No More Learning

Pardon me, Sire, if I am very stupid; but I cannot understand.

Look at this, Vizier, look at this.

Your Majesty's hair----

Can't you see there's a bell-ringer there?

Oh, Your Majesty. Are you playing a joke?

The joke is not mine, but His, who has got the whole world by the
ear, and is having His jest. Last night, when the Queen was
putting a garland of jasmines round my neck, she cried out with
alarm, "King, what is this? Here are two grey hairs behind your
ear. "

Oh, please, Sire, don't worry so much about a little thing like
that. Why! The royal physician----

Vizier! The founder of our dynasty had his royal physician, too.
But what could he do? Death has left his card of invitation
behind my ear. The Queen wanted, then and there, to pluck out the
grey hairs. But I said, "Queen, what's the use? You may remove
Death's invitation, but can you remove Death, the Inviter? " So,
for the present----

Yes, Sire, for the present, let us attend to business.

Business, Vizier! I have no time for business. Send for the
Pundit. Send for Sruti-bhushan.

But, Sire, the General----

The General? --No, no, not the General. Send for the Pundit.

But, the news from the frontier----

Vizier, the news has come to me from the last great frontier of
all, the frontier of Death. Send for the Pundit.

But if Your Majesty will give me one moment, the Ambassador from
the great Emperor of China----

Vizier, a greater Emperor has sent his embassy to me. Call
Sruti-bhushan.

Very well, Sire. But your father-in-law----

It is not my father-in-law whom I want now. Send for the Pundit.

But, if it please you to hear me this once. The poet,
Kabi-shekhar, is waiting with his new book called the _Garden of
Poesy_.

Let your poet disport himself, jumping about on the topmost
branches of his Garden of Poesy, but send for the Pundit.

Very well, Sire. I will send for him at once.

Tell him to bring his book of devotions with him, called the
_Ocean of Renunciation_.

Yes, Sire.

But, Vizier. Who are those outside making all that noise? Go out
and stop them at once. I must have peace.

If it please Your Majesty, there is a famine in Nagapatam and the
headmen of the villages are praying to be allowed to see your
face.

My time is short, Vizier. I must have peace.

They say their time is shorter. They are at death's door. They,
too, want peace,--peace from the burning of hunger.

Vizier! The burning of hunger is quenched at last on the funeral
pyre.

Then these wretched people----

Wretched! --Listen to the advice of a wretched King to his
wretched subjects. It is futile to be impatient, and try to break
through the net of the inexorable Fisherman. Sooner or later,
Death the Fisherman will have his haul.

Well then?

Let me have the Pundit, and his _Book of Renunciation_.

And in this scarcity----

Vizier! The real scarcity is of time, and not of food. We are all
suffering from starvation of time. None of us has enough of it,
neither the King, nor his people.

Then----

Then know, that our petitions for more time will all go to the
last fire of doom. So why strain our voice in prayer? --Ah, here
is Sruti-bhushan at last. My reverence to you.

Pundit, do tell the King that the Goddess of Fortune deserts him
who gives way to melancholy.

Sruti-bhushan, what is my Vizier whispering to you?

He tells me, King, to instruct you in the ways of fortune.

What instruction can you give?

There is a verse in my book of devotions which runs as follows:

_Fortune, as fickle as lotus-flower,
Closes her favours when comes the hour.
Oh, foolish man, how can you trust her,
Who comes of a sudden, and goes in a fluster? _

Ah, Pundit. One breath of your teaching blows out the false flame
of ambition. Our teacher has said:

"Teeth fall out, hair grows grey;
Yet man clings to hope that plays him false. "

Well, King, now that you have introduced the subject of hope, let
me give you another verse from the _Ocean of Renunciation_. It
runs as follows:

_That fetters are binding, all are aware;
But fetters of hope are strange, I declare.
Hope's captive is tossed in the whirlpool's wake,
And only grows still when the fetters break. _

Ah, Pundit. Your words are priceless. Vizier, give him a hundred
gold sequins at once. What's that noise outside?

It is the famine-stricken people.

Tell them to hold their peace.

Let Sruti-bhushan, with his book of devotions, go and try to
bring them peace; and, in the meanwhile, Your Majesty might
discuss war matters----

No, no. Let the war matters come later. I can't let Sruti-bhushan
go yet.

