Dear Friends,
In 1950, Part One of Sri Aurobindo’s epic poem Savitri was published in book-form. Parts Two and Three of Savitri saw the light of day in 1951.
To mark the seventy-fifth year of the publication of Savitri, an article entitled The Biggest Puzzle in the Text of Savitri authored by Amal Kiran alias K.D. Sethna has been published on the website of Overman Foundation.
With warm regards,
Anurag Banerjee
Founder,
Overman Foundation.
_______
The Biggest Puzzle in the Text of Savitri
1
It is well known that a Critical Edition of Sri Aurobindo’s epic is under preparation. The general guide-line is: “Follow the text”—the “text” signifying Sri Aurobindo’s latest handwritten version or else his latest dictated matter. In regard to dictation some questions are natural because of possible mishearing. In regard to the manuscript there should theoretically be no question. On its authority a good number of what are termed “transmission errors” have been set right—that is, mistakes committed in copying out the occasionally difficult-to-read text and then repeated or sometimes even added to, inadvertently, in the typescript from which the press went to work. But there is one place in Savitri where the final MS itself has given rise to very grave doubt. It is in a passage on p. 347 of the Birth Centenary Edition and may be called the biggest puzzle in the text.
King Aswapaty (corrected form of the old spelling “Aswapathy”) has returned from his exploration of the supra-terrestrial “planes”, which had culminated in his vision of the Divine Mother and his securing a boon from her for the world. Though back on earth, he is still receptive to influences from beyond:
Once more he moved amid material scenes,
Lifted by intimations from the heights
And twixt the pauses of the building brain
Touched by the thoughts that skim the fathomless surge
Of Nature and wing back to hidden shores. [p. 347]
Savitri has run through several editions but no reader has marked any anomaly here. The passage was read out to Sri Aurobindo himself before publication and he too did not notice anything amiss. No doubt, he has also passed many words which now stand convicted of being “transmission errors”. Of course, in spite of their varying from the original text they were passed not because he considered the variations in Nirod’s copy or in Nolini’s typescript improvements again and again on his own writing but because he had forgotten what he had written and these variations managed in their own way to make sufficient sense. The trouble with the passage I have quoted is that it exactly transmits Sri Aurobindo’s final manuscript so that the charge of his somehow accepting something alien is not valid—and yet a word here has seriously raised eyebrows during discussions for the Critical Edition.
The word is “twixt”. At a recent count, in at least thirteen MSS before the very last, the third line is written with “in”:
And in the pauses of the building brain…
Impressed by the fact that Sri Aurobindo’s own hand has replaced the longstanding “in” by “twixt”, meaning “between”, a commentator on Savitri has publicly dwelt on the passage thus:
“Sri Aurobindo as an imager of thought-birds and as an artist of an exceptional merit making these heavenly visitors slip between the pauses of the building brain—when the brain is in its phase of intense activity symbolic of the duties of the ruler with a concern for his kingdom—is just superb. There is something remarkable here from the point of view of poetic expression achieving through its round-aboutness a very unusual result. Complex in structure but metrically so well-poised, the third line in the above passage depicts exactly the whole process by which Aswapati the Yogi is presently seen engrossed in affairs of public life, a typical Aurobindonian integration of the secular and the esoteric.” [1]
In view of this emphatic printed pronouncement with no hint of the known diffidence about “twixt”, which was aroused in some parties concerned with the Critical Edition, it is necessary to bring out in the open the precise bone of contention.
When Sri Aurobindo wrote “in”, he evidently meant that during the times when Aswapaty’s “building brain” had ceased from its activity and was in a state of calm, a condition of quietude, making an interval of “pause”, he had received “thoughts” from far-off unearthly regions. In other words, these supra-mundane thoughts were received when the usual mental constructions were in abeyance. With this meaning, the line was a straightforward statement. It had no “round-aboutness”, no “complexity in structure”. Similarly straightforward would have been a line if Sri Aurobindo had wished to say that the opposite was true—namely, that the activity of the building brain and not the recurrent pause in it rendered Aswapaty a recipient of superhuman influences. We might have expected a verse like
And in the ventures of the building brain…
Now, with “twixt” instead of “in” to precede “pauses”, one has to take Sri Aurobindo as resorting to “round-aboutness” and “complexity in structure” in order to suggest the same situation by saying that everything happened in the space of time between one pause and another and that nothing happened at the time a pause was there. Sri Aurobindo is made to imply not just that the presence of the “heavenly visitors” was felt during intensely busy cerebral processes but also that it was felt only during them and never if there was any calm, quietude, “pause”.
On the very face of it, this strikes one as a contradiction of all that Sri Aurobindo has said on spiritual problems and Yogic practices. In fact, according to his writings, what now has been called “a typical Aurobindonian integration of the secular and the esoteric” occurs with the “secular” giving up its usual activity of the building brain and letting its striving thoughts be replaced by the assured luminous thinking of the “esoteric”, the higher planes, or else allowing its own thought-stuff to be moulded by their light. To put it otherwise, it is not “between” but “in” the “pauses” that the integration takes shape. This sense is borne in on us by another passage in Savitri where too the precise verbal turn used in the numerous earlier versions of our passage meets us. On p. 421 we read:
Although in pauses of our human lives
Earth keeps for man some short and perfect hours
When the inconscient tread of Time can seem
The eternal moment which the deathless live,
Yet rare that touch upon the mortal’s world. [p. 421]
The spiritual situation is similar. In addition to “pauses” reappearing, the past participle “touched” gets represented by the noun “touch”, both of them relating the terrestrial to the finer and greater beyond.
The general drift intended in either passage is clearly caught in a third on p. 476:
Open God’s door, enter into his trance.
Cast Thought from thee, that nimble ape of Light:
In his tremendous hush stilling thy brain
His vast Truth wake within and know and see. [p. 476]
Such is Sri Aurobindo’s message everywhere, in both prose and poetry. Even the commentator whom I have quoted lets this message come through in one of the lines he [2] cites to show the varied poetic and spiritual qualities of Savitri. The line, taken from p. 383 of the Centenary Edition, runs as cited:
… Mind motionless sleeps, waiting Light’s birth, [p. 383]
Savitri itself the commentator characterises in terms that go counter to the denigration implied earlier of “pauses”. He [3]writes: “It is the Word that has taken birth in the Infinite’s bosom of Silence, in the ‘omniscient hush’: Savitri’s substratum is the divinely pervasive Shanta Rasa.”The Supreme Truth and Beauty emerge from or through or in depths of peace.
2
That “twixt” makes really a twist in Sri Aurobindo’s vision and is, in my opinion, the result of a strange oversight. But an attempt to rectify the situation appears to have been made. For, in Nirod’s handwritten ledger where the text had been copied, a line was put under “twixt”, and a tick in the margin, the usual sign of some uncertainty. When these marks were first noticed, it was thought that Nolini, struck by the incongruity of “twixt”, had been responsible for them. Nirod said that he must have brought Nolini’s questioning of the word to Sri Aurobindo’s attention and that Sri Aurobindo must have affirmed “twixt”. I believed that the underlining and the tick must have served simply as a push to Nirod to check the word with the original and that he must have done the checking and told Nolini of the word’s occurrence in the MS. I could not think of Sri Aurobindo’s giving no importance to Nolini’s pointed query. To my mind Sri Aurobindo did not come directly into the picture at all.
Now I have been proved wrong but in an unexpected sense—in favour of my distrust of “twixt”. Wondering whether Nolini would really have been involved and rejected, I asked Richard Hartz, one of the editors of the Critical Edition, who has ready access to all the materials connected with Savitri, to examine whatever related to the question in hand. He has kindly supplied a report:
A study of the marks in the margin of Nirod’s copy shows that Nolini put question-marks in pencil to indicate his doubts at the time of typing. Nolini questioned very obvious slips on Nirod’s part, such as “who’s” for “whose”, “compliment” for “complement” and “slow-placed” for “slow-paced”. He usually typed the correct form.
The mark next to the “twixt”-line is not a pencilled question-mark but a tick in ink—the same ink as used by Nirod for his copy. There are two possible explanations for this mark and similar ones. Nirod might have put the tick while copying to indicate his doubt about the reading of a word in the MS. But in the instance before us, there is no question of the word having been illegible or difficult to decipher: there is no alternative to reading “twixt”. This explanation is inadequate in other cases also, for the underlined words in lines marked with ticks are not generally more difficult to read than most of the handwriting. Therefore, marks like the one here must have a different purpose connected with Sri Aurobindo’s revision. Such ticks are found in the manuscript as well as the copy. Nirod has told us that, during dictated revision, Sri Aurobindo asked him to put these marks by lines he wished to come back to.
After returning to the line and either revising it or deciding to leave it as it was, the tick would normally be cancelled. Uncancelled ticks in the MS were transferred to the copy so that the matter could be attended to there. When the copy was revised, most of these ticks were cancelled—unless the correction itself, being obvious, made it unnecessary to cancel the tick. Some new ticks were also put during the revision of Nirod’s copy. For example, the word “ineffable” was underlined and a tick put beside the line:
A Being intimate and ineffable.
Later, “ineffable” was crossed out and “unnamable” written after it.
The underlining of “twixt” and the tick in the margin would appear to indicate, then, that Sri Aurobindo entertained some doubt about this word when the copy of his manuscript was read to him. However, the fact that no action was taken and the tick was not cancelled may show that the intended return to it never came about. Once the canto was typed, there was no further reference to Nirod’s copy. The attention which had been drawn to “twixt” would have been forgotten by the time the typescript was revised.
For a substantial amount of time must have elapsed between the revision of this canto in Nirod’s ledger and the revision of the typed copy of it. We learn from Nirod himself that his copy of the first three Books of Savitri was first completed and revised, then given to Nolini for typing. The revision of the typescript then began from Book One. By the time the present passage was reached, almost at the end of Book Three, it seems unlikely that Sri Aurobindo would have had much recollection of details of the previous phase of revision.
It may be noted in passing that Nirod, in copying the “twixt”-passage, had miscopied “shores” as “spheres” two lines below the line with “twixt”. Sri Aurobindo did not notice this error when the passage was read out from Nirod’s ledger, whereas he seems to have had some qualms about “twixt”, as indicated by the underlining and the tick. However, when the typescript of the canto concerned was read to him, among the very few changes made in that canto was the correction of “spheres” to “shores”, while “twixt” two lines earlier passed unnoticed—the exact opposite of what had happened at the ledger-stage. We have no way of knowing whether Sri Aurobindo, who had overlooked “spheres” in the ledger, suddenly remembered his own MS’s much earlier detail. A fresh inspiration is also possible, accidentally coinciding with the original term. A number of transmission-errors were corrected in ways suggesting that Sri Aurobindo did not remember what he had previously written. Where the restoration of his original word would have provided the most natural and felicitous solution, we find him revising a line in accordance with the change in sense introduced by a mistake in copying or typing. To give a couple of examples out of several: this happened when his “iteration” was mistyped “vibration” and when his “freak” was wrongly typed “peak”. In any case, the overlooking of “twixt” at the time “spheres” was corrected need not be accepted as a confirmation of “twixt” any more than the overlooking of “spheres” in the ledger need be so accepted for that word.
