A fascinating combination of combative and stoical heroism with a priestly bearing conferred on Indians of the Plains and Forests a sort of majesty at once aquiline and solar; hence the powerful and irreplaceable beauty that is associated with the red man and contributes to his prestige as a warrior and martyr. Like the Japanese in the time of the Sammurai the Red Indian was in the deepest sense an artist in the outward manifestation of his personality: apart from the fact that his life was a ceaseless sporting with suffering and death, hence also of a kind of chivalrous karma yoga , the Indian knew how to impart to this spiritual style an adornment unsurpssable in its expressiveness.
...[t]he crucial importance he attaches to moral worth in men- to "character" if you will-and hence his cult of action. The heroic and silent act is contrasted with the empty and prolix talking of the coward; the Indian's love of secrecy, his reluctance to express what is sacred by means of facile speeches that weaken and disperse it, can be explained in this way.
The whole Red Indian character may be summed up intwo words, if such a condensation be allowable: the act and the secret; the act shattering if need be, and the secret impassive. Rock-like, the Indian of former times rested in his own being, his own personality, ready to translate it into action with the impetuousity of lightning; but at the same time he remained humble before the Great Mystery, whose message, he knew, could always be discerned in the Nature around him.
Wild Nature is at one with holy poverty and also with spiritual childlikeness; she is an open book containing an inexhaustible teaching of truth and beauty. It is in the midst of his own artifices that man most easily becomes corrupted, it is they that make him covetous and impious; close to virgin Nature, who knows neither agitation nor falsehood, he had the hope of remaining contemplative like Nature herself. And it is Nature, quasi-divine in her totality , who will have the final word.
-------Frithjof Schuon, Light on the Ancient Worlds
2 comments:
dHullo! Glad to have discovered your blog. I just read a 2-part article in The Statesman (Calcutta) titled "Understanding Pakistan" by Subroto Roy. In part 2, Mr Roy writes: "Instead of nation-building, the super-elite became a comprador class." Perhaps bloggers in Pakistan might like to read and comment on this? The articles are at:
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=3&id=151948&usrsess=1
and
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=3&theme=&usrsess=1&id=124696
best
rama
Rama, haven't read the article and I'm not sure what the "super" elite is unless that's a particular phrase that is popular with Indian writers but the idea that elites are a "copmrador class" is hardly new hat. Dependency theories were saying this at least thrity years ago!
I certainly think that the realtionship between class and state is quite complex and perhaps not unrelated to the structure and strength of institutions at the time of partition(this is a point made by J. Herbst in his book, states and power in africa).
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