“Rewriting Modernist Despair through Indian Knowledge Systems: Upanishadic and Buddhist Perspectives on The Waste Land”
This blog is written as task assigned by the head of the Department of English (MKBU), Prof. and Dr. Dilip Barad Sir. Here is the link to the Syllabus for background reading: Click here.
For many of Sir's different blogs upon Waste land:
The Waste Land - What makes it a difficult poem?
The Waste Land as Pandemic Poem
The Waste Land - Universal Human laws
1.The Upanishadic Elements in T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land
4 Ancient Eastern Ideas That Unlock T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”
T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land (1922) stands as a towering, notoriously difficult cornerstone of modernist literature. For a century, it has been read primarily as a monument to Western disillusionment, a fragmented reflection of a society shattered by the trauma of World War I. Its bleak landscapes and disjointed voices seem to capture the very essence of a world stripped of meaning.
But what if the poem’s despair is not its final word? A deeper reading reveals a surprising and profound influence: the Upanishads, ancient Hindu spiritual texts composed between 800 and 200 BCE. While the thematic influence is often subtle, Eliot weaves the philosophical inquiries of these scriptures into his masterpiece, creating a dialogue between contemporary crisis and ancient wisdom. The four key ideas explored here are not merely a new lens for viewing the poem; they are the essential framework for understanding its ultimate, and surprisingly hopeful, conclusion.
1.1. The Barren World is an Illusion (Maya)
Eliot masterfully depicts a world that is spiritually desolate and physically barren. From the "dead tree" that gives no shelter to the crowds flowing over London Bridge in the "unreal city," the poem presents a landscape devoid of genuine vitality. This crisis is embodied by the motif of the Fisher King, whose woundedness renders his kingdom infertile. In this portrait of decay, Eliot is not merely documenting post-war malaise; he is diagnosing it through an Upanishadic lens, framing the modern world itself as a form of Maya.
In Upanishadic philosophy, Maya is the powerful illusion that the material world we perceive is the only reality. It is a transient and ultimately unreal state that obscures a higher, divine truth. The goal of spiritual inquiry is to see through this illusion to achieve the realization of unity between Atman, the individual self, and Brahman, the ultimate divine reality. Eliot’s "unreal city" is a perfect Western analogue for Maya a world that traps the fragmented individual self (Atman) and prevents it from uniting with the divine whole (Brahman). This reframes the poem's despair not as a final state, but as the essential first step toward awakening: one must first recognize the illusion to begin the search for what is real.
1.2. The Search for Redemption is an Ancient Quest
Once the world is recognized as an illusion, the spiritual quest becomes necessary. The Waste Land is precisely this journey, a pilgrimage through disillusionment in search of meaning. The poem’s famously fragmented structure, with its shifting voices and abrupt transitions, is not merely a stylistic choice; it mirrors the Upanishadic conception of a fragmented self, an individual consciousness cut off from its divine source and lost in the chaos of illusion.
This modern search for meaning directly echoes the central purpose of the Upanishads: the pursuit of Moksha, or spiritual liberation. This is not a vague hope but a release from a specific condition: Samsara, the endless and suffering-filled cycle of birth and rebirth driven by worldly attachment. In "The Fire Sermon," the poem’s third section, Eliot explicitly references the Buddhist sermon warning against the "fires" of passion and material desire a theme central to the Upanishadic goal of transcending the ego. This connection is a powerful reminder that the modern feeling of being lost is not unique to our time. It is part of a timeless human spiritual inquiry, articulated thousands of years ago, to heal a fractured identity by reuniting it with a greater whole.
1.3. Water Symbolizes Hope for Spiritual Rebirth
A soul undertaking such an arduous quest is defined by a profound thirst. Throughout The Waste Land, this spiritual longing manifests as a desperate need for water. The landscape is dominated by the "dry stone," the lack of rain, and an overwhelming physical and psychic barrenness.
In the Upanishads and broader Hindu rituals, water is a symbol representing far more than physical life. It is the agent of spiritual purification, the flow of divine knowledge, and the cleansing of the soul it is grace made manifest. When viewed through this lens, the poem's desperate longing for rain becomes a metaphor for a deeper longing for the spiritual grace required for redemption. The parched landscape is not just a physical reality but a spiritual state, and the hope for rain is the hope for the enlightenment that can end the suffering of Samsara. Eliot transforms the poem's world into a spiritual battleground where the arrival of water signifies the possibility of rebirth.
