the biography of rabindranath tagore

Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet, novelist and painter best known for being the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 with his book Gitanjali, Song Offerings . He was highly influential in introducing Indian culture to the West and is generally regarded as the outstanding creative artist of modern India. He was hailed by W.B Yeats and André Gide.

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• Article Title: Rabindranath Tagore Biography
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• Last Updated: June 24, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

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Rabindranath Tagore

Poet, writer and humanitarian, Rabindranath Tagore was the first Indian to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and he played a key role in the renaissance of modern India. Tagore is most widely known for his poetry, but he was also an accomplished author of novels, short stories, plays and articles. He took an active interest in a widespread range of social, cultural and artistic endeavours. He has been described as one of the first Twentieth Century’s global man.

“So I repeat we never can have a true view of man unless we have a love for him. Civilisation must be judged and prized, not by the amount of power it has developed, but by how much it has evolved and given expression to, by its laws and institutions, the love of humanity.”

— Sadhana: The Realisation of Life, (1916)

Short Biography Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath began writing from an early age and impressed with his free-flowing style and spontaneous compositions. He mostly rejected formal schooling; he spent much time being taught at home. In 1878 he travelled to England and sought to study law at University College, London, but he left before finishing the degree.

After returning to India, in 1901, Tagore moved to Shantiniketan to found an ashram which became his focal point for writing and his view on schooling. He chose the name for the ashram – Shantiniketan meaning ‘Abode of Peace.’

“Love is the ultimate meaning of everything around us. It is not a mere sentiment; it is truth; it is the joy that is at the root of all creation.”

– Tagore, Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life (1916)

Friendship with Gandhi

Tagore was firm friends with Gandhi and admired him very much. But, despite this friendship, he could be critical of his views. For example, he disagreed with Gandhi’s views on Swaraj protests and upbraided Gandhi when Gandhi claimed an earthquake was ‘divine retribution for the mistreatment of Dalits in India.’ Yet despite the frequent divergence of opinions, they could admire each other. When Gandhi went on a fast unto death, it was Tagor who was able to persuade Gandhi to give up his fast and look after his health.

Nobel Prize for Literature 1913

In 1913, Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature for his work ‘ Gitanjali ‘ This made his writings internationally known and his fame spread throughout the world.

“My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.” – Gitanjali

Rabindranath Tagore with Einstein

This gave Tagore the opportunity to travel extensively giving lectures and recitals in many different countries. He also became acquainted with many of the leading cultural contemporaries of the day; this included W.B.Yeats, George Bernard Shaw , Romain Rolland, Robert Frost and Albert Einstein .

Tagore had a great love for nature and many of his poems invoke the simple beauties of the natural world. For Tagore, his religion could be found in the wonders and mysteries of nature – as much as in temples and sacred books.

Tagore was a prolific composer of music. He composed over 2,000 songs which have been popularised and sung widely across Bengal. Like his literature, he broke away from classical constraints to offer a great emotive and spiritual appeal. Tagore is unique for being the official composer for the national anthem of two countries – India’s Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh’s Amar Shonar Bangla .

Tagore was an opponent of British imperialism, though he also felt Indians had a duty to improve their self-education; he said that British rule was partly due to the state India had fallen into. In particular, he was very denigrating about India’s obsession with caste.

‘the ultimate truth in man is not in his intellect or his possessions; it is in his illumination of mind, in his extension of sympathy across all barriers of caste and colour, in his recognition of the world, not merely as a storehouse of power, but as a habitation of man’s spirit, with its eternal music of beauty and its inner light of the divine presence.’ – Tagore, The Poet’s Religion’ in Creative Unity (1922) [ 1 ]

In 1919, Tagore returned his knighthood in protest at the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, in which many peaceful Indian protesters were killed.

Tagore was a polymath, and towards the end of his life he took up art and also pursued an interest in science. Tagore was also very much an internationalist, criticising nationalism, though also writing songs and articles in support of the general principle of the Indian independence movement.

“Patriotism cannot be our final spiritual shelter; my refuge is humanity. I will not buy glass for the price of diamonds, and I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity as long as I live. “

– Rabindranath Tagore

Tagore view on Religion

Tagore had mixed views on religion. He was brought up in a traditional Hindu family and taught to pray and meditate from an early age. He remembers the peace of mind he developed from chanting the Gayatri Mantra, but at the same time was detached from the more formalistic aspects of religion. He tended to see religion as not scriptures and places of worship but the life we lead. As he explained:

“My religion is my life – it is growing with my growth – it has never been grafted on me from outside.” ~ Tagore to Robert Bridges, 8 July 1914.

He was keen to avoid any fanaticism and saw the strength of his own Hindu religion as its ability to see more than one path to the goal. His life-long aspiration was to see a harmony of religions flourish in India – not from mere tolerance but an appreciation of the different merits other religions had.

‘The Idea of freedom to which India aspired was based upon realization of spiritual unity…India’s great achievement, which is still stored deep within her heart, is waiting to unite within itself Hindu, Moslem, Buddhist and Christian, not by force, not by the apathy of resignation, but in the harmony of active cooperation.’ ~ Tagore in Berlin, 1921.

However, he was also critical of the Hindu caste system.

Tagore’s poetry frequently hint at a mystical view of the world.

“In this playhouse of infinite forms I have had my play, and here have I caught sight of him that is formless.” – Gitanjali “The human soul is on its journey from the law to love, from discipline to liberation, from the moral plane to the spiritual.” Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life (1916)

Tagore died on 7th August 1941, after a long and painful illness, aged 80. He died in his family home.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “ Rabindranath Tagore ”, Oxford, UK www.biographyonline.net , 1st Jun. 2009. Last updated 1 March 2019.

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Culture History

Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was a renowned Indian poet, philosopher, and polymath. He became the first non-European Nobel laureate in Literature in 1913 for his collection of poems, “Gitanjali.” Tagore’s contributions extend beyond literature, encompassing music, art, and education. He played a pivotal role in India’s cultural and intellectual renaissance during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tagore’s legacy includes being the author of the Indian national anthem and a key figure in the movement for India’s independence.

Early Life and Family Background

Rabindranath Tagore, the youngest of the thirteen children of Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi, was born into a family deeply entrenched in the cultural and intellectual milieu of 19th-century Bengal. The Tagore family, part of the Brahmo Samaj—a socio-religious reform movement in India—imbibed progressive ideas and a commitment to social change.

Debendranath Tagore, Rabindranath’s father, was a prominent figure in the Brahmo Samaj and a revered philosopher. He played a crucial role in shaping Rabindranath’s early intellectual inclinations. Debendranath’s liberal and inclusive approach to religion and philosophy had a profound impact on the young Tagore, influencing his later thoughts on spirituality and the interconnectedness of humanity.

Growing up in the sprawling Jorasanko Thakur Bari, the ancestral mansion in Calcutta, Rabindranath Tagore experienced a childhood surrounded by the cultural riches of the Tagore family. The house was a hub of artistic and intellectual activities, fostering an environment that nurtured creativity and critical thinking. The family’s significant wealth provided Tagore with the privilege of a well-rounded education and exposure to a diverse range of ideas.

Tagore’s mother, Sarada Devi, known for her unwavering support of her husband’s socio-religious endeavors, played a vital role in shaping the cultural ethos of the Tagore household. Sarada Devi’s influence extended beyond the family; she actively participated in social and charitable activities, embodying the principles of the Brahmo Samaj in her daily life.

Despite the affluence of the Tagore family, Rabindranath’s childhood was not untouched by tragedy. The loss of several siblings during his formative years cast a shadow over his early life. These experiences of grief and loss would later find expression in his poetry and writings, where themes of mortality, transience, and the impermanence of life became recurrent motifs.

Tagore’s formal education began at home, guided by private tutors who recognized his exceptional intellectual abilities. Early exposure to Sanskrit classics, ancient Indian literature, and Western philosophy laid the groundwork for Tagore’s later synthesis of Eastern and Western thought. His voracious appetite for knowledge led him to explore a wide array of subjects, shaping his eclectic intellectual profile.

In addition to his formal education, Tagore’s upbringing included exposure to the vibrant cultural and artistic traditions of Bengal. The family’s association with the Brahmo Samaj introduced him to the reformist spirit of the time, while the rich folk traditions of Bengal left an indelible mark on his creative sensibilities. This intersection of traditional and modern, rural and urban, shaped Tagore’s worldview and artistic expression.

Tagore’s initiation into the world of literature began at an early age. He started writing poetry in his teens, and his first collection, “Bhanushingher Padavali,” was published when he was just sixteen. The poems reflected his deep connection with nature, a theme that would permeate much of his later work. His early poetry also hinted at a spiritual quest, echoing the influence of the Brahmo Samaj’s emphasis on the divine within.

The pivotal moment in Tagore’s personal life occurred in 1883 when he married Mrinalini Devi. The union brought together two influential families—the Tagores and the Devi family of Jessore. The couple had five children, providing Tagore with a new perspective on family life and relationships. Despite the challenges of managing a large family and his literary pursuits, Tagore found inspiration in domesticity, a theme that resonates in many of his later writings.

In the next phase of his life, Tagore’s journey would extend beyond the confines of family and regional influences. His exposure to Western literature, particularly the works of Shakespeare and the Romantic poets, expanded his literary horizons. The confluence of these diverse influences laid the foundation for Tagore’s emergence as a literary giant, poised to transcend cultural and linguistic boundaries.

Educational Journey

Rabindranath Tagore’s educational journey was marked by a blend of traditional learning, self-study, and a quest for knowledge that transcended conventional boundaries. From his early years at home, under the guidance of private tutors, to the establishment of the innovative Santiniketan school, Tagore’s approach to education reflected his commitment to holistic and inclusive learning.

Formally initiated into education by his tutors, Tagore’s early studies encompassed a range of subjects, including literature, mathematics, history, and science. His family’s emphasis on a well-rounded education contributed to the development of his multifaceted intellectual profile. However, Tagore’s education extended far beyond the confines of textbooks and traditional pedagogy.

As a self-directed learner, Tagore delved into the works of both Indian and Western authors, expanding his literary horizons. His exposure to the rich tapestry of Sanskrit classics, Bengali literature, and the poetry of English Romanticists infused his writing with a unique blend of cultural influences. Tagore’s ability to navigate diverse intellectual traditions became a defining feature of his later literary endeavors.

In his teenage years, Tagore’s thirst for knowledge led him to explore the philosophical underpinnings of the Brahmo Samaj, the socio-religious movement that played a significant role in shaping his family’s ethos. The ideals of the Brahmo Samaj, emphasizing monotheism, rationality, and social reform, resonated deeply with Tagore and influenced his early poetry and writings.

The educational landscape in Tagore’s life underwent a transformative phase with the establishment of the experimental school at Santiniketan in 1901. Initially conceived as an alternative educational model, Santiniketan sought to break away from the rigid structures of traditional education prevalent in colonial India. The school, set amidst nature, aimed to provide an environment where learning was not confined to textbooks but embraced the world as a classroom.

Santiniketan’s curriculum was designed to foster a harmonious blend of Eastern and Western educational ideals. The emphasis on experiential learning, close interaction between students and teachers, and a curriculum that integrated arts, humanities, and sciences were groundbreaking in the context of early 20th-century India. Tagore envisioned education as a means to nurture creativity, critical thinking, and a deep appreciation for the interconnectedness of all knowledge.

In 1921, Santiniketan evolved into Visva-Bharati University, with an expanded vision of promoting international understanding through education and culture. The university attracted scholars and students from around the world, creating a cosmopolitan environment that reflected Tagore’s vision of a global community. Visva-Bharati became a hub for intellectual exchange, where discussions on literature, philosophy, and the arts transcended geographical and cultural boundaries.

Tagore’s approach to education at Visva-Bharati was deeply rooted in his belief that learning should not be compartmentalized but should foster a holistic understanding of life. His philosophy of education emphasized the interconnectedness of disciplines, the importance of experiential learning, and the role of the arts in shaping a well-rounded individual. The university’s emphasis on cultivating a spirit of inquiry, creativity, and social responsibility echoed Tagore’s broader vision for societal transformation.

While Tagore’s educational experiments garnered admiration, they also faced criticism from traditionalists who questioned the departure from established educational norms. However, Tagore remained steadfast in his belief that education should be a liberating force, empowering individuals to think critically and contribute meaningfully to society.

Tagore’s educational legacy extends beyond the boundaries of Visva-Bharati. His ideas on education continue to inspire educational thinkers globally, influencing discussions on alternative pedagogies, the integration of arts in education, and the role of education in fostering a global perspective.

Literary Achievements

Rabindranath Tagore’s literary achievements are both vast and profound, encompassing poetry, prose, short stories, novels, plays, and songs. His literary oeuvre, marked by a unique fusion of Eastern and Western influences, has left an indelible mark on the world of literature, earning him global acclaim and the distinction of being the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.

Tagore’s poetic journey began in his teenage years, and his first collection, “Bhanushingher Padavali,” was published when he was just sixteen. However, it was with the publication of “Manasi” in 1890 that he truly announced his arrival as a significant literary voice. The poems in “Manasi” reflected his deep connection with nature, his exploration of spiritual themes, and a keen observation of human emotions.

A turning point in Tagore’s literary career came with the publication of “Gitanjali” in 1910. Translated as “Song Offerings,” this collection of poems captured the essence of Tagore’s spiritual quest and deep reverence for the divine. The lyrical and profoundly philosophical poems resonated with readers around the world and played a pivotal role in earning him the Nobel Prize in Literature. The poem “Where the mind is without fear” from “Gitanjali” became an anthem for those yearning for freedom and enlightenment.

Tagore’s poetry is characterized by its simplicity, yet it carries profound philosophical and spiritual undertones. Nature, love, and a deep sense of introspection are recurring themes in his poetry. His verses often transcend individual experiences to explore universal truths, making them timeless and relatable across cultures.

Beyond poetry, Tagore’s prowess extended to the realm of prose. His short stories, compiled in volumes such as “Galpaguchchha” (Bunch of Stories), showcase his keen insight into human nature and society. These stories often depict the lives of ordinary people in rural Bengal, addressing themes of poverty, exploitation, and the complexities of human relationships. Tagore’s storytelling mastery lies in his ability to capture the nuances of life with simplicity and sensitivity.

Tagore’s novel “The Home and the World” (Ghare-Baire), published in 1916, is a classic exploration of the complexities of love, nationalism, and personal identity. Set against the backdrop of the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, the novel delves into the conflicts arising from personal and political allegiances. The characters grapple with their own desires, societal expectations, and the tumultuous political climate of the time. Tagore’s narrative skill and nuanced characterization make this novel a timeless exploration of human dilemmas.

In the realm of drama, Tagore’s playwriting brilliance shines through in works like “Chitrangada,” “Muktadhara,” and “Raktakarabi” (Red Oleanders). His plays often blend elements of mythology, social critique, and symbolism. “Chitrangada,” for instance, draws inspiration from a tale in the Mahabharata and explores themes of identity and empowerment. “Raktakarabi” is a powerful critique of tyranny and exploitation, using the symbolism of red oleanders to represent the bloodshed caused by oppressive regimes.

A significant aspect of Tagore’s literary contributions is his vast collection of songs, known as “Rabindra Sangeet.” Composed throughout his life, these songs cover a wide range of themes, from devotional hymns to songs of nature, love, and patriotism. The beauty of Tagore’s musical compositions lies in the seamless integration of his poetic lyrics with emotive melodies. “Rabindra Sangeet” remains an integral part of Bengali cultural heritage, with its timeless appeal crossing linguistic and cultural boundaries.

Tagore’s literary achievements were not confined to traditional forms. He experimented with genres and expressed his thoughts through essays, letters, and even visual art. His essays, collected in volumes such as “Sadhana” and “Nationalism,” reflect his philosophical musings on topics ranging from aesthetics to education and the human spirit. Tagore’s essays are characterized by a profound wisdom that transcends temporal and cultural boundaries.

The impact of Tagore’s literary achievements extends beyond the literary realm. His writings played a crucial role in shaping the intellectual landscape of India during the early 20th century. As a social and cultural critic, Tagore used his pen to advocate for societal reforms, criticize colonial oppression, and promote a harmonious coexistence of diverse cultural traditions.

