Tagore’s Philosophy of Creation: A New Dimension in Art and Culture

Abstract

The present paper is an attempt to explain Tagore’s view on creation from the philosophical point of view. In fact, Tagore follows the philosophy of Vedas and Upanişadas as the main sources of Indian spiritual thoughts and he clearly defines the human nature as the creative spirit that makes a man to be perfect in his infinite nature. Especially, Tagore’s philosophy of creation also follows the synthetic idealism of Vedanta, Vishnavism, Buddhism, and his philosophy provides many notions such as the religion of man, man’s finite and infinite nature, the man’s creative nature, the surplus in man, the religion of an artist, man of the heart and the realization of truth. To identify the nature of creation as different from the construction, he has made a sharp distinction between the two. Following Tagore’s view, here, I have taken an attempt to answer some important questions, these are: What is creation? Can a creation be separated from its creator? Why does Tagore think a man’s creation is greater than all his gross desires? How does a man realize the truth in creation? According to Tagore, a creation is not only a spontaneous expression of an artist, but also a new work in which the two factors - the creator and his creation are closely related to each other; one cannot be separated from the other. When a man is able to realize his creative nature through the creation and its spontaneous expression through the aesthetic appreciation, he is the greater than all others those have no such creative abilities and he is also free from all bondage. Finally, Tagore accepts the subjective truth not only to define the individual experience of aesthetic appreciation of creation, but also to express the man’s realization of truth in the realm of art and culture.