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Rabindranath Tagore
What is the critical appreciation,
figures of speech, and summary of the
poem "Upagupta"?
Tagore's poem "Upagupta" describes a young follower of the Buddha who is sleeping in
the dust when a dancing girl invites him to her home. He refuses, but cares for her
when he finds her stricken with smallpox the following spring.

Expert Answers
Tagore's poem begins with Upagupta, the disciple of Buddha, lying asleep by the city
wall of Mathura. He is woken by a dancing-girl, who invites him to her house, saying
that it is not fitting for him to sleep in the dust. Upagupta refuses, but says that he will
come to her when "the time is ripe." Thunder and lightning come from the sky,
causing the girl to tremble.

Less than a year later, in the spring, the young ascetic comes through the city gates
and finds the dancing-girl lying in the shadow of a mango grove. She has smallpox,
and the townspeople have cast her out. Upagupta gives her water, and puts balm on
her sores. When she asks who this "merciful one" is, he replies that the time to visit
her has come at last, and he is here.

The poem is divided into two stanzas, with a single line, "A year has not yet passed,"
between them. It describes a reversal of fortune, which affects the worldly dancing-girl
terribly, but has no effect at all on the spiritual serenity of the young ascetic. In the
first part of the poem, the dancing-girl is described as being "drunk with the wine of
her youth," an image that emphasizes both her joy in being young and beautiful, and
her dissolute lifestyle. Although Upagupta is startled to be woken, the light from the
woman's lamp "fell on his forgiving eyes." The young ascetic is not inhuman, but he is
fully in control of his emotions, and determined only to visit the girl when she is truly
in need of his help.

The thunder and lightning that end the first part of the poem foreshadow the dancing-
girl's sickness in the second part. Here, the girl has been "Struck with black
pestilence," is though by lightning. The townspeople are enjoying themselves at a
festival, as the girl used to do, and their flute-music and flowers at the beginning of
the second stanza provide a sharp contrast to her wretched state. This is one of many
contrasts in the poem, between health and sickness, light and dark, poverty and
wealth, and asceticism and pleasure.

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The scholar John Strong has written a great deal about the saint, Upagupta. Many
believe that this is the source of inspiration for Tagore's poem. Others believe that
Upagupta is the Lord Buddha himself, while there is a very strong and distinct Krishna
presence in the poem (Mathura, the flute, the description of him as being "beautiful,"
the hearing of lovers, as well as the fact that the manner in which Upagupta speaks in
the poem is really reminiscent of how he spoke to Arjuna in demonstrating his status
as Vishwaroopa in the Gita.) The imagery is what grabs me in the poem. Tagore's
initial description of how the ascetic is asleep on the ground and hears the anklets of
the young and beautiful dancer is powerful along with the closing ideas of the storms
raging in the end of the first stanza. Such imagery is continued in the second stanza
when the ascetic comes back into town and hears "love- sick koels" as well as the
"mango branches." The nighttime settings in both stanzas are punctuated by the
contrasting vision of the girl, who is beautiful in the first stanza, horrifically riddled
with pain and sores in the second. Yet, the transcendent vision of the ascetic is
constant, who applies healing paste to her body and tells her "I am here." If we
examine the poem as representative of the spiritual dimension of Hinduism, there is
much here which could put the poem in the same type of caliber as depicting the
power of spirituality as seen in the Gita or Mahabaratha. The most basic elements
jump out at the reader. The benevolence of the young dancer who is rebuffed, for all
practical purposes. This is something that is unique, as we already know that the
subject, Upagupta, is an ascetic. The idea that he would rebuff her generosity is quite
powerful. Yet, he does so with the warning that "When the time is ripe, I will come to
you." This helps to bring to light the Hindu or even Eastern belief that one does not
choose their time, but rather their time chooses them. The figure that we see in the
second stanza, as isolated and rejected, riddled with pain and scars is horrific enough.
Yet, this is countered with the ascetic who approaches her with taking care of her. Yet,
in my mind, the genius is not here. Tagore's genius comes in the last line which does
not pretend to offer any other conclusion other than the statement of "The time has
come, at last, to visit you, and I am here." This statement and its ideas are profound.
We, as the reader, do not know what happens to the woman. Is she healed? Does she
die? Perhaps, the larger question is whether this even matters. She has achieved a
certain level of salvation, of moksha, or liberation. This is what we are left with, that
the vision of the divine has come to the realm of the mortal. This is very reminiscent
of any of the Hindu gods, such as Vishnu (Krishna and Buddha avatars), descending
from their abodes to bless their mortals who have proven worthy, whose acts in this
life have fed their own karma and ensured that the spiritual atman has been, to an
extent, fulfilled. In a body of work that is highly political and literary, Tagore's poem is
reminiscent and containing much of what makes the Indian lexicon of writing as
something that encompasses a sense of the spiritual in almost any realm.

Further Reading

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