil always be a better exami-
ner ablejto detect, to tolerate and to promote originality of
thought and independency of judgment among their stud-
ents, than a mere gold medalist, whose merits had been of
less endurable qualities than gold.

Mr. G. D. Birla offers here an excellent example as he
is not only a great business magnate but also a brilliant
writer who has written quite a number of excellent books
like ‘The Path to Prosperity’, ‘India's Prosperity’ and so on.

If a similar reform would be started at Pilani, when it
has become a University of its own, it would obtain in
one time the same reputation as the small French town
Ciuny in the Loire valley-from where in the Middle Ages
a great reform of monasteries was started. So Pilani could
become a Ciuny of Modern Reform of Universities in
India and in the World.

This might be a speculation. But, due to the really
genial personality of Mr. G. D. Birla, it is also a poten-
' tiality which as such has a natural urge towards actualisa-

234

tion. There is another potentiality regarding the spiritual
atmosphere at Pilani, closely connected with the geographi-
cal peculiarities of the College-surroundings, marked by
the largeness of space. A lot of books .have been written
about the. relations between geography and the national
character of a people even in all its local variations. The
finest remarks one finds perhaps in the Sur 1' E<yrii da
Lois' of Montesquieu.- There is e. g. a tremendous forma-
tive power in a large plain, which never fails to attract
people, endowed with some imagination. So the great
German poet Rainer Maria Rilke was fascinated by the
grandeur of Russian scenery, the large plain and the
colourful sky. And in Worpswcdc the sight of the North-
German plain awoke in him Russian reminiscent. I
myself remember from my boyhood-time that the large
meadows of the Low-Rhinc bordering the majestic ri\cr,
appeared to us boys like the American prairie. The half-
desert, which surrounds Pilani might have as little resem-
blance with the green scenery’ of the Low-Rhinc with its
beautiful sunsets as with large and monotonous plains of
Russia, covered during the long Russian Winter with snow
and ice. But the very grandeur and the tremendous large-
ness of the desert-landscape round Pilani provokes the same
feelings and creates a spirit of larccmindcdncss, tolerance

and cosmopolitan brotherhood. Lnrcc-space is in
["educative factor. This has particularly well bee
tood by the Headmaster of the Birla Public Sc:
' School will, if all projects arc realised, soon
biggest playgrounds of all public schools in India
f a real 'Large-spncc-schooL' This Lnrgc-spce-

jp.clf an
n under?-
i'.ool Thb
have the
. it will b:
spirit has

found a symbolical expression in the Sarasvatt-Temp’c.

n

THE SARASWATI TEMPLE, PILANI,

A SYMBOL OF CULTUTRAL WORLD UNITY.

Contemporary art has two great tasks:

1. To reflect.the cosmic consciousness as it is affected by

the advance of Science. Here the germs of a New real-
istic form of Romanticism.

2. To reflect the New Humanism, which results from the
fact that due to the impact of modern traffic even the
apparently remotest nations and peoples have become
close neighbours, whose fates are now for ever interco-
nnected. Here are tae germs of a new classicism.
Classicism is finally the artistic expression of humanism.

. In Pilani one has tried to combine both tendencies. It
is a fact that modern science, whatever might be its infl-
uence on art, (it would be interesting to see how modern
art is groping with the problem to represent the impact of
the new aspects of Sciefice on our emotions) has riot
outmoded Indian art. There are many ways to represent
modern consciousness in art but the Indian way in art and
here lies also particularly the importance of Jain Art, will
never be out of date. For the imagination of the old Indian
artists was so strong and vast that things have been seen
not only in a human but particularly in a divine and
cosmic aspect. The cosmic dimensions, which the West
has obtained through calculation were already known to
the East by the way of intuition. The majesty of the Sar-
aswati Temple at Pilani, build by a Mohamedan architect:
Ustad Ghulam Farid from Makarana, is a reflection of
this cosmic feeling. This Temple has many features in
common with the famous Vishva Temple in Khujraho,
but an additional strength has been given to it by having

\

236

the structure stand on 70 pillars while the temple in Kind-
raho has only 56. The architecture has a most monumen-
tal character and the temple is expected to hnt a minimum
of 2000 years. Another distinguishing feature h the imper-
ial, the importance of which has already been emphn-m*;.!
by John Ruskin in his ‘ Seven Lamps m Arf'btoo:*/"-.'
The Temple at Pilani is built of marble. Mark':

has always a fascinating effect in Southern countries. in
India, according to the intensity of its sun, still more the*’
in Italy and perhaps even Greece. Against the background
of the desert, in the hot sun of noon or at night in the
mild light of full-moon, flooding over the large Indian
plain, it has something miraculous. The majestic character
of the temple is enhanced by its situation in the center of
large park lawns, surrounded by stately hostel-buildir.gs
and with the imposing building of the Birin Education
Trust in front. It is the heart and the soul of ike whole
compound. Order has thus been created which is according,
to Lc Corbesier (The pcelrv of Architecture} the very r.ml
of architecture.

