Spiritual Grounding of Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali and Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri
Publication information:
Abstract
The paper discusses the connection between art and spirituality embodied in the Indian philosopher Sri Aurobindo’s theory of “supramental consciousness” portrayed in Savitri and the Life Divine. The journey from mind to the Supermind level of consciousness is also rooted in the ancient Indian Upanishadic philosophy according to which Brahman could be attained through the dissolution of ego. Both Sri Aurobindo and Tagore grounded their poetry in this theory of ego-transcendence. Thus, in Tagore’s Gitanjali and Sri Aurobindo’s hyper epic Savitri we see the manifestation of the supreme bliss which tells us the deep connection of art and spirituality.
Presenter Biography
Dr. Ashmita Khasnabish, is a lecturer at Lasell University from 2015 and a Co-Investigator in Love in Religion and Culture Project at Regent’s Park College, Oxford University from 2024. She held research positions in many other Universities such as Brown University, Brandeis University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and most recently at Harvard and currently in Oxford University working on her book tentatively titled as Global Bengali Identity. Most recently she published her book Virtual Diaspora, Postcolonial Literature and Feminism.
in 2022 which came out this year again, in August 2024 as a paperback edition. She wrote the book as a Research Associate of Harvard University’s Comparative Literature Department where she held the position from 2019-2021. She has authored a few other monographs on love and ego-transcendence like Jouissance as Ananda: Indian Philosophy, Feminist Theory and Literature (Lexington Books, 2003 and Humanitarian Identity and the Political Sublime: Intervention of a Postcolonial Feminist in 2009 by Lexington Books. Her third monograph Negotiating Capability and Diaspora: a Philosophical Politics was published in 2013 by Lexington Books (now Bloomsbury) as well while she was in Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She also authored many edited volumes like Postcoloniality, Diaspora, Globalization and What’s Next? through Lexington books in 2019 and many others as well as articles in refereed journals. Dr. Khasnabish travelled and lectured widely in Europe, India and North-America.