While no definite conclusion can be drawn from this ambivalent situation, the fact remains that Sri Aurobindo himself at one stage showed signs of being not quite at ease with his own “twixt”. Thus we may be encouraged to discuss whether the perplexities created by this word are the result of a clear-sighted and final choice by Sri Aurobindo, in preference to the long-established and straightforward “in” of his earlier versions.
3
Yes, everything inclines one to regard “twixt” as a strange oversight. Still, how are we to explain its original entry into the MS and how is it that Sri Aurobindo let it stand when Nirod read the canto to him before publication?
A highly intelligent friend, well conversant with both Sri Aurobindo’s poetry and his Yogic teaching, accounts for the fact that none of us reacted against “twixt” for years and years, by remarking: “On a first reading (or even many more casual ones) we read the meaning and not quite the words, and so ‘twixt’ was just taken for ‘in’. Now that it is pointed out one notices it.” The background of Sri Aurobindo’s uniform teaching would suffice to render us uncritical. The same explanation may hold for Sri Aurobindo’s own attitude on hearing the passage read out, even if more than once. Actually, hearing instead of reading is bound to diminish critical attention further. As for the first half of the question, linked with the final draft, we may surmise a general state of inattention at the time Sri Aurobindo made this copy. Wanting to put a more weighty preposition than “in”, he may have thought of “midst”. But, even in the state we have surmised, he could not help noting “amid” just two lines earlier:
Once more he moved amid material scenes [p. 347]
and immediately before this line there was
The mortal stir received him in its midst.[Ibid.]
Sri Aurobindo may have loosely opted for “twixt”. One other instance in Savitri of “twixt” used not in a strict grammatical bearing is on p. 212:
Twixt the magnificence of her fatal breasts. [p. 212]
The singular noun “magnificence” after a preposition connoting “between” is odd. But the plural “breasts” makes the sense clear and the line as it stands is far more poetically effective than the less concentrated but correct version possible:
Twixt her magnificent yet fatal breasts.
Unlike our line both the versions here carry the sense of “between”, but we may observe that in the original line “Midst” could have been substituted so that “Twixt” might create the impression of being able to play the role of a broad synonym of that preposition. A close analytic view could show more clearly in our line the misleading which “twixt” instead of “midst” would cause. But a general state of inattention due to any hurry would be liable to exclude such a view. Now, have we any grounds to posit a state in which Sri Aurobindo was not focusing on all particulars though his eyes might have been moving up and down the page for some reason or other?
Highly relevant here is the earlier report on the page concerned, submitted by Richard Hartz to the group examining the data for the Critical Edition. It had been suggested that Sri Aurobindo must have inserted “twixt” with a cool deliberate eye to each item in the passage. Hartz wrote:
‘The final MS where “twixt” was substituted for “in” does not support the impression that Sri Aurobindo was attending carefully to every detail. Elsewhere on this page, for example, he neglected to put commas after “hush” and “trance” in these lines:
The harmony journeyed towards some distant hush
A music failing in the ear of trance
A cadence called by distant cadences,
A voice that trembled into strains withdrawn. [p. 346]
‘Essential punctuation is also missing in three other places on this page of the final MS. But much more unusual are the slips which Sri Aurobindo made in writing the lines after “And twixt the pauses of the building brain.” He first wrote “Lif”—obviously the beginning of “Lifted”, which occurs two lines above. After cancelling this false start, he wrote:
Touched by the thoughts that skim the fathomless [shores] surge
Of Nature and wing back to hidden shores.
‘“Fathomless shores”, which Sri Aurobindo wrote at first, cannot possibly mean anything; evidently, “shores” was copied by mistake from the line below. Sri Aurobindo noticed this error immediately and changed “shores” to “surge”, as in the penultimate version from which he was copying.
‘Although Sri Aurobindo corrected these mistakes, it would have been a more convincing sign of attentiveness if he had not made the mistakes at all. If there is any passage in the manuscripts of Savitri which gives the impression of some lack of attention on Sri Aurobindo’s part, this is it. The reading “twixt the pauses” belongs only to this version, in contrast to “in the pauses”, which has the opposite meaning and is supported by a long series of manuscripts. In view of the apparent meaninglessness of “twixt”, I think we would be justified in this case in departing from our usual rule of adhering to the last version. A footnote would be sufficient recognition of “twixt”.’
Just the state is observed here which we have surmised—a looking up and down the page with mixed results while being somewhat inattentive as though one were in a hurry.
In such circumstances I cannot but agree with Richard about retaining “in”. The footnote to it might be phrased thus:
As in the numerous versions before the final which reads “twixt”.
If, out of rigid piety, we go the other way around and keep “twixt” in the text, the footnote should be:
All the large number of versions before the last have “in”.
But this footnote may prove unhelpful, for in the future a footnote is likely to be ignored by literary articles and currency given only to the text. We should beware of allowing currency to a text which, on a natural interpretation, is out of accord with Sri Aurobindo’s known spiritual teaching no less than with his own poetic choice in an overwhelming majority of versions.
4
Lest anyone should think we are making a very special or unique case out of “twixt”, I might point out that this is not exactly so. Even if it were so, our procedure would be fully justified by all the circumstances I have set forth. But remembering a past instance broadly analogous to it I turned once more to Hartz to bring it to a focus. He has submitted the following account:
There is one other place where, because of an apparent verbal slip in Sri Aurobindo’s last handwritten manuscript, it has been proposed to follow an earlier version in the Critical Edition. This case, involving lines 6 and 7 on p. 218 of the Centenary Edition, has not aroused any controversy though it has some similarity to the problem with “twixt”. In the penultimate manuscript, Sri Aurobindo had written:
A formless void oppressed his struggling brain,
A darkness grim and cold benumbed his flesh, [p. 218]
The final manuscript reads:
A formless void oppressed his struggling brain,
A darkness grim and cold oppressed his flesh,
It appears very unlikely that the repetition of “oppressed” was an intentional change. The original “benumbed”, found in all earlier versions that I have seen, can hardly be improved upon in sound or sense. The second “oppressed” looks like an inadvertent slip made in the somewhat mechanical process of copying out lines which did not require alteration. That Sri Aurobindo was not deliberately trying to make the word “oppressed” more oppressive by repeating it, is shown by his revision of the typescript. The ledger gives no sign of revision in this particular instance. In the typescript Sri Aurobindo changed the first “oppressed” to “suppressed” to avoid the repetition. Thus we have the printed text:
A formless void suppressed his struggling brain,
A darkness grim and cold oppressed his flesh,
Strictly according to the “rules” of textual editing, this revised version should stand as our text—just as “twixt” would be our choice in the line in Book Three according to a literal-minded interpretation of the same principles. Yet all of us have accepted to print “oppressed” and “benumbed” as in the penultimate manuscript, treating the repetition of “oppressed” in the final MS as a sort of “transmission error” although it is in Sri Aurobindo’s own hand. The subsequent alteration of the first “oppressed” to “suppressed” is then regarded as a consequence of the mistake. As such, it does not have quite the same value as the original version, though it must surely be mentioned as a variant since it represents Sri Aurobindo’s own revision.
The case of “oppressed” and “benumbed” is not identical to that of “twixt” and “in”, but there are enough similarities to make it useful to discuss them together. Among the similarities is the fact that Sri Aurobindo’s final manuscript of the concluding passage of Book Two, Canto Seven, shows some signs of a certain inattentiveness even apart from the replacement of “benumbed” by a repetition of “oppressed”. Two sentences later comes the line:
There crawled through every tense and aching nerve
After copying this, Sri Aurobindo wrote:
A nameless and unutterable
then cancelled these words, noticing that he had skipped a line. He then wrote, as in the manuscript from which he was copying:
Leaving behind a poignant quaking trail
A nameless and unutterable fear.
(The “a” before “poignant” was later changed to “its”.)
With this detailed account we may close our survey of the biggest puzzle in the text of Savitri and draw a general balanced conclusion.
The editors of Savitri must certainly not succumb to the temptation to choose readings from earlier versions merely out of personal preference. But neither can a purely mechanical approach to editing be the ideal for a poem which covered many years and took shape in such a complex manner. Among the diverse possibilities of corruptions creeping into the text, slips and oversights by Sri Aurobindo himself form an extremely small category consisting primarily of omitted punctuation. But rare verbal slips are a possibility the editors must accept when there is very clear evidence for it, particularly from the standpoint of Sri Aurobindo’s consistent yogic teaching.
*
[1] P. 102 of Sri Aurobindo Circle—Forty-sixth Number (1990): article A Poem of Sacred Delight by R. Y. Deshpande.
[2] P. 103.
[3] P. 105.
(Mother India, November 1990)
________
About the Author: K. D. Sethna (25.11.1904 — 29.6.2011) was a Parsi sadhak who joined Sri Aurobindo Ashram at the age of twenty-three in December 1927. He was a noted poet, author, scholar and cultural critic whose published works include more than fifty titles. In 1930 he received the name of Amal Kiran from Sri Aurobindo. He was the editor of the monthly magazine Mother India from the time of its inception in 1949. Some of his notable books are The Secret Splendour, The Poetic Genius of Sri Aurobindo, The Adventure of the Apocalypse, The Passing of Sri Aurobindo: Its Inner Significance and Consequence, The Indian Spirit and the World’s Future, Sri Aurobindo on Shakespeare, The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo—The Poet, Altar and Flame, The Mother: Past-Present-Future, The Problem of Aryan Origin: From an Indian Point of View, Ancient India in a New Light, The Spirituality of the Future: A Search Apropos of R.C. Zaehner’s Study in Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin, Aspects of Sri Aurobindo, The Beginning of History for Israel, The Inspiration of Paradise Lost, Problems of Early Christianity, Problems of Ancient India, Our Light and Delight: Recollections of Life with the Mother, Science, Materialism, Mysticism: A Scrutiny of Scientific Thought and The Development of Sri Aurobindo’s Spiritual Thought and the Mother’s Contribution to it.
After strongly rebutting me, a few years later Amal got disassociated from this article of his. He speaks of “slips” in Savitri here and there, on the part of Sri Aurobindo himself. That is certainly unfortunate, without seeing the logically consistent statements and actions of the Yogi-Poet. I have explained it in several places, to him and in writing in my articles also, that “twixt”, and not “in”, is the most appropriate preposition in terms of the advanced psycho-spiritual contents. It should also be noted that Sri Aurobindo was specific about “twixt” though he had written a dozen times “in” in earlier drafts. In the last dictation the line was “And twixt the pauses of the building brain”. Nirod had taken down the dictation correctly. But in the ledger there is a question mark in the margin, by Nolini who typed the dictated text. Nirod referred it to Sri Aurobindo, and the result was a double tick mark in the margin, to maintain “twixt”, in black ink. In the “vast business of created things” it has a greater significance than “in”. And imagine! This Yogi par excellence has now to engage himself in a sex act to see that the boon he has received from the Divine Mother does not get frustrated. That is a greater occult-yogic siddhi than any moralistic abstention in the consciously assured Yoga. Please go by “twixt”, Amal or no Amal.
