Obscure Religious Cults as Background of Bengali Literature c5.45

c5.45

This conception of religion propagated by Tagore, both through speculative essays and through his art-creations, much akin though it may be to the Hegelian and the neo-Hegelian thoughts in striking points, is, however, fundamentally based on the teachings of the Upaniṣads, which were ingrained in the heart of poet Tagore from the early days of his childhood. On the Upaniṣadic canvas the Vaiṣṇava love-poets and the mystic Bāuls of Bengal and other mystic poets of upper and northern India, viz., Kabīr, Dādū, Rajjab and others, have supplied lines and colours of different shades. But this background and the other probable influences do in no way minimise the individual contribution of Tagore, and it has to be admitted that Tagore, as the seer of truth, has realised something new and given something substantial to the religious thought and literature of the world.