A poem
written in Vietnamese by Inrasara
Translated
into English by Alec G Shachner
Temple of
Sunlight
Explicated
by Dr Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyaya
Text
For hundreds
of years the temple has stood
The ocean
afar and the sands by its side
For
thousands of generations the temple has shined
On a
deserted hill
Like a
rest note
Exposed
Without a
single bush----without a single cloud
An infinity
of sunlight and vastness of sand
Sound is
mute---time absent
Empty space
dense on all horizons
Without a
single verse of praise
Without even
a single lyric of glory
Still the
temple stands engrossed in sunlight
In the empty
desert of humanitys cold heart
The Saigon
to Phan Rang route
I have
passed over more than one hundred times
The temple
is there—I had been pretending as though it were not
In a twinkle
of skana space is imploded
The temple
appears in its original form
temple of sunlight
boundless
Explicatio
The title of
the poem –Trmple of Sunlight could mean
many things such as a temple belonging to sunlight or a temple made of sunlight
and so on. And surely sunlight could stand for the Sun or Sun god. A temple is a holy place where people worship
gods and deities. Temple of Sun god would mean there fore a built space which is deemed holy because of the presence of the Sun god inside
the built space.Worship of the Sun was widely spread in ancient times. Japan the land of Rising Sun used to
worship the Sun goddess Amaterasu. Ancient Egypt worshipped Sun god Ra. With Akhenaten Sun god is all in all..Ancient Persians
worshipped Sun god Mithra. Jesus is the
Sun symbol. In India Sun god is worshipped since time immemorial. Earlier there
was a sect which worshipped Sun god in the main.But one of the most popular
mantras chanted by the Hindus which is interpreted by many as a prayer to Sun
god is Gayatri. It reads –Om Bhur bhuvah svah Tat Saviturvarenyam bhargo
devasya dhimahi, Dhiyo yo nah prachodayaat. The three worlds of earth ether and
heaven. We meditate on the god of their progenitor who destroys all our
crudities. May he bless our intellect .The Sun god likens the china rose. He is
the child of the sage Kasyapa .His lustre is enormous .He destroys every
disease. He destroys sins. He is the
architect of the day.In India there is the famous Sun temple at Konark. But no longer the Sun is worshipped
there.It is now earmarked as a world heritage site.The temple of sunlight-the
very name brings all these motifs to the
mind of an Indian reader impelled by the law of association.The temple of
sunlight might mean the temple belonging to sunlight which is beyond the sphere
of sorrow. Or else it may mean a temple made of light in the encircling gloom.
The poem
opens with the statement that for hundred years the temple has stood.That
evokes our curiosity. We want to see a built space of the ancient times
lingering still—a marvel of our time and a world heritage site. The second line—the
ocean afar and sands by its side seems to depict the temple before our minds eye.May be we
cannot hear the sea but we can surely espy the waves of the sea. The temple
stands on a deserted hill for thousands of generations. Now we can visualize the
temple standing on a hill near the sands. The sea can be descried. It is afar
The phrase deserted hill suggests that
the temple itself is deserted as well.The hills and mountains have been
believed to the abode of gods. Does the phrase deserted hill suggest that
we moderns are no longer drawn to the
hills where the temples or the abode of
gods exist. The poet says that there is not even a bush in the neighbor hood of
the temple.It is a sheer deserted place grand in its loneliness and eerie.
There is not a cloud to c over its head. It is exposed to the infinite skies
that have no trace of cloud . The temple is as it were a stern ascetic seated
on a hill below the canopy of boundless blue deep . All around him there is no
single trace of life.Nature around him is arid and bare.. And there is no sound
about. Silence reigns supreme. Thus silence and empty space robs the poet of
his awareness of time.The temple seems to be timeless in an empty space.Once
space seems to be empty time vanishes.T And the temple there fore turns into a
figment of dream. But dreams could be more real than the real world sometimes.The
third stanza observes that the temple stands without a single verse of praise
without a single lyric of glory. It stands unknown and unsung. May be because
human speech and human praise cannot reach the dizzy heights of empty space and
timelessness, far removed from the world
of eye and ear.Still the temple stands in an infinity of sunlight and vastness
of sand engrossed in sunlight .The vastness of sunlight and the sand seem to
stand for the desert of the humanitys cold heart. Well here is the rub.The
humanitys cold heart is as hot as the sunlit sand. Or else the sunlit sand is
as cold as the cold heart of humanity. Well here is a vision of Nature which is
bald which is empty. Does the poet argue
that the stark and empty nature
that surrounds is the externalization of mans cold heart that has no love no
sympathy for anything about..Poetry is at bottom criticism of life. As civilization
advances Nature is being denuded. But again does not the sun temple stand at
the heart of a Nature robbed of its apparels? Does not the sun temple stand at
the centre of the cold heart of the humanity?Here is a note of robust hope. Let
civilization and reason do what it can the Sun temple stands at its heart.The
Sun stands for fresh creation.Earlier the poet described the sun temple as a
rest note exposed.It there fore stands opposed to the human world of hectic
activity getting and spending. But rest is at the heart of every motion. The
poem is prophetic in its suggestion that a day will come when the humanity will
realize the sun temple at its heart. A day will come when the humanity will
hear the note of rest ringing at its heart. The poet says that the temple can
be seen on the way from Saigon to Phan Rang.The poet recalls that he went along
the route several times He saw the temple over and over again and yet he did
not see it till in a twinkle of ksana or a fraction of second the temple made
itself manifest to the poet. The poem concludes with the line—The temple
appears in its original form temple of
sunlight boundless. This is flashback. A sudden reversal of the poets view of
life took place at that ksana. This adds to the poem the taste of a
narrative.When the poet speaks of the original form of the temple he
distinguishes between appearance and
reality.True that the contingent world is
in the thrall of time and space.But that is the appearance . Time and
space collapse and the reality is manifest. But the reality as experienced by
the poet Inrasara is too bright for eyes
to see. Our eyes are dazed and our minds thoughtless before such a vision of light light alone that exists.
Thousand suns seem to pale before it.
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