In this context I remember reading Amal-da writing somewhere ( Its now so long ago that I don’t remember the source), that on some occasion he sat down with The Mother, and it was explained to him very quietly and patiently – some details of his correspondence with the Lord wherein he was insistent about some aspect of The Master’s english in Savitri..end result was that he felt deeply embarrassed at his actions and realised his gaffs – to put it mildly. And all this he admits in his own words but finishes with how magnanimous was The Mother in Her dealing with him – full of Grace and infinite patience, yet firm in message. It also bears mentioning here, that in the book “Champakali Speaks”, in 1988, I had read the portion which my teacher had shown me , wherein Sri Aurobindo is holding his head and telling The Mother : ” he doesn’t listen, he doesn’t listen”, and also, even if not connected, that His eyesight was impacted ! Now that a lot of these books have been duly censored in further reprints, as has been The Agenda ( Mysore Aditi Centre ), many uncomfortable things have been removed. The first to be censored ( in the SABCL) was Sri Aurobindo’s statement to a sadhaka that after the passing of the Guru, an Ashram stands automatically dissolved. This last was there in the earliest prints of the Letters on Yoga series. I’m really sorry that I’m unable to recollect where Amal-da talks about that crucial meet with The Mother ( Mother India ? ) but I did read it, and perhaps Anurag with his tremendous abilities might be able to dig it out. Posting my comment for whatever it might be worth.
Thanks
Miel Surya
SAICE: HC class of ’81
Mumbai
My trust in the Mother and in Sri Aurobindo has become, over time and through experience, in my humble way, absolute. Not only for what they were and did on Earth. They knew how to give us the essentials (though not entirely) and more intensely through Savitri and the Agenda of Supramental Action on Earth, which I have read little about for reasons that escape me!
It seems to me that this site, to which I am turning in order to write some reflections that I hope will be insightful, is the only virtual space to date that can be a window onto their past, present, and future actions. On the other hand, Savitri, in the poetic realm, and the Agenda of Supramental Action on Earth, in the realm of facts based on scientifically analyzed experience, are a translation, with effects on our human consciousness, of the formidable Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, with the Mother of Worlds incarnate at his side. This Agenda, which was the subject of a now obsolete battle, Savitri, this unparalleled poem, misunderstood by many, are fabulous documents which, we hope, will be recognized for their inestimable value to the evolution of Earth!
These are difficult times in every aspect of existence, for all living beings, flattened by a technology that has become monstrous, for Nature, violated and lacking the strength of soul, orphaned of the Supreme Consciousness-Force that works in secret, and this despite the modern barbarity that swells so much that the Time of Upheaval will soon come.
An inevitable Apocalypse is coming, and it should be borne by an unparalleled aspiration from many sincere and devoted disciples.
I would like to conclude this email by paying tribute to the memory of Satprem, who knew how to and was able to restore to us the epic of Sri Aurobindo and the Sweet Mother. Happy Feast of the Returned Light. Couyssat Christian, for the beauty of the gesture.
In this context I remember reading Amal-da writing somewhere ( Its now so long ago that I don’t remember the source), that on some occasion he sat down with The Mother, and it was explained to him very quietly and patiently – some details of his correspondence with the Lord wherein he was insistent about some aspect of The Master’s english in Savitri..end result was that he felt deeply embarrassed at his actions and realised his gaffs – to put it mildly. And all this he admits in his own words but finishes with how magnanimous was The Mother in Her dealing with him – full of Grace and infinite patience, yet firm in message. It also bears mentioning here, that in the book “Champaklal Speaks”, in 1988, I had read the portion which my teacher had shown me , wherein Sri Aurobindo is holding his head and telling The Mother : ” he doesn’t listen, he doesn’t listen”, and also, even if not connected, that His eyesight was impacted ! Now that a lot of these books have been duly censored in further reprints, as has been The Agenda ( Mysore Aditi Centre ), many uncomfortable things have been removed. The first to be censored ( in the SABCL) was Sri Aurobindo’s statement to a sadhaka that after the passing of the Guru, an Ashram stands automatically dissolved. This last was there in the earliest prints of the Letters on Yoga series. I’m really sorry that I’m unable to recollect where Amal-da talks about that crucial meet with The Mother ( Mother India ? ) but I did read it, and perhaps Anurag with his tremendous abilities might be able to dig it out. Posting my comment for whatever it might be worth.
Thanks
Miel Surya
SAICE: HC class of ’81
Mumbai
Also, I missed adding that the ” please go by text, Amal or no Amal” is rather redundant given that Heehs, in his turn, has altered as much as he could, guided by his dislike for “victorian english” and of Sri Aurobindo in particular. And yes I had the misfortune to chose to have read his book ” The Lies of Peter Heehs” in 2010 and fell badly ill for a few days. This is like sticking my neck out for all the western disciples, and perhaps some courtiers of Dasgupta, one Manoj having left his body – to jump on me now, but after the Heehs betrayal , nothing else matters anyways. These days no one wants to talk of the elephant in the room – apart from those who speak up for both sides.
Miel.
Very unfortunate
The fact that the Mother was dead against any sort of revision of ‘Savitri’ has been discussed in detail by Amal Kiran himself in the chapter entitled “Some Ways of the Mother’s Working” of his book, “Our Light and Delight: Recollections of Life with the Mother” (2003 edition). He was, at that time, preparing the single-volume edition of ‘Savitri’ which was published in 1954. To quote his own words:
‘It was April 10, 1954. The day proved one of the most decisive in my inner life. I took to the Mother some suggestions with regard to Savitri. I had written them down. The Mother looked strange and said “I can answer without even reading your note. I won’t allow you to change even a comma in Savitri.”
‘I knew she was striking out at something which in the past had led me to make some “editorial” adjustments in three letters of Sri Aurobindo in Mother India. There had been three related questions about the Mother, to each of which he had simply answered “Yes”. I put the questions together, followed by only one “Yes”. I realised afterwards that a needed affirmative emphasis had been watered down by a misguided sense of economical elegance. Later, when the second volume of the first edition of Savitri was under preparation, a sadhak had stressed to the Mother the danger of sending the proofs to me. The Mother seems even to have passed an order against sending them. But Prithwisingh and Nirod made urgent representations to her, saying that it would be a great mistake not to let me see the proofs, for I had made very appropriate suggestions in the past, which had been found correct when the typed copy had been compared with the original manuscript. So the Mother cancelled her order but left, of course, the final decision in the hands of Nolini and Nirod. In fact, I, being in Bombay at that period, had no power over what the press would print since whatever I might propose would have to pass under their eyes. The press was not dealing directly with me.
‘When the proof-reading was finished, Nolini wrote to me thanking me for the important and valuable work I had done. Now, before the new single-volume edition of Savitri was started, I made another long list of suggestions, many of which came to be accepted. The proofs of the new edition were passing through my hands as I was in the Ashram at the time, and suggestions again were being made by me.
‘”Mother,” I said, “I am not wanting you to sanction the changing of commas and such things. All I want is that in some sort of Publisher’s Note we should say that certain passages in Parts II and III did not receive final revision: otherwise critics will think that they are what Sri Aurobindo intended them finally to be.”
‘The Mother exclaimed: “Do you think there is anybody in the world who can judge Sri Aurobindo? And how do you know what Sri Aurobindo intended or did not intend? He may have wanted just what he has left behind. How can you say that he did not give the final revision? How can you judge?”
‘I said: “It is not only my own opinion. Nirod agrees with me, and I think Nolini also.”
‘The Mother replied “It is presumptuous for anyone to have such an opinion. Who can enter into Sri Aurobindo’s consciousness? It is a consciousness beyond everything and what it has decided how can any one know?”
‘”Mother, from the fact that Sri Aurobindo sometimes corrected his own things on our pointing out oversights we conclude that passages may be there which needed revision.”
‘At this, the Mother exploded like a veritable Mahakali: “Yes, I know. People used to pester him with letters, pointing out grammatical mistakes and other things. He used to make changes just for the sake of peace. He was very polite and did not let people see what a nuisance they were. But when he and I were together and alone and like this” — here she put her two palms together two or three times to show the intimacy — “he used to say: ‘What a bother, what a nuisance!’ And once he said: ‘But I had a purpose in putting the thing in this way. I wanted it like this.’ Sri Aurobindo made many concessions out of politeness and a wish to be left in peace. When a great being comes down here to work he wants peace and not botheration. Yes, he was very polite, and people took advantage of his compassion and misunderstood it and got all sorts of ideas. Sri Aurobindo was polite — but I have made it a point not to be polite. I am not polite at all. The other day Pavitra brought me somebody’s idea about Sri Aurobindo’s passing. Somebody said Sri Aurobindo had died because of this or that. I told Pavitra: ‘Let him think anything — I simply don’t care. The truth will remain what it is.'”
‘I raised the question: “Take the Epilogue to Savitri, Mother. It comes from an early version and is not equal to the rest of the poem. In some places it is almost like a sort of anticlimax as regards the plane of spiritual inspiration.”
‘At this moment Nirod walked in and said: “Sri Aurobindo asked me: ‘What remains now to be done in Savitri’ I replied: ‘The Book of Death and the Epilogue.’ He remarked: ‘We shall see about them later.'”
‘The Mother turned to Nirod and said: “That may be his way of saying that nothing more needed to be done. We can’t form any conclusions. At most you may write a Publisher’s Note to say: ‘We poor blind ignorant human beings think Sri Aurobindo did not intend certain things to be the final version. And we are giving our opinion for what it may be worth.'”
‘Just then a black lizard came and stood at Nirod’s feet and looked up at him. The Mother saw it and said: “It seems to have a fascination for your feet. Why? Could it be symbolic?”
‘Nirod: “That is for you to say.”
‘The Mother’s whole outburst made me wonder about my discussions through the years with Sri Aurobindo over Savitri, the innumerable comments I used to make and he used to welcome and consider patiently. Was he just being polite with me? It hurt very much to think that. It also seemed impossible, non-factual. But I tried to open my being to the Mother and to accept wholly what she had said. I thanked her for the new outlook she had given me, and bowed down to her. She smiled and blessed me. She had made in me a wide opening. I opened out into a sense of Sri Aurobindo’s vastness and divineness. Something in the physical mind seemed broken and to make room for the higher and wider Consciousness.
