About Shantih
SHANTIH Journal was years in the making. Starting in
late 1998, the earliest participants in the creation of
this journal began their love affair with a high school
literary magazine entitled What the Thunder Said. As
these students graduated and entered into their college
careers, some of them continued their love of the fine
arts. For some it became an avocation. Others made it
their bread and butter.
In this ongoing collaboration, former students and
editors of the student-run magazine What the Thunder Said
and their former teacher are pleased to bring you this
newly formed celebration of art and artists.
T he Meaning Of Shantih & T he Aesthetic Of Our Journal
SHANTIH borrows its name from T. S. Eliot’s The Waste
Land, part V, which is entitled “What the Thunder
Said”. So, in many ways, the title of our journal is an
extension of the publication to which we owe our genesis,
but the name and our intention go beyond a passing nod to
the old magazine.
Shantih can be translated into English as peace, or inner
peace, or bliss, or tranquility. In his poem, The Waste
Land, T. S. Eliot translated the word as “The Peace
which passeth understanding”, but really these are all
poor translations. In T. S. Eliot and Indic Tranditions
(1987), Cleo McNelly Kearns writes of the larger context
within Eliot’s use of the word:
Shantih as a mantra “[…] conveys, at a very deep level,
the quality it seeks to denote, the peace inherent in its
inner sound. […] As a term for the goal of meditation,
it suggests the telos toward which the poem as meditation
must move” (Kearns 228).
The basis of the aesthetic of our journal is the idea
that art invokes healing and peace simply by existing
in a shared space. Further, that the drive for peace and
well-being is a private as well as communal urge. It is
our goal to create a journal that is both the invocation
and the shared space of this benediction.