1.4. The Thunder's Message is an Upanishadic Prescription for Healing
After the long journey through the desolate landscape, the poem culminates in "What the Thunder Said." While Upanishadic themes are a subtle undercurrent for much of the poem, here Eliot makes the influence startlingly explicit. The long-awaited renewal arrives not as a gentle rain, but as a divine pronouncement from the thunder, delivered in three Sanskrit words that form a rare, direct quotation from the Upanishads.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
(Give. Sympathize. Control.)
This conclusion is not an ambiguous whisper but a clear, albeit challenging, prescription for healing. These three commands are the direct antidote to the spiritual sickness diagnosed throughout the poem. "Give" counters the selfish isolation of the unreal city. "Sympathize" breaks down the prison of the ego that burns in "The Fire Sermon." "Control" harnesses the destructive passions that lay the land to waste. Together, they encapsulate the Upanishadic ideal of transcending selfish desire to embrace a higher spiritual truth. By looking to ancient wisdom, Eliot provides a direct, active, and deeply ethical path to regenerate both the individual soul and the wasteland of the modern world.
A Bridge Between Worlds
Integrating these Upanishadic themes fundamentally enriches our understanding of The Waste Land. The poem is no longer just a monument to Western decay but a profound and complex dialogue between contemporary disillusionment and ancient spiritual wisdom. Eliot suggests that the path to renewal may lie in timeless truths that transcend cultural and historical boundaries.
It leaves us with a thought-provoking question. If ancient Eastern philosophy holds a key to one of the most iconic Western poems, what other timeless wisdom might we be overlooking in our efforts to navigate the complexities of the modern world?
2. A Buddhist Reading of T. S. Eliot’s Poetry
Beyond the Waste Land: The Buddhist Blueprint in T.S. Eliot’s Poetry
Introduction: The Poet You Thought You Knew
When we think of T.S. Eliot, a distinct image comes to mind: the high priest of Modernism, the poet of urban decay and spiritual alienation, and, following his famous conversion, a figure of devout, almost severe, Anglo-Catholicism. His work, dense with allusions to Western literature and Christian theology, seems to stand as a monument to a particularly European intellectual tradition. This familiar portrait, however, is incomplete.
Beneath the surface of his complex verse lies a deep and sustained engagement with Eastern philosophy, particularly Buddhist thought. This alternative spiritual framework provides a powerful lens for understanding his poetry not as a collection of disparate works, but as a lifelong intellectual project. A Buddhist reading reveals a clear progression in his thought, tracing a journey from an early diagnosis of modern suffering to a mature and profound spiritual synthesis. It does not erase the Christian Eliot but rather complicates and enriches him, revealing a mind that constantly integrated disparate spiritual systems in its search for meaning.
This article explores four stages of this project, revealing how Buddhist concepts shaped his most iconic poems. From the failed quest of Prufrock to the mystical synthesis of Four Quartets, these ideas are not footnotes to his work but vital tools he used to articulate the central spiritual drama of his age.
2.1. Prufrock: The Failed Siddhartha
J. Alfred Prufrock, the hesitant protagonist of Eliot's early masterpiece, is often seen as the epitome of modern social anxiety. A Buddhist reading, however, reframes his struggle as something far more profound: a failed spiritual quest. Prufrock’s paralysis before his "overwhelming question" is a spiritual war against the suffocating conventions of his world.
This struggle bears a striking resemblance to that of Siddhartha the historical Buddha before his enlightenment who fought to escape the endless wheel of reincarnation. Prufrock, like Siddhartha, questions the old, accepted ways of being. But his war is more specific. From a Buddhist perspective, to presume is "to create names and forms for the targeted object, which leads to corresponding sensations and consequential attachment." Prufrock’s central struggle, then, is his search for a way to "begin without presumption," to elude the cycle of formulation and attachment that defines his social reality.
While the Buddha’s journey towards Nirvana is a struggle away from the wheel of reincarnation, Prufrock’s quest for answers to his overwhelming questions is a war against presumptions.
But where Siddhartha succeeds in breaking through illusion, Prufrock fails. Unable to "embody his wandering soul," he finds no way to act without being trapped by the very language and gestures he must use. His quest collapses inward, leading him to a terrifying vision of the unconscious that threatens to fragment his soul. This perspective transforms Prufrock from a symbol of a neurotic man in a drawing-room into a tragic figure on a profound, if ultimately unsuccessful, spiritual journey.
