SONGS OF THE NEW DAWN
Between the years 1982 and 1990, Indian philosopher, activist and spiritual teacher Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar composed over 5000 songs, mostly in the Bengali language. The poems in this book are renderings of some of these songs. Known as Prabhat Samgiita or Songs of the New Dawn, they were a remarkable achievement, marvels of rhythm, melody, and lyrical inspiration. Sarkar’s metaphors for the spiritual life are rich and wide-ranging, his depictions of the natural world beautiful, and his vision of social justice stirring. Most of all, his songs movingly depict the intimate relationship between human lover and Divine beloved. Grounded in the devotional tradition of bhakti yoga, which depicts an embodied Divine, the songs sometimes take the form of conversations, even arguments, between lovers. This relationship consumes the devotee with longing and the realization of the intense love God has for creation.
The best way to experience Songs of the New Dawn is to sing or listen to the sung melodies. However, the literary beauty of the lyrics deserves our attention as well. They have been injected with a powerful insight, clarity, sense of purpose, and love-energy. The songs were intended to be used as tools, as devotional and spiritual levers for opening one’s heart and expressing the infinite desires within.
Ever since I visited Sarkar in the mid-1980’s, I have loved these songs, and felt a desire to help capture in English the magic and mystery, the literary depth and beauty, that the Bengali songs convey. I decided to try to render some translations into a poetic form. A certain amount of license has been taken. You could say that these poems are inspirations, not strict or literal translations. I like to call them ‘transpirations.’ To transpire is to transform subtly from one state to another, as a plant does with water vapor to air. To transpire also means to ‘become known.’ The lover wants his/her love for the Beloved to become known, and I would like these poems to help this devotional process become better known as well.
I have studied and can read the Bengali language, but I am not fluent. I’m therefore indebted to the translators who went before me. I was able to look up each word in the Bengali dictionary and ponder appropriate and meaningful possibilities and compare them to extant translations. At times I consulted with native speakers. I strove to find a balance between the original spirit, rhythm and meaning of the lyrics, and a poetic, literary, inspiring sensibility of the word’s meanings in English. I also put them into a form which better suited poetic representation, occasionally rearranging line breaks, stanzas and adding enjambments. In order to give the reader a taste of the original language, first lines of each song are printed as song titles, in a Romanized version of the Bengali script, with the appropriate diacritical marks.
I am fortunate to have collaborated with a talented artist, Kindle Corwell, whose scratch drawings remarkably convey subtle aspects of these poems and bring out even more of their beauty.
I wouldn’t consider it proper to make money off these songs, so all profits from the sale of this book will go to further the promotion of Prabhat Samgiita songs and music through the umbrella organization of RAWA – Renaissance Artists and Writers Association.
To order a copy, contact me through the contact section of this website. The book retails for $16.
The best way to experience Songs of the New Dawn is to sing or listen to the sung melodies. However, the literary beauty of the lyrics deserves our attention as well. They have been injected with a powerful insight, clarity, sense of purpose, and love-energy. The songs were intended to be used as tools, as devotional and spiritual levers for opening one’s heart and expressing the infinite desires within.
Ever since I visited Sarkar in the mid-1980’s, I have loved these songs, and felt a desire to help capture in English the magic and mystery, the literary depth and beauty, that the Bengali songs convey. I decided to try to render some translations into a poetic form. A certain amount of license has been taken. You could say that these poems are inspirations, not strict or literal translations. I like to call them ‘transpirations.’ To transpire is to transform subtly from one state to another, as a plant does with water vapor to air. To transpire also means to ‘become known.’ The lover wants his/her love for the Beloved to become known, and I would like these poems to help this devotional process become better known as well.
I have studied and can read the Bengali language, but I am not fluent. I’m therefore indebted to the translators who went before me. I was able to look up each word in the Bengali dictionary and ponder appropriate and meaningful possibilities and compare them to extant translations. At times I consulted with native speakers. I strove to find a balance between the original spirit, rhythm and meaning of the lyrics, and a poetic, literary, inspiring sensibility of the word’s meanings in English. I also put them into a form which better suited poetic representation, occasionally rearranging line breaks, stanzas and adding enjambments. In order to give the reader a taste of the original language, first lines of each song are printed as song titles, in a Romanized version of the Bengali script, with the appropriate diacritical marks.
I am fortunate to have collaborated with a talented artist, Kindle Corwell, whose scratch drawings remarkably convey subtle aspects of these poems and bring out even more of their beauty.
I wouldn’t consider it proper to make money off these songs, so all profits from the sale of this book will go to further the promotion of Prabhat Samgiita songs and music through the umbrella organization of RAWA – Renaissance Artists and Writers Association.
To order a copy, contact me through the contact section of this website. The book retails for $16.