Internationally, Tagore’s literary acclaim was solidified with the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. The award not only brought recognition to Tagore but also elevated Indian literature to the global stage. Tagore’s ability to convey the essence of human experience and his universal themes of love, spirituality, and freedom resonated with readers worldwide.

Tagore’s literary achievements are a testament to his multifaceted genius. His works continue to be studied, translated, and celebrated globally, and his impact on literature, music, and the arts endures. As an intellectual luminary, Tagore’s legacy extends beyond his literary creations to encompass his vision for a world where the human spirit transcends borders, and where the arts serve as a bridge between cultures.

Musical Contributions

Rabindranath Tagore’s musical contributions, encapsulated in the genre of “Rabindra Sangeet,” stand as a testament to his artistic brilliance and cultural legacy. As a prolific composer, Tagore created a vast repertoire of songs that transcended regional and linguistic boundaries, becoming an integral part of Bengali cultural heritage and earning him the title of “Bard of Bengal.”

Tagore’s musical journey unfolded organically alongside his literary and philosophical pursuits. From an early age, he displayed a keen interest in music, drawing inspiration from the rich musical traditions of India and the world. His exposure to classical Indian ragas, folk melodies, and Western musical forms fueled his creative exploration, leading to the development of a unique musical idiom.

“Rabindra Sangeet” is a genre of songs that seamlessly integrates Tagore’s poetic lyrics with his emotive melodies. The lyrical depth of his poetry is matched by the nuanced and evocative musical compositions, creating a symbiotic relationship between words and music. Tagore not only composed the music but also wrote the lyrics for the majority of his songs, showcasing his rare ability to weave together the intricacies of language and melody.

One of the distinctive features of “Rabindra Sangeet” is its universality. Tagore composed songs that touched upon a wide spectrum of human emotions and experiences—love, nature, spirituality, patriotism, and the human condition. This breadth of themes contributed to the enduring appeal of his music, making it accessible to people from diverse backgrounds and cultures.

Tagore’s exploration of diverse musical influences is evident in the variety of genres within “Rabindra Sangeet.” While some songs draw from classical Indian ragas, others are inspired by folk tunes or Western musical structures. Tagore’s willingness to experiment with different musical idioms reflects his commitment to creating a truly inclusive and expansive musical language.

The simplicity and accessibility of Tagore’s melodies are key factors in the popularity of his songs. The tunes, often characterized by a melodic fluidity, resonate with listeners on an emotional level. Whether it’s the soulful “Ekla Cholo Re” or the playful “Ore Bhai Phagun Legeche,” Tagore’s music has an innate ability to evoke a range of emotions and connect with the listener’s innermost feelings.

“Rabindra Sangeet” is not limited to the realm of artistic expression but has also played a significant role in shaping cultural and social identity. Tagore’s songs became anthems of the Bengali identity during a time when the region was grappling with political and cultural changes. His compositions, infused with a sense of patriotism and love for one’s roots, provided a cultural anchor for the Bengali community.

Tagore’s vision for “Rabindra Sangeet” extended beyond the confines of individual creativity. He believed in the democratization of music, encouraging people from all walks of life to engage with and perform his songs. This inclusive approach to music aligned with his broader philosophy of fostering a cultural renaissance that embraced diversity and rejected elitism.

The impact of Tagore’s musical contributions extends to educational institutions as well. Visva-Bharati University, founded by Tagore, became a hub for the study and practice of “Rabindra Sangeet.” The university’s emphasis on integrating arts and culture into education allowed students to immerse themselves in the beauty and depth of Tagore’s musical legacy.

Tagore’s influence on music extended to his collaboration with renowned musicians of his time. He worked closely with figures like Dinendranath Tagore, Atul Prasad Sen, and Kazi Nazrul Islam, contributing to the cross-pollination of musical ideas. These collaborations enriched the musical landscape of Bengal and added new dimensions to the evolving tradition of “Rabindra Sangeet.”

The international recognition of Tagore’s musical genius was solidified by the inclusion of “Jana Gana Mana,” a poem he wrote, in the national anthem of India. The power and resonance of Tagore’s words set to music continue to inspire millions of Indians and stand as a testament to the enduring impact of his musical contributions.

Tagore’s musical legacy remains vibrant and relevant in the contemporary world. His compositions are not confined to concert halls or academic settings; they are part of the everyday lives of Bengalis and continue to find new audiences worldwide. The adaptability of “Rabindra Sangeet” has been demonstrated through various interpretations and renditions by artists across genres and cultures.

Philosophical Perspectives

Rabindranath Tagore, a polymath whose intellectual legacy extends far beyond his literary and musical contributions, was a philosopher whose thoughts touched upon a myriad of subjects ranging from spirituality and education to nationalism and humanism. His philosophical perspectives, often deeply rooted in the cultural and intellectual context of his time, reflect a profound engagement with the complexities of existence and a visionary outlook that continues to inspire contemporary thinkers.

At the core of Tagore’s philosophical outlook was a profound spirituality that transcended narrow religious boundaries. Influenced by the Brahmo Samaj, a reformist socio-religious movement in India, Tagore advocated for a spirituality that was universal, emphasizing the divine within each individual. His approach to spirituality was not confined to rituals or dogmas but sought to foster a direct and personal connection with the divine through introspection and a deep appreciation of nature.

Tagore’s philosophy of education was equally revolutionary. The establishment of Santiniketan and later Visva-Bharati University reflected his belief in an education that went beyond the mere accumulation of knowledge. He envisioned an education that nurtured creativity, encouraged critical thinking, and embraced the interconnectedness of disciplines. Tagore’s emphasis on experiential learning, close interaction between students and teachers, and a curriculum that integrated arts, humanities, and sciences challenged the conventional norms of his time.

The concept of “Visva-Bharati” itself embodies Tagore’s vision of a world where the pursuit of knowledge is not confined by geographical or cultural boundaries. It translates to “the communion of the world,” signifying an inclusive and global approach to education and culture. Tagore envisioned Visva-Bharati as a space where East and West could meet, fostering a dialogue between different civilizations to create a richer and more harmonious world.

Tagore’s thoughts on nationalism were nuanced and distinctive. While he actively participated in the Indian nationalist movement, he offered a perspective that went beyond narrow political boundaries. In his essay “Nationalism in India,” Tagore criticized the exclusivity and aggressive nature of certain nationalist sentiments. He argued for a nationalism that embraced cultural diversity and rejected the imposition of a single, homogenous identity. Tagore’s vision of nationalism was rooted in a deep love for one’s culture but not at the expense of understanding and appreciating other cultures.

The interconnectedness of humanity was a recurring theme in Tagore’s philosophy. He believed in the essential unity of all human beings, transcending the divisions created by nationality, race, or religion. Tagore’s emphasis on the universality of human experience and his rejection of narrow identities anticipated the challenges of a globalized world and the importance of fostering mutual understanding and cooperation among diverse cultures.

Tagore’s reflections on the human spirit and its relationship with nature were central to his philosophical musings. His deep connection with nature permeates his poetry, where he often portrayed the natural world as a reflection of the divine. Tagore saw nature as a source of inspiration, a teacher, and a reminder of the interconnectedness of all living beings. His philosophical perspective on nature influenced not only his literature but also his educational ideals, where nature played a pivotal role in the learning process at Santiniketan.

In his collection of essays titled “Sadhana,” Tagore explored the concept of the ideal man and the path to self-realization. He emphasized the importance of harmonizing the material and spiritual aspects of life, advocating for a balanced and integrated approach to human existence. Tagore’s ideas on self-realization and spiritual fulfillment underscored his belief in the transformative power of individual introspection and the pursuit of higher ideals.

Tagore’s philosophical perspectives were not confined to abstract theorizing; they were intricately woven into the fabric of his literary and artistic creations. His poems, essays, plays, and songs collectively formed a mosaic of ideas that reflected his deep engagement with the human experience and his quest for a more enlightened and compassionate world.

Political Involvement

Rabindranath Tagore’s political involvement was marked by a nuanced and visionary approach that distinguished him from many of his contemporaries. While he actively participated in the Indian nationalist movement, his views on politics went beyond conventional boundaries, reflecting a deep concern for the spiritual and cultural aspects of societal transformation.

Tagore’s engagement with politics was evident during a period of significant political upheaval in India. The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the rise of the Indian nationalist movement against British colonial rule. Tagore, despite being critical of certain aspects of British imperialism, approached the nationalist cause with a distinctive perspective. His vision was not limited to political independence but included a broader call for spiritual and cultural renewal.

In 1905, the partition of Bengal by the British sparked widespread protests in India. Tagore vehemently opposed this divisive move, which sought to create religious and linguistic divisions. His protest took the form of literary and cultural expressions, including the creation of the famous song “Amar Sonar Bangla” (My Golden Bengal), which later became the national anthem of Bangladesh. Tagore’s opposition to the partition showcased his early political awareness and his ability to channel his sentiments through artistic and cultural means.

Despite his participation in nationalist causes, Tagore maintained a critical distance from some aspects of mainstream politics. He was wary of the potential dangers of unchecked nationalism, cautioning against the narrow and exclusionary tendencies that could arise. In his essay “Nationalism in India,” Tagore expressed concerns about the aggressive nature of certain nationalist sentiments, warning against the imposition of a single, homogenous identity that could suppress cultural diversity.

Tagore’s critique of nationalism aligned with his broader philosophical outlook, which emphasized the essential unity of humanity. He believed in the interconnectedness of cultures and rejected the idea of an exclusive national identity that could lead to conflict. Tagore’s vision of nationalism was rooted in a deep love for one’s culture but was not at the expense of understanding and appreciating other cultures. His call for a more inclusive nationalism resonates with contemporary discussions on multiculturalism and diversity.

In the later stages of the Indian nationalist movement, Tagore’s views diverged from some of the more assertive and confrontational approaches. He grew increasingly disillusioned with the trajectory of Indian politics, expressing reservations about the dominant political narratives and strategies. Tagore’s concerns were not limited to the political sphere; they extended to the societal and cultural transformations unfolding in India.

Tagore’s political involvement took a unique turn with his decision to renounce the knighthood conferred upon him by the British Crown in 1919, in protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. This symbolic act was both a personal expression of anguish and a powerful political statement. It underscored Tagore’s commitment to moral principles and his refusal to be associated with a regime responsible for the brutal suppression of peaceful protests.

In the realm of international politics, Tagore was an advocate for global understanding and cooperation. His travels and interactions with intellectuals from different parts of the world contributed to his belief in the unity of humanity. Tagore envisioned a world where cultural exchange and dialogue could foster mutual respect and prevent the seeds of conflict from taking root. His commitment to internationalism reflected a deep concern for the well-being of humanity beyond national borders.

Tagore’s engagement with politics was not confined to theoretical discussions; he actively participated in social and educational reforms. The establishment of Santiniketan in 1901 and later its transformation into Visva-Bharati University in 1921 were part of Tagore’s broader vision for societal transformation. Through education and cultural exchange, he sought to create a more enlightened and harmonious society.

Shantiniketan and Visva-Bharati

Shantiniketan, the serene abode of peace, and Visva-Bharati, the university of the world, stand as testaments to Rabindranath Tagore’s visionary ideas in the realm of education and culture. These institutions, founded by Tagore in the early 20th century, were not merely physical spaces but embodied his holistic philosophy of learning, emphasizing the interconnectedness of disciplines, the importance of creative expression, and the universality of knowledge.

Shantiniketan, initially established by Tagore in 1901, emerged as an experimental school that aimed to break away from the rigid structures of traditional education prevalent in colonial India. The name itself, meaning “abode of peace,” reflected Tagore’s aspiration to create an environment conducive to the harmonious development of mind, body, and spirit. Shantiniketan was envisioned as a space where nature played a crucial role in the learning process, and students engaged in open-air classes amidst the tranquility of the surrounding landscape.

The curriculum at Shantiniketan was designed to foster a holistic understanding of life. Tagore believed in the integration of arts, humanities, and sciences, emphasizing that education should not be confined to textbooks but should embrace the world as a classroom. The pedagogical approach involved close interaction between students and teachers, encouraging a spirit of inquiry, creativity, and critical thinking.

The vibrant cultural life at Shantiniketan was an integral part of Tagore’s educational philosophy. The institution became a center for artistic and intellectual pursuits, where students were exposed to a diverse range of cultural traditions. Tagore’s emphasis on cultural exchange aimed to broaden students’ horizons and instill in them a sense of global citizenship.

Shantiniketan’s connection with the Brahmo Samaj, a socio-religious reform movement in India, also influenced its ethos. Tagore’s family had a deep association with the Brahmo Samaj, and this connection manifested in the inclusive and progressive values that permeated Shantiniketan’s educational environment.

The success of Shantiniketan as an educational experiment prompted its expansion and transformation into Visva-Bharati University in 1921. The new institution, translating to “the university of the world,” represented Tagore’s broader vision for integrating the best of the East and the West in education and culture. Visva-Bharati was conceived as a place where students and scholars from different corners of the globe could come together to engage in a shared pursuit of knowledge and creativity.

Visva-Bharati embraced a unique structure, combining traditional Indian methods of teaching with contemporary global influences. The university had separate units, each dedicated to a specific discipline, known as “Patha Bhavans.” These units emphasized the integration of traditional knowledge systems with modern educational methodologies.

Tagore’s philosophy of education at Visva-Bharati was a departure from the prevalent models of his time. His insistence on the interconnectedness of disciplines, the role of arts in education, and the need for a global perspective challenged established norms. Tagore’s emphasis on the pursuit of knowledge as a means to foster global understanding remains relevant in the contemporary landscape.

Cultural exchange played a vital role in the life of Visva-Bharati. The institution attracted scholars and artists from various parts of the world, creating a cosmopolitan environment that reflected Tagore’s vision of a global community. Visva-Bharati became a hub for intellectual discussions, artistic collaborations, and the celebration of diverse cultural traditions.

One of the unique features of Visva-Bharati was its celebration of the annual Poush Mela, a fair that brought together people from different backgrounds to showcase their cultural heritage. This celebration echoed Tagore’s belief in the importance of cultural diversity and served as a platform for the exchange of ideas and traditions.

Tagore’s educational ideals were not confined to the academic sphere; they extended to the arts and creative expression. The emphasis on “Siksha Satra,” the education of the whole being, highlighted the integral role of arts, music, and literature in the educational process. The “Rabindra Sangeet” and “Rabindra Nritya,” forms of music and dance created by Tagore, found a central place in the cultural life of Visva-Bharati.

While Tagore’s educational experiments received acclaim, they were not without challenges and criticisms. Some traditionalists questioned the departure from established norms, and financial constraints affected the institutions at times. However, Tagore’s steadfast commitment to his vision and his ability to adapt and evolve in response to challenges ensured the endurance of Shantiniketan and Visva-Bharati.

International Influence

Rabindranath Tagore’s international influence transcends borders and continues to resonate across cultures, marking him as a truly global intellectual figure. His impact on literature, philosophy, and the arts extends far beyond the confines of his native Bengal, earning him recognition as the first non-European Nobel laureate in Literature and a revered cultural ambassador to the world.

Tagore’s international journey began with his travels to the West, where he engaged with prominent thinkers, artists, and intellectuals of his time. His interactions with luminaries such as William Butler Yeats, Albert Einstein , and Ezra Pound enriched his intellectual outlook and facilitated cross-cultural dialogue. Tagore’s ability to articulate complex philosophical ideas in a language accessible to diverse audiences contributed to the global reception of his works.

The publication of Tagore’s poetry in English, particularly the collection “Gitanjali” (Song Offerings), catapulted him to international acclaim. The English translations of his poems, done in collaboration with W. B. Yeats, resonated with readers worldwide, capturing the essence of Tagore’s spiritual quest and philosophical reflections. The global reception of “Gitanjali” played a pivotal role in Tagore being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913, elevating Indian literature to the international stage.

Tagore’s literary influence extended to various parts of the world, with translations of his works becoming available in multiple languages. His universal themes of love, nature, spirituality, and the human condition appealed to a broad spectrum of readers, fostering a global appreciation for his literary contributions. The profound simplicity of Tagore’s poetry allowed it to transcend cultural and linguistic barriers, creating a shared space for readers from different backgrounds.

