• ISBN 0-31•2'!14030'4 The first comprehensive biography of Tagore in more than three decades, this moving work uses newly uncovered material to re-create the life of the Nobel laureate, whose profound * spiritual legacyi grows to this day. “These prose translations from Rabindranath Tagore have my stirred blood as nothing has for years,” wrote W. B. Yeats in 1912, a year before Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, becoming the first Asian, writer so honored. Traveling the world for several decades and sharing both his artistic and spiritual gifts wi|Ji millions, Tagore was praised and admired in his time like no other twentieth-century writer as a spiritual seer and a literary genius. V Despite his accolades and widespread acclaim, however, Tagore slipped into virtual obscurity as the decades passed, until his name was scarcely known outside of India. But today, over fifty years after his death, Tagore is in the midst of a major international renaissance, as a new generation of readers in India and the West drawn is to the wis- dom and compassion that Rabi, as he was known to his friends, exemplified in his life and art. This biography, the product of more than ten years of research and collaboration between the authors, is the first work in many decades to dis- entangle the profound and perplexing contradic- tions that made Tagore such a fascinating and pivotal figure. He was one of the very first to per- ceive that—despite the great geograpM^^and cul- tural distance between them— and West would be compelled to meet in the tury. Truly myriad-minded, Tagpre ^pri^^d\the (CONTINUED ON BAC DATE DUE APR 2 3 1935 AUG 2 o 1996 HUV 1 4 19 DEt2fr1 FEB 1 3 199? - APR 8 1997 - r&l APR 8 AUG 7 1998 1 FEB 2 7 Z002 Digitized by the Internet Archive 2016 in https://archive.org/details/rabindranathtago00dutt_0 RABINDRANATH TAGORE ALSO BY KRISHNA DUTTA Rabindranath Tagore’s Glimpses ofBengal (translator) Rabindranath Tagore’s Selected Short Stories (translator) ALSO BY ANDREW ROBINSON Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye The Art ofRabindranath Tagore ALSO BY BOTH AUTHORS Noon in Calcutta: Short Storiesfrom Bengal (editors/translators) RABINDRANATH TAGORE The Myriad-Minded Man Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson New St. Martin’s Press York Sausafho i^rary ' 94965 Sausaiito, Caliio.n,a Endpaper art: SelfPortrait, Rabindranath Tagore, 1935 (Rabindra Bharati Museum, Calcutta) © RABINDRANATH TAGORE: THE MYRIAD-MINDED MAN. Copyright 1995 by Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case ofbrief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010. ISBN 0-312-14030-4 First published in Great Britain by Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd. First U.S. Edition: January 1996 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2'l