What follows is my provisional translation (in other words, not official or authorized; see here for more) of a Tablet of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the original text of which has been published digitally on the Bahá’í Reference Library here. An earlier translation of this Tablet appears in Ahmad Sohrab’s diary entry for 23 June 1914, suggesting it may have been written on or around that date.
See here for a later Tablet of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá that also mentions Rabindranath Tagore.
While the provisional translation below is not technically an authorized (official) translation, it has been reviewed for accuracy by the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice.
* * *
Calcutta
To the handmaid of God, Mrs. [Jean] Stannard, upon her be the Glory of God, the All-Glorious
He is God
O summoner to the Kingdom of God! On this journey, thou hast truly rendered the greatest service to the celestial Kingdom. Thou didst renounce thy comfort, joy, and happiness, and depart for that region with utmost detachment. Thou hast indeed given up thy life, thine ease, and thy health for Bahá’u’lláh, and it is certain that, in the light of this sacrifice, divine confirmations will continuously reach thee. Rest thou assured.
Convey my sentiments of deepest love and kindness to Mr. Rabindranath Tagore, and say to him, “I am delighted by the foundations of knowledge thou hast laid, insofar as thou art teaching literature and philosophy to these students,* but my hope is that thou mayest promote heavenly arts and propagate sciences of the divine spirit, and be aided with a power that shall grant thee ascendancy over all the Illuminationist philosophers.”
Upon thee be the Glory of the All-Glorious.
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* Presumably at Patha Bhavana, an institution of primary and secondary education in Shantiniketan (a neighborhood in Bolpur, located in the Indian state of West Bengal) that later developed into what is today Visva-Bharati University. In an article by Martha Root titled “The Bahá’í Faith and Eastern Scholars,” she describes her visit to that school in 1937 as follows:
The next journey was to Shantiniketan (it means the “Home of Quiet,” “The Home of Peace”) to visit Dr. Rabindra Nath Tagore on December 14, 1937. Mr. Isfandiar Bakhtiari of Karachi, an Íránian by birth, was with me. The poet said, “I met ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Chicago, in 1912. He was staying in an hotel; He was talking to His followers who gathered around Him and I, too, spoke with Him. He very kindly asked me if possible, to come and see Him in His own place in Haifa. I always thought I would try to go, but it wasn’t to be like that. The years went by and one day I read in the newspapers that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had passed.”
Dr. Tagore spoke of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá with deep appreciation; he also said that the Bahá’í Faith is a great ideal to establish and that they in Shantiniketan welcome all the great spiritual aims, that he hopes a Chair of the Bahá’í Religion can be arranged in their international university. Dr. Tagore’s center is not only one of the very important cultural institutions of the Hindus in India, but it is also an all-Asia center of great potency. He spoke with Mr. Bakhtiari of his pleasurable trip to Írán and asked particularly about the progress of the Bahá’í Cause in the land of its birth; he praised the tolerance and fineness of the Íránian Bahá’ís. The poet said, too, that they have some very good books about the Bahá’í Teachings in the university library. The visit with Dr. Tagore was a most happy one.
(The Bahá’í World, vol. 7, pp. 687–88)
As far as I am aware, no such “Chair of the Bahá’í Religion” was ever established in that school.
A typescript of the original Persian text of this Tablet appears below.
Adib Masumian 