found expression in the Saraswati Temple at Pilani. We
find here carved in marble as panel decorations some of
the great religious leaders of humanity, who flourished in
India, like Lord Mahavira, Lord Buddha and S'ankracharya
we have the statue of Mahatma Gandhi, the great philoso-
pher statesman in the sense of Plato. We have among the
great poets Kalidas and Rabindranath Tagore. Poetry and
philosophy are closely interrelated. According to Schiller,
a philosopher, who is not superficial must be a poet and
Colleridge says that each deep poet is also a philosopher.
The truth of these statements is particularly evident with
regard to Rabindranath Tagore, who, besides his poetical
works, the greatest of which is Gitanjak, and his prosefic-
tions, wrote also a philosophical book like Sadhand. These
great figures of Indian culture represent, due to its synthe-
tic character, the whole East.

It is provided, in order to represent in the field of
philosophy and poetry the whole world culture to posit
also statues of some great Western philosophers and poets.
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, Shakespeare and Walt Whit-
man, Tolstoy and Victor Hugo, Hegel and Bergson might
find a place in the precincts of the temple. I am particu-
larly glad that as Mr. G.D. Birla, the great and generous
donator of the temple and inspirator of the humanitarian
ideas connected with it, had the kindness to promise me
that Dante, the greatest poet of the mediaeval-time and
Goethe, the greatest p’oet of modern time who was a great
admirer of Kalidas would not be forgotten. Goethe was,
apart from being the greatest poet of modern time one of
the most universal geniuses ever known: he was a great
novelist, a great scientist, leading particularly in Botany
and Zoology, a philologist, a statesman, gifted painter and
particularly a great character, full of nobleness and deep
and loving understanding of human nature. This human
side of Goethe is well depicted in the Goethe-Biography
of George Henry Lewis.

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238

The selection of the great scientists, who arc to find a
place of honour in the precincts of the temple is already
finalised and their statues are posted. Apart from great
Indian scholars like Bose and Sir C.Y. Raman wc find
Archimedes, Galileo, Newton, Pasteur, Sir Alexander
Fleming, Hdington, Madame Curie and Albert Einstein.
It is significative that Einstein who had been driven out
from Germany by Nazism represents here the German
culture in its scientific aspect. And also he could use with
a legitimte pride the famous phrase of Thomas Mann:
‘Where I am standing the German Culture is represented:”
Einstein was not only a great scholar but also a really
great man. Albert Schweitzer, the peace noble prize win-
ner, wrote in a letter, in which he expressed me his thanks
for having helped him to find an Indian publisher for Iris
book ‘ Atom and Peace': ‘I became concerned with the
problem of atomic bombs due to friendship which cxl-md
since many years between Einstein and myself. It
touched me that he as the first implored humanity to pet
rid of the atomic weapons, which already in peacetime
include a continuously growing danccr.-Humnnity rave
no heed to these exhortations. The pre^s did not refer to
them. Einstein suffered deeply front having no :c'prx*
He died in despair.’ The Einstein’s contribution v. sth
regard to our new conception of the Universe h tremen-
dous. This is well expressed in some verses of rite pm at
Urdu poet Iqbal:

is devoted. She keeps the balance between Arts and Scie-
nce, between human knowledge and Divine knowledge.
Wv read of her in the book of Jean Herbert ‘La Mytologie
Hindoue that Prajapati and Varuna perceived Saraswati
Sous la forme de Vach (le Verbe cr eat eur)’: under the form
of Vach, the creative Verbum. According to Gaurinath
Shastri (The philosophy of Word and Meaning) the creat-
ive or Eternal Verbum means absolute consciousness. That
corresponds also to the opening verse of the Gospel of
St. John: Tn the Beginning was the Word,’. The Saraswati
temple at Pilani is now the only Saraswati temple in the
whole of India. But in ancient time the symbolic importance
of this Goddess was by itself a creative factor in culture.
In the Bhartesh Vaibhava , this masterpiece of ancient Jain
literature, we read that Bharat before he started to unite
the world, bowed his head in homage for the Goddess
Saraswati.