2.2. Reincarnation: A Cycle of Misery, Not a Path to Wisdom
In The Waste Land, Eliot employs the concept of reincarnation not as a hopeful path toward wisdom, but as the engine of a terrifying, endless cycle of human suffering. In the world of the poem, history does not progress; it merely repeats its patterns of misery, from the mythical violation of Philomel to the numb, loveless encounter of the modern typist.
The "waste land" is not just a barren physical landscape but an inner state of "nihilistic emptiness" that reincarnates itself across generations. In this vision, reincarnation and emptiness are inseparable. The true horror is not death, but the inescapable pattern of spiritual desiccation that life brings back again and again. As the scholar P.S. Sri concludes in his study of the poem's Buddhist underpinnings:
Reincarnation, not death, is to be dreaded.
This reframing is one of the poem’s most chilling insights. It suggests that the catastrophe of the modern condition is not a single, dramatic event like war, but the quiet, relentless, and inescapable cycle of suffering that defines existence itself.
2.3. A Buddhist Pattern for Christian Salvation
Following his 1927 conversion to Anglo-Catholicism, Eliot's poetry took a famously devotional turn. Poems like "Ash-Wednesday" are cornerstones of his Christian faith, mapping a soul's journey of repentance and surrender to God. Yet, even here, a Buddhist structure operates just beneath the Christian surface.
The central experience in "Ash-Wednesday" is that of "turning" turning away from worldly temptation and turning toward God. This spiritual transformation is interpreted as a form of reincarnation. The soul is not simply changing its mind; it is undertaking a journey from an old "body," a former way of being, into a new one. The process involves leaving behind a past self to be reborn into a new spiritual existence.
In other words, Eliot’s scheme of salvation, though a very Christian one, also has a Buddhist pattern underneath, which is highly compatible with the more obvious Christian one.
This insight reveals Eliot not as a poet who simply replaced one belief system with another, but as a masterful synthesizer. More profoundly, it shows his Christian turn as a new vocabulary for a persistent spiritual question, one rooted in his Buddhist studies: the fundamental relationship between the seeker (the sentient being) and the source of enlightenment (the Buddha, or God).
2.4. The Still Point of the Turning World as Buddhist "Suchness"
One of Eliot’s most famous philosophical concepts appears in Four Quartets: the experience of being "at the still point of the turning world." This is typically understood through the lens of Christian mysticism as a fleeting glimpse of God beyond the temporal world. A Buddhist reading, however, reveals it as an experience within the temporal world, a perfect expression of the concept of tathata, or "suchness."
"Suchness" is the spiritual experience of communing with the divine "in the here and now," where "illusion and reality are only the different aspects of the same tathata." A mind in this state perceives the ultimate emptiness of worldly things like the vision of the lotos in the dry pool in "Burnt Norton" without being blinded by that emptiness. It allows one to fully experience a fleeting vision of beauty without demanding that it be permanent.
Eliot grounds this abstract idea in multiple, interlocking images. The "axle-tree," for instance, echoes the Buddhist wheel of universal laws, which integrates all existence. But the most powerful expression is the cosmic dance. It is described as "Neither from nor towards... But neither arrest nor movement," a perfect articulation of the Buddhist transcendence of dichotomy. This dance recalls the ritualistic gestures in Tantric Buddhism, meant to realize communion with the cosmic spirit. The still point, then, is not an escape from the world but a perfect, participatory understanding of the timeless pattern within it. This perspective adds a profound layer of Eastern philosophical depth to the poem, enriching what is often seen as a purely Western mystical text.
Conclusion: A New Way of Reading
Viewing T.S. Eliot through a Buddhist lens does not diminish his Christian faith or his place in the Western canon. Instead, it reveals a coherent, lifelong spiritual and intellectual evolution. We see him move from diagnosing the modern malady the paralysis of Prufrock, the endless cycles of The Waste Land to articulating a complex, synthesized solution. In his devotional poetry and the philosophical majesty of Four Quartets, he repurposed the structures of Buddhist thought to explore the nature of salvation and reality itself.
This reading opens up his poetry, offering new clarity to obscure passages and new depth to famous ones. It reveals a poet who looked both East and West for the language to explore the timeless questions of the human soul, a more daring and syncretic thinker than we ever imagined. If such a deep-seated framework can be found in a poet as thoroughly examined as Eliot, what other hidden blueprints might reshape our understanding of the great artists we think we know?