Tagore’s engagement with Western philosophical ideas, particularly his exploration of the works of the Romantic poets and his interactions with European intellectuals, shaped his worldview. His ability to synthesize Eastern and Western thought contributed to his international appeal, offering a perspective that resonated with individuals navigating the complexities of cultural synthesis in a globalized world.

The establishment of Visva-Bharati University in 1921 further solidified Tagore’s role as a cultural ambassador. Visva-Bharati attracted scholars and students from around the world, creating an environment where diverse cultures could engage in a shared pursuit of knowledge. The university became a platform for cross-cultural dialogue, embodying Tagore’s vision of a global community that transcended geographical and cultural boundaries.

Tagore’s influence on Western literature and thought is evident in the works of intellectuals like W. B. Yeats, who admired Tagore’s poetry and saw in him a source of inspiration. Yeats wrote the introduction to the English edition of “Gitanjali” and acknowledged the profound impact Tagore’s works had on his own poetic sensibilities. Tagore’s influence also extended to other writers, including André Gide and T. S. Eliot, who acknowledged the significance of his contributions to world literature.

In the realm of philosophy, Tagore’s ideas on spirituality, the interconnectedness of humanity, and the pursuit of a harmonious existence found resonance with thinkers worldwide. His philosophical reflections, expressed in essays like those found in “Sadhana,” offered a unique perspective that appealed to those seeking a synthesis of Eastern and Western thought. Tagore’s influence on the philosophical discourse extended to the likes of Albert Einstein, with whom he engaged in a series of dialogues exploring the nature of reality and the human spirit.

Tagore’s impact on the arts was not limited to literature; it extended to music, dance, and visual arts. His compositions of “Rabindra Sangeet” (Tagore’s songs) remain an integral part of Bengal’s cultural heritage, and their universal themes have been embraced by musicians worldwide. Tagore’s experiments with dance, such as “Rabindra Nritya,” contributed to the evolution of modern dance forms and influenced artists beyond Indian shores.

The internationalization of Tagore’s legacy continued in the postcolonial era, with scholars and artists from different continents engaging with his works. Tagore’s ideas on education, spirituality, and the human condition resonated with a global audience grappling with questions of identity, cultural diversity, and the pursuit of a more harmonious world.

In contemporary times, Tagore’s influence endures through ongoing translations of his works, academic studies, and cultural festivals celebrating his legacy. The universality of Tagore’s ideas remains relevant in discussions on globalization, multiculturalism, and the importance of preserving cultural diversity in a rapidly changing world.

Nobel Prize in Literature

Rabindranath Tagore’s Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 was a historic milestone not only for him but also for Indian literature and the global recognition of non-Western literary traditions. The award marked the first time the Nobel Prize was bestowed upon a non-European, underscoring the universal appeal and profound impact of Tagore’s literary contributions.

The specific work for which Tagore received the Nobel Prize was “Gitanjali,” meaning “Song Offerings.” Originally published in Bengali in 1910, the English version of the collection was released in 1912, thanks to the collaborative efforts of Tagore and W. B. Yeats. The poems in “Gitanjali” encapsulated Tagore’s spiritual quest, profound reflections on the human condition, and a deep connection with the divine.

The Nobel Committee, in awarding Tagore the Prize in Literature, acknowledged his “profoundly sensitive, fresh, and beautiful verse” that made a lasting impact on the world of poetry. The committee recognized the lyrical quality and philosophical depth of Tagore’s poetry, stating that it had been “universally accepted as the pure expression of the Indian spirit.”

Tagore’s Nobel Prize was not merely a recognition of his literary prowess but also a symbolic acknowledgment of the rich cultural heritage and intellectual depth of India. At a time when the dominant narrative in the literary world was Eurocentric, Tagore’s award challenged the prevailing norms and expanded the scope of what was considered universally significant in literature.

The impact of Tagore’s Nobel Prize extended beyond the literary sphere to the broader socio-cultural and political landscape. It invigorated the Indian nationalist movement by providing a cultural rallying point and a validation of India’s intellectual and artistic contributions. Tagore’s win became a source of pride for Indians aspiring to assert their identity and voice on the global stage.

The Nobel Prize also elevated Tagore to the status of a global cultural ambassador. His travels to the West following the award facilitated interactions with intellectuals, artists, and political leaders, contributing to cross-cultural dialogue. Tagore’s ability to articulate complex philosophical ideas in a language accessible to diverse audiences enhanced his international appeal.

The significance of Tagore’s Nobel Prize was not confined to his homeland; it resonated across continents. His poetic expressions of universal themes—love, nature, spirituality—found resonance with readers worldwide. Translations of “Gitanjali” and other works contributed to the global dissemination of Tagore’s ideas, fostering a deeper understanding of Indian literature and philosophy.

However, Tagore’s reception in the West was not without its complexities. While some lauded him as a literary genius and a spiritual guide, others struggled to reconcile his Eastern perspective with Western literary traditions. Tagore’s win challenged entrenched notions of what constituted “great literature,” prompting a reevaluation of the criteria used to assess literary merit on the global stage.

Tagore’s Nobel Prize set a precedent for future recognitions of literary achievements from non-European traditions. It opened doors for a more inclusive understanding of literature that acknowledged the diversity of voices and perspectives across cultures. Subsequent Nobel laureates from different regions and linguistic backgrounds owe, in part, their recognition to Tagore’s groundbreaking achievement.

Legacy and Influence

Rabindranath Tagore’s legacy is profound and far-reaching, touching various aspects of literature, philosophy, music, and social reform. His impact on Indian culture and beyond has endured through the years, solidifying his position as a global intellectual giant.

One of Tagore’s most enduring contributions lies in his literary works. His poetry, short stories, novels, and plays reflect a deep understanding of human emotions, nature, and spirituality. Tagore’s writing often transcended the boundaries of language and culture, creating a universal appeal that resonated with people worldwide. His magnum opus, “Gitanjali” (Song Offerings), a collection of poems, earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. The lyrical beauty and spiritual depth of “Gitanjali” captivated readers globally and introduced them to the richness of Indian literature.

Beyond literature, Tagore was a visionary in education. In 1901, he founded Santiniketan, an experimental school that eventually grew into Visva-Bharati University. Tagore envisioned an educational system that combined the best of Eastern and Western traditions, emphasizing a holistic approach to learning. He believed in fostering creativity, critical thinking, and a connection with nature. Visva-Bharati became a center for art, literature, and music, attracting scholars and students from around the world.

Tagore’s influence extended to the realm of music. He composed thousands of songs, known as Rabindra Sangeet, which merged classical Indian music with his poetic lyrics. These songs became an integral part of Bengal’s cultural fabric and continue to be celebrated. The timeless appeal of Rabindra Sangeet lies in its ability to evoke a range of emotions and convey profound philosophical ideas.

As a social reformer, Tagore was ahead of his time. He criticized social norms and advocated for gender equality, opposing practices like child marriage. His play “Chitrangada” explores themes of female empowerment and challenges traditional gender roles. Tagore’s progressive views on societal issues contributed to the shaping of modern India’s social fabric.

Tagore was also a strong advocate for political independence. His opposition to British colonial rule was expressed through his writings, speeches, and active participation in the Indian nationalist movement. Although he was initially optimistic about the potential for harmonious coexistence between India and Britain, his views evolved as he witnessed the oppressive nature of colonial rule. Tagore returned the knighthood bestowed upon him as a protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919, a tragic event that deeply disturbed him.

Internationally, Tagore’s influence extended beyond literature. His ideas resonated with intellectuals such as Albert Einstein, with whom he engaged in a series of insightful correspondences on the intersections of science, philosophy, and spirituality. Tagore’s concept of the ‘One World’ emphasized the interconnectedness of humanity and the need for global cooperation, anticipating ideas that would gain prominence in the later half of the 20th century.

Tagore’s legacy endures not only through his own works but also through the generations of writers, artists, and thinkers he inspired. His ideas on education, culture, and spirituality continue to shape discourse in diverse fields. Institutions like Visva-Bharati University serve as living testimonies to his vision, nurturing generations of individuals who carry forward Tagore’s multifaceted legacy.

In contemporary times, Tagore’s influence can be seen in various artistic expressions, academic discourses, and cultural celebrations. The celebration of his birth anniversary, known as Rabindra Jayanti, is a significant event in India and beyond, marked by performances of Rabindra Sangeet, recitations of his poetry, and discussions on his legacy.

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Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore was born in Calcutta, India, on May 7, 1861. He was the son of Debendranath Tagore, a prominent philosopher and religious reformer. Throughout his childhood, Tagore was educated by tutors and wrote extensively, despite a marked disinterest for traditional schooling. In 1877, he sailed to England to study. He remained for just fourteen months, during which he was schooled in Brighton, East Sussex and at University College, where he studied law and attended lectures on English literature. He expressed dissatisfaction with the constraints of Western educational practices in England, however, and returned to India. 

Throughout his career, Tagore not only wrote and translated poetry, but published numerous novels, short stories, plays, letters, essays, memoirs, and criticism. He was also known for his musical compositions. Tagore’s most notable work of poetry is Gitanjali: Song Offerings (Macmillan, 1912), for which he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. He was the first non-European, as well as the first lyricist, to win the prize. Other notable poetry publications, written and published in Bengali, include Sonar Tari [The Golden Boat] (1894) and Manasi [The Ideal One] (1890). Tagore often published first in Bengali, then translated his own work to English. He wrote novels, plays, and short stories in both languages, including the plays Chitra (India Society of London, 1914) and The Post Office (Cuala Press, 1914). He is credited with pioneering the short story form in Bengali literature, with some of his best work collected in The Hungry Stones and Other Stories (Macmillan, 1916) and The Glimpses of Bengal Life (G. A. Nateson & Co., 1913). His short stories were especially famous in India, as many were based on his ten years in Shilaidah and Shazadpur, where he went to manage his family’s estates in the 1890s. During this time, he lived on a houseboat on the Padma River and socialized with the neighboring villagers. His compassion for them, and his belief in education for all, deeply influenced his short stories, as well as his later activism. Tagore’s stances on Indian independence, the caste system, education, religion, and other sociopolitical issues were expressed through his work. 

In his introduction to the English translation of Gitanjali , W. B. Yeats lauds Tagore’s poetic vision, writing: “these lyrics […] display in their thought a world I have dreamed of all my life long. The work of a supreme culture, they yet appear as much the growth of the common soil as the grass and the rushes. A tradition, where poetry and religion are the same thing, has passed through the centuries, gathering from learned and unlearned metaphor and emotion, and carried back again to the multitude the thought of the scholar and of the noble.” 

In 1901, Tagore’s work as an educator and activist led to his founding an experimental school at Shantiniketan, a retreat in rural Bengal that his father created in 1863. There, he hoped to merge Eastern and Western educational traditions. He believed there might be a more natural way for young people to learn, utilizing a method which would foster their imagination and instincts. For a time, he lived at the school, which became the international Visva-Bharati University. In 1912, Tagore left the school to read his work across Europe, America, and East Asia, and to lecture and advocate for Indian independence. In 1919, as a protest against the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, he rejected the British knighthood in 1915. Six years later, Tagore and Leonard Elmhirst founded the “Institute for Rural Reconstruction,” a feature of the Visva-Bharati University experiments. Through the institute, many of the concerns that Tagore expressed in his early short stories came to fruition: he believed rural India was barred from mainstream intellectual and urban life, and sought to facilitate a collaborative education. He requested aid from various artists, donors, and scholars across the world for this project. 

While Tagore pursued writing, teaching, and activism during much of his life, he became recognized as a painter when he was in his sixties, with many of his works enjoying success at exhibitions in Europe. 

Tagore died on August 7, 1941, in Calcutta.  

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From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967, Editor Horst Frenz, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1969

Acknowledgement: This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. For more details, visit the Tagore's biography page in Nobelprize.Org.

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Rabindranath Tagore: Biography

Last updated on February 20, 2022 by ClearIAS Team

Rabindranath Tagore was an iconic figure in the Indian cultural renaissance. He was a polymath poet, philosopher, musician, writer, and educationist.

Rabindranath Tagore became the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize in 1913 for his collection of poems, Gitanjali.

He was called Gurudev, Kabiguru, and Biswakabi affectionately and his songs are popularly known as Rabindrasangeet.

The national anthems of India and Bangladesh – the Jana Gana Mana and the Amar Shonar Bangla respectively are from the Rabindrasangeet.

Table of Contents

The early life of Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore was born on 7 th May 1861 in Calcutta as the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi.

His grandfather Dwarkanath Tagore was a rich landlord and social reformer. His father, Debendranath Tagore was a leader of the Brahmo Samaj , a new religious sect in nineteenth-century Bengal which attempted a revival of the ultimate monistic basis of Hinduism as laid down in the Upanishads.

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The Tagore family was a treasure trove of talent in every field. They hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly. Tagore’s father invited several professional musicians to stay in the house and teach Indian Classical music to the children.

Tagore’s oldest brother Dwijendranath was a philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Another brother, Jyotitindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright. His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist.

Rabindra Nath Tagore had his initial education in Oriental Seminary School. But he did not like the conventional education and started studying at home under several teachers. He was mostly trained by his siblings both in literary as well as physical activities like gymnastics and martial arts.

Tagore was a child prodigy when it comes to writing as he has started writing and publishing poetry by the age of eight.

In 1873, at the age of eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta to tour India for several months. He visited his father’s Santiniketan estate and Amritsar before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie where he read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the classical poetry of Kalidasa.

At the age of seventeen, he was sent to England for formal law schooling but he did not finish his studies there. He rather took up independent studies of Shakespeare.

He returned from England in 1880 and regularly published poems, stories, and novels in Bengali, slowly starting to transform Bengali literature.

In 1883, he married Mrinalini Devi, a child bride as was the tradition in those times.

Rabindranath Tagore in Santiniketan

Tagore moved to Santiniketan ashram in 1901, where he started an experimental school based on traditional guru-shishya teaching methods from the Upanishads. He hoped that the revival of the ancient methods of teaching will be more beneficial than the British imparted modern education system.

His wife and two of their children died during this time which left him distraught.

After his return from England and during his stay in Santiniketan, Tagore wrote several literary works of poetry, stories, and novels. His works had started gaining immense popularity in India as well as abroad.

In 1909, Rabindranath Tagore started writing Gitanjali. In 1912, Tagore went to Europe for the second time. On the journey to London, he translated some of his poems/songs from Gitanjali to English. He met William Rothenstein, a noted British painter, in London who was impressed by the poems, made copies, and gave to Yeats and other English poets. Yeats was enthralled and later wrote the introduction to Gitanjali when it was published in September 1912 in a limited edition by the India Society in London. And in 1913, this collection of poems won the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was the first non-European to receive the prestigious award.

In 1915, he was awarded a knighthood by King George V.

Rabindranath Tagore in Independence movement

Tagore participated in the Indian nationalist movement from time to time, though in his own non-sentimental and visionary way; and Gandhi, the political father of modern India , was his devoted friend. Tagore came to be recognized as one of the architects of modern India.

India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru , wrote in  Discovery of India , “Tagore and Gandhi have undoubtedly been the two outstanding and dominating figures in the first half of the twentieth century. Tagore’s influence over the mind of India, and especially of successive rising generations has been tremendous. Not Bengali only, the language in which he wrote, but all the modern languages of India have been molded partly by his writings. More than any other Indian, he has helped to bring into harmony the ideals of the East and the West, and broadened the bases of Indian nationalism.”

In 1905, Viceroy Curzon decided to divide Bengal into two parts. Rabindranath Tagore strongly protested against this decision. Tagore wrote many national songs and attended protest meetings. He initiated the Rakhibandhan ceremony, symbolizing the underlying unity of undivided Bengal.

In 1919, following the Jallianwala Bagh massacre , Tagore renounced his knighthood condemning the act. He was a supporter of Gandhiji but he stayed out of politics. He was opposed to nationalism and militarism as a matter of principle, and instead promoted spiritual values and the creation of a new world culture founded in multi-culturalism, diversity, and tolerance.

Tagore the educationalist

1n 1921, Rabindranath Tagore established Viswabharati University and gave all his money from Nobel Prize and royalty money from his books to this University.