So the Saraswati temple, his real name Shnrada Peethn
was suggested by Acharya Vinoba Bhave, reflects India’s
position towards world culture as the court in the Ministry
of Education in Mexico City, with its four statues:
Quetzncoatle, Plato, Las Casas and Buddha represents
Mexico’s relations to World Culture. But as India, in spite
of its geographical situation in the East, is along with the
Eastern part of the Mediterranean, the natural link bet-
ween East and West, the whole human culture -emanated
from the area Mediterranean-India, it would not at all be
exaggerated to consider this greatest masterpiece ef Indian
architecture in modern times as a symbol of cultural world
unity.

* SAa'-cNfasianother name for Sarasvatt. Peeth - place.

240

EPILOGUE

(JAIN PHILOSOPHY AND THE COSMOLOGY Or ARNOLD

KEYSERLTNG ) &

First I have to admit that my interest in philosophy is
rather limited. I am for instance not interested in philoso-
phy taken as “art pour art’', as a scope in itself. My interest

in philosophy is limited to such a philosophy which has r
practical use in life. That means-as I believe in the useful-
ness of philosophy in life-that my interest in philosophy,
if limited, is rather intense.

. I consider it for instance as a scope of philosophy to
help man to maintain the equilibrium of his soul; this
would give her an almost religious character; or to re-
establish it, that would correspond to the aims of psycho-
analysis and psychothcrapcutics.-As in medicine there are
good and bad doctors, and good or bad medicaments, so
there arc also good and bad philosophies. To give you an
example; I do not consider materialism as a good philoso-
phy as it overemphasizes the short span of life between
birth and death and is not able to say anything about the
meaning of death, which satisfies the rational mind, bo
materialism, taken as a philosophy, has always some feat-
ure of irrationality. On the other hand, I consider Jainism
as a good philosophy, as it rises high standards and e 4 ;.sb’-
islies far scopes, the fulfillment of which requires the
development of all manifest or hidden faculties in man
Before giving you a more detailed appreciation of
Jainism I might refer to a personal experience. There rr
years in our life which seem not to count at add and v-bdeh.
it seems, wc could easily miss. This might be an u'udrn.

But one thing is sure: that there are years in our life which
have an utmost importance and sometimes, it seems to us
in retrospective consideration, that there was just one year
which was the real decisive in our life. If I look back I
think that in my own case it was the year 1932 which was
the really decisive year in my life. The first half of the
year 1 932 I . passed in Italy. Being - very sensitive to the
beauties of the nature . it was particularly the beautiful
scenery in Italy, which stimulated and enlarged my con-
tact with nature. And in addition to this it was the very
old tradition of Italy which impressed me. There might be
a link between our appreciation of nature and our respect
for tradition, for, like nature, tradition is something which
has grown organically.

The second half of 1932 I passed in London. I had
already an opportunity to describe how I came in contact
with Champat Rai Jain and how I was impressed by the
powerful personality of ‘this great religious leader. But in
addition to the great qualities of his personality it was
particularly one fact that attracted me to him. That is
that he was a man of tradition; he was the representative,
one would almost say, an incarnation of one of the oldest
religions in the world, of Jainism.-In confronting Jainism
today it might be objected that there are already so many
isms. And Jainism, after all, is also an ism. Let us be frank
to this point. Jainism is an ‘ism’. And the Jains, who in
their religion believe in the possibility of selfrealisation
should be the first to recognise this. There can be no
philosophy whatsoever which will be able to express in
mere words the experience of, for instance, omniscience.
Perhaps there are different kinds of ‘isms’; those which are
a mere tool of a flat rationalism or those which are a
treasury of old traditions. Jainism is of this latter kind. It
is not a cobweb of thought which takes from our mind
all its independence. It is not like a drogue which we have
only to gulp in order to obtain moksha,.not.a mere bundlt.

242

in terms of modern science.

In this respect great attention should be paid to the
cosmology developed by Count Arnold Keyserling which
seems, in many points to resemble to the tenets of Jain
philosophy. I may give only one instance: Count Keyserl-
ing points out: ‘the laws of the senses are alaso the laws of
the sense which rules the Universe’. The Sapta-Bhanga
starts with the statement: ‘From a certain viewpoint a
thing is giving credit to our sense perceptions. And in the
same line of thought the great Jain Saint Kunda-Kunda
establishes in his Pravachana-sura: “The Saint has the
scripture for eye; all creatures have their sense (Sadhan)
organs for eyes; the Devas have eyes which see the remote
(avadhi); but the liberated souls (Siddhas) have eyes which
see everywhere.”

Count Keyserling’s book T he Rosecrucis' is not yet
translated from German but the 7 papers which he read
at Pilani under the auspices of the Arts College have now
been published in form of a book titled * Combinatorics 1
by the Birla Education Trust. It will be an interesting task
for the Jain Scholars to compare it with the views of
Jainism.