‘Later, the physical mind attempted a strong come-back and I passed through a whole afternoon of severe conflict. Should I accept the Mother’s statement without reservation? May it not be that Sri Aurobindo’s discussions with me on Savitri were an exception to his practice of being merely polite? But to insist on an exception and to refuse to accept the opposite showed only the resistance of ego, of amour propre, the intellect’s pride and vanity. I felt I must reject all these self-regarding attitudes and truly grant that Sri Aurobindo might have been nothing more than polite and compassionate in considering all my suggestions to him. Then my ego would be thrown out and my physical mind become clear and grow receptive to the vast divine Consciousness of both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. I chose to take without any question her words, however contrary they might appear to my own sense of factuality. Moreover, I said to myself: “Your heart will not go anywhere else in search of a Guru. All your hope and help are in this Ashram. Whatever the pain, submit. You have no alternative. But at the end you will surely find light and delight as the Mother’s gift through every move of hers.”’ [“Our Light and Delight: pp. 20-23]
An addition from Dr. R.Y. Deshpande apropos of the above-mentioned incident:
“This is apropos of Amal Kiran’s handling of the single-volume edition of Savitri that came out in 1954, the University Edition. We shall see separately the number of changes that have been made by him in this with respect to the original 1950-51 edition. But it should also be noted that several of these changes have been discarded later and the earlier readings restored. For instance, the very title “Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol” which was changed to “Savitri (Followed by the Author’s Letters on the Poem)” had been in the next edition restored to the original, “Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol”; similarly, commas which were added at a few places in the 1954 have now disappeared, thus going back to the original edition. While we should have a detailed list of all such differences, it is felt that, for the immediate context, these few illustrations should be pretty sufficient. These themselves make Amal Kiran’s editing of the 1954 edition somewhat untrustworthy. The Mother was categorical, that she would not allow Amal Kiran to change even a comma in Savitri. But he did change. Did the Mother “approve” these changes? Did she go into all the details, entry by entry, and satisfy herself with the proposed variations? Certainly, this did not happen. She had kind of left it to Amal Kiran, that he would not go by his own ideas and notions of things, that his literary measures and his standards of understanding of the spiritual philosophy would not be the right way of approaching Savitri in this manner, that a ‘better sense’ would prevail upon him, something of the quality Nolini Kanta Gupta had, that if it is the Master’s ‘mistake’ it is the Master’s ‘mistake’ and we are not there to correct it. The Mother meant Amal Kiran to look at the whole issue in that spirit. After all, it was Amal Kiran who had gone to the Mother with a list of proposed ‘corrections’; it is not that she had asked him if Savitri needed to be ‘corrected’ anywhere. And in that respect she was definite about her stand. In any case, would the Mother “approve” changes in what was “approved” by Sri Aurobindo himself, the 1950-51 edition of Savitri? Impossible. But the weird, the amusing part of it is, Amal Kiran did change them again later, in the Centenary Edition and the Revised Edition which had his “approval”. For instance, “earth’s” of the 1950 became “earth’s,” in 1954 and 1972 which was reverted to “earth’s” in 1993. (Book Two Canto One, line 7) However, let us have a look at the note Amal Kiran has left behind for study. While describing some ways of the Mother’s working in his Our Light and Delight, he writes what is given in the following. (pp. 22-27) On the whole, regarding this aspect, the Mother was critical of Amal Kiran and she did say so on a couple of occasions later also. But, perhaps, everything about the Mother’s unhappiness in the matter gets summed in this: “Just then a black lizard came and stood at Nirod’s feet and looked up at him. The Mother saw it and said: ‘it seems to have a fascination for your feet. Why? Could it be symbolic?’ ”
Dr. R.Y. Deshpande adds the following :
I must say at the very outset that I feel extremely unhappy when I have to connect it with Amal Kiran. Such a fine soul, and one on whom both the Mother and the Master showered so much love and sweetness and benevolence! But when it comes to Savitri-matters, nothing need come in the way, nothing else should count. Amal Kiran had a peculiar weakness—who has none?—in him but, unfortunately, he could not get rid of it. Towards the end, however, he regretted; in the Nursing Home he was constantly insisting on his attendants to call Manoj Das Gupta,to tell him to undo those revisions. But who would care for him at that stage?…
Here is the Mother’s “very clear position about Savitri not being altered, tampered with, used in our human ways, etc”. But it is a great pity Amal Kiran who was always too sure of himself never understood it. She had told him not to alter even a comma in Savitri, and she was categorical about it; but he did—only to undo the alteration in the next edition! only to make his editing suspect, questionable! Any number of examples can be given in that respect. Amal Kiran speaks of the Mother exploding like Mahakali on 10 April 1954, but he still keeps on arguing with her. What else can she say if not “ok”?—meaning, “if it pleases you, my child”? When a child becomes adamant in asking something from its mother, something against the concerning suggestions of hers, she finally gives up by saying, “you want to try it, go ahead but be watchful.” It perhaps learns the lesson that way. The Mother will never impose her will on any one, and that we know well from many instances. That kind of “ok” by the Mother is not “approved by the Mother”. It cannot be. It should not be taken that way. For her the matter was already settled by Sri Aurobindo himself, and she would go entirely by it. He had finished Savitri, and what else was there for anybody to do anything with it? human editing for human mind and intellect and understanding?
About this episode, the Mother exploding and then saying “ok”, there is a lesson to be learnt from the Mother herself, the way she did something wonderful. When she had created a new world, when she was bringing down the gods after the landmark 1926 Siddhi, Sri Aurobindo told her, this is not what we want, it will delay our real work. Here is the account in her own words:
‘Sri Aurobindo had given me charge of the outer work because he wanted to withdraw into concentration in order to hasten the manifestation of the supramental consciousness. … Suddenly, immediately, things took a certain shape: a very brilliant creation was worked out in extraordinary detail, with marvellous experiences, contacts with divine beings, and all kinds of manifestations which are considered miraculous. Experiences followed one upon another, and, well, things were unfolding altogether brilliantly and…I must say, in an extremely interesting way.
‘One day, I went as usual to relate to Sri Aurobindo what had been happening—we had come to something really very interesting, and perhaps I showed a little enthusiasm in my account of what had taken place—then Sri Aurobindo looked at me…and said: “Yes, this is an Overmind creation. It is very interesting, very well done. You will perform miracles which will make you famous throughout the world, you will be able to turn all events on earth topsy-turvy, indeed,…” and then he smiled and said: “It will be a great success. But it is an Overmind creation. And it is not success that we want; we want to establish the Supermind on earth. One must know how to renounce immediate success in order to create the new world, the supramental world in its integrality.”
‘With my inner consciousness I understood immediately: a few hours later the creation was gone…and from that moment we started anew on other bases. [CWM, Vol. 9, pp. 147-48]
The Mother quietly went to her room and dissolved that whole formation. She didn’t argue with Sri Aurobindo! “But, Lord… !” She simply went away and dissolved it. The matter was over for her, then and there itself. The rest was not her concern, it was the concern of Sri Aurobindo. What surrender! And what confidence in the Master! what faith! the absolute of whiteness!
Amal Kiran should have simply gone away to his room and torn off the sheet of paper on which he had listed the corrections, the piece of paper he had carried to the Mother. And what was the worth of those corrections? He himself discarded many of them later. Savitri-editing cannot be on the basis of the vagaries of our understanding things, understanding which is worth not much. His not doing it is occultly deep; it is that which has caused this havoc. Even as we admire his association with the early drafts of Savitri, and no doubt he was the recipient of a special favour, extraordinary grace, in this havoc Amal Kiran’s part is not negligible. There are other shocking things also, he saying Sri Aurobindo forgetting things, of his yogic philosophy or of his poetic theory, or making slips and blunders in his writings which need be corrected! That sounds quite Amalian, arrogantly bold! and that in the matters of Savitri! He had no qualms telling the Mother that on occasions she was not quite up to the mark, for instance, he narrating the incidence of proofreading of the contents of the 1954-Savitri edition, by her and Nolini Kanta Gupta. Yet all this diminishes in the least our deep esteem of Amal Kiran, our appreciation for his otherwise wide and wonderful contributions. What I’m saying here is specifically in the context of the Savitri-editing.
The Mother on Corrections in Savitri: An interview with Amal Kiran on 8 June 1999
Q: According to your book Our Light and Delight [p. 23], the Mother once told you, “I won’t allow you to change even a comma in Savitri.” Is this true?
Amal: Yes, but she meant I could not change anything according to my own ideas. After that I made it clear to her that corrections would be only according to Sri Aurobindo’s latest version. Some words had been misread and I had suggested what might be the right reading. But we would not dare to change anything on our own. I told her this. And Mother quite understood the situation.“That’s a different matter,” she said.
So she approved of my making my suggestions, and many of them were found to be correct when the manuscripts were checked.
Q: Have you written about this anywhere?
Amal: Part of it is there in Our Light and Delight. To anyone who reads it carefully, the Mother’s attitude towards the correction of copying mistakes and such things should be clear enough.
But most of the conversation recorded there [Our Light and Delight, pp. 23 – 25] is not about such corrections at all. It is about a statement I wanted to include in the Publisher’s Note. I wanted to say that certain passages in Parts II and III had not received Sri Aurobindo’s final revision. The Mother’s strong reaction to this has been quoted as if it showed that she was against correcting copying mistakes or typographical errors in Savitri. But she never objected to corrections of that kind. Naturally she wanted Sri Aurobindo’s own words to be printed in Savitri, not a version with words accidentally substituted by others.
Later, the Mother even accepted the substance of what I had wanted to write in the Publisher’s Note. She agreed to have it included in the Note before the letters at the end of the 1954 edition. It was only something in my attitude that had provoked her reaction. This was her way of working. It brought about a great change in me.
Here is an observation from Deshpande-ji:
“right up to a comma”: Here’s an example of Amal’s editing of Savitri, and it belongs to the change of a comma forbidden by the Mother. She was so categorical, and yet he puts a comma and later removes it. That is what makes the revisions of Savitri very often unacceptable. The best is, go by the Original Edition and list out findings as research documents for the reader to decide for himself.
1950: Book II Canto I, p. 87:
In a profound existence beyond earth’s Parent or kin…
1954: earth’s, (edited by Amal, University Edition, p. 107)
1972: earth’s, (edited by Amal, Centenary Edition, p. 95)
1993: earth (approved by Amal for the Revised Edition, p. 95)
RYD
Editors’ Note in the Supplement to the Revised Edition of Savitri
The Revised Edition of Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri is the result of a systematic comparison of the previously printed text with the manuscripts. The checking has included a detailed study of the various stages of copying, typing and printing—processes involving persons other than the author—through which the poem reached its published form. A substantial number of discrepancies due to accidents in the process of transmission have been discovered. The editors have critically examined these variations and have restored the original readings in most cases. The authenticity of the text, rather than subjective preference, has been the guiding criterion. This work, begun in 1979, has been carried out by members of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives under the supervision of Nirodbaran and KD Sethna (Amal Kiran) who have made the final editorial decisions.
The Need for a Revised Edition
The first known draft of Savitri is dated 1916. Originally conceived as a medium-length narrative poem, by the early 1930s Savitri was assuming epic proportions and the status of a magnum opus. From August 1946 it started to appear in print, canto by canto, in journals of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram as well as in separate fascicles. The first edition of Part One was published towards the end of 1950, shortly before Sri Aurobindo’s passing. The remainder of the poem, not all of which received final revision, appeared as a second volume the following year.
It might be thought that an ideal edition of Savitri should strictly reproduce the first edition. This seems plausible at first sight, at least with regard to Part One, since the proofs of this part were revised by Sri Aurobindo himself. Yet in fact the first edition contained serious errors. Some of these were removed in subsequent editions. The presence of these errors requires some explanation.
Until the mid-1940s, Sri Aurobindo continued to write out version after version of Savitri in his own hand, tirelessly expanding and perfecting it. But when he began to prepare the poem for publication, he could no longer do all the work unaided. He took the assistance of two disciples, one of whom, Nirodbaran, made the final handwritten copies and the other, Nolini Kanta Gupta, the typescripts.
The deterioration of Sri Aurobindo’s eyesight in these last years had two consequences affecting the text of Savitri. First, his later handwriting became increasingly difficult to read. This resulted in almost inevitable mistakes by the scribe who was asked to copy the hundreds of pages of manuscript. In the end, Sri Aurobindo came to rely entirely on dictation (to the same disciple) for the composition and revision of the poem. This opened the door to occasional inaccuracies of another kind.
