ALBERT CAMUS, POET RENE CHAR AND ASIAN THOUGHT

                                                                                          

                                                       (Photo: Albert Camus and René Char )

Albert Camus, René Char and Asian Thought

Albert Camus’s engagement with Asian thought was not confined to isolated references in his Notebooks. It also formed part of the intellectual atmosphere he shared with René Char, one of the most distinguished French poets of the twentieth century. Their correspondence, published as Albert Camus and René Char, Correspondance 1946–1959, edited by Franck Planeille and issued by Gallimard in 2007, reveals an unusually close literary and moral friendship concerned with suffering, revolt, freedom, responsibility and spiritual independence.

Camus had already encountered the Vedas, the Upanishads, Buddhism and the Bhagavad Gita during his intellectual formation. His interest centred on suffering, detachment, moral action and liberation, even though he resisted doctrines that seemed to encourage withdrawal from the world. The figure of Arjuna is especially suggestive in this context. Arjuna’s crisis on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, where action must be undertaken despite moral anguish and uncertainty, offers a striking comparative parallel with Camus’s own insistence upon responsible action in an absurd and violent world. That is why Camus once wrote this to René Char :

" We ate all Arjunas, and there is no charioteer ."

Char brought another Asian dimension to this friendship. He was deeply interested in Milarepa, the great Tibetan Buddhist poet and yogi, whose songs explored impermanence, solitude, discipline of mind and freedom from attachment. Char expressed his admiration memorably:

“L’œuvre de Milarépa fait mon enchantement.”

“The work of Milarepa fills me with delight.”

Jean Grenier had earlier opened Indian philosophy to Camus, while Char later reinforced an intellectual world receptive to Buddhism and Asian spirituality. Camus and Char thus converged upon a profound question shared by the Gita, Buddhism and Camus’s ethics: how can one confront suffering without surrendering freedom, responsibility or moral lucidity?

( Avtar Mota )

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.
Based on a work at http:\\autarmota.blogspot. com/.