Tagore was quite knowledgeable of Western culture, especially Western poetry and sciences. Tagore had a good grasp of modern – post-Newtonian – physics and was well able to hold his own in a debate with Einstein in 1930 on the newly emerging principles of quantum mechanics and chaos. His meetings and tape-recorded conversations with his contemporaries such as Albert Einstein and H.G. Wells, epitomize his brilliance.

In 1940 Oxford University arranged a special ceremony in Santiniketan and awarded Rabindranath Tagore with a Doctorate of Literature.

Literary works of Rabindranath Tagore

Although Tagore wrote successfully in all literary genres, he was, first of all, a poet. Among his fifty and odd volumes of poetry are:

Manasi  (1890) (The Ideal One),  Sonar Tari  (1894) (The Golden Boat),  Gitanjali (1910) (Song Offerings), Gitimalya  (1914) (Wreath of Songs), and  Balaka  (1916) (The Flight of Cranes).

The English renderings of his poetry, which include  The Gardener  (1913),  Fruit-Gathering  (1916), and  The Fugitive  (1921), do not generally correspond to particular volumes in the original Bengali.

Tagore’s major plays are  Raja  (1910) [The King of the Dark Chamber],  Dakghar  (1912) [The Post Office] ,   Achalayatan  (1912) [The Immovable],  Muktadhara  (1922) [The Waterfall], and  Raktakaravi  (1926) [Red Oleanders].

He is the author of several volumes of short stories and many novels, among them Gora  (1910),  Ghare-Baire  (1916) [ The Home and the World ], and  Yogayog  (1929) [Crosscurrents].

Besides these, he wrote musical dramas, dance dramas, essays of all types, travel diaries, and two autobiographies, one in his middle years and the other shortly before his death in 1941. Tagore also left numerous drawings and paintings, and songs for which he wrote the music himself.

He also played the title role in his first original dramatic piece- Valmiki Pratibha.

After an extended period of suffering, Tagore died on August 7, 1941, in the same mansion in which he was brought up.

Legacy of Rabindranath Tagore:

Rabindranath Tagore changed the way Bengali literature was perceived as he left an everlasting impression on the readers.

Many countries have his statues erected and host many yearly events to pay tribute to the legendary writer.

Many of his works have been made global, thanks to a host of translations by many famous international writers.

There are five museums dedicated to Tagore. While three of them are situated in India, the remaining two are in Bangladesh. The museums’ house his famous works, and are visited by millions every year.

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• Rabindranath Tagore Biography

Introduction

Rabindranath Thakur was a man of various talents. He was recognized by people all over the globe for his literary works - poetry, philosophies, plays, and especially his songwriting. Rabindranath Tagore was the man who gave India, its National Anthem. He was one of the greatest entities of all time and the only Indian to receive a Nobel Prize.

Rabindranath Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1913, becoming the first non-European to receive the honour. He was only sixteen years old when he was to publish his first short story called “Bhanisimha”, was published. Rabindranath Tagore was born on the 07th of May, 1861 in Kolkata. Rabindranath Tagore was the son of Debendranath Tagore, one of Brahmo Samaj’s active members, a known and celebrated philosopher, and literate. R.N Tagore died after a prolonged illness on the 07th of August, 1941.

Rabindranath Tagore Childhood and Education

While growing up, R.N Tagore shared a very intimate relationship with his elder brother and his sister-in-law. Rabindranath Tagore's father's name is Debendranath Tagore, and his mother’s name is Sarada Devi. Rabindranath Tagore's birthday is on the 7th of May, 1861, and he was born in Calcutta, Bengal Presidency then. It is believed that they did everything together. Rabindranath Tagore's education didn’t seem too impressive. 

R.N Tagore did not enjoy schooling, and he was mostly found procrastinating and pondering for hours. He went to one of the most prestigious St. Xavier’s School, and later, he went to the University of London in Bridgton, England, to study law and become a barrister. Still, as we know, he did not enjoy schooling much; he returned home in two years but without a degree. Even though he did not enjoy schooling much, he was always found with books, pen, and ink. He would always be scribbling things in his notebook; however, he was shy to reveal his writings.

Growing Years and Career

R.N Tagore was only eight years old when he first wrote a poem. By the age of sixteen, his short story got published, titled “Bhanusimha”. R.N Tagore’s contribution to literature is beyond any measure. He was the one who had introduced new verses and prose and also lingua franca in his mother tongue, which is Bangla. R.N Tagore after returning to India after leaving his education, but he did not leave literature. 

R.N Tagore published several books of Rabindranath Tagore poems and short stories, plays, and songs. His most renowned work, called “Gitanjali”, was very well received all over India and England. He is the author of two National Anthems, which are “Amar Sonar Bangla” for Bangladesh and  “Jana Gana Mana” for India. He worked with very unfamiliar and different styles in Bangla Language. Some of them are heavily immersed in social and political satire. He was one of those who believed in global peace and equality. He is one of the pioneers of contemporary Bengali literature. 

After returning to India, he completed and published his book of poems called “Manasi” which was believed to contain his best poems. “Manasi” contained several verse forms which were fresh to contemporary Bengali literature, and it also contained some political and social satire that questioned and mocked R.N Tagore’s fellow Bengalis. 

Besides writing and working on literature, R.N Tagore also participated in the family business. In 1891, he went to East Bengal, which is now in Bangladesh, to look after his ancestral estates and lands at Shahzadpur and Shilaidaha for almost 10 years. He spent some time in a houseboat at Padma river, and his sympathy for village folk became the keynote of most literature later in his life. In East India, poems and other works of Rabindranath Tagore were published as a collection in the book called “Sonar Tari” and a very notable and celebrated play called “Chitrangada”. He has written over two thousand songs which are very popular in Bengal until now. When R.N Tagore was in his 60s, he tried his hand at painting, and for the talented man he was, his works won him a good name among India’s topmost contemporary artists.

Rabindranath Tagore and Shantiniketan

Rabindranath Tagore received his nickname “Gurudev”, out of respect by his pupils at his very unique and special school, which he established in Shantiniketan, called “Visva Bharati University” Santiniketan was developed and founded by the Tagore family. This little town was very close to Rabindranath Tagore. 

R.N Tagore wrote several poems and songs about this place. Unlike other universities, “Visva Bharati” University was open to each student who was eager to learn. The classrooms and the scope for learning in this university were not confined within four walls. Instead, classes took place in open space, beneath the massive banyan trees on the university grounds. To this date, this ritual of attending classes in open spaces is practiced by the students and the teachers. R.N Tagore permanently moved to the school after.

Rabindranath Tagore Death and His Encounters with Death

R.N Tagore was only fourteen years old when Sharada Devi, his mother, passed away. After his mother's sudden and heartbreaking demise, R.N Tagore was mostly seen avoiding classrooms and schooling. Instead, he would roam about his town Bolpur. He had to face the death of several of his loved ones, that too, one after the other, which left him devastated and heartbroken. After his mother, R.N Tagore lost a very close friend and a very significant influence, Kadambari Devi, his sister-in-law. It is presumed that R.N Tagore’s novella called “Nastanirh” was about Kadambari Devi.

It is also believed that she had committed suicide four months after R.N Tagore’s marriage to Mrinalini Devi. There are some serious speculations made about R.N Tagore, and his sister-in-law sharing a very intimate relationship and that maybe the two were in love; however, there has been no confirmation on the same. Later, his wife, Mrinalini Devi, too died due to an illness. He lost his two daughters, Madhurilata, who R.N Tagore adored and was fond of the most due to tuberculosis, and Renuka and his son Shamindranath due to cholera. These deaths shook him to the core, but he never failed to pick up his pen again. Even though all these encounters with death gave him shaping his personality and writing style, he kept longing for a companion who shares the same interests as he does. 

Life was a little less cruel to him at this point. When he found that companion, he had been longing for - his niece Indira Devi, who was highly educated and well-read. R.N Tagore wrote to her about some sensitive details about his life. These letters to Indira Devi witnessed the sheer vulnerability of his emotional state, sensibilities, and experiences. Since Indira Devi had copied all his letters in a notebook; it eventually got published. “Chinnapatra” can give one a glimpse of Tagore’s growth as a human and as an artist. Grief had been a constant part of R.N Tagore’s life, which is often reflected in his literary works; after losing Rabindranath Tagore's wife and daughters, he lost his father too. These years of sadness and sorrow, which were very actively reflected in his literary works, were introduced as “Gitanjali” which won him the Nobel Prize.

Rabindranath Tagore and His Nationalism

R.N Tagore was politically very aware and very critical at the same time, he not only criticized the British Raj, but he was also very vocal about the mistakes his fellow Bengalis and Indians made. These were reflected in the socio-political satires he wrote and published. When R.N Tagore had been awarded a knighthood, as a sign of protest against the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, he repudiated the award. Recognition, fame, money nothing mattered to him when it came to his country. He loved his country, the lands, rivers, and the people of his country very much. 

It is thus quite right to say that Tagore opposed European colonialism and supported Indian nationalists. He also shunned the Swadeshi Movement and urged Indians to accept that education is the way forward. A blind revolution will only lead to the loss of lives and unwanted and unnecessary loss of life.

Rabindranath Tagore and His Love For Literature, Art, and Music

Some of the most renowned works of Tagore which are highly recommended works of literature are “Noukadubi'', “Shesher Kobita”, “Chaturanga”, “Gora”, “Char Adhyay”, “Jogajog”, “Ghare Baire”. “Ghare Baire'' was also produced as a film by another precious talent Satyajit Ray. His novels were very underappreciated in his time but gained a lot of respect after film directors like Tapan Sinha, Tarun Majumdar and of course, Satyajit Ray adapted and made feature films based on his novels. In popular culture, even his songs, poems and novels are employed in Movies and as background scores. The genre of the songs by Rabindranath Tagore are known as “Rabindra Sangeet'' and movies have been adapted and made out of his novels “Noukadubi” and “Chokher Bali”. It is highly recommended to read “Gitanjali'' to appreciate Tagore's poetic style and to appreciate some very heartfelt and moving songs that he wrote, it is recommended to listen to “Tobu Mone Rekho”. 

In addition to all this, Rabindranath Tagore was a commendable artist and musician too. His paintings are celebrated both nationally and internationally and have received wide acclaim. His songs are considered to be at the heart of Bengal culture and his compilations are fondly termed Rabindra Sangeet. These songs elaborate on themes of love, worship, devotion, and so on. RN Tagore started painting at the age of 60. His brilliant artwork is displayed to this day in several museums globally.

Rabindranath Tagore And His Last Days

Rabindranath Tagore died in the place he loved the most. However, the last few years of his life were quite painful.  He was affected by chronic illness during the last 4 years of his life. In 1937, he went into a comatose condition due to this prolonged suffering he was enduring. On August 7th in 1941, this great novelist, poet, musician, and painter passed away quietly in the same Jorasanko mansion in which he was brought up.

Conclusion 

Here is everything students should know about Rabindranath Tagore, his life, his works and his achievements in life.

FAQs on Rabindranath Tagore Biography

1. What are the Famous Books Written by Rabindranath Tagore?

We all know that Rabindranath Tagore took a keen liking to write from a young age. Although he was frequently seen skipping school, you could always find him scribbling something in his notebook. This paved the way for a great future novelist who even received the Nobel Prize for Literature. His works talked about nationalism, social evils, and the need for harmony between Indians. Gitanjali is RN Tagore’s most acclaimed work. It has received critical praise internationally and is loved by all literary aficionados. Here are some famous books are written by Rabindranath Tagore: 

The Home and the world

The Post Office

2. Why is Rabindranath Tagore so Famous?

Rabindranath Tagore is famous for the Nobel Prize Award for literature and he was the first Indian to achieve such huge respect and honour. He had many talents apart from writing great poems. It should be noted that RN Tagore’s popularity in English speaking nations grew in leaps and bounds after the publication of his book Gitanjali. Later in 1913, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for this critically acclaimed book. Another huge factor contributing to Tagore’s growing popularity was the renunciation of his knighthood. He did not accept this honour conferred by the British crown on him in protest against the Jalianwala Bagh massacre. This great poet also toured extensively around Japan and the U.S., where he talked about the importance of nationalism. This helped him earn deep admiration and respect from foreigners all over the world.

3. Why Did Rabindranath Tagore Receive the Nobel Prize for Literature?

The Nobel Prize award was awarded to Rabindranath Tagore in the year 1913 because of his sensitive, impeccable, fresh, unique, and beautiful verse. He expressed his poetic thoughts in his own words that are mostly followed in the West. Rabindranath Tagore is considered responsible for the modernization of Bengali literature. He preserved the cultural heritage of this beautiful language all while breathing some new life into it. Gitanjali is a collection of song offerings that have been penned down by this legendary novelist and poet. It was this book that won him the revered Nobel Prize in Literature. In total, there were 157 poems in that book that touched upon various themes such as devotion, nationalism, worship, etc.

4. What was Tagore’s Stint as an Actor?

We all know that Rabindranath Tagore is famous for writing many dramas that have derived inspiration from Indian mythology and contemporary social issues facing society in those days. He began his drama career writing alongside his brother when he was only a young teenager. At 20 years of age, RN Tagore penned a drama named ‘Valmiki Pratibha’ and also played the lead role of the titular character in it. The drama was based on stories about the legendary dacoit named Valmiki. It is Valmiki who later changed his ways and wrote one of the two greatest Indian epics – Ramayana. This was Tagore’s short stint as an actor.

5. Did RN Tagore Receive a Formal Education?

Rabindranath Tagore’s family always wished that he became a barrister. They sent him to elite schools and universities, in the hopes that he would pursue a career in law. However, young Rabindranath always shied away from rote learning and spent most of his time scribbling down ideas in his notebook. RN Tagore was also enrolled in the University College in London but he dropped out without completing his formal education. However, his love for English, Irish, and Scottish literature soon helped him morph into the much revered and loved novelist he is known as today.

Rabindranath Tagore Wiki, Age, Death, Wife, Children, Family, Biography & More

Poet, playwright, novelist, artist, essayist, short story writer, painter, educationist, spiritualist, lyricist, composer, and singer – Rabindranath Tagore was, in fact, a true polymath whose creative works and philosophies not only inspired the people of the 19th and the 20th century but which still influence billions of people globally. A Bengali literary giant and Nobel laureate, Tagore was born, grew up, worked, and died in Bengal.

I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.” – Tagore (function(v,d,o,ai){ai=d.createElement('script');ai.defer=true;ai.async=true;ai.src=v.location.protocol+o;d.head.appendChild(ai);})(window, document, '//a.vdo.ai/core/v-wikibio-in/vdo.ai.js');

Wiki/Biography

Rabindranath Tagore was born as Robindronath Thakur [1] Colloquial Bengali By Mithun B. Nasrin, W.A.M Van Der Wurff on Tuesday, 7 May 1861 ( age 80 years; at the time of death ) in his ancestral home “Jorasanko mansion” (Jorasanko Thakur Bari), Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India (present-day Kolkata, West Bengal, India).

Rabindranath Tagore in his childhood

His forefathers had migrated from their native place to Govindpur (now Gobindapur), one of the three villages that later constituted the city of Calcutta (now Kolkata), where they went on to become an affluent family after acquiring several properties in the area through commercial and banking activities. Reportedly, the Tagore family was benefitted from the growing influence of the British East India Company. Rabindranath grew up in Jorasanko Thakur Bari that was filled with musical, literary, and dramatic pursuits as most of his family members were poets, musicians, playwrights, and novelists.

Jorasanko Thakur Bari, where Rabindranath Tagore grew up

By the time he was growing up, primary schools were set up by the colonial administration in India. Tagore was mostly home-tutored; it was a regular norm for affluent Bengali families to hire private tutors for their children in those times. [2] OpenEdition He attended one of the Bengali-medium schools established by Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar (an Indian educator and social reformer of the 19th century), and later in his life, Tagore said that he owed his love of Bengali language and literature to this school. Although he attended a number of English-speaking schools, he never liked their teaching method; moreover, he never wished to be taught in a foreign language. By the age of 14, Tagore had gradually started withdrawing himself from formal schooling, and for the rest of his education, he preferred home-tutoring and his own personal efforts to learn various subjects. He also learned lessons in wrestling, music, and drawing from professionals. His father, Devendranath, gave him lessons in Sanskrit, astronomy, and the scriptures, which formed the basis of Tagor’s reformed religion. In 1878, after his matriculation, the 17-year-old Rabindranath Tagore was sent to London to qualify for the Indian Civil Service or as a lawyer, where he joined University College. Earlier, he had enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England, where he stayed at a house owned by the Tagore family near Brighton and Hove in Medina Villas. [3] Hindustan Times While studying at University College, London, Tagore became exposed to British social life and Western music, and he enjoyed both.

