Sri Aurobindo
The Hour of God
and other writings
XI. Notes From the "Arya"
The News of the Month
An Indo-French committee in Paris
An Indo-French Committee (Comite Franco-Hindou) has
been founded in Paris and M. Pierre Loti has been invited to become its Honorary
President. The Committee proposes to develop intellectual, scientific, artistic
and economic relations between France and India. It is a good deal for one
Committee! Let us at least hope that it will be able to carry out the first item
of its 
programme. No doubt, everything that
brings men and nations nearer to each other help in the formation of a general
intelligence more synthetic and comprehensive than the old divided mind of
humanity; but it is above all in the realm of thought and by the exchange of
ideas and the deeper experiences that the best fruits are likely to be borne.
Every new tie, especially every tie of the spirit between Europe and India,
between the West of today and the East of yesterday and tomorrow, is a welcome
sign of the times for those who know how much the world's progress depends on
their union.
M. Pierre Loti, in a letter addressed to the President
of the Committee, thus expresses his veneration for India:-
"And now I salute thee with awe, with 'veneration and
wonder, ancient India of whom I am the adept, the India of the highest
splendours of Art and Philosophy, the India also of monstrous mysteries that
terrify, India our cradle, India where all that has been produced since her
beginnings was ever impetuous and colossal. May thy awakening astonish that
accident, decadent, mean, daily dwindling, slayer of Nations, slayer of gods,
slayer of souls, which yet bows down still, ancient India, before the prodigies
of thy primordial conceptions."
We cannot but subscribe to the sentiment, if not to all
the phrases, of this fine piece of literature.
But what are these monstrous and terrifying mysteries
of which M. Loti speaks? Terror is no longer in the mode, the age of mysteries
is over and the age of monstrosity has never been. Ignorance is the only
monstrosity.
Arya, August 1914