The present edition is not the first to contain corrections. Each previous edition of Savitri has emended a number of errors noticed by the editors or brought to their attention by readers. Once a likely mistake had been observed, the manuscript was sometimes consulted for confirmation. But a systematic search for errors was not conducted until work began on the present edition.
Editorial Method
The method of checking the text has been to trace the source of each difference between Sri Aurobindo’s last manuscript and the printed version. Difficulties in the final manuscript were solved by reference to earlier manuscripts. This meticulous procedure confirmed the accuracy of much of the existing text. Most of the differences between the manuscript and the first edition were found to be changes dictated by Sri Aurobindo at some point in the process of continual revision through which Savitri assumed its final form. But a significant number of divergences due to slips or misreadings on the part of Sri Aurobindo’s assistants were also identified.
The number of intermediate stages between the manuscript and the printed work varies in different parts of the poem. The manuscript itself had usually been revised by dictation before the scribe was asked to copy it. This included sometimes the addition or substitution of passages written on small note-pad sheets pinned to the MS. In some cantos the manuscript version was entirely replaced by a scribal version, partly copied from the manuscript and partly dictated, which was written on the backs of the MS pages or in a separate notebook. After this, there were generally several stages. Commonly we find a scribal copy, one or sometimes two or three typed copies, then the first printed version published as a journal instalment or fascicle, and finally the text of the first edition.
Sri Aurobindo normally revised each stage by dictation before the next transcript was made. The revision was often extensive and sometimes almost bafflingly complex. Partly because of this complexity, transmission of the text from one stage to another was liable to be less than perfectly exact. Some errors were later caught by Sri Aurobindo and corrected, not always in accordance with the original reading. Others passed unnoticed and remained in the published version.
Fortunately, the documents for almost all of the stages have been preserved. Thus it is usually possible to make a clear distinction between inaccuracies in transmission and deliberate changes made by Sri Aurobindo. The rule followed by the present editors in all but exceptional cases has been to accept the author’s intentional revision, but reject variants due to accidents of transmission.
Treatment of Uncertain and Complex Situations
Most readers of Savitri would presumably wish to have a text in which each word is Sri Aurobindo’s own. If so, it is clearly desirable that corruptions due to the vagaries of transmission be removed as far as possible. There is ordinarily no difficulty in identifying errors by the method described above. But uncertainties may arise where a stage is missing. The proofs of most of the journal instalments and fascicles and of the first edition of Part One have not survived. A comparison of the existing documents shows that substantial changes were made by Sri Aurobindo in revising the proofs. Some minor differences, however, could be due to compositors’ errors. In the absence of direct evidence, such changes have as a rule been given the benefit of the doubt. They have been rejected as typographical errors only in a relatively few instances where the apparent inferiority or inconsistency of the printed reading makes it seem unlikely that the author’s proof-revision was involved.
Even when there are no gaps in the evidence, the editors are sometimes faced with a complication. After a transmission error occurred, Sri Aurobindo may have revised the passage, yet left the variant intact. The reading may then be assimilated into the altered context in such a way that editorial intervention becomes problematic. The variant may have a claim to be retained in the text despite its illegitimate origin. Such cases and a few other exceptional situations are discussed in the Introduction to the Supplement in connection with the Table of Alternative Readings.
The Principle of this Edition
Leaving aside special cases, it is the editors’ view that textual corruptions that happened to escape Sri Aurobindo’s notice do not thereby acquire a value equal to or greater than that of his own conscious choice of words. Copies containing transmission variants were orally revised by him without referring again to the documents from which they were copied. When he let plausible variant readings pass, there is no reason to think he was aware that his text had been altered.
This view could be challenged if it were believed that Sri Aurobindo remembered virtually every word of what he had written over the many years in which he worked on Savitri. In that case we would assume, when he did not correct inadvertent substitutions by his scribe and typist, that he actually preferred their readings to the words of his own inspiration. According to this hypothesis, he would have consciously accepted the unintentional creative collaboration of his assistants in the composition of the poem. But this seems improbable. Moreover, the scribe and typist themselves have been consulted on this point. They have made it clear that they do not wish their unwitting contributions to remain as a permanent feature of Savitri.
As has been mentioned, some errors in the first edition of Savitri were emended in subsequent editions. The most notable instances relate to dictated lines in which similar-sounding words had evidently been confused by the scribe. A few further emendations of the same type have been made in this edition. In locating cases of scribal mishearing, the present editors have had the advantage of knowing which passages were dictated and they were alert to the possibility of such slips. But this type of emendation, lacking concrete evidence, has been resorted to with the utmost caution and only where there is no reasonable doubt about Sri Aurobindo’s intention.
Punctuation and Capitalisation
Details such as punctuation and capitalisation have been handled in this edition in essentially the same manner as the words of the text. The manuscripts for Savitri were in general carefully written with regard to all details, apart from some late fragmentary drafts which are nearly illegible because of Sri Aurobindo’s failing eyesight. But non-verbal details suffered even more frequently than words from accidents of transmission. As’ a rule, the editors have restored the punctuation, hyphenation and capitalisation of the manuscript wherever these were accidentally altered in transmission, unless later revision of the context by Sri Aurobindo has made the original details inappropriate or irrelevant.
With regard to dictated matter a slight modification in the approach was required. ,Even when he dictated, Sri Aurobindo very often attended to the details as well as to the words. But this was not invariably the case. In dictating a new passage, his primary concern was with getting the words on paper. The details were sometimes left for later. The transmission of dictated matter has to be viewed with this in mind. On occasion the scribe and typist filled on their own the gaps in punctuation left in the process of dictation, for it was not always possible to consult Sri Aurobindo directly. Sri Aurobindo revised some of this punctuation, but much of it he tacitly accepted when the copies were read to him at a later time.
The editors have accordingly refrained from undue tampering with appropriate punctuation or capitalisation supplied by Sri Aurobindo’s assistants in transcribing dictated passages. Further details introduced in previous editions have been accepted where they seemed justified. Some new editorial punctuation has been added in a few places where it appeared necessary. Where capitalisation, hyphenation and spelling in dictated matter were found to be at variance with Sri Aurobindo’s practice in passages in his own hand, the editors have considered it legitimate to normalise these details.
Spelling of Sanskrit Names
Sri Aurobindo’s spelling of the names of the characters of his epic changed over the years without arriving at complete consistency. However, the change was in a definite and easily discernible direction which agrees with general modern practice in the transliteration of Sanskrit. In the present edition, consistent spellings have been adopted which are supported to some extent by the manuscripts.
In early manuscripts, the names of the three principal human characters in the story were written “Uswapathy”, “Savithri” and “Suthyavan”. Later, Sri Aurobindo settled on the spellings “Savitri” and “Satyavan”, but in the relatively few places where Savitri’s father is mentioned by name, he wrote variously “Aswapathy”, “Aswapaty” and “Aswapati”. Satyavan’s father appears even in late manuscripts as “Dyumathsena” as well as “Dyumatsena”. Since the “th” in “Aswapathy” and “Dyumathsena” belongs to the old style of transliteration which Sri Aurobindo was gradually abandoning, spellings without the “h” have been adopted in this edition. “Aswapati” has been chosen over “Aswapaty”, though the number of manuscript occurrences of the two is about the same. The spelling “Aswapati” occurs as early as 1936-37 in some of Sri Aurobindo’s letters on Savitri. It is also found in his handwritten note (c. 1946-47) printed as the “Author’s Note” at the beginning of this edition.
Sri Aurobindo’s Letters on Savitri
In a letter dictated in 1946, Sri Aurobindo mentioned that he wanted to write “an introduction to Savitri when it is published”. This introduction never materialised. However, in the remainder of his letter Sri Aurobindo dwelt at some length on “questions of the technique of mystic poetry” which were to have been discussed in the intended introduction.
Other letters of the same period dealt with these questions in further detail. About ten years earlier, Sri Aurobindo had written his comments on points raised by a disciple to whom passages in the first two books of Savitri had been privately sent. Taken together, these letters give the author’s own insights into the poem and provide the best available substitute for the unwritten introduction.
A selection of Sri Aurobindo’s letters on Savitri was first published in 1951, separately from the first edition of the poem. In the editions of 1954 and 1970 a somewhat different arrangement of the letters was included at the end of the book. This is retained in the present edition, with a few additions in the first section. There has been some revision of the footnotes and a few textual corrections have been made after consulting the manuscript.
What follows is an account of the background which led to the revision of Savitri. The following excerpts are quoted from Dr. R.Y. Deshpande’s book, The Editing of Savitri: Volume I. A living legend in the field of Aurobindonian studies, Deshpande-ji is the finest exponent of Savitri and has been a witness to how the revision of Savitri eventually took shape:
It is hard to imagine the complexity of the process through which the immense Savitri opus had proceeded. Draft after draft, and revision after revision, and handling of thousands of pages or sheets of various sizes have practically made the whole sequence intractable. These drafts quite often went back and forth, to the typist, to the press, and back to the author, and the author took every opportunity to expand or revise the earlier text. From the point of view of editing this obviously led to difficult situations. But that was the part of the process, and it has to be accepted as things stand. However, one of the unfortunate results is, at times the loss of unusually wonderful passages which should have really come in some proper place in the final text. Thus the following lines
Voices that came from unseen waiting worlds
Uttered the syllables of the Unmanifest
To clothe the body of the mystic Word, ||52.13||
charged with occult-spiritual power have regrettably remained unused.
Recently Richard Hartz of the Ashram’s Archives team has made an elaborate and painstaking study of the several drafts of Savitri and indicated the manner in which a reasonably faithful text of the epic could be edited. In his introduction to The Composition of Savitri he writes: “The story of the composition of Savitri is almost an epic in itself. Much work will have to be done before this story can be told in detail. Now only a broad overview can be given, tracing the development of a few passages as examples. But even this should enrich our understanding of the poem.” True, and as it will enrich our understanding in another way, it is felt that the whole effort when fully made known to us in every detail will bear happy meritorious fruit. There might be differences in approach but they should not stand in the way of researches that could be pursued in all openness in examining the various text-drafts of Savitri.
In this perspective we may look into some factual details, and these are indeed revealing in many contexts. The first available draft of Savitri, dated 8/9 August 1916, has only 1637 lines which became in the latest printed version 23,837 lines. Part I which was mostly written by Sri Aurobindo himself in his own hand had, in 1944, about 9000 lines; but as the revision by dictation proceeded, it grew to 11,683 lines in the printed text of 1950. This kept on happening in the fair copy made by Nirodbaran, in the typescripts, proofs, and the printed versions which had come out either in the Ashram journals or as fascicles. The very first line of the epic in the twenty-first version appears as follows:
It was the hour before the Gods awake. ||1.1||
While it continued to be there in that form afterwards also, a change was made in a later draft in which “gods” became “Gods”. Was that another inspiration or was the Yogi-Poet simply taking care of details with a kind of focused attention? But perhaps elevation of “gods” to “Gods” has a transcendental dimension when the yogic elements that were entering into the scheme of things had started asserting themselves in a definite manner. The capitalization of “g” is significant in the sense that the “Gods” are now cosmic-transcendental powers and personalities, and they are going into the action in a definite manner. This must have happened in the persuasion by the Yogi himself. That could be the deeper occult reality behind such a change.