Rabindranath Tagore in England in 1879

However, he didn’t complete his education in London and returned home after eighteen months. Back at home, he continued brushing himself in creative writing and music. In 1940, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Oxford University. [4] The Economic Times

Parents & Siblings

His father, Debendranath Tagore, was a Bengali philosopher and religious savant who founded the Brahmo religion in 1848. His father died on 19 January 1905 at the age of 87.

Rabindranath Tagore’s father, Debendranath Tagore

His father was well versed in European philosophy, and he was considered an influential figure of the newly awakened phase of Bengali society. Although his father was deeply religious, he did not accept all aspects of Hinduism, a trait carried by Rabindranath in the coming years. His mother, Sarada Devi, was a homemaker who died in 1875.

Rabindranath Tagore’s mother, Sarada Devi

Rabindranath Tagore’s paternal grandfather, Dwarkanath Tagore, is considered one of the first Indian industrialists and entrepreneurs who significantly contributed to the Bengal Renaissance.

Rabindranath Tagore’s grandfather, Dwarkanath Tagore

In 1828, Dwarkanath Tagore joined the nineteenth-century social and religious reformer Raja Rammohan Roy in his religious reform movement called the Brahma Samaj Movement, a movement that was meant to reform Hindu society. Later, Debendranath Tagore (Rabindranath’s father) also joined the Brahma Samaj Movement, and in 1863, he established a meditation centre called ‘Santiniketan’ (the Abode of Peace) on some land about 100 miles from Calcutta. Rabindranath had 13 siblings. Reportedly, Rabindranath was the youngest and the fourteenth child of his parents. His oldest brother, Dwijendranath (1840–1926), was a poet, music composer, and an accomplished scholar.

Rabindranath Tagore (right) with his eldest brother, Dwijendranath Tagore

Dwijendranath is believed to have initiated shorthand and musical notations in Bengali, and he also translated Kalidasa’s Meghdoot into Bengali. Tagore’s second oldest brother, Satyendranath (1842–1923), was the first Indian to join the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service.

Rabindranath Tagore’s elder brother Satyendranath Tagore

His third oldest brother, Hemendranath (1844–1884), was a spiritual seer and Yogi who contributed substantially to the development of modern Brahmoism, which is now termed as “Adi Dharm” religion.

Rabindranath Tagore’s elder brother Hemendranath Tagore

His fourth oldest brother was Birendranath (1845–1915). Tagore’s elder brother Jyotirindranath (1849–1925) was a scholar, music composer, artist, and theatre personality.

Rabindranath Tagore (left) with his elder brother Jyotirindranath Tagore

The names of his other brothers are Punyendranath, Budhendranath, and Somendranath. Tagore’s eldest sister, Soudamini, was a gifted writer and one of the first students of Bethune School. His elder sister Swarnakumari (1855–1932) was also a gifted writer, song-composer, editor, and social worker.

Rabindranath Tagore’s elder sister Swarnakumari

The names of his other elder sisters are Sukumari and Saratkumari. All his sisters were known for their beauty and education.

Wife & Children

On 9 December 1883, the 22-year-old Tagore got married to an 11-year-old Mrinalini Devi (born Bhabatarini). [5] Feminism In India Mrinalini Devi was born in 1873 and died in 1902. Mrinalini died within a span of 19 years of their marriage, and since then, Tagore never married in his life. In a letter that Tagore had once written to his wife, he expressed his feelings for Mrinalini, he wrote –

If you and I could be comrades in all our work and in all our thoughts it would be splendid, but we cannot attain all that we desire.” [6] The Economic Times Rabindranath Tagore with his wife, Mrinalini Devi, in 1883

The couple had five children – two sons, Rathindranath Tagore and Shamindranath Tagore, and three daughters, Renuka Tagore, Madhurilata Tagore, and Meera Tagore.

Rabindranath Tagore’s son Rathindranath and daughters Madhurilata Devi (Bela), Mira Devi, and Renuka Devi

Rabindranath Tagore at the wedding of his Son Rathindranath Tagore (second from left) – his Daughter-in-law Pratima (second from right), and two Daughters, in 1909

His son Rathindranath Tagore (1888-1961) was an Indian educationist and agronomist who was also the first vice-chancellor of Visva-Bharati University, founded by Rabindranath Tagore in 1921.

Rathindranath Tagore

Tagore’s daughter Madhurilata (1886-1918) was also called “Bela.” Bela was the first child of Rabindranath and Mrinalini Devi.

Rabindranath Tagore with his daughter Madhurilata

Reportedly, Bela was very beautiful, and she was the most dearly loved daughter to Rabindranath. Once, Tagore said about her –

My eldest daughter Bela… was exceptionally beautiful in body and mind.” [7] The Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies Rabindranath Tagore and Mrinalini Devi with their first child, Bela, in 1886

Tagore’s daughter Renuka Tagore (1890-1904) died when she was only thirteen years old. Tagore was very close to Renuka, and when Renuka was suffering from tuberculosis, he took her to the Himalayas in May 1903, so that she could get a fresh climate. It was a long and difficult journey to the Himalayas, and during this journey, Tagore wrote many poems for children and published them as Sisu (The Child, 1903); the book later became popular with the title ‘The Crescent Moon.’ [8] The Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies Tagore’s third and the youngest daughter’s name was Mira (1892-1962), who was also called Atasi. Mira had a broken marriage as her husband turned out to have temperamental and drug addiction issues. Once, Tagore lamented over the wrong choice of husband for his daughter Mira, he wrote –

How can I be so cruel to Mira when it was I who had dealt the first blow in her life by marrying her off without thinking carefully enough about it? … There is a barbarity about Nagen which Mira has come to dread. … Her life is already destroyed, now it is for me to protect her and make her as happy as possible. I must bear as much pain for it as I can because I am responsible for her misery.” [9] The Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies Rabindranath Tagore’s daughter Mira

Tagore’s youngest child was his son Shamindranath Tagore who was born in 1896 and died in 1907.

Other Relatives

Bollywood actress Sharmila Tagore ‘s maternal grandmother, Latika Tagore, was the granddaughter of Rabindranath Tagore’s brother Dwijendranath. In an interview, while talking about her surname, the actress said,

I don’t have that much authority on Tagore but yes I have a wonderful surname. It’s my heritage and it has opened many doors for me. It’s a privilege to be born in such a household. He unfortunately died three years before I was born so I could not have any direct interaction with him. But I have heard great stories from my mother.” [10] The Indian Express

The Untold Love Story

Reportedly, his sister-in-law Kadambari Devi (wife of Tagore’s elder brother Jyotirindranath) was his muse. Kadambari was two years younger than Tagore. Even today, their love story still remains enigmatic. In his masterpiece autobiography “Chelebela” (My Boyhood Days), Tagore depicts his first glimpse of Kadamabari. He writes,

A new bride came to the house, slender gold bracelets on her delicate brown hands…I circled around her at a safe distance, but I did not dare to go near. She was enthroned at the centre of affection and I was only a neglected, insignificant child …” [11] Feminism In India Kadambari Devi

Although Kadambari was not an educated woman, it is said that she understood poetry better than the poet himself. It is believed that Kadambari played a significant part in Tagore’s life. It was Kadambari who inspired Tagore in composing many of his poems, and she also used to give her creative feedback and comments to Tagore. Tagore even nicknamed her after Hecate, the Greek goddess of night, moon, and magic. When Tagore was 19 years old, he dedicated his famous lyrics to Kadambari –

Tomarei koriachhi jibaner dhrubo tara (Thou art the guiding beacon of my life)” [12] Feminism In India

Kadambari committed suicide on 21 April 1884 in mysterious circumstances. Kadambari’s death left Tagore completely broken. After her death, Tagore wrote a letter to his close associate C. F. Andrews in which he expressed his grief for Kadambari, he wrote –

But where is the sweetheart of mine who was almost the only companion of my boyhood and with whom I spent my idle days of youth exploring the mysteries of dreamland? She, my Queen, has died and my world has shut against the door of its inner apartment of beauty which gives on the real taste of freedom.” [13] Feminism In India

Tagore went on to write many poems and songs in her memory. In one such lyrics, which is also a popular Rabindra Sangeet, Tagore wrote –

Tobu Mone Rekho (Pray, love, remember)”

In another song that he composed in Kadambari’s memory, he wrote –

Amaar praner pore chole gelo ke (The one who went out of my life)” [14] Feminism In India

A Complicated Relationship

Rabindranath Tagore had a brief romantic encounter with an Argentine writer and intellectual, Victoria Ocampo (born on 7 April 1890; died on 27 January 1979). [15] The Week

Rabindranath Tagore and Victoria Ocampo (both sitting)

Victoria was a great admirer of Tagore’s literary works. In November 1924, while Tagore was on his way to Peru to attend the centenary celebrations of independence, he had to stop in Buenos Aires for medical rest on 6 November 1924. When Victoria came to know about Tagore’s arrival in Buenos Aires, she offered to take care of him, and she took care of Tagore during his 58-day stay in the city. Reportedly, it was during this time that Tagore developed a romantic relationship with Ocampo.

Rabindranath Tagore with Victoria Ocampo

At the time of Tagore’s visit, Ocampo was going through a state of transition after the break up with her husband and having a love affair with her cousin. Amid this mental turmoil, Ocampo looked up to Tagore as a Guru from the East who might enlighten her soul and pave a new path for her; however, the 63–year-old widower poet mistook the 34-year-old Ocampo’s devotion as inviting signals. For Tagore, it was a kind of love that he had been waiting for a long time to vanish his intellectual loneliness; Tagore expressed this feeling in his poem Shesh Basanth (the last spring) that he wrote on 21 November 1924 during his stay as the guest of Ocampo. Tagore wrote,

While walking on my solitary way I met you at the dusk of nightfall I was about to ask you take my hand When I gazed at your face and was afraid For I saw there the glow of the fire that lay asleep In the deep of your heart’s dark silence”

In her autobiography, Ocampo described Tagore’s advances. She wrote,

One afternoon, as I came into his room while he was writing, I leaned towards the page which was on the table. Without lifting his head towards me he stretched his arm, and in the same way as one gets hold of a fruit on a branch, he placed his hand on one of my breasts. I felt a kind of shudder of withdrawal like a horse whom his master strokes when he is not expecting it. The animal cried at once within me. Another person who lives inside me warned the animal, ‘ be calm… fool’ It is just a gesture of pagan tenderness. The hand left the branch after that almost incorporeal caress. But he never did it again. Every day he kissed me on the forehead or the cheek and took one of my arms, saying “such cool arms.”

Victoria Ocampo gifted Tagore an armchair to take to India from Buenos Aires. Tagore used to sit on the chair for about two months during November-December in 1924 during his stay in Buenos Aires as Ocampo’s guest; the chair is still preserved in Shantiniketan. Reportedly, in his last years, Tagore used to relax in that chair, and he even wrote a poem about it in April 1941. He wrote,

Yet again, if I can, will l look for that seat On the top of which rests, a caress from overseas I knew not her language Yet her eyes told me all Keeping alive forever A message of pathos” Rabindranath Tagore sitting on the armchair gifted by Victoria Ocampo

On Tagore’s demise, Ocampo sent a telegram to Tagore’s son that read ‘Thinking of him’ (pensando en el); this inspired the title of the 2018 Argentine film ‘Thinking of Him’ that explores the relationship between Rabindranath Tagore and Victoria Ocampo.

Thinking of Him film poster

Religion/Religious Views

Although Rabindranath Tagore adhered to Brahmoism, a philosophy of Brahmo Samaj founded by Raja Rammohan Roy, he never believed in any religious institutions or practices, whether they constituted Hinduism, Islam, or Christianity . Tagore’s religion was, in fact, based on the ‘divinization of man’ and the ‘humanization of God.’ While explaining the meaning of the ‘humanization of God,’ Tagore said,

Humanization of God does not merely mean that God is God of humanity but also it mean that it is the God in every human being.”

Tagore’s conception of God, unity, and equality found spontaneous expression in several of his addresses, poems, and novels. Tagore was born when India was transitioning from medieval to modern times. He grew up in an atmosphere of religious fervor. While growing up, among Tagore’s greatest influences was the liberalism of the Brahmo Samaj, founded by Raja Rammohan Roy on the basis of a synthesis of all religions. He was also greatly impressed by the Baul singers of Bengal; Baul singers are wandering saints who do not belong to any religious establishment nor do they go to any place of worship. In the article ‘An Indian Folk Religion’ in his book Creative Unity, Tagore formally interprets the humanistic philosophy of Baul singers. Tagore was also influenced by the philosophy of Kabir, and he translated almost one hundred couplets of Kabir into English; in Kabir, he found religious philosophy of love, a unbiased view of religion, and a spiritualist faith in man. Tagore quoted Kabir’s philosophy in Gitanjali. He wrote,

He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the path-maker is breaking stones.”

A major influence on Tagore’s approach to religion was the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. In the preface of his book Sadhana, a book on spirituality, Tagore wrote,

To me, the verses of the Upanishads and the teachings of Buddha have ever been things of the spirit and therefore endowed with boundless vital growth, and I have used them, both in my own life and in my preaching as being instinct with special meaning for me.”

Despite the fact that Tagore was heavily influenced by Upanishad thinkers, the humanistic teachings of Lord Buddha and the Bauls, and the mystic teachings of saints, his philosophy of religion is the product of his own thought process. [16] International Journal of English Language, Literature in Humanities – Volume 6, Issue 1

According to Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya, one of the biographers of Rabindranath Tagore, the Tagores were Rarhi Brahmins who belonged to a village named Kush in the Burdwan district of West Bengal, and their original surname was Kushari. Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya wrote in the first volume of his book Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya-prabeshak that,

The Kusharis were the descendants of Deen Kushari, the son of Bhatta Narayana; Deen was granted a village named Kush (in Burdwan zilla) by Maharaja Kshitisura, he became its chief and came to be known as Kushari. [17] Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya-prabeshak by Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya

Some sources claim that Rabindranath Tagore belonged to the inferior caste of Pirali Brahmans, which was considered to be polluted because of their social interactions with Muslims. [18] Sahapedia

Initial Literary Works

The highly cultural and literary environment in the Tagore family inspired Rabindranath to start writing poetry at a very early age. Initially, he published many poems; some anonymously and some under his pen name “Bahanusingha.” Soon, Tagore started contributing to various Bengali magazines, including “Balak” and “Bharati.” Rabindranath Tagore debuted in the world of literature by writing a short story, “Bhikharini” (The Beggar Woman), in 1877. When the 16-year-old Tagore wrote Bhikharini,” it became the first short story in Bengali-language.

Bhikharini by Rabindranath Tagore

In 1882, he published a volume of Bengali verse, Sandhya Sangeet, and it included his famous poem Nirjharer Swapna Bhanga (The awakening of the fountain).

Title page of the first edition of Sandhya Sangeet by Rabindranath Tagore

Between 1884 and 1890, Tagore wrote many poems, prose articles, criticism, plays, and novels.

Shelaidaha (1878–1901) – The period of his Sadhana

In 1890, Tagore visited the United Kingdom for the second time; however, he came back just after a month to look after the family estate, Kuthibari, a three-storied pyramid-shaped terraced bungalow in eleven acres of land, in Shelaidaha (now a region of Bangladesh), where he intimately experienced the wretched life led by the poor Bengali peasants.