3. Spiritual Degeneration and Redemption: Exploring Indian Philosophy in T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land
T.S. Eliot's Century-Old Poem Predicted Our Spiritual Crisis:
5 Shocking Takeaways
Have you ever felt a sense of spiritual emptiness, a low-grade anxiety humming beneath the surface of a materially comfortable life? Do you ever feel trapped in a dull routine, chasing after wealth, lust, or power, only to find yourself feeling hollowed out? This modern condition, a kind of life-in-death, is not a new phenomenon. In fact, it was diagnosed with prophetic power over a century ago.
In 1922, in the aftermath of the devastating First World War, T.S. Eliot published his epoch-making poem, "The Waste Land." It wasn't just a reflection on a traumatized generation; it was a profound and moving picture of a civilization that had lost its spiritual roots. Here, we'll explore five shocking insights from the poem, illuminated by a deep-dive into its core themes, that reveal profound truths about our own time.
3.1. We Fear Rebirth: Why April is the 'Cruelest Month'
Eliot begins by weaponizing our most cherished symbol of hope the coming of spring to show just how deeply the modern soul wishes to remain asleep. The poem’s famous opening line, "April is the cruellest month," immediately turns our expectations upside down. We traditionally see spring as a time of joy and new life, a theme celebrated for centuries, as in Geoffrey Chaucer's cheerful prologue to "The Canterbury Tales."
But for the spiritually dead inhabitants of Eliot's wasteland, this awakening is painful. They are content with their numbness and dislike being roused from their slumber. April’s promise of regeneration is a cruel reminder of a spiritual life they have no desire to pursue. They prefer a regression to a purely animalistic, instinct-driven existence a life of simple survival that absolves them of the difficult, conscious work of spiritual growth. As the poem states, they find a strange security in numbness:
"Winter kept us warm covering Earth in forgetful snow feeding A little life with dried tubers"
This insight is powerful because it suggests our spiritual emptiness isn't just a passive state we fall into. It's a condition we sometimes actively prefer over the difficult, often painful, work of growth and regeneration.
3.2. Love is a Machine: The Collapse of True Intimacy
"The Waste Land" portrays a world where love, sex, and intimacy have become sterile and devoid of spiritual significance. Human connection has failed, and Eliot traces this collapse through a chilling progression, from futile passion to outright mechanical dehumanization.
It begins with guilty, passionate love. The poem references stories like that of Tristan and the Hyacinth girl, where romantic encounters bring not fulfillment, but "futility, and disappointments," leaving the participants empty and disconnected, "neither living nor dead."
From there, it decays into the institutional rot of loveless marriage. Both the wealthy, neurotic aristocratic lady and the working-class Lil suffer in "dull and boring" relationships. Their lives are marked by frustration, anxiety, and a complete breakdown of communication, showing how even the most intimate bonds have withered.
The final, most haunting stage is mechanical sex. In the poem's most chilling depiction, a typist girl goes home after a long day and engages in a passionless encounter. She is described as a "human engine" that "waits like a taxi throbbing waiting." The act itself is an automatic, indifferent "mechanical copulation," something to be done and gotten over with. This theme of alienation resonates deeply with modern anxieties about intimacy in an increasingly disconnected world.
3.3. Faith Becomes Fortune-Telling: The Trivialization of the Sacred
In Eliot's vision, when true faith disappears, it isn't replaced by enlightened reason, but by cheap superstition and empty ritual a diagnosis perfectly captured in the character of Madame Sosostris. Described ironically as "the wisest woman in Europe," she is a common fortune teller whose tool is the Tarot pack. These cards, once used for matters of the "highest cultural importance," have been reduced to a tool for "vulgar fortune telling," a perfect symbol for the steep decline of values in modern society.
During her reading, Madame Sosostris makes a crucial discovery: she cannot find the card of "the hanged man." This card is a symbol for Jesus Christ and, by extension, fertility, sacrifice, and the path to redemption. Its absence signifies that faith and the possibility of salvation have been lost to the modern world.
Instead of a path forward, she sees only a grim, meaningless cycle:
"I see crowds of people walking round in a ring."
This image is a powerful metaphor for the dull routine of modern civilization a life lived without higher purpose, spiritual direction, or a way out of the endless, repetitive loop of material existence.
3.4. An Ancient Eastern Prescription for a Western Sickness
After exhaustively diagnosing the spiritual desolation and moral decay of Western civilization, Eliot does something surprising. He turns away from the West and looks to the East specifically to ancient Indian philosophy for a remedy.