But then the fact that Savitri went back and forth through so many stages of composition entails, inevitably, what we might call a few possible slips or mistakes, these creeping into the final printed version. There could be copying mistakes, typing, proofreading mistakes, or else mistakes due to wrong hearing of words, or using a wrong homophonic, or wrong positioning of newly dictated lines. Without a doubt, the editorial task becomes very daunting, particularly at this late stage so far away in time, and so much in the physical absence of the poet himself. In that sense there is a certain justification also in the archival statement that “an author is not responsible for every point, indeed not even for every word that is printed as his.” This assertion might look rather queer and principally objectionable. Too many hands had entered into the entire business each, quite unconsciously but always with a sense of devotion to the Master, contributing innocuously its share of departures from the original. This surely is a tricky situation. But the proposition that the author is not responsible could be an irresponsible statement, a deceptive statement leading to freedom for others to enter into the composition of any work; this is certainly more than the printers’ devil.
It is stated that even at the advanced stage of proofreading Sri Aurobindo “made extensive alterations and added new lines and passages.” This can be discerned from the differences “between the typescripts and the printed texts” as we have presently. But then we are also told that the “only major gap… is the proofs of the early printed versions of a substantial portion of the poem” and that “Sri Aurobindo’s proof-revision was light.” As “revision was neither extensive nor complex” it may be said, “the consequences of not being able to see the proofs themselves are quite minimal”. Therefore the editorial discernment is: Absence of the final proofs need not be considered of much consequence. But if objectivity is the sole criterion then all this becomes pretty dubious and self-contradictory, especially when the claim is “we want an authentic edition of Savitri”. Just take an example pertaining to the 1948-fascicle with a revised passage which is as follows:
He is satisfied with his common average kind;
Tomorrow’s hopes and his old rounds of thought,
His old familiar interests and desires
He has made a hedge planned to defend his life ||46.21||
Sri Aurobindo further revised these lines in the proofs of the first edition. These proofs, unfortunately, were not preserved; so what was printed in that edition is the only evidence of his last revision of Part One. The passage was printed in 1950 as follows: (p. 151)
He is satisfied with his common average kind;
Tomorrow’s hopes and his old rounds of thought,
His old familiar interests and desires
He has made a thick and narrowing hedge
Defending his small life from the Invisible; ||46.21||
Amal Kiran commented in 1954 on the fourth line: ‘Limping line—one foot missing. It is impossible to scan it as a pentameter as it stands: He has/ máde a/ thíck and/ nárrow/ ing hédge/. Three consecutive trochees in the middle are too jerky and inadmissible. The natural scanning is: He has made/ a thick/ and nár/ row wing hédge/. But this gives a four-foot line. Look up the original.’ We have seen Sri Aurobindo’s statement that a trochee, if it is not the first foot of a line, needs to be supported ‘by a strong syllable just preceding it’. But…this supposedly iambic line consists mainly of trochees, with only one iamb at the end… Did Sri Aurobindo, in the final revision in 1950, forget momentarily the subtle laws of metrical movement which he had expounded so lucidly in his prose writings and embodied with a spontaneous and unfailing mastery in so many thousands of lines of Savitri? If this irregularity had created a forceful effect of some kind, it might have been justified… But in the passage of our ‘common average kind’, nothing out of the ordinary seems called for… To avoid supposing an unaccountable lapse in Sri Aurobindo’s metrical skill, we may infer that he actually dictated:
He has made a thick and narrowing hedge ||46.21||
By making explicit the implied ‘into’, the line becomes readable as pentametric according to the natural rhythm of the words.” Thanks heaven, here Sri Aurobindo is absolved from a metrical lapse, the blame going to the scribe or the typist or the printer!! The whole argument is plausible and is perfectly rational; it has a good point of cogency also, but it seems too perfect to be true, too ingenious. It is by a sort of tour de force that a case for editorial emendation has been made, something repugnant to the objective spirit with which such a work should be done. Apart from this so-called metrical faux pas, we shall in a while see also Sri Aurobindo himself being apportioned of guilt for not taking care of his own philosophy! Indeed, what we witness here is sheer enthusiasm to make Sri Aurobindo match up with our notions of understanding and professional skill and perfection!
But, more importantly, the archival statement about an author not being responsible for every word that is printed needs to be seen more carefully; in fact it is a dangerous as well as preposterous statement. It should have been worded differently. It casts aspersions on every text that comes out from a printing house. The archival intention is perhaps only to bring into discussion the contextual aspects of the composition of Savitri involving the scribe, the typist, the composer with the revisions taking place at every stage; it cannot have any other validity or acceptability in an absolute sense…
Based on careful studies and researches an attempt was made in the 1980s to bring out a Critical Edition of Savitri; but it proved abortive. By any reckoning this was enormous work, of going through the ‘manuscripts’, or what are called the copy-texts, and noting down with respect to them the departures present in the 1972 edition. Instead of the Critical Edition of Savitri we now have, established on these textual examinations and collations, a Revised Edition of Savitri (1993), it carrying the stamp of official approval. This revised edition is also accompanied by a supplement that lists several editorial details. These kind of provide the method of approach adopted while accepting the readings as given in the newly edited work. There are, however, certain issues which need another look in order to take care of the objections that could be raised in some particular contexts. The main or most important drawback is non-availability of the researched data which are absolutely essential for an alert reader to arrive at his own conclusions when interpretational differences arise. This of course assumes that Savitri can be processed through such a machinery; that looks insensitive, gross, wanting perception for this genre of poetry whose source of inspiration is in the silence of the luminous.
Dr. R.Y. Deshpande writes in his book The Editing of Savitri about what has been described by Amal Kiran as the ‘biggest puzzle’ in Savitri:
Let us take an example from Canto Four Book Three, Savitri, p. 347, about Aswapati’s return to the mortal world after receiving an exceptional boon from the Divine Mother. The Centenary Edition reads the text as follows:
Once more he moved amid material scenes,
Lifted by intimations from the heights
And twixt the pauses of the building brain
Touched by the thoughts that skim the fathomless surge
Of Nature and wing back to hidden shores. ||92.11||
Aswapati by his long and intense yoga-tapasya climbs the summits of spirituality and reaches the top of the creation where he meets the supreme Goddess who alone, he knows, could change the circumstance of our transience and suffering, of our mortality, of our life in ignorance that has bound us to death, and bring to it the transforming felicity of immortality. He “goes beyond all past attempts to unite with the Supreme, because none of them satisfies him—he aspires for something more. So when everything is annulled, he enters a Nothingness, then comes out of it with the capacity to unite with the new Bliss.” The past is gone, now the future has to dawn. This can happen only when the supreme Goddess herself takes charge of things. The course of the evolutionary Fate could be altered only if she would incarnate herself here and deal with the one who stands as an antagonist against bright and happy manifestation in countless possibilities of the superconscient. A unique boon has now been granted to him. He gets the Word, that things shall be fulfilled in Time; this shall be so,—because she herself shall be taking birth as his radiant daughter. Aswapati returns to the earth, now with a splendid certitude, and attends to his kingly office of governance. Presently, he is no more an apprentice Yogi, no more a “seeker” to tread the hazardous path of a hesitant beginner with its slow and arduous climb; he is a Master, an accomplished Master, a fulfilled Siddha with the forces of Life under his full command—he who has become Aswapati. All his actions flow in the dynamism of the spirit and the higher intimations that he gets are received not only in a quiescent state, of withdrawal from activity, but also when he is preoccupied with the thousand problems that afflict us here in our daily transactions. Incontingent is his spiritual poise and he remains in it even in these harsh and hectic secular matters. The poetic expression Sri Aurobindo has given to this significant aspect of the greatness of the Yogi is precise in its connotation and we have to be pretty alert to its implications. This is a master-stroke of new yogic philosophy, and one is simply amazed at it.
But from the editors who examined the Savitri-manuscripts in various details we have rather an unfortunate statement about the third line of this passage. While proposing the replacement of “twixt” by “in”, this is what they say: “The last emendation of a handwritten line was necessitated by what the editors consider to be a slip made by the author while revising. All handwritten versions, except the last, of line 491 [p. 347] of Book Three, Canto 4, run as follows:
And twixt the pauses of the building brain ||92.11||
When he copied this line in the ‘final version’, Sri Aurobindo wrote ‘twixt’ instead of ‘in’. This word, although somewhat archaic, is perfectly legitimate, and in fact of fairly frequent occurrence in Savitri. But here it does not make sense. The ‘pauses’ of the brain are what come between, or twixt, its ordinary activities. Sri Aurobindo’s intention surely was that it is in these pauses that, as the sequel says, ‘thoughts’ from hidden shores come in and touch the seeker. Perhaps he meant to alter ‘pauses’ when he substituted ‘twixt’ for ‘in’. At any rate,” the note further says, “the unrevised version of the line, as given above, seems to represent Sri Aurobindo’s intentions better than the revised one, and it has therefore been restored to the text.” The editors seem to be too confident to say that “twixt” for “in” was a slip on the part of Sri Aurobindo himself, too sure that it does not make any sense. But makes no sense for whom? They also boldly speak of Sri Aurobindo’s intentions, that what is suggested meets them in a better way. The least we can say is, we do not know.
But this “twixt” must have been read out to Sri Aurobindo at least on three or four occasions later. The typescript, the proofs of the canto when it was published in the Advent in 1947, the fascicle that had come out again in 1947, and finally when the proofs of the 1950-edition of Part I of Savitri were read out to Sri Aurobindo. We cannot say that the same slip kept on occurring at every stage in the whole sequence. Further, in the last version that is in Sri Aurobindo’s own hand, the copy-text, as well as in the ledger in which Nirodbaran copied the text what we have is “twixt”; it is also noticed that this word has been underlined in the ledger and that there is a tick mark in the margin, both in dark ink. From this we can be absolutely certain that a reference about “twixt” was made to Sri Aurobindo and that he very consciously retained it as the correct expression. In other words, this was not an accidental departure from the earlier drafts, though these had “in” at least on thirteen occasions. Nor can we say that Sri Aurobindo was comatose or oblivious while he made this change, or when he heard it a number of times subsequently. It will be appalling, atrocious to say so; anyhow, it will be a terribly faulty editorial way of doing things.
The most surprising aspect of this whole episode, however, is that Amal Kiran himself should have gone completely out of his way to justify the ways of Man to God. He calls this “in”-“twixt” as the biggest puzzle in Savitri and sets himself to plead for “in” in place of Sri Aurobindo’s latest “twixt”. The immediate cause that provoked him to offer a solution to the “biggest puzzle in the text of Savitri” is the textual comment as follows: “Sri Aurobindo as an imager of thought-birds and as an artist of an exceptional merit making these heavenly visitors slip between the pauses of the building brain—when the brain is in the phase of an intense activity symbolic of the duties of the ruler with a concern for his kingdom—is just superb. There is something remarkable here from the point of view of poetic expression achieving through its roundabout-ness a very unusual result. Complex in structure but metrically well-poised, the third line in the above passage depicts exactly the whole process by which Aswapati the Yogi is presently seen engrossed in affairs of public life, a typical Aurobindonian integration of the secular and the esoteric.” The roundabout-ness mentioned here is not a weakness in any sense but it has a certain charm and shows the alertness with which the author achieved it; the “in” of the earlier thirteen drafts was simply changed to “twixt”, finally bringing out the line “And twixt the pauses of the building brain” with a pyrrhic in the middle balancing two iambs on either side. The complexity of the structure has also a felicitous density, even while the thought-birds skim the fathomless surge of Nature and wing back to hidden shores.