King, you said something to me, a moment ago, about a gift of
gold. Now mere gold, by itself, does not confer any permanent
benefit. It is said in my book of devotions, called the _Ocean of
Renunciation_:

_He who gives gold, gives only pain;
When the gold is spent grief comes again.
When a lakh, or crore, of gold is spent,
Grief only remains in the empty tent. _

Ah, Pundit. How exquisite. So you don't want any gold, my Master?

No, King, I don't want gold, but something more permanent, which
would make your merit permanent also. I should be quite content,
if you gave me the living of Kanchanpur. For it is said in the
_Renunciation_----

No, Pundit, I quite understand. You needn't quote scripture to
support your claim. I understand quite well--Vizier!

Yes, Your Majesty.

See that the rich province of Kanchanpur is settled on the
Pundit. --What's the matter now outside there? What are they
crying for?

If it please Your Majesty, it is the people.

Why do they cry so repeatedly?

Their cry is repeated, I admit, but the reason remains most
monotonously the same. They are starving.

But, King, I must tell you before I forget it. It is the one
desire of my wife to make her whole body jingle, from head to
foot, in praise of your munificence; but, alas, the sound is too
feeble for want of proper ornaments.

I understand you, Pundit. Vizier! Order ornaments from the Court
Jeweller for Sruti-bhushan's wife immediately.

And, King, while he is about it, would you tell the Vizier, that
we are both of us distracted in our devotions by house-repairs.
Let him ask the royal masons to put up a thoroughly well-built
house, where we can practise our devotions in peace.

Very well, Pundit. --Vizier!

Yes, Your Majesty.

Give the order at once.

Sire, your treasury is empty. Funds are wanting.

Pooh! That's an old story. I hear that every year. It is your
business to increase the funds, and mine to increase the wants.
What do you say, Sruti-bhushan?

King, I cannot blame the Vizier. He is looking after your
treasures in this world. We are looking after your treasures in
the next. So where he sees want, we see wealth. Now, if you
would only let me dive deep once more into the _Ocean of
Renunciation_ you will find it written as follows:

_That King's coffers are well stored,
Where wealth alone on worth is poured. _

Pundit, your company is most valuable.

Your Majesty, Sruti-bhushan knows its value to a farthing. Come,
Sruti-bhushan, make haste. Let us collect all the wealth you need
for your Treasury of Devotion. For wealth has the ugly habit of
diminishing fast. If we are not quick about it, little will
remain to enable us to observe our renunciation with all
splendour.

Yes, Vizier, let us go at once. (_To the King. _) When he is
making such a fuss about a tiny matter like this, it is best to
pacify him first and then return to you afterwards.

Pundit, I am afraid that, some day, you will leave my royal
protection altogether, and retire to the forest.

King, so long as I find contentment in a King's palace, it is as
good as a hermitage for my peace of mind. I must now leave you,
King. Vizier, let us go.

[_The Vizier and Pundit go out. _

Oh, dear me! Whatever shall I do? Here's the Poet coming. I am
afraid he'll make me break all my good resolutions. --Oh, my grey
hairs, cover my ears, so that the Poet's allurements may not
enter.

Why, King, what's the matter? I hear you want to send away your
Poet.

What have I to do with poets, when poetry brings me this parting
message?

What parting message?

Look at this behind my ear. Don't you see it?

See what? Grey hairs? Why, King, don't you worry about that.

Poet, Nature is trying to rub out the green of youth, and to
paint everything white.

No, no, King. You haven't understood the artist. On that white
ground, Nature will paint new colours.

I don't see any sign of colours yet.

They are all within. In the heart of the white dwell all the
colours of the rainbow.

Oh, Poet, do be quiet. You disturb me when you talk like that.

King, if this youth fades, let it fade. Another Queen of Youth is
coming. And she is putting a garland of pure white jasmines round
your head, in order to be your bride. The wedding festival is
being made ready, behind the scene.

Oh, dear, Poet. You will undo everything. Do go away. Ho there,
Guard. Go at once and call Sruti-bhushan.

What will you do with him, King, when he comes?

I will compose my mind, and practise my renunciation.

Ah, King, when I heard that news, I came at once. For I can be
your companion in this practice of renunciation.

You?

Yes, I, King. We Poets exist for this very purpose. We set men
free from their desires.

I don't understand you. You talk in riddles.

What? You don't understand me? And yet you have been reading my
poems all this while! --There is renunciation in our words,
renunciation in the metre, renunciation in our music. That is why
fortune always forsakes us; and we, in turn always forsake
fortune. We go about, all day long, initiating the youths in the
sacred cult of fortune-forsaking.

What does it say to us?