APPENDIX

LES IDEES POLITIQUE?-
DE JEAV PAUL

Johann-Paul-Friedrich Richter (17GE-)"2I>>-dit Jr r-r.'uV, *>-
grands ccrivains allcmands. e?t rcste presque inroo-u • ]V.m- : ■-
style volontaire, quoique pitlorcsquc ct tnin-ra*. offra-t dr;\ r ■ -

allcmaud dcs difficultcs que cclui-ci ncerpte debar: p-r. **■
recompense par les finesses poetiques ct la profonde ;:r dr!- pemr*.
ne rend pas facile unc traduction dc re* oeuvre-. d.i" o~rL —
ctrangcre. Pourtant il n'est pas inutile de re 1 ire Jea-.-P.-.u’. et r-r — ■
notre epoque aurait plus d’une chose a nppren-lre dc lui.

Vrai “gentilhommc be Icttres". il prefere !e enrur .* .’*
raisonnantc. II aspire a un dcvcloppeme.nt iuicrieur, a un f-p'-f'-'f
mcntdcseentimcntsliumainsfiumains.il ct. r.u ter.' p-rp-e da *--t
le poctc du Gcmut. et commc tel, il appr.rtiert rr Fts’Irr T - -

a (ous ccuk qui ncveulcnt paste perdre dan* 1 affsiri'—.e et
do tous les Jours,

Co n cst pas a dire que Pautcur n'ait pas o u ttnu dr surer . C:*:r -t
de see contcmporains lc preferaient me me a Goethe. For: *t\’,r V.V"f
mnis plcin d'idccs et d’imprcvu, rappclant un pc.: e:!ui dr Ftrrrr, ' \
souvent imitc par les fcuillclonnistes, a qui Ion rrptorVit de }n-pr.v‘.-
isicren. Main cc n’est pas cela qui importe iei.

On voudrait attircr 1’aucntion sue le eorter.u quT:t:t f >> •*:,
oeuvre, qui sc dccclc dcrrierc ce style volontr.ire. rr.rtt tru-.-jr- p’r,-.
de sue ct dc vie. Jcan-Paul. on l’a deb. dit. r to it un intuit :f cu\ ro-'.— »
homme ct commc pocte, suivait la voi\ dc son cor jr, Von p .- b
faille voir la un rctrccisscmcnt par manque d.’mtrrr: p-ur I*; t : r
nts cxtericurs. Au contrairc, et preciittrert cr. tr.i-er. du to’- oar
coeur jouc chc/ lui. Jcan-Paul prit a Phistoirr de ton te — pi - *t
tetive ct nc cachait point tes opinions.

Scs idccs politiques ont trouvr leu: er.prc- or. dr-t *c p * ' ‘ «

Fastenprcdigtcn (Sermons Politique: de cm rue dm*. V- . • - • t

digt an Deutschland (Sermon dr p.-.it pour PAPcur : ■ *t >*

Dammerungen (Lutur> crep.tsruL.ircsq Ce quY. d.t dr' mV.. -»

(/) Ur.t vevei/q er JifP; ft -V: r /.-i c • : r

rJ.fC df.'iiprr.

franco-allemandes cst d’unc clairvoyance remarquable. C’est un prejugt
ancien; presque inderacinable, qu’un homme genereux, plein de coeur
et de bonne volonte, est mauvais politique. L’exemple de Jean-Paul s’
Inscrit en faux contre une telle opinion. La lucidite de son jugement
politique-on serait tente de dire sa prevoyance presque divinatoire-nou»
fait croire, comme il le dit dans les Eastenpredigten, qu’un poete qui
a la foi est parfois meiileur prophete qu’un homme au courant de*
secrets de la politique europeene, mais sans coeur.

Contemporain de Napoleon ler, Jean-Paul, sans etre aveugl*
pour les defauts du grand homme, reconnait son importance pour
['unification de 1’ Allemagne, et-il Pespere-de P Europe. Son ideal est
le retablissement de 1' Empire de Charlemagne: une grande federation
europeenne, une et en meme temps decentralisee. II espere pour P
Allemagne un developpement conforme a cet ideal. II adresso a Napo-
leon un appel pour qUe celui-ci protege les libertes allemandes la ou
elles sont justifiees par le “style de vie”, (il pense surtout aux. ville*
hanseatiques) et organise l'unite allemande. Dans le Sermon de paix
on trouve cette parole “Napoleon, sauve les derhiers Allemands (les
Hanseates) et organise le reste.” Et dans le dernier chapitre: “J'espert
au moins que le detenteur de la puissance unira l’Europe par les voies
lumineuses de la science, mieux que ne l’ont fait les Romains:”'