Amal Kiran considers “twixt” as “a strange oversight” on part of the author himself and for that reason goes forth to justify the editorial emendation. The puzzle for him is: How did Sri Aurobindo write it at all, contradicting his own experiences? And then how did he allow it to stand when the text was read out to him on several occasions? Before offering his solution, he first writes: “A highly intelligent friend [Arabinda Basu] well conversant with both Sri Aurobindo’s poetry and his yogic teaching, accounts for the fact that none of us reacted against ‘twixt’ for years and years, by remarking: ‘on a first reading (even for many more casual ones) we read the meaning and not quite the words, and so “twixt” was just taken for “in”. Now that it is pointed out one notices it.’ The background of Sri Aurobindo’s uniform teaching would suffice to render us uncritical. The same explanation may hold for Sri Aurobindo’s own attitude on hearing the passage read out, even if more than once… [Among other alternatives to have a heavier syllable than ‘in’ in the line concerned] Sri Aurobindo may have loosely opted for ‘twixt’… We should be aware of allowing currency to a text which, on a natural interpretation, is out of accord with Sri Aurobindo’s known spiritual teaching no less than with his own poetic choice in an overwhelming majority of versions…”
While concluding his analysis and making a recommendation, Amal Kiran states the following: “The editors of Savitri must certainly not succumb to the temptation to choose readings from earlier versions merely out of personal preference. But neither can a purely mechanical approach to editing be the ideal for a poem which covered many years and took shape in such a complex manner. Among the diverse possibilities of corruptions creeping into the text, slips and oversights by Sri Aurobindo himself form an extremely small category consisting primarily of omitted punctuation. But rare verbal slips are a possibility the editors must accept when there is very clear evidence for it, particularly from the standpoint of Sri Aurobindo’s consistent yogic teaching.”
This is another strange piece of logic, we “…read the meaning and not quite the words…”, that so much saturated in the teachings of Sri Aurobindo we become “uncritical”, that it also applies to Sri Aurobindo he doing things “loosely”. So the upshot is: Sri Aurobindo’s eyesight had become weak, he had to depend upon a scribe who was not alert enough, he was assisted by a typist who remained mute and quiet, his printer didn’t always remain faithful to the manuscripts sent to him for printing and publication. Well, if such is the background then, all this must entail on our part not to have just a critical but an independent look at the entire composition of the poem, notwithstanding the Mother’s firm retort to Amal Kiran: “Do you think there is anybody in the world who can judge Sri Aurobindo? And how do you know what Sri Aurobindo intended or did not intend? He may have wanted just what he has left behind.” That is logic also. But do we listen to logic? quite often, not.
Indeed, to quote a line from Savitri,
A greater Mind may see a greater Truth, ||68.93||
In the present context, of Amal Kiran speaking strangely of “slips and oversights by Sri Aurobindo himself”, we can well understand why the Mother should have exploded long ago the way she did, on 10 April 1954, like “a veritable Mahakali”. It seems that we are not really dealing with the “biggest puzzle in the text of Savitri”; we are dealing with something else—ardent disciples becoming wiser than the teacher, not only pointing out his slips but also correcting them. But who can solve this puzzle? Or is it in this way we justify ourselves as a “disparate enigma of God’s make?” seems so.
Dr. R.Y. Deshpande gives another instance of the ‘revision’ of Savitri in his book, The Editing of Savitri with respect to The Book of Death. He writes:
Basically this is the earliest draft, a 1916-18 version very lightly revised during the mid-forties. The first fair copy has just 133 lines of which 108 are identical to what they are now in the print. What we have now are 177 lines with 25 lines altered and 44 added by dictation. On a page belonging to this manuscript, Sri Aurobindo also dictated “Book of Death / III / Death in the Forest”. Regarding this nomenclature of “III” some doubt has arisen, whether it can be taken as Canto III of the present Book of Death with the first two cantos having remained unwritten, or that it was simply a third part of the earlier version of the epic that belongs to the Arya-period, when the poem was just a Tale and a Vision. When the Tale and the Vision got transformed into a Legend and a Symbol, the relevance of “III”, arguably, could become suspect. Here the seeds of doubt have started sprouting. But let us see some more details about it.
Added to the Book of Death there is a footnote in the first two editions of Savitri which runs as follows: “This Book was not completed. This Canto which the author named Canto III was compiled by him from his original version and rewritten at places.” (1951-edition) “This Book was not completed. This Canto which the author named Canto III was compiled by him from an earlier version and rewritten at places.” (1954-edition) A further clarification was presented in the footnote of the 1972-edition: “This Canto was compiled by the poet from an early version of Savitri in which it had been called Canto Three. It was the third Canto of that poem, not the third canto of any particular Book. When, after being rewritten at places, it was included in the present version, its number remained unchanged.” But this statement seems to be rather misrepresentative of the available facts. As we have seen, the phrase “Book of Death / III / Death in the Forest” was dictated in 1946. The 1993-edition has a more explicit statement: “The Book of Death was taken from Canto Three of an early version of Savitri which had only six cantos and an epilogue. It was slightly revised at a later stage and a number of new lines were added, but it was never fully worked into the final version of the poem. Its original designation, ‘Canto Three’, has been retained as a reminder of this.” Here again the “original designation, Canto Three” does not belong to the Arya-period draft.
But the facts are as follows. In the mid-1940s Sri Aurobindo had taken up the revision of some of the earlier drafts. In the process, while attending to the Book of Death in 1946 he dictated the phrase “Book of Death / III / Death in the Forest”, these in three rows. This is of course in Nirodbaran’s hand and was done on a page of the earlier draft that was taken for revising. There is also a double tick mark at this place. To reiterate: all this forms a revised draft prepared on the original manuscript page. Seeing the abruptness of “III” at this place, in the absence of “I” and “II” anywhere, perhaps a doubt had arisen in the mind of the typist, Nolini Kanta Gupta, which means, he must have sought clarification from Sri Aurobindo. The double tick mark is undoubtedly a confirmation of what Sri Aurobindo had originally dictated to Nirodbaran, that it is meant to be “III”, the third canto of the present Book and not something belonging to the earlier version. Being a provisional revision of the draft we should take the existing Book of Death as incomplete.
Apropos of this situation, Richard Hartz writes: “At the place in the manuscript where the present Book Eight begins, a roman numeral III was written by the scribe under the heading Book of Death, as if Death in the Forest was meant to be the third canto of that Book. It is possible that when Sri Aurobindo revised this manuscript, he had begun to envisage a description of the Yoga of Savitri, but had not yet conceived of the Book of Yoga as a separate Book. The Book of Death would then have become an expanded version of the whole of the old canto entitled ‘Death’, and would have been numbered Book Seven. Its first canto might have been similar to the present Book Seven, Canto One. The second canto could have been an account of Savitri’s Yoga much shorter than what was eventually written, while Death in the Forest would have been the third canto. But this explanation is purely speculative.” The cautious approach in this footnote is commendable indeed—and we should be appreciative of it.
But we should also remember what Sri Aurobindo had told Nirodbaran when the final revision to the Book of Fate was completed. This was during the last session of his work on Savitri, in November 1950. Sri Aurobindo had asked Nirodbaran if there was still something to be revised. When told about the Book of Death and Epilogue, he said: “We shall see about that later on.” That perhaps adds quite a bit of significance to the abruptness of number three of the canto; it definitely shows that this Book as it stood then was only provisional, would have had considerable additional matter which Sri Aurobindo, had he attended to it, would have incorporated at the time of taking it up again: we can be reasonably certain that he intended to expand the 1916-18 draft later. This may even imply that he would indeed disclose in the epic some other occult aspects connected with the role of death in this creation. These aspects could possibly indicate the difficulties of transformation of the physical nature governed by decay-disintegration-death, difficulties at the cellular level itself. From the point of view of the composition, we need not therefore necessarily tie this “III / Death in the Forest” with the Book of Yoga which was practically not present in any earlier drafts, a fact which is clear from Sri Aurobindo’s letters also.
In a letter written to Amal Kiran in 1946 Sri Aurobindo summarises the position of the two Books concerned as follows: “The Book of Yoga and the Book of Death have still to be written, though a part needs only a thorough recasting.” Here he speaks of two separate Books though at this point of time the Book of Yoga, as we have seen, did not exist and as there was an early draft of the Book of Death. This means, the phrase “thorough recasting” only indicates the latter which Sri Aurobindo wanted to take up again at a suitable stage afterwards. But this didn’t happen. Perhaps that disclosure would have been too early for us to understand as a spiritual fact in life.
There seems to be another kind of hieratic logic behind the sudden appearance of canto three in the Book of Death. If we consider that the poem is specifically a spiritual tale of Savitri,—and we know it is so,—then we have at the end of the first canto—the Symbol Dawn—an announcement about the inevitability of her husband Satyavan’s death. The second canto—the Issue—speaks of the awakening of the great World-Mother in Savitri, an awakening which is to happen on the fated day as foretold by Narad. The central theme of the narrative has thus already been introduced by now. The long intervening description in the next thirty-eight cantos, from page 22 to page 557 consisting of 535 pages, or about 19,000 lines, then forms a kind of necessary interlude in the story; it is a sort of desirable digression. With that the announced death occurs in the third canto of the Book of Death. From this point onward the story, of death, runs in direct relationship with the theme. There is thus an inner consistency in the entire scheme, making it very appealing to the aesthetic sense of superior poetry, its logic. If someone has proposed such an argument then surely there is a certain merit in his line of thinking; but despite its charm and the plausibility of an occult occurrence or coincidence it sounds rather far-fetched.
How was the present Savitri-work ‘completed’? An offprint of Book Six Canto Two, which was published in the Sri Aurobindo Path Mandir Annual 1948, was read out to Sri Aurobindo and the changes he dictated were incorporated in a retyped copy. The painstaking revision of this second typescript was reportedly the last work he did on Savitri. A short paragraph before the concluding description of Narad’s departure was the final passage to receive detailed attention in November 1950. In fact he dictated three passages in the canto. The first passage in the context of the dread mysterious sacrifice offered by God’s martyred body has three lines, and is as follows:
He who has found his identity with God
Pays with the body’s death his soul’s vast light. ||108.40||
His knowledge immortal triumphs by his death. ||108.41||
The decision Sri Aurobindo had taken to withdraw for a sublime cause is clearly indicated here in an unambiguous way. This happened just three weeks later. The third line discloses the occult truth behind the decision. Then, there were seven lines in the second passage, with “Death is the spirit’s opportunity” added, and seventy-two in the third hinting the difficult work Savitri will have to do. Here she is a star in the darkness of the night travelling infinity by its own light. This was in the context of the work of physical transformation the Mother will be engaged in. Absolutely the last line he dictated was:
… leave her to her mighty self and Fate.” ||112.60||
So the last word spoken by Sri Aurobindo in the context of his creative writings was “Fate”. There are in all 253 occurrences of the fate-related words in Savitri and it being the last word has its own mighty significance in the avataric work he had come to do. The way Sri Aurobindo had drafted his epic with utmost care and precision is what is to be noted here, and therefore to try to read with our mental faculty his “intentions” while editing it will only be foolhardy, imprudent, rash. If we think that there are defects in Savitri, the wise thing to do is to leave them as they are. What is it that we can judge about it? nothing, really nothing.
