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When the word “Culture� is uttered, there is a tendency in some quarters to confound it with something highbrow and affected. It is apt to be regarded as something apart from daily life and its struggles and limitations. It is now and then confused with some special mode of dress or certain forms of speech or some habits of thought by assuming which its professors are supposed to behave differently from the rest of humanity. No doubt, culture has its charlatans and pretenders as have most arts and philosophies. But rightly understood, culture is more and no less than the art of living an enlightened life and it may be justly claimed for it as by the Stoic Emperor that nothing that appertains to humanity is foreign to it. Voltaire ends his most famous story depicting the chequered adventures of a philosopher in search of happiness and the El Dorado with the words “Let us cultivate our gardens�, meaning thereby that in the actual and joyous fulfilment of the daily work in the right spirit and with the right perspective, lies true culture and true happiness. It is on such aspects that I propose to dwell for a few moments in the talk which I have been privileged to give today by the courtesy of the All India Radio.

Not many days ago, I was asked to give a message to the graduates of the Travancore University after they had received their degrees and on that occasion I referred to a passage from the Taittiriya Upanishad as summarising the elements of true culture. The passage exhorts the students of those days who emerged from their pupilage in the Indian Forest Universities to speak the truth and do their daily duty and adds that there should be no neglect of daily reading, daily reflection and daily teaching; but it does not stop there. For, the Upanishad proceeds to emphasise that there should be no neglect of efficiency and skill of bodily alertness or of worldly affairs and no turning away from those means that lead to worldly prosperity. It is impossible to recapture the rhythm and the impressiveness of the original but my object in adverting to the old scripture was to point out the many-sidedness and the composite character of true culture as here envisaged.

Culture or cultivation is not a matter of acquiring an accent or a knowledge of language. It does not need the acquisition of any jargon, artistic or otherwise. It should not be confused with a display of superiority or incomprehensibility.

Culture is not solely based on wide reading or scholarship though these are often associated with it. Some of the most conspicuous exponents and examples of culture, the Lord Buddha, for instance, and Socrates were probably not versed in book lore. It does not only mean the appreciation and enjoyment of alt in its manifold forms, though it is difficult to conceive of a person as truly who is not responsive to the appeal of great architecture, of statuary and painting of the inspiration of music. What is required and demanded to the cultured individual is not that he has learnt much and filled his mind and soul but the harmonious result on him of the influences of nature, art and literature as well as of life. One of the greatest of poets has defined the right attitude of a human being towards life and life’s problems as comprehended in the words “Ripeness is all.� This ripeness excludes not merely crudeness of thought and behaviour but all extremes of conduct and judgement. It is incommensurate with sancti­monious hypocrisy or that intolerance which avers that my doxy is orthodoxy and yours heterodoxy. A most important and formative element in culture is the concourse and friendship of men that matter. Landor puts into the mouth of Pericles the sentiment that the festival of life would have been in-complete in his own case if he had not lived with such men as his contemporaries, the great poets, dramatists and philosophers of Greece and enjoyed their familiarity and esteem and thus fitted himself to be a faithful guardian of Greek destinies.

With all these elements, moreover, has to be joined that which perhaps is most needed at this time and that which in the classic Apology of Socrates is strongly advocated, namely, that a life without investigation is not worthy for a man to live.

I have cited these examples for the purpose of illustrating how true culture has been viewed by some of the greatest men who have lived. It were best perhaps to describe it succinctly, not so much as a possession of this gift, or the other, as the adoption and maintenance of a certain special attitude towards this life and the life beyond. A cultured man seeks to acquire knowledge, both the knowledge of power and the knowledge of beauty. His emotions are trained and refined by the study of high literature and the contemplation of great works of art; but he refrains from mere academic theorising or lofty aloofness. Culture which does not involve contacts with life and all its roughnesses and smoothnesses is a plant without a root. This is the reason why the seer in the Upanishad insists on efficiency in the ordinary duties of life as a sine qua non of culture. Such contacts will alone enable the possessor to be free from that worst form of intolerance which is intellectual arrogance and self-segregation.

There is also the danger that a too exclusive addition either to the sciences or the arts produces a fanaticism which may be as deleterious as the fanaticism of the ultra-doctrinaire. The avoidance of such lopsidedness was sought to be produced in ancient India by the insistence of the householder living the normal life and earning his living and supporting his family before he betook himself to the things of the spirit. A full life is a condition precedent to the supreme culture of renunciation.

The art of expounding one’s ideas was again and again emphasised both in ancient Greece and in ancient India, firstly because truth and knowledge are always the better for propa­gation and also because true wisdom can never be tested and examined unless the process of discussion and argument accompanies it. One of the dangers of the modern system is that over-specialisation has become an accompaniment of scientific and philosophic development. The biologist intent upon the study of micro-organisms, the chemist in his laboratory and even the astronomer among the stars tends to lose a sense of perspective and proportion–a loss which is no less characteristic of the strenuous politician and the official or administrator engrossed in his particular matter. Each of these is apt to regard his work as the fulcrum of existence; and a corrective has always to be applied to the views and ideals of such persons.

One of the main reasons for the catastrophic developments that we are now witnessing in the world is perhaps the exclusive and aggressive devotion of the scientist to his forte and the pre-occupation of the teachers of the world with the non-moral aspects of education. Not less baneful has been the narrowly commercial and economic outlook that has produced the universal and illogical craze of self-sufficiency, whereby a small group of nations endeavours to produce everything for itself and to sell as much as possible to its neighbours and at the same time to keep out everything from outside. Specialisation, narrowness, exploitation, the deliberate ignoring of the neighbour’s point of view have all been exemplified in the present conflict and are, in the opinion of many that count, the result of wrong national education and the absence of true culture. In the ultimate analysis, therefore, culture involves and implies a vivid awareness of the meaning of life, a conspectus of the world’s problems in the proper order and relative importance and the deliberate choice of the things that are really worth while.

Religion, as distinguished from dogma or specific creed, must be an integral part of all true culture, a religion which will not descend to posturing or fanaticism, which will be con­stantly aware of the great forces that mould the destinies of the world and will yet be wholly consistent with charity, compre­hension and tolerance and a mellow understanding of the draw­s and handicaps of oneself and society; a religion which may perhaps be best described as a constant and instructed criticism of life and a constant understanding of the difficulties of one’s neighbours. To strive for the best and yet be content with what alone is often attainable, namely, the second best � ­this should be the mark of the truly cultivated person.

Let me endeavour to summarise the essentials of culture by invoking the words of a modern poet who is not as well-known as he should be:

“To things, not phantoms, let us cleave­�
The gains of science, the gifts of art:
The sense of oneness with our kind;
The thirst to know and understand
A large and liberal discontent,
These are the goods in life’s rich hand
The things that are more excellent.�
(A Broadcast Talk. 1940)