Aurobindo The tiger and the deer.

1. The Tiger and the Deer
- Sri Aurobindo
S. Mohan Raj M.A., B.Ed., M.Phil,
Assistant Professor,
Indo American College, Cheyyar.
Available @ : 9751660760
E-mail: rajmohan251@gmail.com

2. Sri Aurobindo is one of the supreme
masters in Indian English Literature.
He is not only a poet but also a philosopher,
short story writer and dramatist.
His poetry may be divided into
two broad groups as, poetry of
action and poetry of meditation.
Savitri is the epic by Aurobindo
which marks the culmination of
his poetic career.
He joined the Indian movement for
independence from British rule, for a while
became one of its influential leaders and
then became a spiritual reformer,
introducing his visions on human
progress and spiritual evolution.
Sri Aurobindo
(15 August 1872 – 5 December 1950),
born as Aurobindo Ghose, was an
Indian nationalist, philosopher, yogi,
guru, and poet.
He gives charming descriptions
of nature in his writings.
About the Poet:

3. Aurobindo studied for the
Indian Civil Service at King's
College, Cambridge, England.
After returning to India he took up
various civil service works under
the Maharaja of the princely state
of Baroda and began to involve
himself in politics.
During his stay in the jail he had mystical
and spiritual experiences, after which he
moved to Pondicherry, leaving politics for
spiritual work.
The central theme of his
vision was the evolution of
human life into a life divine.
He believed in spiritual realisation
that not only liberated man but
also transformed his nature,
enabling a divine life on Earth.
He died on 5 December 1950 in
Pondicherry.
In 1926, with the help of his spiritual
collaborator, Mirra Alfassa (‘The Mother’),
he founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
During his stay in Pondicherry,
Aurobindo developed a
method of spiritual practice,
which he called Integral Yoga.
He was imprisoned by the
British for writing articles
against British rule in India.

4. About the Poem
Aurobindo's The Tiger and the
Deer is a short didactic poem
written in 1930, revised in
1942. It is a contrast between
good and evil, innocence and
experience, and life and death.
Generally, people are afraid of the tiger.
They hate it because it is rough and dangerous.
In the poem, the world of
tiger stands for death,
darkness and arrogance.
The innocent deer
drinks water from the
great pool in the forest.
It is unaware of the
tiger's plan of attack.
The tiger crouches slowly to attack the deer;
the fierce tiger has leaped up over the deer
and torn it to pieces. The deer died
pathetically thinking about its mate.
The poem begins with a
description of the tiger. The
tiger crouches and slouches
brilliantly through the green
forest. It has gleaming eyes,
mighty chest and soft
soundless paws.

5. The deer in the poem suggests innocence,
softness and love.
The poet closes the poem
with a note of optimism.
He says that in spite of the
various blows of death and
darkness, life is a thing to be
enjoyed. Sufferings are not
eternal. He teaches the lesson
that those who harm others will
be destroyed like the mammoth.
The mammoth shook the
plains
of Asia once upon a time.
But it is extinct now.
Since the tiger kills and harms
other animals, the same fate of
mammoth would come to it.
But then the deer would drink
without any fear in the cool ponds
of the forest. Thus, the poem
expresses the poet's longing for a
peaceful and harmless world.
About the Poem…
The killing of the deer by the tiger suggests
the death and destruction of healthy values of
life by the cruelty of modern civilization.

6. Critical Analysis
The tiger waits for the deer to come and to pounce upon the poor
creature into the wilds of Nature representing it what is dark in it,
brutal and bloody, animal and horrific, wild and tempestuous, beastly
and deadly, terrifying and cataclysmic. What it is that has crept
through the green heart of the forest brilliant, crouching and
slouching? What is that breaking the calm and splendor of it with a
commotion and clamour turning noisy?
The tiger lying in wait for to grab and
catch the deer for a kill is definitely
another perspective of life and the world,
originating from the questions pertaining
to the creation, the purpose and prudence
of it, what the ways of the Divine, who can
but say it, answer them to settle the odd
scores?
The gleaming eyes of the brute of the jungle, burning and sparking and it
with the jaws and claws of its own coming slowly without making a sound,
as when on the prowl. The chest is mighty and the paws of grandeur and
murder and the beast coming with the soundless steps of its own.

7. The mild harmless beauty is destroyed by the
elements terrific and horrible which but the eyes cannot see it.
But a day will come when the destructive forces will meet a
disastrous and abrupt end, will never walk in the dangerous
heart of the ignorant forest. But the deer will continue to drink
water from the cool shade of the water pools into the forest of
life.
The Tiger and the Deer is really one of the most
beautiful poems of Aurobindo which remind us of the duality
of Nature and Creation. Nature at the same is swift, fragile
and cool and calm, but at the tameless, swift and windy.
Sometimes placid and sometimes horrific, tempestuous and
terrible is it unexpectedly.
Critical Analysis…
The poem may be an anecdote of Indian
Sadhaka doing Sadhana into the secluded
domains of Nature and the wild or the
mountainous regions. The poet wants to say
that what it is bloody will meets its end in
blood, what it is mild will remain
appreciated unto the last.