Rabindranath Tagore’s Kuthibari or family estate in Bangladesh

Tagore’s wife and children joined him at Shelaidaha in 1898. During his stay in Shelaidaha, he was overwhelmed by the social, political, and economic misery in which the peasants lived. In an article, Tagore described the peasants’ misery, he wrote,

Our so-called responsible classes live in comfort because the common man has not yet understood his situation. That is why the landlord beats him. The money-lender holds him in his clutches; the foreman abuses him; the policeman fleeces him; the priest exploits him; and the magistrate picks his pocket.” Rabindranath Tagore having lunch at Kuthibari in Bangladesh

While managing his family’s ancestral estate in Shelaidaha as a young landlord, Rabindranath Tagore realized that rural life can be transformed by introducing education and co-operation. While speaking on ‘The Vicissitudes of Education,’ he strongly campaigned for the use of the mother-tongue. Reportedly, it was this time that his experiments in teaching came for the first time. Soon, Tagore started his own school in Seliadah, where he sent his own children to study under the tutelage of many skilled teachers including an Englishman who taught them the English language. [19] Tagore’s School and Methodology by Thomas B. KANE, Edinburgh Napier University Apart from starting a school, he also organized co-operatives and hospitals in the villages of his family estate and tried to introduce new and improved farming methods. While pursuing these rural reforms, he continued his creative writing. The greenery, the rivers, and the simplicity of rural Bengal inspired Tagore to write many of his famous essays, short stories, and poems including Sonar Tori, Kotha o Kahini, Chitra, and Chaitali. In 1890, he published Manasi, a collection of poems, which is considered one of his best-known literary works.

Manasi by Rabindranath Tagore

In 1900, he came out with another masterpiece Galpaguchchha, a three-volume composition of 84 stories.

Hardcover of Galpaguchchha by Rabindranath Tagore

During this time, he wrote many letters to his niece, which were subsequently published as Chhinnapatra (Torn letters) and Chhinnapatravali (A collection of torn letters). Most of the poems of Kheya and Naibedya, and many songs, which formed part of Gitanjali and Geetimalya, were also written during his stay in Shelaidaha. It was here in Shelaidaha that he started translating Gitanjali into English in 1912. [20] National Herald These literary works are considered to be landmarks in the writing of Bengali prose and in describing the countryside of Bengal. According to Tagore, the period 1891–1895 was the period of his Sadhana; this period is considered to be his most productive. During his stay in Shelaidaha, Tagore used the family boat (bajra or budgerow), Padma, to criss-cross the Padma River to visit villages to collect token rents. During these visits, he would talk to villagers and listen to their problems; this experience paved the way for Tagore’s later educational experiments.

Tagore family boat, Padma

Santiniketan (1901–1932) – Middle years of Rabindranath Tagore

A map of Tagore’s Santiniketan

Boarding School

In 1901, Tagore left Shelaidaha and moved to Santiniketan, where he started a boarding school, Brahamacharyashram (or Ashram) School, which was inaugurated on 22 December 1901 with only a few pupils, his son being one of them. The theme of the school was to encourage a close bonding between teachers and pupils as they lived together, willingly accepting an austere standard of living. Tagore didn’t accept fees from students and bear all expenses by himself. Later, this Ashram School expanded, growing the poet’s reputation.

Rabindranath Tagore (seated, to the left of man at blackboard) at an open-air classroom, Shantiniketan, West Bengal

Literary Work

While living at Santiniketan, Tagore wrote about India’s past and present, and stories of noble self-sacrifice. During this time, he published some of his most popular realistic novels including Choker Bali (1901), Naukadubi (1903), and Gora (1910).

The cover of Naukadubi by Rabindranath Tagore

Nobel Prize

The well-known English painter Sir William Rothenstein and the poet W. B. Yeats became highly impressed by some of Tagore’s poems and writings, which had already been translated into English. In 1912, during his third visit to the United Kingdom, Tagore was accepted as a great poet and intellectual. In November 1913, Rabindranath Tagore was awarded that year’s Nobel Prize in Literature for Gitanjali, Tagore’s best-known collection of poetry, making him the first Asian and first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature. The Swedish Academy, in its statement, said,

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1913 was awarded to Rabindranath Tagore “because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West.” Rabindranath Tagore Nobel Prize in Literature 1913

In the 1915 Birthday Honours, Rabindranath Tagore was awarded a knighthood by King George V; however, after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919, Tagore renounced the knighthood by writing a letter to the then British Viceroy of India, Lord Chelmsford. In the letter, Tagore wrote,

The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments…The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of my country men.” Rabindranath Tagore’s letter to renounce his knighthood

Visva Bharati

In 1916, Tagore visited Japan and the United States of America, where he delivered lectures, which were later published in two volumes as Nationalism (1917b) and Personality (1917c). Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore travelled more than thirty countries on five continents. This international experience inspired him to establish an institution that emphasized the unity of the world’s cultures and streams of knowledge. On 24 December 1918, he laid the foundation of Visva Bharati in Shantiniketan, West Bengal; Visva Bharati went on to become an international centre of culture and humanistic studies.

Rabindranath Tagore’s Visva Bharati University

Sri Niketan – Abode of Welfare

From 1901 to 1921, Santiniketan developed continuously; however, Tagore wanted some new form of schooling for the village children in India based on life in the countryside. In 1921, Tagore, along with agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst, started a new school called Shikshasastra in Surul at Sri Niketan to provide an all-round education for village children; the main emphasis of this new school was on agricultural research. At Sri Niketan, handicraft became an essential thing, and it was compulsory for all students to learn a trade.

Rabindranath Tagore’s dream project Sri Niketan

Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi

Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi, the two great representatives of Modern India, shared a great rapport with each other, in fact, the two giants of Modern India are best known by the monikers “Mahatma” (given to Gandhi by Tagore) and “Gurudev” (given to Tagore by Gandhi). Reportedly, Tagore was the first to refer to Gandhi as “Mahatma,” and in respect, Gandhi called him “Gurudev.” It was an Englishman, Charles Freer Andrews, who acted as the link between these two. On Mahatma Gandhi’s return to India, Andrews suggested Tagore invite the members of Mahatma Gandhi’s “Phoenix family” at Santiniketan. In March 1915, Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore met for the first time at Santiniketan.

Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi at Santiniketan in March 1915

After their first meeting, they went on to meet many times. Apart from politics and philosophy, they used to discuss other things like food and diet. Once, Mahatma Gandhi, who was a strict fruitarian, told Tagore,

To fry bread in ghee or oil to make puris is to turn good grain into poison. It must be a slow poison.”

To this, Tagore replied,

I have been eating puris all my life and it has not done me any harm so far.” [21] mkgandhi.org A rare photo of Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi

Although they had developed a good rapport, both had their ideological differences and had different views on science, social and economic development, nationalism, and patriotism. [22] The Economic Times Tagore was sceptical about Mahatma Gandhi’s Non-cooperation Movement and didn’t agree with Gandhi’s philosophy towards “Charkha.” Tagore also criticized Gandhi for linking the Bihar earthquake to the sin of untouchability. Gandhi always took Tagore’s criticisms positively, and they never let their mutual respect for each other to diminish. On his differences with Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi once said,

I started with a disposition to detect a conflict between Gurudev and myself, but ended with a glorious discovery that there was none.” [23] mkgandhi.org Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi greeting each other

In 1940, when Mahatma Gandhi visited Santiniketan along with his wife, Kasturba, it proved to be his last meeting with Tagore. During their meeting, when Tagore requested Gandhi to take Santiniketan under his protection, Gandhi replied,

Who am I to take this institution under my protection?… It carries God’s protection because it is the creation of an earnest soul.” [24] mkgandhi.org Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi

In 1945, Mahatma Gandhi visited Santiniketan for the last time in his life; however, Tagore was not there to host him that time as he had died back in 1941. In his address to the Santiniketan community, Mahatma Gandhi said,

It is my conviction arrived at after a long and laborious struggle that Gurudev as a person was much bigger than his works; bigger even than this institution.” [25] mkgandhi.org

Literary and Artistic Works

Although Tagore is mostly known for his poetry, his dramas, short stories, essays, novels, travelogues, and songs are equally popular. In most of his literary works, the reflection of the lives of common people is very prominent.

The best-known work in poetry by Tagore is Gitanjali that made him the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Besides Gitanjali, Tagore delivered many more masterpieces including Manasi, Sonar Tori (Golden Boat), and Balaka (Wild Geese). Tagore’s poetic style has a variety of ranges from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic. Tagore’s poetic style is influenced by the works of Vyasa, Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen. The mystic Baul ballads like those of the bard Lalon also influenced Tagore’s poetic style.

Title page of the 1913 Macmillan edition of Tagore’s Gitanjali

Rabindranath Tagore published eight novels, Nastanirh (The Broken Nest) in 1901, Chokher Bali in 1903, Noukadubi in 1906, Gora (Fair-Faced) in 1910, Ghare Baire (The Home and the World) in 1916, Chaturanga in 1916, Shesher Kabita in 1928, and Jogajog or Yogayog (Crosscurrents) in 1929. Through these novels, Tagore explained Indian nationalism, Indian identity, self-identity, personal freedom, loneliness, etc.

When Tagore was just sixteen, he began his experiences with drama with his brother Jyotirindranath. At the age of twenty, Tagore wrote his first original dramatic piece, Valmiki Pratibha. Tagore’s 1890 drama Visarjan is considered to be his finest drama. Most of his dramas used more philosophical and allegorical themes. Some of his popular dramas are Dak Ghar (1912), Raktakarabi (1926), and Chandalika (1933). His dance-drama adaptations Chitrangada, Chandalika, and Shyama together are known as Rabindra Nritya Natya.

Short Stories

In 1877, when 16-year-old Tagore wrote Bhikharini, it began his short story writing spree. Tagore is credited to invent the Bengali-language short story genre. Most of his short stories reflect the lives of India’s poor and common people. Some of his most popular short stories are Kabuliwala (published in 1892), Kshudita Pashan (published in 1895), and Atithi (published in 1895).

Songs – Rabindra Sangeet

Tagore was an accomplished song-writer and composer. With around 2,230 songs to his credit, he gave a new category to songs known as Rabindra Sangeet. Most of his songs are influenced by the thumri style of Hindustani music. Tagore’s songs are known to express the entire gamut of human emotion. It is said that –

In Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath’s songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung… Even illiterate villagers sing his songs.”

Painting and Drawing

Apart from his literary works, Tagore is also known for his artworks including drawing and painting that he took up at the age of sixty. He made debut appearances in many art galleries in Paris and throughout Europe.

Rabindranath Tagore as a painter

Controversies

Hypocrisy in child marriage.

Tagore is heavily criticized for marrying his three daughters when they were still in their childhood. This is surprising as Tagore had started speaking against child marriages as early as 1887. Bizarrely, Tagore, in his Bengali novella Nashtanirh (The Broken Nest) he wrote at the same time when he was arranging his daughters’ marriages, describes the agony of child marriages. [26] The Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies

German funds against the British Raj

He was allegedly implicated in overthrowing the British Raj from India through German funds, these allegations were based on his dealings with Indian nationalists Subhas Chandra Bose and Rash Behari Bose, and papers confiscated from Indian nationalists in New York. [27] CNN

Aggressive lectures on nationalism

Tagore’s aggressive lectures on nationalism attracted severe criticism from the press, and in 1916, when he visited the USA, a group of radical Indians even conspired to assassinate him; however, he escaped assassination narrowly as his would-be assassins fell into an argument. [28] The Statesman

Waning Years (1932-1941)

During his waning years, Tagore developed more respect for scientific laws, and he used various concepts of biology, physics, and astronomy in his poetry. His stories Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941) also incorporated scientific intellect in them. Although the last five years of Tagore’s life were marked by chronic pain and illness, the poetry that he wrote during this period is considered among his finest including his politically charged compositions “Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo” and “Ekla Chalo Re.”

Rabindranath Tagore’s Ekla Chalo Re

In late 1940, Tagore became unconscious and remained comatose for a long time, and after a prolonged agony, the 80-year-old Tagore died on 7 August 1941 in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion, where he was raised in.

The room at Jorasanko Thakur Bari where Rabindranath Tagore breathed his last

Earlier, he had experienced a similar spell of comatose in late 1937 and also underwent a kidney operation. According to some sources, one of the reasons behind his death was prostate cancer. [29] The Times of India

Rabindranath Tagore’s death news in The New York Times

On 30 July 1941, almost a week before his death, Tagore dictated a few lines to A. K. Sen (brother of  Sukumar Sen who was the first chief election commissioner of India), which probably became his last poem –

I’m lost in the middle of my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth’s last love. I will take life’s final offering, I will take the human’s last blessing. Today my sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I receive anything—some love, some forgiveness—then I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end.”

Rabindranath Tagore’s last photo clicked in 1941

Tagore’s Legacy

After his demise in 1941, Tagore left behind a legacy of literary intellect, and there are many festivals, awards, buildings, places, and institutions named after him.

There are many festivals named after Tagore that are held every year across the globe including Rabindra Jayanti, an annual cultural festival, prevalent among people who love Tagore and his works; the festival is celebrated in early May, on the 25th day of the Bengali month of Boishakh. Tagore International Literature and Arts Festival is another such annual festival that is celebrated across the globe. On important anniversaries, a procession called Rabindra Path Parikrama takes place during which followers of Tagore walk from Kolkata to Santiniketan reciting his poetry and verses.

Awards & Prizes

There are many awards and honours named after this great polymath including Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize that was founded in 2018 by US-based independent and non-profit publishing house Maitreya Publishing Foundation (MPF). In 2011, the Government of India established the Tagore Award that carries an amount of Rupees One Crore, a Citation in a Scroll, a Plaque as well as an exquisite traditional handicraft/handloom item. The Rabindra Puraskar or the Rabindra Smriti Puraskar is the highest honorary literary award in West Bengal administered by the Government of West Bengal. In 2011, Sangeet Natak Akademi sponsored Tagore Ratna and Tagore Puraskar; these awards were conferred on the occasion to commemorate 150 birthday of Rabindranath Tagore.

In May 2020, Israel named a street, Rehov Tagore, in Tel Aviv after Rabindranath Tagore on the occasion of the poet’s 159th birthday.

Rehov Tagore, the street named after Rabindranath Tagore in Tel Aviv, Israel

In July 2017, an area in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, was named after Rabindranath Tagore; the area is named Thakurova and has a bust of the Nobel laureate.

A bust of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore in Thakurova area of Prague, the Czech Republic

The Tagore Garden Metro Station, located on the Blue Line of the Delhi Metro, is named after Tagore, and it was opened on 31 December 2005.

The Tagore Garden Metro Station

Rabindranath Tagore Nagar or simply R. T. Nagar is an area in Bangalore, India, that was developed by Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) in the 1970s.

RT Nagar Bengaluru

Rabindra Sarobar (previously known as Dhakuria Lake) is an artificial lake in South Kolkata, which was named after Rabindranath Tagore by the Calcutta Improvement Trust (CIT) in 1958.

Rabindra Sarobar, an artificial lake in South Kolkata

Tagore Town, a neighborhood in Allahabad, India, is named after Rabindranath Tagore; it was built in 1909.

Many universities and institutes have been named after Rabindranath Tagore in various cities across the globe including Rabindra Bharati University in Kolkata, India, Rabindranath Tagore Medical College in Udaipur, Rajasthan, Rabindranath Tagore University in Hojai, Assam, India, Rabindra Srijonkala University in Keraniganj, Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Rabindranath Tagore Secondary School in Mauritius.

There are many buildings in various cities across the globe that are named after Rabindranath Tagore including Rabindra Sadan, a cultural centre and theatre in Kolkata, Rabindra Library (Central) in Assam University, India, Rabindra Nazrul Art Building, Arts Faculty, in Islamic University, Bangladesh, Rabindra Parishad, a multi-purpose cultural centre in Patna, Bihar, India, Tagore Theatre in Chandigarh, India, and Rabindranath Tagore Memorial Auditorium, in Sri Lanka.

Rabindra Sadan in Kolkata

Some of the popular museums named after Rabindranath Tagore are Rabindra Bharati Museum, at Jorasanko Thakur Bari in Kolkata, India, Tagore Memorial Museum, at Shilaidaha Kuthibadi in Shilaidaha, Bangladesh, Rabindra Memorial Museum at Shahzadpur Kachharibari in Shahzadpur, Bangladesh, and Rabindra Bhavan Museum, in Santiniketan, India.

