The-Complete-Works-of-Sister-Nivedita-Vol-2

544 Pages·13.672 MB·English

by  Sister Nivedita

THE
WORKS
COMPLETE
OF
NIVEDITA
SISTER
BIRTH CENTENARY PUBLICATION
VOLUME
II
*swfo.
SISTER NIVEDITA GIRLS' SCHOOL
Published by The Secretary,
Ramakrishna Sarada Mission
Sister Nivedita Girls' School
5 Nivedita Lane
Calcutta 3
Printed by P. C. Ray
Sri Gouranga Press Private Ltd.
5 Chintamani Das Lane
Calcutta 9
RAMAKRISHNA SARADA MISSION
SISTER NIVEDITA CIRLS* SCHOOL
0/ Fint Edition 0ctober 1955
C\ \
.Dato.A£jLl/£
"^
PPrriicree RRss.. 1200
—
"Fourth Five Year Plan Development of Modern Indian Langu-
ages. The popular price ofthe book has been made possible through
a subvention received from the Government of West Bengal."
SOLE DISTRIBUTORS:
ANANDA PUBLISHERS PRIVATE LTD.
5 CHINTAMANI DAS LANE
CALCUTTA 9
—
CONTENTS
Page
Editor's Preface ... ... ... ... ... ix
Chronological Table ... ... ... ... xix
The Web of Indian Life
I. The Setting of the Warp ... ... ' ... 1
II. The Eastern Mother ... ... ... 16
III. Of The Hindu Woman As Wife ... ... 27
IV. Love Strong As Death ... ... ... 41
V. The Place Of Woman In The National Life ... 52
VI. The Immediate Problems Of The Oriental Woman 70
VII. The Indian Sagas ... ... ... 86
A
VIII. Noblesse Oblige: Study Of Indian Caste ... 105
IX. The Synthesis Of Indian Thought ... 124
X. The Oriental Experience ... ... ... 152
XL The Wheel Of Birth And Death ... ... 161
XII. The Story Of The Great God: Shiva Or Mahadeva 173
XIH. The Gospel Of The Blessed One ... ... 186
XJV. Islam In India ... ... ... 200
XV. An Indian Pilgrimage 215
... ... ...
XVI. On The Loom Of Time 230
... ... ...
Appendix 252
... ... ... ...
An Indian Study Of Love And Death
An Office For The Dead ... ... ... 257
Meditations
Of The Soul ... ... ... ... 262
Of Love 266
... ... ... ...
Of The Inner Perception ... ... ... 267
Of Peace 269
... ... ... ...
Of Triumphant Union 270
... ... ...
It
Page
The Communion Of The Soul With The Beloved ... 271
A
Litany Of Love: Invocation ... ... 275
Some Hindu Rites For The Honoured Dead ... 277
The Beloved 285
... ... ... ... ...
Play ... ... ... ... ... ... 286
Death 289
... ... ... ... ...
Studies From An Eastern Home
I. Life In The Hindu Quarter Of Calcutta ... 293
II. Our Zenana Terrace ... ... ... 300
III. The Hindu Widow And The Zenana ... ... 304
IV. The Sacred Year ... ... ... ... 311
V. Dol-Jatra ... ... ... ... 316
VI. Janmashtami: The Day Of The Great Birth ... 320
VII. The Saraswati Puja ... ... 325
VIII. The Durga Puja ... ... ... ... 331
IX. The Festival Of Ras ... ... ... 336
X. The Plague ... ... ... 340
XI. The Mediaeval University Of India ... ... 348
XII. An Old Collegiate Village .. ... ... 352
XIII. The Holy City ... ... ... ... 358
XIV. Chitore ... ... ... ... 361
XV. An Indian Amulet 364
... ... ...
XVI. Gopaler-Ma: The Mother Of The Christ-Child ... 369
XVTI. The Indian Ash, Or Tree Of Healing ... ... 373
XVni. The Dread Seven ... ... ... ... 381
XIX. The Kashmir Shawl 387
... ... ...
XX. The Ship Of Flowers ... ... ... 393
Lectures And Articles
Vedanta Missionary Work: Wimbledon (London) ... 399
Influence OfThe Spiritual Thoughts Of India In England 406
The Birthday Festival Of Sri Ramakrishna ... ... 411
Amarnath 416
... ... ... ... ...
The Sociological Aspect Of The Vedanta Philosophy ... 422
Kali, And Her Worship ... ... ... 429
KaliWorship 444
... ... ... ...
New Interpretations Of Life In India 449
India Has No Apology To Make ... 460
How And Why I Adopted The Hindu Religion 470
Indian Women As They Strike An English Woman 473
An Open Letter To Hindu Women 475
Islam In Asia 478
Beauties Of Islam 481
Synthesis Of Ideals 491
Etiquette, Eastern And Western ... 494
Hinduism And The Modern Transition 503
Appendix I
The Education Of Hindu Women And Their Ideals ... 505
Indian Womanhood 507
... ... ... ...
Family Life And Nationality In India ... ... 508
Appendix II
List Of Lectures Delivered By Sister Nivedita Abroad ... 509

