TAGORE, SIR RABINDRANATH ), Indian poet and author, was born in Calcutta on May 6, 1861, the young est son of Maharshi Devendranath and grandson of Prince Dwarkanath Tagore. After a private education in India he was sent to England in 1877 to study law, but soon returned to India, and while still quite young commenced writing for Bengali period icals. In looi he established the famous Shantiniketan, a school at Bolpur, 93 m. from Calcutta, which developed into an important educational institution conducted on unconventional lines, and now approaches an international university. In 1913 Tagore was awarded the Nobel prize for literature, and utilized the amount, i8,000, for the up-keep of his school. He has visited Europe on several occasions and travelled also in Japan and the United States. He accepted a knighthood in 1915, but in 1919 resigned it as a protest against the methods adopted for the repression of dis turbances in the Punjab. In later years, however, he offered no objection to the use of this title. Tagore is interested in politics only in so far as it concerns the deeper life of India, and he desires that the nationalist movement should consider social reforms be fore political freedom. By his abundant writings, which are per
meated by a sense of the beauty of the universe, by a love of chil dren and of simplicity, and by a consciousness of God, Tagore has done much to interpret for the West the more serious reflec tions of the people of Bengal.
His most important works which have been translated into English are Gitanjali (1913); The Crescent Moon (1913); Chitra (1914) ; The Post-Office (1914) ; The Gardener (1914); One Hun dred Poems of Kabir (1915) ; Fruit-Gathering (1916) ; Stray Bird (1916) ; The Lover's Gift and Crossing (1917) ; Nationalism (1917) ; Lectures on Personality (1917) ; My Reminiscences (1917) ; The Parrot's Training (1918) ; The Home and the World (1919); Sakuntala (1920); Red Oleanders (1925). See E. Thompson : R. Tagore, Poet and Dramatist (Oxford, 1926).