It says:

_"Ah, brothers, don't cling to your goods and chattels,
And sit ever in the corner of your room.
Come out, come out into the open world.
Come out into the highways of life.
Come out, ye youthful Renouncers. "_

But, Poet, do you really mean to say that the highway of the open
world is the pathway of renunciation?

Why not, King? In the open world all is change, all is life, all
is movement. And he who ever moves and journeys with this
life-movement, dancing and playing on his flute as he goes, he is
the true Renouncer.
He is the true disciple of the minstrel Poet.

But how then can I get peace? I must have peace.

Oh, King, we haven't the least desire for peace. We are the
Renouncers.

But ought we not to get that treasure, which is said to be
never-changing?

No, we don't covet any never-changing treasures. We are the
Renouncers.

What do you mean? Oh, dear, Poet, you will undo everything, if
you talk like that. You are destroying my peace of mind. Call
Sruti-bhushan. Let some one call the Pundit.

What I mean, King, is this. We are the true Renouncers, because
change is our very secret. We lose, in order to find. We have no
faith in the never-changing.

What do you mean?

Haven't you noticed the detachment of the rushing river, as it
runs splashing from its mountain cave? It gives itself away so
swiftly, and only thus it finds itself. What is never-changing,
for the river, is the desert sand, where it loses its course.

Ah, but listen, Poet--listen to those cries there outside. That
is your world. How do you deal with that?

King, they are your starving people.

My people, Poet? Why do you call them that? They are the world's
people, not mine. Have I created their miseries? What can your
youthful Poet Renouncers do to relieve sufferings like theirs?
Tell me that.

King, it is we alone who can truly bear those sufferings, because
we are like the river that flows on in gladness, thus lightening
our burden, and the burden of the world. But the hard, metalled
road is fixed and never-changing. And so it makes the burden more
burdensome. The heavy loads groan and creak along it, and cut
deep gashes in its breast. We Poets call to every one to carry
all their joys and sorrows lightly, in a rhythmic measure. Our
call is the Renouncers' call.

Ah, Poet, now I don't care a straw for Sruti-bhushan. Let the
Pundit go hang. But, do you know what my trouble is now? Though I
can't, for the life of me, understand your words, the music
haunts me. Now, it's just the other way round with the Pundit.
His words are clear enough, and they obey the rules of syntax
quite correctly. But the tune! --No, it's no use telling you any
further.

King, our words don't speak, they sing.

Well, Poet, what do you want to do now?

King, I'm going to have a race through those cries, which are
rising outside your gate.

What do you mean? Famine relief is for men of business. Poets
oughtn't to have anything to do with things like that.

King, business men always make their business so out of tune.
That is why we Poets hasten to tune it.

Now come, my dear Poet, do speak in plainer language.

King, they work, because they must. We work, because we are in
love with life. That is why they condemn us as unpractical, and
we condemn them as lifeless.

But who is right, Poet? Who wins? You, or they?

We, King, we. We always win.

But, Poet, your proof----

King, the greatest things in the world disdain proof. But if you
could for a time wipe out all the poets and all their poetry from
the world, then you would soon discover, by their very absence,
where the men of action got their energy from, and who really
supplied the life-sap to their harvest-field. It is not those who
have plunged deep down into the Pundit's _Ocean of Renunciation_,
nor those who are always clinging to their possessions; it is not
those who have become adepts in turning out quantities of work,
nor those who are ever telling the dry beads of duty,--it is not
these who win at last. But it is those who love, because they
live. These truly win, for they truly surrender. They accept pain
with all their strength and with all their strength they remove
pain. It is they who create, because they know the secret of true
joy, which is the secret of detachment.

Well then, Poet, if that be so, what do you ask me to do now?

I ask you, King, to rise up and move. That cry outside yonder is
the cry of life to life. And if the life within you is not
stirred, in response to that call without, then there is cause
for anxiety indeed,--not because duty has been neglected, but
because you are dying.

But, Poet, surely we must die, sooner or later?

No, King, that's a lie. When we feel for certain that we are
alive, then we know for certain that we shall go on living. Those
who have never put life to the test, in all possible ways, these
keep on crying out:

_Life is fleeting, Life is waning,
Life is like a dew-drop on a lotus leaf. _

But, isn't life inconstant?

Only because its movement is unceasing. The moment you stop this
movement, that moment you begin to play the drama of Death.

Poet, are you speaking the truth? Shall we really go on living?

Yes, we shall really go on living.

Then, Poet, if we are going to go on living, we must make our
life worth its eternity. Is not that so?