8. The law of the jungle is different from that of culture
and civilization. The brute force too is an element of
Nature, bloody, bestial and fierce combining with the
horror and terror element.
Many great Sadhakas of India
have done Sadhana in the
midst of it all down the ages
which are but a hidden fact.
The mystical duality of the
creation, how to explain it?
The poem can make meaning
if it is compared with Blake’s
The Tiger and we think the
one by the English poet more
beautiful than that of
Aurobindo.
Critical Analysis…
The Tiger and the Deer is
without any doubt a Blakian
poem where the lambish
element has been contrasted
with the tigerly ferocity.

9. The mighty will perish in their might and the slain will survive the slayer.
The mighty perish in their might
“The mighty perish in their might”
This statement metaphorically means
that the violent and mighty people can
inflict distress and pain upon others but
their cruel sway will not last long. And the
harmless and pious people will survive
then as the violence and might of their own
will make them perish. The mighty and
violence will not prolong for long and a
time will come to make the gentle and
disciplined to survive happily.
This statement occurs in The Tiger and the
Deer written by Sri Aurobindo, the great Indian
poet. In this poem he describes how a tiger
pounces upon a deer and tears it to pieces.
Describing on so, Sri Aurobindo says in the end
that they might will perish in their might and a
time will come when the poor deer can live
happily. History also evidences that even the
largest animals have to become extinct and a time
will come when there would be no tigers to kill
and eat the harmless deer.
“One who draws out the sword will meet his fatal end by a sword".
This statement reveals the fact that the mighty have to perish in their might.
This statement is an eye-opener to the dictatorial, violent and haughty men. There are
many instances where the meek and the weak had to give in to the powerful bodies and
waited for their turn to arrive, their turn arrived at last and they had won their games. We
should not threaten the weak so as to make our progress easy.

10. Two or three beautiful usages in the poem captivated the
readers...“soundless paws of grandeur and murder”. It is not
“soundless paws” that is noteworthy but “of grandeur and murder”,
which at once evokes an ambivalence, that is almost philosophical.
The grandeur transforms “murder” into an activity that the tiger
performs as a key role holder in the forest’s scheme of things.
A figure of speech is the use of a word or words diverging from its
usual meaning. It can also be a special repetition, arrangement or
omission of words with literal meaning, or a phrase with a specialized
meaning not based on the literal meaning of the words in it, as in
idiom, metaphor, simile, hyperbole, or personification. Figures of
speech often provide emphasis, freshness of expression, or clarity. A
figure of speech is sometimes called a rhetorical figure or a locution.
The poem was decorated with certain figures of speech.
Figures of speech
A beautiful usage in which “shadow” becomes part of “coolness” but is
much more than contributor to coolness, a visual image of the trees
casting their shadows on the forest floor combined with a tactile image
of their coolness i.e. leaves filtering both light and heat of the sun.
The wind slipped through the leaves as if afraid lest its voice and the
noise of its steps perturb the pitiless Splendor. Another beautiful image
is the ‘wind’. Try to imagine a gentle breeze entering the latticed foliage
of the trees without shaking the branches and blowing on the dry leaves
of the forest floor. Even the wind is terrified of the pitiless Splendor.
“In the forest’s coolness and shadow”

11. Integral yoga, sometimes also called supramental
yoga, is the yoga-based philosophy and practice of Sri
Aurobindo and The Mother (Mirra Alfassa).
Central to Integral yoga is the idea that Spirit
manifests itself in a process of involution, meanwhile
forgetting its origins. The reverse process
of evolution is driven toward a complete
manifestation of spirit.
‘Sadhaka’ or Sadhak (Sanskrit) is someone who follows a particular Sadhana’, or a
way of life designed to realize the goal of one's ultimate ideal, whether it is merging
with one's eternal Source, realization of one's personal deity. The word is related to the
Sanskrit sādhu, which is derived from the verb root ‘Sadh’ meaning 'to accomplish'.
In modern usage, Sadhaka is often applied as a generic term for any religious
practitioner. In medieval times it was more narrowly used as a technical term for one
who had gone through a specific initiation.
‘Sadhana’ means daily spiritual practice.
It is the foundation of all spiritual
endeavours. ‘Sadhana’ is your personal,
individual spiritual effort. It is the main
tool you use to work on yourself to
achieve the purpose of life. It can be
done alone or in a group.

12. Thank You