E. M. Forster’s “Temple”: Eclectic or Visionary?

E. M. FORSTER'S "TEMPLE": ECLECTIC OR VISIONARY? PATRICIA A. MORLEY This paper is concerned with "Temple," Part ill of Forster's A Passage to India, with its meaning and its relation to the novel as a whole. The task is not synonymous with examining the role of Professor Godbole and the Hindu festival. Hinduism is very important to Part ill, as the title indicates , and Forster's letters in The Hill of Devi cast light upon his attitude towards it. "Temple," however, is not concerned solely with Hinduism; structurally, it alternates between descriptions of Hindu ceremony and scenes involving personal relationships. This structure is indicative of Forster's eclectic approach, as he attempts to synthetize the values of East and West. "Temple" is a short section, approximately one-tenth of the novel. When asked about the exact function of the long description of the Hindu festival, Forster replied: "It was architecturally necessary. I needed a lump, or Hindu temple if you like - a mountain standing up. It is welJplaced , and it gathers up SOme strings. But there ought to be more after it. The lump sticks out a little too much.'" Some of the strings Forster believes Part ill succeeds in gathering up are, among others, the Marabar Caves and Godbole's song at Fielding's tea party. Yet "No one is India!", and the "lump, or Hindu temple" is balanced in this section by meanings involved in Ralph and Stella, Aziz and Fielding. Possibly because of Forster's own allusion in 1952, quoted above, the importance of Hinduism has been emphasized in critical interpretations of "Temple"; and frequently, the interpretations occupy one or the other of two extreme positions. One holds that Forster believes Hinduism to be closest to religious truth: "It is a Hindu view of life that gives the book its final thematic and esthetic focus";' the other, "that Hinduism has really much less importance in the novel than has hithero been believed ... far from being an influence for good, his [Professor Godbole'sl is an influence which is non-beneficial and, if not primarily and consciously evil, is at least in the direction of evil.'" In 1921, Forster spent six months in India as the temporary private secretary to the Maharajah of Dewas State Senior. His letters home from India during this period, published in The Hill of Devi (1953), are very Volume xxxoc, NumbeT 3, April 1970 230 PATRICIA A. MORLEY relevant to his attitude to Hinduism in A Passage to India, as most of the novel was written soon after this sojourn. Numerous extracts from The Hill of Devi can be found to support either position: namely, that Forster believes Hinduism to be the religion closest to the ultimate truth, or that Hinduism is relatively unimportant in the novel. Critics who tend toward the former view quoted Devi sparsely, if at all, whereas those who tend toward the latter find ample ammunition in these letters. Forster's criticism of Hinduism as unaesthetic recurs constantly in The Hill of Devi. H e finds himself "starved by the absence of beauty,'" a sense which Dewas "daily outrages" Cpo 130); and he admits to being troubled by the fact that everything seems "fatuous and in bad taste" Cpo 106). Of the major Hindu festival, Gokul Ashtami, he writes: "Tbere is no dignity, nO taste, no form, and though I am dressed as a Hindu I shall never become one" Cpo 107). The Maharajah dances in this religiO US ceremony, (as does Professor Godbole in Passage); and Forster comments: "I have never seen religious ecstasy before and don't take to it more than I expected I should, but he manages not to be absurd" Cpo 106). Another recurring criticism is of the "muddle" which Forster finds typical of Hindu life generally as well as of Hindu religious ceremonies. He displays a puritanical streak in his criticisms of idleness, incompetence, and extravagance, which he finds to be even worse than he had anticipated. It is significant that Forster connects the physical muddle of daily life in a Hindu state with the spiritual muddle Cas it seems to him) of its religious beliefs and ceremonies. In the religious...