Tagore, Where Two Roads Converge

From Adi Shankara to Kabir, Tagore is the Marga

“…Dwa Suparna Sayuja Sakhaya

Samanam Vrukshaamparisg Svajate

Tayoranyaah Pappalam Svadutya-

Nananayo Abhicakasiti…”

~~~~~~~~Mundaka Upanishad

Transl.

“…Two birds living together, each the friend of the other perch upon the same tree.

Of these two, one eats the tree’s sweet fruit, but the other simply looks on without eating…”

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These verses from the Mundaka Upanishad inspired Tagore’s phenomenal poem ‘Dui Pakhi’, where he narrates a dialogue between a caged bird and a free bird. The free bird urges the caged bird to step out and enjoy the beauty of the world while the caged bird denies saying it is afraid of the hunters out in the jungle. It looks like a conversation between the blessing of freedom and the misery of bondage, but to stop gigging out hidden meanings in Tagore’s creations is an abomination by default.

The hidden meaning in this poem, as described by Tagore himself, lies in the constant and primal conflict between the Yin and Yang, the feminine traits and masculine traits, which are abundant in nature. While masculine traits draw out a person toward the outer world of chaos and vulnerabilities, feminine traits bend on preservation and maintaining security by drawing boundaries.

The free bird symbolizes the masculine traits and the caged bird is the representative of the feminine traits, needless to say.

However, what if that’s not the only explanation?

Adi Shankara preached about the non-difference between the Jeevatma and the Paramatma, a philosophical thought termed the Advaita, literally meaning non-duality. In this school of thought, liberation is defined as the merging of the Jeevatma into the supreme divinity Paramatma, just as a drop of water merges into a vast ocean and all differences between a drop of water and the ocean blur and vanish entirely.

On the opposite pole, Kabir’s concept of duality defines two poles, a Guru and his disciple. The Guru is a liberated soul, who observes his disciple experiencing the material world. He sees his disciple get entangled in various joys and sorrows life has to offer. But the Guru doesn’t ever soak himself with the waves of the material reality, thus being present amidst all worldly chaos but staying away from entanglement at the same time. Interestingly, Kabir too uses the metaphor of two birds sitting on a branch of the tree of ‘life’ or a metaphor for a person’s physical body, in one of his very popular dohas.

‘Dui Pakhi’ looks a lot like the common ground between these apparently contradicting philosophies and that is because in this poem Adi Shankara’s philosophy can be unfurled just like Kabir’s wisdom.

The merging of the Jeevatma into Paramatma isn’t child’s play, Adi Shankara concludes and Tagore ruefully meditates on the epitome of pain — — -the cage which separates the two birds, delaying their union and inflicting misery on them. As the poem progresses, the apparently cheerful free bird is revealed to be just as helpless and ailing as the caged bird whom readers are prone to pity almost immediately.

As for Kabir, both the birds are a symbol of the dual qualities of the soul, mind you, not dual as in having fundamentally different origins or destinies, but rather dual by virtue of diverging inclinations and tendencies. The caged bird represents the disciple who seeks the comfort of ignorance, is opposed to changes, is weary to accept vulnerabilities, and holds a shield of protection over his ego. The free bird represents the Guru who flies in the breeze which breaks entanglements and extinguishes indulgences. And just as Kabir preaches of the Guru and disciple are different conformations of the same soul, Tagore also nods to the idea of the two birds being mere reflections of each other.

This is the genius of Tagore, who rediscovers verses and metaphors which are timeless but also spread as points quite far apart from each other, across a rather extensive timeline, and putting it all in one single frame, a screen of pure and divine discernment.

This is the greatness of Indian culture, to bind together and not commit the blasphemy of breaking the undivided everlasting heart of human realization, true knowledge, the Upanishadic Vidya into a thousand parts and then weigh a part against another on the scale that decides how commercial a narrative is.

And that greatness is fading today into the bowels of hate, a dreaded apocalypse is steadily progressing; the only consolation is the Sufi belief that knowledge is never lost, it merely waits (a little too patiently) to be rediscovered, thus spawning ages of light, again.

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“…দুজনে কেহ কারে বুঝিতে নাহি পারে,

বুঝাতে নারে আপনায়।

দুজনে একা একা ঝাপটি মরে পাখা,

কাতরে কহে, “কাছে আয়!’…”

Transl.

Neither do they understand each other, nor do they convince themselves, both of them move their wings in despair, and beg each other to come near.