Yes, indeed.

Ho, Guard.

Yes, Your Royal Highness.

Call the Vizier at once.

Yes, Your Royal Highness.

(_Vizier enters. _)

What is Your Majesty's pleasure?

Vizier! Why on earth have you kept me waiting so long?

I was very busy, Your Majesty.

Busy? What were you busy about?

I was dismissing the General.

Why should you dismiss the General? We have got to discuss war
matters with him.

And arrangements had to be made for the state-departure of the
Chinese Ambassador.

What do you mean by his state-departure?

If it please Your Majesty, you did not grant him an interview. So
he----

Vizier! You surprise me. Is this the way you manage state
affairs? What has happened to you? Have you lost your senses?

Then, again. Sire, I was trying to find a way to pull down the
Poet's house. At first, no one would undertake it. Then, at last,
all the Pundits of the Royal School of Grammar and Logic came up
with their proper tools and set to work.

Vizier! Are you mad this morning? Pull down the Poet's house?
Why, you might as well kill all the birds in the garden and make
them up into a pie.

If it please Your Majesty, you need not be annoyed. We shan't have to
pull down the house after all; for the moment Sruti-bhushan heard it
was to be demolished, he decided to take possession of it himself.

What, Vizier! That's worse still. Why! The Goddess of Music would
break her harp in pieces against my head, if she even heard of
such a thing. No, that can't be.

Then, Your Majesty, there was another thing to be got through. We
had to deliver over the province of Kanchanpur to the Pundit.

No, Vizier! What a mess you are making. That must go to our Poet.

To me, King? No. My poetry never accepts reward.

Well, well. Let the Pundit have it.

And, last of all, Sire. I have issued orders to the soldiers to
disperse the crowd of famine-stricken people.

Vizier, you are doing nothing but blunder. The best way to
disperse the famished people is with food, not force.

(_Guard enters. _)

May it please Your Royal Highness.

What's the matter, Guard?

May it please Your Royal Highness, here is Sruti-bhushan, the
Pundit, coming back with his _Book of Devotions_.

Oh, stop him, Vizier, stop him. He will undo everything. Don't
let him come upon me unawares like this. In a moment of weakness,
I may suddenly find myself out of my depths in the _Ocean of
Renunciation_. Poet! Don't give me time for that. Do something.
Do anything. Have you got anything ready to hand? Any play
toward? Any poem? Any masque? Any----

Yes, King. I have got the very thing. But whether it is a drama,
or a poem, or a play, or a masque, I cannot say.

Shall I be able to understand the sense of what you have written?

No, King, what a poet writes is not meant to have any sense.

What then?

To have the tune itself.

What do you mean? Is there no philosophy in it?

No, none at all, thank goodness.

What does it say, then?

King, it says "I exist. " Don't you know the meaning of the first
cry of the new-born child? The child, when it is born, hears at
once the cries of the earth and water and sky, which surround
him,--and they all cry to him, "We exist," and his tiny little
heart responds, and cries out in its turn, "I exist. " My poetry
is like the cry of that new-born child. It is a response to the
cry of the Universe.

Is it nothing more than that, Poet?

No, nothing more. There is life in my song, which cries, "In joy
and in sorrow, in work and in rest, in life and in death, in
victory and in defeat, in this world and in the next, all hail to
the 'I exist. '"

Well, Poet, I can assure you, if your play hasn't got any
philosophy in it, it won't pass muster in these days.

That's true, King. The newer people, of this modern age, are more
eager to amass than to realize. They are, in their generation,
wiser than the children of light.

Whom shall we ask, then, for an audience? Shall we ask the young
students of our royal school?

No, King, they cut up poetry with their logic. They are like the
young-horned deer trying their new horns on the flower-beds.

Whom should I ask, then?

Ask those whose hair is turning grey.

What do you mean, Poet?

The youth of these middle-aged people is a youth of detachment.
They have just crossed the waters of pleasure, and are in sight
of the land of pure gladness. They don't want to eat fruit, but
to produce it.

I, at least, have now reached that age of discretion, and ought
to be able to appreciate your songs. Shall I ask the General?

Yes, ask him.

And the Chinese Ambassador?

Yes, ask him too.

I hear my father-in-law has come.

Well, ask him too, but I have my doubts about his youthful sons.

But don't forget his daughter.

Don't worry about her. She won't let herself be forgotten.

And Sruti-bhushan? Shall I ask him?

No, King, no. Decidedly, no. I have no grudge against him.