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Facing Pack
SISTER NIVEDITA
1
ON THE TERRACE
22
THE HOLY MOTHER AND SISTER NIVEDITA 23
THE LANE
294
ON THE ROOF 295 *
...
GOPALER-MA AND SISTER NIVEDITA 370
A PENCIL-SKETCH OF SISTER NIVEDITA 371

:
EDITOR'S PREFACE
The Second Volume of the present edition of the
Complete Works of Sister Nivedita mainly includes books,
lectures and articles which shed light on Indian life,
thought and culture. These writings give a wide survey
of Indian people as they lived and thought, to the world
which only knew of the horror and ugliness of Indian life
as depicted by the foreign missionaries.
Nivedita spoke with authority on this subject for since
the beginning of 1898 when she first landed in India till
the Autumn of 1911, when she breathed her last, she
stayed with the people of this country in close intimacy.
It is true that her stay in a northern section of Calcutta
made her familiar with the Bengali way of life, and in
the series of charming pictures of family life, festivals etc.
she describes what she saw and heard around her. But
her deep study of Indian literature combined with her
keen intellect and deep comprehensive mind helped her
to und—erstand India as a whole also. As in a lecture she
said: " ... the life that I was thus allowed to share was
that of the common Indian world. Bengali in its details,
it was in its main features that of the masses of the people
the country over." (Complete Works, vol. n, p. 460).
In this Volume are included the following works
The Web of Indian Life.
An Indian Study of Love And Death.
Studies from- an Eastern Home.
The book that created the greatest stir in the world
after its publication was The Web of Indian Life. In a
letter to Miss Josephine Mac Leod from Norway (19.7.1901)
Nivedita writes that R. C. Dutt first prompted her to write
this book. "Now I am at work on the book which Mr. Dutt
commissioned and have just written on caste." The diffe-
rent chapters of the book were written during her stay in
America, England, Norway and India between 1901 and
1903. At the back of the title page prepared by herself
she wrote: "I finished writing this book Sept. 7th 1903 at
4 p.m. Annotated-Evening Oct. 13th. Posted Oct. 14th
1903." It was first published in 1904 by William Heine-
mann, London, and since then has gone into six impres-
sions. It was reviewed by the leading newspapers and
periodicals of the East as well as the West. To name a
few of them Christian, Outlook, The Church Times, The
:
Detroit Free Press, The Daily Graphic, Queen, The Indian
Spectator, The Yorkshire Post, Pall Mall Gazette, St.
James's Gazette, The Westminister Gazette, The Sun, The
Sunday Mail, The Madras Mail, and Birmingham Post.
Some of these reviewed the book favourably and some
criticised it bitterly. To quote some instances.
Queen (August 24, 1904).
It is seldom that a Western-born author succeds as
absolutely as Miss Noble in her "The Web of Indian Life"
in penetrating the Eastern mind and heart. ... If love
is the first qualification towards understanding the charac-
ter of a people, Miss Noble was thoroughly qualified, for
she writes of the East as a lover might write of his beloved
;
each intimacy, each familiarity adds to the mystery and
fascination exercised by this wonderful alluring East over
her spirit. ... It would be well if those who gather their
impressions of our Indian Empire solely from missionaries
of preconceived ideas and little sympathy, or from the
abstruse works of scholars, or the chatter of the Anglo-
Indians, were to revise the impressions they gathered from
these sources by the light of this poetically written and
scholarly work."