Sir Edwin Arnold (1832 – 1904)

[KALKI]

Sir Edwin Arnold KCIE CSI (10 June 1832 – 24 March 1904) was an English poet and journalist, who is most known for his work, The Light of Asia


Arnold was born at Gravesend, Kent, the second son of a Sussex magistrate, Robert Coles Arnold. One of his six children was the novelist Edwin Lester Arnold. He was educated at King's School, Rochester; King's College London; and University College, Oxford, where he won the Newdigate prize for poetry in 1852. He became a schoolmaster, at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and in 1856 went to India as Principal of the Government Sanskrit College at Poona, a post which he held for seven years, which includes a period during the mutiny of 1857, when he was able to render services for which he was publicly thanked by Lord Elphinstone in the Bombay Council. Here he received the bias towards, and gathered material for, his future works.

Returning to England in 1861 he worked as a journalist on the staff of the Daily Telegraph, a newspaper with which he continued to be associated as editor for more than forty years, and later became its editor-in-chief.[2] It was he who, on behalf of the proprietors of the Daily Telegraph in conjunction with the New York Herald, arranged the journey of H.M. Stanley to Africa to discover the course of the Congo River, and Stanley named after him a mountain to the north-east of Albert Edward Nyanza.

Arnold must also be credited with the first idea of a great trunk line traversing the entire African continent, for in 1874 he first employed the phrase "Cape to Cairo railway" subsequently popularized by Cecil Rhodes. It was, however, as a poet that he was best known to his contemporaries. The literary task which he set before him was the interpretation in English verse of the life and philosophy of the East. His chief work with this object is The Light of Asia which was translated into various languages such as Hindi (tr. by Acharya Ram Chandra Shukla). It appeared in 1879 and was an immediate success, going through numerous editions in England and America, though its permanent place in literature is quite uncertain. It is an Indian epic, dealing with the life and teaching of the Buddha. The poem was subjected to two lines of criticism: it was held by Oriental scholars to give a false impression of Buddhist doctrine; while, on the other, the suggested analogy between Sakyamuni and Jesus offended the taste of some devout Christians.[citation needed]

The latter criticism probably suggested to Arnold the idea of attempting a second narrative poem of which the central figure should be Jesus, the founder of Christianity, as the founder of Buddhism had been that of the first. But though The Light of the World (1891), in which this took shape, had considerable poetic merit, it lacked the novelty of theme and setting which had given the earlier poem much of its attractiveness; and it failed to repeat the success gained by The Light of Asia. Arnold's other principal volumes of poetry were Indian Song of Songs (1875), Pearls of the Faith (1883), The Song Celestial (1885), With Sadi in the Garden (1888), Tiphar's Wife (1892) and Adzuma or, The Japanese Wife (1893).

Sir Edwin also translated the sacred Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita.

Sir Edwin was married three times. His first wife was Katherine Elizabeth Biddulph, of London, who died in 1864. Next he married Jennie Channing of Boston who died in 1889. In his later years Arnold resided for some time in Japan and his third wife, Tama Kurokawa, was Japanese. In Seas and Lands (1891) and Japonica (1891) he gives an interesting study of Japanese life. He was appointed CSI on the occasion of the proclamation of Queen Victoria as Empress of India in 1877 and was knighted in 1888 (as KCIE). He was also honoured with decorations by the rulers of Japan, Persia, Turkey and Siam.

He was a founder member, together with Anagarika Dharmapala, of the Mahabodhi Society of India. A blue plaque unveiled in 1931 commemorates Arnold at 31 Bolton Gardens in South Kensington.

[KALKI]

Sir Edwin Arnold (1832-1904) poet and scholar. Author of The Song Celestial, which is a translation of the Bhagavad Gita. It has great elevation of tone and majesty and dignity of style. There are many translations of the Gita but Arnold's translation has a place apart among them by its accuracy and the grave harmony of the verse. The translation is dedicated by the poet to India.

The dedicatory verses are in Arnold's own translation:

"So have I read this wonderful and spirit-thrilling speech,
By Krishna and Prince Arjuna held, discoursing each with each;
So have I writ its wisdom here, its hidden mystery,
For England; O our India! as dear to me as she!

He wrote in his preface:

"This famous and marvelous Sanskrit poem occurs as an episode of the Mahabharata, in the sixth - or "Bhishma" - Parva of the great Hindu epic. It enjoys immense popularity and authority in India, where it is reckoned as one of the "Five Jewels" - pancharatnani - of Devanagari literature. In plain but noble language it unfolds a philosophical system which remains to this day the prevailing Brahmanic belief blending as it does the doctrine of Kapila, Patanjali, and the Vedas."

(source: Eminent Orientalists: Indian European American - Asian Educational Services. ISBN 8120606973 p. 234 -235).

Arnold already well known for the Light of Asia, wrote in India Revisited of the rite of bathing in the Ganga, and he described with emotion the people he observed at their prayers:

"Some are old and feeble, weary with long journeys of life, emaciated by maladies, saddened from loses and troubles; and the morning air blows sharp, the river wave runs chilly. Yet there they stand, breast-deep in the cold river, with dripping cotton garments clinging to their thin or aged limbs, visibly shuddering under the shock of the water, and their lips blue and quivering, while they eagerly mutter their invocations. None of them hesitates; into the Gunga they plunge on arrival, ill or well, robust or sickly; and ladle the holy liquid up with small, dark, trembling hands, repeating the sacred names, and softly mentioning the sins they would expiate and the beloved souls they would plead for."

(source: Banaras: City of Light - By Diana L Eck p. 15 -17).