The popular Howrah Bridge over the Hooghly River in West Bengal was renamed Rabindra Setu after Rabindranath Tagore on 14 June 1965.

Rabindra Setu

B. tagorei. Barapasaurus, the only species of a genus of basal sauropod dinosaur from Early Jurassic rocks of India, is named after Rabindranath Tagore.

Facts/Trivia

• His paternal grandfather, Dwarkanath Tagore, was the first Indian to travel to Europe, defying the Hindu religious ban of those times that had imposed a ban on travel to Europe.
• During his second visit to London, the manuscript of Gitanjali went missing in the London Tube. This thrilling adventure happened when he was on a visit to London to show the English translation of his book Gitanjali to the English painter and art critic William Rothenstein, anticipating he could lobby William Butler Yeats to write an introduction. Tagore took the Tube to Rothenstein’s Hampstead residence and mid-way, he lost the briefcase in which he carried the manuscript. Later, when his son, Rathindranath, inquired with the London Tube authorities, the briefcase was recovered, and thus, the book that brought India its first Nobel saw the light of day. [30] The Hindu
• On 25 March 2004, Tagore’s Nobel Prize was stolen from the safety vault of the Visva-Bharati University. Later, the Swedish Academy issued two replicas of Tagore’s Nobel Prize. In 2016, the stolen Nobel Prize was recovered after a baul singer named Pradip Bauri accused of sheltering the thieves was arrested. [31] The Hindu
• The 2012 Bengali language film Nobel Chor is inspired by the theft of Tagore’s Nobel Prize.

Rabindranath Tagore in Natir Puja

• During India’s struggle for independence, when Mahatma Gandhi and B. R. Ambedkar had a dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, it was Tagore who intervened and resolved the dispute.

Was the gown lying in the post office or was it really missing, with the post office lying about its disappearance?” [34] Selected Letters of Rabindranath Tagore

• Even after religiously following Islamic and Hindu traditions, Tagore’s family played a significant role to introduce Western education in India. They opened many schools and colleges for the study of science and medicine. This amalgamation of tradition and science significantly characterized Tagor’s attitude towards life.

The golden temple of Amritsar comes back to me like a dream. Many a morning have I accompanied my father to this Gurudarbar of the Sikhs in the middle of the lake. There the sacred chanting resounds continually. My father, seated amidst the throng of worshippers, would sometimes add his voice to the hymn of praise, and finding a stranger joining in their devotions they would wax enthusiastically cordial, and we would return loaded with the sanctified offerings of sugar crystals and other sweets.” [35] Mainstream Weekly

• Tagore was so inspired by Sikhism that he went on to write six poems on Sikh heroism and martyrdom. He also wrote numerous articles about Sikhism in a Bengali child magazine. [36] Mainstream Weekly
• The first time when Tagor was in close proximity to nature was when his father took him to Dalhousie, where they stayed in the Himalayan foothills. At that time, Tagore was in his teenage.
• Tagore’s son, Rathindranath wrote in his memoir, On the Edges of Time (1958), that throughout his life, his father “felt lonely.” Rathindranath termed his father’s condition as “intellectual loneliness.” [37] The Statesman

Tagore Memorial and Museum in Bangladesh

The boat used by Rabindranath Tagore at the pond of Shelaidaha Kuthibari, Kushtia

• After the death of his father in 1905, the Maharaja of Tripura issued him monthly payments as part of his inheritance and income. Besides, he was also benefitted from sales of his family’s jewellery, his seaside bungalow in Puri, and a derisory Rs. 2,000 in book royalties.  [38] Rabindranath Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man by Krishna Dutta, Andrew Robinson
• Rabindranath Tagore’s second experiment with the education that he initiated with the inception of Sri Niketan was so future-oriented that the entire programme followed at Sri Niketan for rural development was adopted by India’s five-year plans.

Our passions and desires are unruly, but our character subdues these elements into a harmonious whole. Does something similar to this happen in the physical world? Are the elements rebellious, dynamic with individual impulse? And is there a principle in the physical world which dominates them and puts them into an orderly organization?” Rabindranath Tagore with Albert Einstein

• On 5 May 1930, Tagore sent a message to America in which he quoted that the shrinking of the distance between countries should be used to promote spiritual values, not just commerce.

The Essential Tagore

• Tagore had a partial colour vision deficiency, and he was likely red-green colour blind. [40] Natsy by Design
• Rabindranath Tagore is the only person in the world whose songs have been adapted as the national anthem in three countries – Jana Gana Mana (India’s national anthem; adopted in 1950), Sri Lanka Matha (Sri Lanka’s national anthem; adopted in 1951), and Amar Shonar Bangla (Bangladesh’s national anthem; adopted in 1971).

References [+] [−]

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Rabindranath Tagore

Biography of Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore was a poet, musician, polymath, Ayurveda-researcher and artist who recast music, Bengali literature and Indian art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1913, Rabindranath Tagore was the first non-European to win Nobel Prize in Literature. Rabindranath Tagore was also referred to as 'the Bard of Bengal'.

Tagore was born as Robindronath Thakur on May 7, 1861, to Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi in Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India(present-day Kolkata, West Bengal, India). Tagore's mother Sarada Devi died when he was a child and his father  Debendranath Tagore travelled a lot. Therefore, Tagore was raised by servants. Dwijendranath, Rabindranath Tagore's oldest brother, was a philosopher and poet. Tagore's other brother Satyendranath was the first Indian to be appointed in the Indian Civil Service. His brother,  Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright while his sister Swarnakumari was a novelist. 

Rabindranath's brother Hemendranath taught him anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and English. At the age of 11 after his Janeu, Tagore toured India with his father. Rabindranath Tagore visited his father's Santiniketan estate and stayed in Amritsar for a month before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie where Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, Sanskrit, and examined the classical poetry of 'Kalidasa'. Tagore was highly influenced by the Gurbani and Nanak Bani which were sung at Golden Temple, Amritsar. In 1882, Tagore made his debut with a short story in Bengali 'Bhikarini'. 

In 1878, Rabindra Nath Tagore enrolled himself at a public school in England because his father wanted him to be a barrister. Tagore read law at University College, London, but opted out again to study independently. He read  Shakespeare's plays Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra and the Religio Medici of Thomas Browne which highly impressed him. 

In 1880, Tagore returned to Bengal without any degree and started publishing poems, stories and novels. Although he didn't receive any recognition at the national level but became famous in Bengal. 

Tagore's Death 

In late 1937, Rabindranath Tagore began losing consciousness and remained in a coma for a long period. In 1940, Tagore again went into a coma and never recovered. After years of chronic pain and long term illness, Tagore died on August 7, 1941, at the age of 80 years. Rabindranath Tagore took his last breath in the mansion he was brought up. 

Personal Life and Notable Works

In 1883, Tagore married Mrinalini Devi (who was 10 years old at that time) and the couple had 5 children (2 died in early childhood). In 1890, Tagore started managing his ancestral estates in Shelaidaha (present-day in Bangladesh) and his wife joined him in 1898 with their children. In 1890, Tagore released one of his best poems 'Manasi'. During 1891-1895, Tagore wrote more than half of the stories of 'Galpaguchchha'. 

In 1901, Rabindranath Tagore moved to Santiniketan where he found 'The Mandir' which was an experimental school having trees, gardens and a library. Tagore's wife and 2 children died at Santiniketan and Tagore lost his father in 1905. Tagore received monthly payments from Maharaja of Tripura (as part of his inheritance), sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow in Puri, and a derisory 2,000 rupees in book royalties. In 1901, Tagore published 'Naivedya' and in 1906, he published 'Kheya'. 

In 1913, Tagore won  Nobel Prize in Literature. King George V awarded Tagore with  1915 Birthday Honours which the later abandoned after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919 and wrote a letter for the same to  Lord Chelmsford, the then British Viceroy of India. 

In 1919, Rabindranath Tagore was invited by Syed Abdul Majid (also known as Kaptan Miah) to visit Sylhet, where over 5000 people gathered. Syed Abdul Majid was the president and chairman of Anjuman-e-Islamia. 

In 1921, Tagore along with Leonard Elmhirst (agricultural economist), set up the 'Institute for Rural Reconstruction' which was later renamed 'Shriniketan' in Surul. Tagore started receiving donations from Indians and around the world to free the Indian villages from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance by strengthening their knowledge. In 1930, Tagore lectured against 'abnormal caste consciousness' and 'untouchability'. He campaigned against these issues, penned several poems and finally managed to open the doors of Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits. 

In May 1932, Rabindranath Tagore visited the Bedouin encampment where the tribal chief stats that as per Prophet Muhammad true Muslim is one by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm. In 1934, Bihar was hit by an earthquake and killed thousands of people which Gandhi hailed as Karma. Tagore was of a different view and rebuked Gandhi for his implications. Tagore mourned the poverty of Calcutta and the decline of Benga which he penned in a hundred-line poem. In 1932, Tagore published his prose-poem works-- Punashcha, Shes Saptak in 1935 and Patraout in 1936. In 1914, Tagore published his prose-songs and dance drama works in Chitra, Shyama in 1939 and Chandalika in 1938. Tagore published three novels-- Dui Bon in 1933, Malancha and Char Adhyay in 1934. Rabindranath Tagore after inclining towards science wrote stories-- Se in 1937, Tin Sangi in 1940 and Galpasalpa in 1941. 

Tagore's Dramas

Rabindranath Tagore along with his brother Jyotirindranath started experiencing drama at the age of sixteen. At the age of 20, Tagore wrote his first original dramatic piece 'Valmiki Pratibha'. In 1890, Tagore wrote 'Visarjan'-- his finest drama. In 1912, Tagore wrote 'Dak Ghar' where the child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately fall asleep. Tagore defined death as 'spiritual freedom from the world of hoarded wealth and certified creeds'. Tagore's other play was 'Chandalika' the story of an untouchable girl and described how  Ananda (disciple of Gautama Buddha), asks a tribal girl for water.

Tagore's Songs

Rabindranath Tagore composed nearly 2,230 songs which are known as 'Rabindrasangit'. Tagore was highly influenced by the thumri style of Hindustani music. In 1971, Rabindranath Tagore wrote a poem ' Amar Sonar Bangla'(National Anthem of Bangladesh), to protest the Partition of Bengal in 1905 on communal lines. The Bengal partition cut off the Muslim majority East Bengal from the Hindu majority West Bengal. Tagore wrote 'Jana Gana Mana' (National Anthem of India) which was first composed as 'Bharat Bhagyo Bidhata'. In 1911, 'Jana Gana Mana' was first at Calcutta (present-day Kolkata) session of INC and was adopted as the National Anthem of India in 1950. 'Sri Lanka Matha' is the National Anthem of Sri Lanka and was inspired by Tagore's work.

Tagore's Artistic works

At the age of sixty years, he started drawing and painting. After the encouragement by artists of France, Tagore's work made a debut appearance in Paris. It is said that Tagore was red-green colour blind and his artworks reflect strange colour schemes. In 1900, Tagore wrote to Jagadishchandra Bose about his drawings. Tagore withdrew from painting as he was using eraser more than the pencil and was dissatisfied with his artwork.

Essays by Rabindranath Tagore

• Letter to Lord Chelmford Rejecting Knighthood

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Rabindranath Tagore Biography: A Journey Through Words and Wisdom

Rabindranath Tagore, or Gurudev, occupies a towering position in Indian literature and cultural history. Born on May 7, 1861, in Calcutta (now Kolkata) , India, Tagore emerged from a family renowned for its intellectual and artistic pursuits. His father, Debendranath Tagore , was a prominent philosopher and leader of the Brahmo Samaj, a socio-religious reform movement. At the same time, his mother, Sarada Devi , provided a nurturing environment steeped in spirituality and creativity.

Rabindranath Tagore is credited with writing the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh. “ Jana Gana Mana ” serves as the national anthem of India, while “ Amar Shonar Bangla ” is the national anthem of Bangladesh. Both anthems are derived from Tagore’s Rabindra Sangeet, reflecting his profound influence on the cultural heritage of both nations.

Rabindranath Tagore Biography

Biography Highlight Table for Rabindranath Tagore

Early life and education.

Tagore’s early years were shaped by the rich tapestry of Bengali culture, which fostered his innate talent and curiosity. He received a diverse education, blending traditional Indian learning with Western literature and philosophy exposure. This multidimensional upbringing laid the foundation for his future endeavors and shaped his inclusive worldview.

Family Background

The Tagore name originates from the anglicized version of “Thakur.” Originally, the Tagore family surname was Kushari, and they belonged to the Pirali Brahmin community. The Tagores hailed from Kush, a village in the Burdwan district of West Bengal. Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya, Rabindranath Tagore’s biographer, explained in his book “Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya Prabeshak” that the Kusharis were descendants of Deen Kushari, the son of Bhatta Narayana. Maharaja Kshitisura granted Deen a village called Kush in Burdwan district, where he became its chief and became known as Kushari.

Literary Career

Tagore’s literary career spanned various genres, each marked by unparalleled creativity and depth.

• Poetry: Tagore’s poetic genius blossomed early, with his first collection, “Kabi Kahini” (The Poet’s Tale), published when he was just 16. His poetry, characterized by its lyrical beauty and spiritual depth, explored themes of love, nature, and the human condition. Works like “Gitanjali” (Song Offerings) brought him international acclaim and earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.
• Prose: Besides poetry, Tagore excelled in prose writing, crafting novels and short stories that reflected the complexities of Indian society. His novels, such as “Gora” and “Ghare-Baire” (The Home and the World), tackled issues of identity, nationalism, and the clash between tradition and modernity.
• Playwriting: Tagore’s contributions to the theater were equally significant. He penned numerous plays, blending poetic language with social and philosophical themes. Works like “Chitra” and “Raktakarabi” (Red Oleanders) showcased his ability to weave compelling narratives that resonated with audiences.
• Songwriting: Tagore’s musical compositions, Rabindra Sangeet, revolutionized Bengali music. With over 2,000 songs to his credit, he infused soul-stirring melodies with profound lyrics, covering many themes from patriotism to spirituality.

Tagore’s Influence on Literature and Society

Tagore’s impact on literature and society transcended geographical and cultural boundaries. His works, translated into numerous languages, continue to inspire readers and artists worldwide. Through his writings, Tagore explored the intricacies of the human experience, offering insights that remain relevant to this day.

Social and Political Activism

Beyond his literary pursuits, Tagore was deeply engaged in social and political activism. He advocated for education reform, founding the experimental school Shantiniketan, which emphasized holistic learning and artistic expression. Tagore also played a prominent role in the Indian nationalist movement, using his platform to champion the cause of freedom and social justice.

Education and Philanthropy

In 1878, Rabindranath Tagore embarked on a journey to London for his studies. Initially enrolled in law courses at University College London, he soon veered towards his true passions. Tagore opted to delve into English Literature, immersing himself in the rich literary traditions of England, Ireland, and Scotland.

Despite his legal studies, writing had always been a fervent passion for Tagore. His literary journey began at a remarkably young age, when he penned his first poem, “Abhilash,” at the tender age of 13. This poem was later published in the Tattvabodhini magazine in 1874, marking the auspicious beginning of Tagore’s illustrious literary career.

Tagore’s commitment to education extended beyond Shantiniketan. He believed in the transformative power of learning and supported various educational initiatives throughout his life. Tagore’s philanthropic endeavors aimed to uplift marginalized communities and promote cultural exchange and understanding.

Rabindranath Tagore At Shantiniketan

Tagore’s disdain for traditional schooling methods is vividly portrayed in his short story “The Parrot’s Training,” in which a bird is confined and fed textbook pages until its demise. This sentiment fueled his vision for a new kind of educational institution. During a visit to Santa Barbara in 1917, Tagore envisioned creating a university to bridge the gap between India and the world, transcending national and geographical boundaries.

The culmination of this vision was the establishment of Visva-Bharati, with its foundation stone laid on December 24, 1918, and its inauguration precisely three years later. Tagore implemented a brahmacharya system, where gurus provided personalized guidance to students on emotional, intellectual, and spiritual levels. Classes often took place outdoors under the shade of trees, fostering a close connection with nature.

