Rabindranath Tagore

False Religion

by Rabindranath Tagore

Those who in the name of Faith embrace illusion,

Kill and are killed.

Even the atheist gets God's blessings –

Does not boast of his religion;

With reverence he lights the lamp of Reason

And pays his homage not to scriptures,

But to the good in man.

The bigot insults his own religion

When he slays a man of another faith.

Conduct he judges not in the light of Reason;

In the temple he raises the blood-stained banner

And worships the devil in the name of God.

All that is shameful and barbarous through the Ages,

Has found a shelter in their temples

Those they turn into prisons;

O, I hear the trumpet call of

Destruction! Time comes with her great broom

Sweeping all refuse away.

That which should make man free,

They turn into fetters;

That which should unite,

They turn into a sword;

That which should bring love

From the fountain of the Eternal,

They turn into prison

And with its waves they flood the world.

They try to cross the river

In a bark riddled with holes;

And yet, in their anguish, whom do they blame?

O Lord, breaking false religion,

Save the blind! Save the blind!

Break! O break!

The altar that is drowned in blood.

Let your thunder strike

Into the prison of false religion,

And bring to this unhappy land

The light of knowledge.

From: Later Poems of Rabindranath Tagore, translated by Aurobindo Bose, Indian Series, UNESCO Collection of Representative Works.

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