The final section of the poem transports us to a drought-stricken land by the holy Ganges river. The spiritual crisis is so severe that gods, demons, and men have all gathered to approach Projapati, the God, for guidance. They pray for a solution to their suffering.
The god answers not with a complex doctrine or a new set of rules, but with the sound of divine thunder. The thunder utters a single syllable, repeated three times: "Da." Each of the three groups gods, demons, and men interprets this single sound differently, revealing three essential commands for salvation.
3.5. The Three Commands for Salvation: Give, Sympathize, Control
Here, at the poem's climax, Eliot offers a path toward regeneration a three-part prescription for the soul.
Datta (To Give): This command means far more than simple charity. It is the "awful daring of a moment's surrender" of one's entire self to a higher spiritual purpose. It is through this act of total self-giving, not through our wealth or public obituaries, that our existence finds meaning. This is, the poem suggests, how "we have existed."
Dayadhvam (To Sympathize): This is the key to breaking free from the prison of the ego. Eliot evokes this prison with the haunting lines: "I have heard the key / Turn in the door once and turn once only." This is a direct allusion to Dante's Inferno, where Count Ugolino is locked in a tower to starve one of literature's most famous depictions of inescapable damnation. For Eliot, our ego is that prison. Sympathy is the key that can unlock the door, allowing for true connection and the creation of community.
Damyata (To Control): This is the command for inner discipline. Eliot illustrates this with the beautiful image of a boat responding "gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar." This control is not about restriction; it is about the skillful guidance that makes the journey of life more effective and purposeful, allowing one to navigate the winds of passion and desire with a steady, expert hand.
Conclusion: Will We Answer the Thunder?
T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" diagnosed a spiritual crisis a century ago that feels shockingly relevant today. It holds up a mirror to our anxieties, our failed connections, and our search for meaning in a world that often seems to have lost its way.
But the poem does not leave us in despair. It shows us both the sickness and the cure. The question it leaves for us, a century later, is whether we have the courage to listen to the thunder and follow its simple, profound commands: to give, to sympathize, and to control.
Indian Knowledge Systems and The Waste Land: A Comparative Thematic Summary of Three Studies
These three articles collectively reinterpret T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land through the lens of Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) especially the Upanishads and Buddhist philosophy. Instead of viewing the poem only as a record of Western post–World War I despair, they argue that Eliot embeds ancient Indian spiritual frameworks to diagnose modern spiritual decay and to propose a path toward regeneration.
1. The Upanishadic Elements in T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land
- The Waste Land presents the modern world as Maya (illusion), where material life replaces spiritual truth, reflecting the Upanishadic idea that ignorance of reality leads to suffering.
- The poem is structured as a spiritual quest for liberation, paralleling the Upanishadic search for Moksha through self-realization and transcendence of ego.
- The thunder’s message Datta, Dayadhvam, Damyata offers an Upanishadic ethical solution for spiritual renewal through selflessness, compassion, and discipline.
2. A Buddhist Reading of T. S. Eliot’s Poetry
- Eliot’s poetry depicts modern existence as Dukkha (suffering) and spiritual paralysis, similar to Buddhist views on attachment, illusion, and the fear of endless reincarnation.
- The Waste Land represents a terrifying cycle of rebirth without enlightenment, where repetition replaces progress, and spiritual emptiness perpetuates itself.
- Later poems, especially Four Quartets, reflect Buddhist concepts like suchness (tathata) and inner stillness, showing a movement toward spiritual awareness alongside Christian belief.
3. Spiritual Degeneration and Redemption: Exploring Indian Philosophy in The Waste Land
- The poem diagnoses modern civilization as spiritually degenerate, marked by mechanical relationships, loss of faith, and resistance to regeneration.
- Eliot turns to Indian philosophy to explain that suffering arises from ego, desire, and lack of discipline rather than historical events alone.
- The Upanishadic commands Give, Sympathize, Control are presented as a practical Indian spiritual remedy for restoring individual and social harmony.
Refrences:
- Grenander, M. E., and K. S. Narayana Rao. “The Waste Land and the Upanishads: What Does the Thunder Say?” Indian Literature, vol. 14, no. 1, 1971, pp. 85–98. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/23330564 .
- Nanda, Manoj Kr. "The Upanishadic Elements in T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land." International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts, vol. 12, no. 9, 2024, pp. c932-c935. https://www.ijcrt.org/papers/IJCRT2409333.pdf
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