Tagore was deeply involved in the school’s affairs, contributing his Nobel Prize winnings and dedicating himself to the role of steward-mentor at Santiniketan. He taught classes in the mornings and devoted afternoons and evenings to writing textbooks for the students. Between 1919 and 1921, Tagore embarked on fundraising efforts in Europe and the United States to support the school’s growth and development.

Nationalism and Patriotism

While Tagore initially supported Indian nationalism, his views evolved. He emphasized the importance of humanism and universalism, cautioning against the dangers of narrow nationalism. Tagore’s vision of patriotism was inclusive, rooted in a deep love for humanity and a commitment to universal values.

Journey Back Home: Mixing Cultures and Growing as an Artist in India

After coming back to India, Rabindranath Tagore got deeply involved in English, Irish, and Scottish literature and music, which really shaped his art. He also got married to Mrinalini Devi, who was only ten years old at that time.

List of Awards won by Rabindranath Tagore

In 1913, Tagore became the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his profound and lyrical poetry collection, “Gitanjali.” This prestigious accolade brought global recognition to Tagore’s literary genius and cemented his place in literary history.

Tagore’s Philosophy and Ideals

At the core of Tagore’s philosophy were ideals of harmony, freedom, and the pursuit of truth. He believed in the interconnectedness of all beings and advocated for love, empathy, and understanding as the cornerstones of a harmonious society.

Personal Life and Relationships

Tagore’s personal life was marked by profound relationships that influenced his work and worldview. His marriage to Mrinalini Devi and his close bond with his sister-in-law, Kadambari Devi, deeply impacted his emotional and creative life, serving as sources of inspiration for his literary endeavors.

Rabindranath Tagore’s Travel Journey

During his lifetime, Rabindranath Tagore traveled extensively, spanning over thirty countries across five continents. His journey began in 1878 and continued until 1933, taking him to diverse destinations such as England, the United States, Japan, Southeast Asia, and Europe. Along the way, Tagore engaged with prominent figures, including Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, and George Bernard Shaw. He shared his insights on nationalism, culture, and humanity, advocating for understanding and harmony among nations. Tagore’s travels left an indelible mark on his worldview, enriching his literary and philosophical contributions and fostering cultural exchange on a global scale.

Tagore’s Last Days and Legacy

Tagore passed away on August 7, 1941, at his family estate in Calcutta. However, his legacy continues, inspiring generations of writers, artists, and activists worldwide. Tagore’s timeless works and progressive ideals testify to the enduring power of literature and the human spirit.

Career Facts

• 1961, Satyajit Ray wrote and directed the Indian documentary film “Rabindranath Tagore” to commemorate Tagore’s birth centenary. The film was produced by the Government of India’s Films Division.
• Serbian composer Darinka Simic-Mitrovic utilized Tagore’s text for her song cycle “Gradinar” in 1962.
• American composer E. Anne Schwerdtfeger was commissioned in 1969 to compose “Two Pieces,” a work for women’s chorus based on Tagore’s text.
• Sukanta Roy’s Bengali film “Chhelebela” (2002) featured Jisshu Sengupta portraying Tagore.
• Bandana Mukhopadhyay’s Bengali film “Chirosakha He” (2007) cast Sayandip Bhattacharya as Tagore.
• Rituparno Ghosh’s Bengali documentary film “Jeevan Smriti” (2011) starred Samadarshi Dutta as Tagore.
• In Suman Ghosh’s Bengali film “Kadambari” (2015), Tagore was portrayed by Parambrata Chatterjee.

Rabindranath Tagore’s life and legacy testify to the transformative power of literature, art, and humanitarianism. His profound insights, literary accomplishments, and unwavering commitment to universal values continue to inspire and enrich lives across the globe, ensuring that his legacy remains vibrant and enduring for generations to come.

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Frequently Asked Questions

1. was rabindranath tagore a nobel laureate.

Yes, Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 for his collection of poems, “Gitanjali.”

2. What is Rabindra Sangeet?

Rabindra Sangeet refers to Tagore’s musical compositions, which blend poetic lyrics with soul-stirring melodies.

3. What were Tagore’s views on nationalism?

Tagore initially supported Indian nationalism but later emphasized a more inclusive and humanistic approach rooted in empathy and understanding.

4. How did Tagore’s works transcend cultural boundaries?

Tagore’s universal themes and profound insights into the human condition resonated with readers worldwide, transcending cultural and linguistic barriers.

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Rabindranath Tagore Biography: Early Life, Education, Literary Work, Achievements & More

the Rabindranath Tagore biography, the Nobel laureate poet, writer, and philosopher, whose profound contributions continue to inspire literature, music, and global wisdom.

Rabindranath Tagore: The Polymath Pioneer of Indian Cultural Renaissance

Rabindranath Tagore was a popular figure in the Indian cultural renaissance. Rabindranath  Tagore was a polymath poet, philosopher , musician, writer, painter and educationist. Rabindranath Tagore was the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize in 1913 for his collection of poems, Gitanjali.

Rabindranath Tagore had introduced the fresh prose and verse styles along with colloquial language, liberating Bengali literature from the confines of classical Sanskrit norms. Rabindranath Tagore bridged the gap between Indian and Western cultures, enriching both sides through his contributions.

Rabindranath Tagore was called Gurudev, Kabiguru , and Biswakabi affectionately and his songs are popularly known as Rabindrasangeet. Rabindranath Tagore penned down the national anthems of India and Bangladesh – the Jana Gana Mana and the Amar Shonar Bangla respectively are from the Rabindrasangeet.

Rabindranath Tagore Biography: Early Life

Rabindranath Tagore, born on May 7, 1861, in Kolkata, India. He was born into a distinguished family in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), West Bengal, India. 

• He was the youngest of thirteen children born to Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi. Debendranath Tagore was a prominent philosopher, religious leader, and reformer, while Sarada Devi was deeply engaged in cultural and social activities.

Rabindranath Tagore’s childhood and upbringing were greatly influenced by the cultural and literary environment of his family. He showed an early interest in literature, music, and art, and his talents were nurtured in a nurturing and intellectually stimulating household.

• By the age of sixteen, Tagore had already written his first collection of poems, “Kabi Kahini” (Tales of a Poet). This marked the beginning of his journey as a poet, and he soon began experimenting with various literary forms, infusing his work with his unique insights into human emotions and nature.

Rabindranath Tagore Biography: Early Education 

His early education began at home under the guidance of private tutors. He also attended various schools in Kolkata, where his unconventional approach to learning set him apart. Tagore was more interested in exploring his own interests and curiosities than adhering to traditional educational methods.

Rabindranath Tagore Biography:  Studies at University College London

In 1878, Rabindranath traveled to London for studies. He began studying law at University College London but left before completing it. Instead, he delved into English Literature and explored the music of England, Ireland, and Scotland. Writing had been a passion for Rabindranath since childhood. His first poem, “Abhilash,” was written at the age of 13 and was published in Tattvabodhini magazine in 1874.

Rabindranath Tagore Biography: Return to India & Artistic Fusion in India

Following his time abroad, Rabindranath returned to India. It was during this period that he immersed himself in the essence of English, Irish, and Scottish literature and music. His exposure to these cultural facets significantly influenced his artistic development. It was also around this time that he entered into matrimony with Mrinalini Devi, who was merely ten years old at the time.

Rabindranath Tagore Biography: A Literary Journey Through Nature, Music, and Storytelling

Rabindranath Tagore’s educational journey was a blend of both conventional schooling and his own passionate pursuit of literature and the arts, ultimately shaping his unique and creative perspective that would go on to influence his remarkable contributions to the world of culture and literature. 

His relationship with nature also played a significant role in shaping his worldview and artistic expressions. Tagore’s close connection to the natural world is often reflected in his poetry, where he seamlessly weaved elements of nature with human emotions.

Rabindranath also wrote songs and the biggest admirer of his songs was Swami Vivekananda himself. His music was influenced by classical music, Carnatic music, Gurbani, and Irish music. He also started writing stories from a young age.

Rabindranath Tagore At Shantiniketan and the Legacy of Holistic Learning

Rabindranath Tagore’s association with Shantiniketan marked a significant chapter in his life. Shantiniketan, located in Birbhum district of West Bengal, India, became a hub of learning, creativity, and cultural exchange under his guidance.

In 1901, Tagore established an experimental school named “Patha Bhavana” in Shantiniketan, which later grew into Visva-Bharati University. His vision for education was unconventional, emphasizing a holistic approach that harmonized nature, arts, and intellectual pursuits. He aimed to break away from rote learning and cultivate a sense of free thought and creativity among students.

The open-air classrooms at Shantiniketan showcased Tagore’s belief in the symbiotic relationship between education and nature. Underneath the trees, students engaged in discussions, imbibing knowledge in a serene environment. The curriculum encompassed a fusion of Western and Indian educational philosophies, encouraging students to explore a wide spectrum of disciplines.

Tagore invited scholars, artists, and thinkers from around the world to Shantiniketan, fostering a global exchange of ideas and cultural influences. This unique approach enriched the educational experience, exposing students to diverse perspectives.

Integral to Shantiniketan was Tagore’s concept of “Gurudev” or the teacher-student relationship based on mutual respect and learning. He considered education a lifelong journey and envisioned Shantiniketan as a center for the cultivation of the mind, spirit, and character.

Tagore’s own contributions to literature, music, and art deeply influenced the atmosphere at Shantiniketan. His compositions, known as Rabindrasangeet, were taught and performed with zeal, echoing his belief in the power of art to connect individuals and communities.

Recently Santiniketan became the 41st UNESCO World Heritage Site in India and the third in West Bengal, after the Sundarbans National Park and the Darjeeling Mountain Railways. Last year, the state’s Durga Puja got space in “Intangible Cultural Heritage of humanity” under UNESCO .

Rabindranath Tagore Biography: Nobel Prize winner

Internationally, Gitanjali Tagore’s best-known collection of poetry, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore was the first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature and the second non-European to receive a Nobel Prize after Theodore Roosevelt.

Rabindranath Tagore Poems: Literary works – Poetry, Prose, Novels, Plays, Short Stories, and Songs

Rabindranath Tagore’s literary works span a vast and diverse range of genres, including poetry, prose, fiction, drama, and songs. His creative output is celebrated for its profound philosophical insights, emotional depth, and innovative exploration of human experiences. Here are some of his notable literary contributions:

Rabindranath Tagore Biography: From Literary Genius to Pioneering Painter

At the age of sixty, Rabindranath Tagore took up drawing and painting, showcasing his works in successful exhibitions across Europe after making his debut appearance in Paris, encouraged by artists he met in the south of France.

• Influenced by various styles, including scrimshaw from the Malanggan people of Papua New Guinea, Haida carvings from the Pacific Northwest, and woodcuts by the German Max Pechstein, Tagore demonstrated a diverse artistic approach.
• His keen artist’s eye extended to handwriting, evident in artistic and rhythmic leitmotifs adorning his manuscripts’ scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts. Some of his lyrics even resonated synesthetically with specific paintings.

Despite his natural talent for writing, music, playwriting, and acting, painting proved elusive for Tagore. He expressed his desire to paint in letters and reminiscences, attempting to master the art.

In a letter to Jagadish Chandra Bose in 1900, at nearly forty and already a celebrated writer, Tagore revealed his attempts at sketching, acknowledging that his pictures were not intended for prestigious salons in Paris. He humorously acknowledged using the eraser more than the pencil and, dissatisfied with the results, decided that becoming a painter was not his path.

The National Gallery of Modern Art in India houses 102 works by Tagore in its collections, reflecting his exploration of visual art alongside his literary and musical endeavors.

Rabindranath Tagore Biography: Patriotism, Poetry, and the Pursuit of Indian Independence

Rabindranath Tagore was very involved in politics and strongly supported Indian nationalists fighting against British rule. He created many patriotic songs to inspire people to fight for Indian independence.

His literary works were widely praised, even by Mahatma Gandhi . Rabindranath Tagore’s poems have been written in the spirit of freedom, independence, and patriotism. 

• When the British divided Bengal in 1905, he composed “Amar Shonar Bangla” which later became the national song of Bangladesh. The song “Ekla Chalo Re” written by him with the aim of continuing the struggle against injustice became very popular.

A significant moment in Tagore’s political journey was when he gave up his knighthood in protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919, showing his deep dedication to Indian independence.

Besides being a famous writer, Tagore was also a patriotic Indian involved in literature, art, music, and politics. His various contributions have had a lasting impact on India’s culture and politics. “Jana Gana Mana” written by Rabindranath Tagore was played for the first time during the Congress session in Calcutta in 1911.

Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore was a fearless person who dedicated his entire life to achieving complete independence for united India before gaining freedom from the British.

He believed that true freedom depended on the proper education and self-sufficiency of the Indian people, and he devoted himself to this goal.

Rabindranath Tagore’s Vision of Nationalism: Beyond Borders and Boundaries

Rabindranath Tagore’s views on nationalism were complex and thought-provoking. While he was a fervent advocate for the cultural and spiritual upliftment of India, his approach to nationalism was distinct from the mainstream political notions of his time.

Tagore expressed concerns about the aggressive and narrow forms of nationalism that were emerging, both in India and around the world. 

• He believed that such nationalism could lead to divisions, conflicts, and a suppression of individual freedom. In his view, narrow nationalism often disregarded the broader human connections that transcended borders.
• “Nationalism in the West” and “Nationalism in India.” In these essays, Tagore criticized the negative aspects of nationalism while emphasizing the importance of promoting mutual understanding and preserving cultural diversity.

Tagore believed in a more inclusive and universalistic approach to nationalism. He envisioned a world where different cultures could coexist, enriching each other without succumbing to superiority or dominance. He emphasized the need for a harmonious relationship between nations, highlighting the dangers of fanaticism and aggressive patriotism.

His vision of nationalism was closely tied to humanism, emphasizing the value of human beings over the rigid lines of nationality. He cautioned against blind allegiance to the nation and stressed the importance of cultivating a sense of humanity and empathy.

Tagore’s stance on nationalism drew both praise and criticism. Some appreciated his holistic perspective, while others accused him of being detached from the pressing political struggles of the time. Regardless, his ideas remain relevant in the context of today’s global challenges, emphasizing the importance of unity, understanding, and a broader perspective beyond national boundaries.

In essence, Rabindranath Tagore’s approach to nationalism was characterized by a deep concern for humanity, cultural preservation, and the need to transcend narrow divisions for the betterment of society as a whole.

Tagore’s literary creations transcend boundaries and languages, resonating with people from various cultures and backgrounds. His ability to capture the essence of human emotions and his deep philosophical reflections continue to inspire and influence generations of readers and thinkers worldwide.

Rabindranath Tagore Biography: List of Awards won by Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore’s prolific contributions to literature, arts, and philosophy earned him numerous awards and honors throughout his life. Here is a list of some of the most notable awards won by Tagore:

These awards are just a glimpse of the recognition Rabindranath Tagore received for his exceptional literary and cultural achievements. His influence extended far beyond accolades, as his works continue to touch hearts and inspire minds worldwide.

Rabindranath Tagore Biography & Legacy of Literature, Arts, and Wisdom

Rabindranath Tagore’s journey on this earth came to an end on August 7, 1941. He passed away in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, leaving behind a legacy that continues to inspire and resonate with people across the globe. His contributions to literature, arts, philosophy, and cultural exchange remain as vibrant and impactful as ever, ensuring that his influence lives on through his works and the institutions he founded, such as Visva-Bharati University in Shantiniketan. Tagore’s departure marked the end of a remarkable life, but his ideas and creations continue to illuminate the world.

Rabindranath Tagore biography: A Multifaceted Legacy – Literature, Music, Education, and Global Impact

The legacy of Rabindranath Tagore is profound and enduring, spanning literature, music, art, education, and the broader realm of culture. His contributions have left an indelible mark on India and the world, shaping the course of thought, creativity, and social change. Here are some aspects of Tagore’s legacy:

Rabindranath Tagore: Memorable Quotes

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was rabindranath tagore, when was rabindranath tagore born, what is tagore's contribution to education, what are some of rabindranath tagore's famous works, what were tagore's views on nationalism, how did tagore contribute to indian culture, when did rabindranath tagore died, what are the rabindranath tagore famous poems.

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