Historical Figure
Rabindranath Tagore
1861–1941
Indian polymath (1861–1941)
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Biography
Rabindranath Thakur, also known by his pseudonym Bhanusimha was a Bengali polymath of the Bengal Renaissance period. In 1913, Tagore became the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize in any category, and also the first lyricist and non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. A significant moulder of culture within the Indian subcontinent, he has written and composed the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.
Timeline
The story of Rabindranath Tagore, told in moments.
Publishes his first poems at 16. Sent to England to study law at University College London. He drops out after a year and returns to Bengal, having discovered English Romantic poetry. He'll blend it with Bengali literary tradition.
Founds a school at Santiniketan ("Abode of Peace") in rural Bengal. Classes are held under trees. No examinations. Five students enroll the first year. It'll grow into Visva-Bharati University.
Wins the Nobel Prize in Literature for Gitanjali, a collection of prose poems he translated into English himself. He's the first non-European laureate. W.B. Yeats writes the introduction. Tagore donates the prize money to his school.
Renounces his British knighthood in protest of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, where British troops killed hundreds of unarmed civilians in Amritsar. He writes to the Viceroy: "The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring."
Dies at Jorasanko, the Calcutta mansion where he was born. He's 80. He composed approximately 2,230 songs, many still sung daily across Bengal. India and Bangladesh both use his compositions as their national anthems. He wrote them both.
In Their Own Words (20)
It was indeed a great day not only for the Sikhs but also for the whole of India when Guru Govinda, defying the age-long conventions of the Hindu society, made his followers one, by breaking down all barriers of caste and thereby made them free to inherit the true blessings of a self-respecting manhood. Sikhism has a brave message to the people and it has a noble record.
Letter to Mahadevi Desai, 4 January 1937. Quoted in The Essential Tagore, Cambridge, Massachusetts : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011., 1937
Just as weak people struck by poverty can be gripped by epidemics, so the spread of famine in Europe is enabling
Letter to Nitindranath Ganguli, 31 July 1931. Quoted in Andrew Robinson and Krishna Dutta (eds.) Selected letters of Rabindranath Tagore, Cambridge University Press, 1997. (p.403), 1931
The truth comes as conqueror only because we have lost the art of receiving it as guest.
The Fourfold Way of India (1924); this has become paraphrased as "Truth comes as conqueror only to those who have lost the art of receiving it as friend.", 1924
Reason tells us that creation never can be perfectly happy. So long as it is incomplete it must put up with imperfection and sorrow. It can only be perfect when it ceases to be creation, and is God. Do our prayers dare go so far?
1921
It sometimes strikes me how immensely fortunate I am that each day should take its place in my life, either reddened with the rising and setting sun, or refreshingly cool with deep, dark clouds, or blooming like a white flower in the moonlight. What untold wealth!
1921
Artifacts (15)
![RABINDRANATH TAGORE [Material gráfico]](https://www.fotosantiguascanarias.org/oaistore/srvimg/img102/00014001_00014500/00014233/alta/00014233_0001.jpg)
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