Jean-Paul est penetre d’une admiration profonde pour Henri IV,
“le plus noble das rois francais”. Les armees regulieres, dit-il dans les
Dammerungen, se feront une telle concurrence en renforcant leur
armement qu’elles detacheront un jour leur armure trop lourdej la
paix armee sera alors remplacee par le super-Etat dont Henri IV avait
eu Pidee. Il faudrait que sur la petite terre n’existat qu’un seul Etat,
qui ferait disparaitre Pantagonisme entre la morale et la politique,
entre l’amour du prochain et l’amour du pays. L'ideal nc serait pas
"une monarchic universelle, qui impliquerait les guerres civiles, mais
plutot une Republique universelle ou une Federation, englobant les
princes et les Etats. Croire cela impossible, e'est supposer, sans preu-
ves, que l’humanite civilisee sera toujours entouree de peuples barbares.
Comme Londres a transforme en rues et en quartiers, Pun apres
l'autre, les villages qui l’entouraient ainsi la civilisation absorbera peu
a peu la barbarie.

Jean-Paul espere qu'un jour la guerre aneantira la guerre. En face
des immenses progres de la chimie et de la physique, qui nous garantira
qu’on n’inventera pas un jour une machine dont l’intervention deejd-
erait du sort d’une bataille ? Le poison ronge son recipient, comme le
•sue gastrique l’estomac a jeun. U faut du temps que naisse le bien,
pour que perisse le mal. . . •

\

246

Mais une paix, fondee uniqucment sur la science et le mecsnhmr
n'est pas l’ideal de Jean-Paul, qui sait bien qu'unc vraic pair, r.e pest
reposer que sur des forces morales. Dans un chapitrc dcs FastenprcJig-
ten intitule t‘Sur les perspectives humaines de 1'avcnir'’, Jean-Paul
remarque avec finesse: “Les hommes croient. mais ils sc tromper.t,
qu’un peuple dechu peut etre rctabli au moven de remcdcs imnedia-
tement visibles. Si les ecbelles de sauvetage sont trop courier, i!s le
croient perdu, alors que dans I'histoirc des peuplcs les abimes on.
parfois une sortie sur la vallce, ou un passage lateral insoupcorme qui

conduit vers une prairie verdoyante Jamais un peuple n’a etc same

par les anciens moyens qui ctaicud sous scs veux. Lorsque Rome emit
frappe de terreur, sans amc. sans iibertc, sans mocurs ct que son cadn-
vre gigantesque allait empoisonner 1c mondc enticr,-qui a!or? a rauve
l’humanite ? Le petit village dc Bclhlccm l’’

Fondant sa vision du mondc sur les forces dc la foi ct dc Rumour,
Jean-Paul ctait un vrai mystique. Mais son mysticismc npparait conme
une sorte dc rationalismc superieur, qui se haus c c jmqu'au plan ou la
realite ne peut plus ctre saisie par 1c raisonnement ordinaire, mais ou
l’intuition cst assez forte pour controlcr la verite dans sa plenitude et
*a splendeur.

ppcr en.AIlemagne les qualitis qui le frappenl chez les Francais, leur
sentiment delicat de l’honneur personnel et patriotique, leur circons-
pection, leur gaitce, leur esprit de resolution. Son realisme ne lui
cache pas les difficultes qui s’opposent a ces projets genereux. Mais
ses esperances etaient plus fortes que ses craintes: “En face du passe
tout proche, n J oubliez pas le passe lointain, ni l’avenir lumineux.
Comme en Suede, vers la fin d’une longue journee le crepuscule et
l'aube se melent sans etre separes par la nuit, ainsi se melent nos
craintes et nos espoirs: le lever du soleil n'est pas loin r \

L’experience historique nous enseigne que les craintes de Jean-
Paul n'etaient pas sans fondement. Main pourquoi ses esperances le
seraient-elles ? Attendons avec lui le lever du soleil.

ERRATA

Page

Line

Incorrect

Correct

Contents 3

Shraswati Temple

Saraswati Temp

82

33

10

100

83

1

Soult

Grouchy

85

24

pitch cruelty

pitch of cruelty

140

26

Koenig's winter

Koenigwintcr

147

Photo

citijcnship

citizenship

Piajja Vichio

Piazza Vechio

149

6

—

Drop ‘of' after
Du^scldorf

157

14

t\VO

to

162

17

undertraining) a

undertaking a

guerilla-war

gcuerilla-war)