However, in the context of editorial revisions of Savitri the overall picture as emerges is that of conflicting viewpoints in certain cases. Either at times it hurts insensitively the sentiments of devotees, or else brings frustration to genuine researchers of the poem who are not given the relevant details. It is necessary that we take due care of the complexities and the many possible dimensions that are present in the entire work. In this regard perhaps the best procedure for the editors of the Savitri-text could be to take the first complete version that appeared in two volumes in 1950-51 as the basic reference. Part One of the epic was published in September 1950, before Sri Aurobindo’s passing away in early December of that year, and Part II and Part III as the second volume within months of that day, in May 1951. To take care of the “slips and oversights” that might have occurred in this edition, extensive research notes and references can be provided in a supplementary archival document; these might include several readings as we have in different drafts. Presentation of data should be the main concern in any objective editing. It is well appreciated that carrying out such an exhaustive job can never be an easy archival task; but then, possibly that is the only kind of an undertaking which would do some ‘justice’ to the poem as well as to the poet—if at all we can talk of justice. This entails an enormous amount of labour but the gain is a certain scientific documentation that can stand permanently as reference material for generations to come, generations who may have another approach towards the epic. For an alert or perceptive reader of tomorrow this archival data will prove to be a help of immense value. When followed, it will also have the advantage of avoiding the charge of introducing in the edited text one’s own likings and dislikings, one’s natural subjective notions regarding matters poetic or spiritual or metaphysical. By presenting such “factual” details of research on the Savitri-drafts a new chapter of study can open out to enter into its spirit in another way. It is believed that this procedure will be in tune with the spirit in which the Savitri-chapter appears in Nirodbaran’s Twelve Years. But in the truest sense these are perhaps issues of a minor kind and generally might have relevance only in their ‘academic’ contexts. What is significant is the authenticity as well as the validity of the Word of Savitri in its pristine glory and the power that can give expression to the Real-Idea in our life. That is the true value of its poetry and that will always remain faultless and free,—because behind it is the yogic force of its creator.
Deshpande-ji further adds (in The Editing of Savitri: Volume One):
The Supplement to the Revised Edition of Savitri speaks of the “twixt”-“in” as follows: (pp. 19-20)
The concluding passage of Book Three is found in more than two dozen versions in Sri Aurobindo’s hand. In one of the later manuscripts, a sentence which had gradually taken shape through many previous versions was written in the following form (cf. 347.29-33):
Once more he moved amid material scenes,
Lifted by intimations from the heights
And twixt the pauses of the building brain
Touched by the thoughts that skim the fathomless surge
Of Nature and wing back to hidden shores. ||92.11||
In subsequent copies of this passage, Sri Aurobindo changed the wording of the first line slightly, substituting at various times “lived” for “moved”, “among” for “amid”, and “things” for “scenes”. In the last line, one manuscript has “swim” instead of “wing”. Most versions had a comma at the end of the first line and some had commas in the third line after “And” and “brain”. Otherwise, the lines remained the same until the final MS was reached. Here they returned to the form quoted above in all but two details: a comma after “scenes” and the word “twixt” instead of “in” in the third line. The latter change is puzzling. This line had first been inserted in a manuscript which represents roughly the mid-point in the evolution of the passage. After the original “his” before “building brain” was changed to “the”, its wording had remained the same in a dozen manuscripts. But the last version reads:
And twixt the pauses of the building brain ||92.11||
Logically, the phrase “twixt the pauses” should mean the opposite of the original “in the pauses”. For “twixt” means “between”. The times between the pauses of the brain would be the periods when it is active. But this is probably not what Sri Aurobindo meant. It seems unlikely that he intended to give a contradictory sense to a line which he had written out consistently so many times. Moreover, in all of his writings on Yoga it is the quieting of the brain-mind, rather than the continuation of its normal activity, which is considered most conducive to the reception of higher influences like the thoughts from “hidden shores” in this- passage.
The replacement of “in” by “twixt” cannot quite be dismissed as a mechanical slip of the pen. However, it may be supposed that Sri Aurobindo made the substitution without noticing its misleading effect. Though “twixt” occurs in the last manuscript, it can be plausibly maintained that it does not convey the intended meaning as aptly as the earlier reading did. If so, there would seem to be good reason in this instance for making an exception to the rule that the text should follow the author’s latest version. Because of the problems of interpretation raised by “twixt the pauses”, the long series of manuscripts with the more straightforward phrase, “in the pauses”, deserves special consideration. In the present edition, the text is printed with “in”, while “twixt” is given as an alternative reading.
Here is an interesting passage from the Mother’s Agenda dated 23 July 1969, Volume 10. The Mother says:
“Very long ago (very long, a few years after Sri Aurobindo left), one night (because I was already seeing him), I saw him: I had gone to his place, and I found him sitting on a sort of bed … with a truss: three or four bandages like that on his body! (Mother laughs) So he called me and said (in English), “Look! Look what they’re doing with me! Look, they’re putting bandages all over me!” So I inquired—and found that they wanted to make cuts in his writings …”
And here is Amal: “If this poem becomes a part of your life, it will make you a part of the Poet.” (17 August 93). That is very true. Our prayer is, for it to be so.
The following conversation of the Mother is from the thirteenth volume of the Agenda dated 22 July 1972. Here She speaks about corrections of Sri Aurobindo’s works.
The Mother: Ah! (to André:) What will you say now? … I don’t understand anything anymore!
(André laughs)
André: Well, Satprem would like to know what’s happening with his books….
The Mother: Yes, and he’s right.
Satprem: Yes. And by the same token, it would be good if we could know—if someone in the Ashram could know—what exactly M is doing with Sri Aurobindo’s books.
The Mother: Yes, quite.
Satprem: The fact is, nobody knows anything. They’re printing books, SABDA tries to sell them here and there—they have excellent promotional methods, but we have no idea what they are specifically. We don’t know what’s going on. It even goes … I’ll go further, Mother: for the last two years, I haven’t been able to put my hand on the corrections made to the film negatives, I mean the offset reproduction of the Centenary edition [of Sri Aurobindo’s works].
The Mother: There were corrections made?
Satprem: Yes, there were. I know there were because M told me so. I asked him for a list….
The Mother: What corrections? Who made corrections?
Satprem: There’s a boy working with him who makes the corrections.
The Mother: But, look here, this is incredible! On the pretext that I can’t see to this myself, they don’t even show me!! They make corrections without telling me!
Satprem: I don’t know how serious these are, I have no idea.
The Mother: Oh, but “serious” or not, they CANNOT make corrections without asking me!
Satprem: True, Mother.
The Mother: Good heavens! … So what can we do now?
Satprem: Yes, Mother, you absolutely must have some sort of control over these people. I think the best way would be to call B. [sabda], M and André together, and have André spell out all the points in black and white.
The Mother: Oh, but André isn’t combative.
André: Yes, I am Mother! (laughter) I am convinced, but….
The Mother: No! I didn’t say “convinced,” I said “combative.”
André: Combative? Oh, I am not at all combative, Mother!
The Mother: I know. That’s just what I said.
André: I am not at all combative, because … I try to see through their eyes, and then I don’t know who’s right anymore!
The Mother: Yes! (laughter) That’s exactly the point.
Satprem: But the two basic things to ask them are their production and their distribution. That’s all.
André: Yes, right.
The Mother: Oh, yes! I ask them, you know. But they say I can’t see anymore…. True, I can’t see—I see, but … it’s a mixed vision. It’s interesting (I wouldn’t wish it on anybody, because the people who would see with it … ). I see what is true in things from the supramental point of view. And it’s extremely interesting. I hear sounds that people don’t usually hear, because these sounds have a supramental reality. I can see…. When people talk to me, I see at the same time not only what they think (that’s old hat), but what’s true from the supramental point of view. All the time it is like that. Both together. Because my body has no longer the same … (what’s the word?) … I am strong, but the old type of energy is gone; and the one that replaces it is far more powerful—but I don’t like to talk about it. When I do, I appear to be boasting. So I don’t say anything. I tell you now so you’ll understand.
The following excerpts are from Dr. R.Y. Deshpande’s book At the Motrano Retreat: The Book of the Divine Mother published by Savitri Foundation:
‘“twixt” and “in”
The revision appearing in the line “And twixt the pauses of the building brain”[92.11] is totally outlandish, bizarre, it even going to the extent in maintaining that the author had committed a terrible faux pas, he forgetting his own deep spiritual philosophy he had formulated since long. Here is the relevant passage:
Once more he moved amid material scenes,
Lifted by intimations from the heights
And twixt the pauses of the building brain
Touched by the thoughts that skim the fathomless surge
Of Nature and wing back to hidden shores. ||92.11||
In the Revised Edition we have “in” instead of “twixt”, of the First Edition, in the third line of this passage. If with “twixt” intimations come in between the pauses of the building brain, when the brain is as well active, in the dynamic mode, with “in” these come only when the brain is not active, is silent, is quiescent, these arriving during its pauses; we have exactly the opposite sense here which is attributed to the lapse of recognition of the author’s own continuing basis of silent mind as the receiver of higher truer knowledge. But then there is a mixing up of the spiritual silent mind and the building brain with mechanical activity, mind equated to brain, which is a fallacy. More importantly, Aswapati is now no more an apprentice Yogi but is one with all the great realisations at his command. His spirituality is no more a contingent spirituality, but is all-embracing including the worldly activities; it is the affirmative spirituality, all pervasive, asserting itself in the thousand modes of life and its activities. Aswapati is now not a beginner, not an intern, but a Siddha-Yogi in whom the divine energies course with the naturalness of the flood of light streaming in all directions from the sun. The spiritual emphasis is not on quiescence but on dynamism.
Factually speaking, the background history of the text is also somewhat different. There are about a dozen drafts of this passage in Sri Aurobindo’s own hand and in all, except the last one, the word present is “in”; however, in the last draft what we have is “twixt”. This “twixt” is, again, in his own hand. Going by the ‘theory of silent mind’ it seems the typist had a doubt about “twixt” and the word was underlined for reference to be made to the author. The scribe drew the attention of Sri Aurobindo who, again, retained “twixt”; there is a double tick mark in the margin of the scribe’s book, okaying “twixt”.
Later in all the subsequent printings of this canto in several contexts, the proofs were read out to Sri Aurobindo and he consistently retained his latest “twixt” though earlier he himself had written “in”. This means, “twixt” has his final sanction, that was his final choice, a choice that must be respected for any sensible editing. If there is any difficulty in our understanding of things, of the passage, it is our difficulty, and needs to be resolved first by us instead of attributing to the lapses on the part of the author, even saying that he was deaf and could not hear what was read out to him, he was blind and that is why he had to engage a scribe, and so on. We are going by “twixt” which indeed has added such wonderful richness to the spiritual approach in the dynamism of profounder and fuller contents of brighter plenteous life. Aswapati is soon going to engage himself in the business of created things, including the fathering of a baby-girl. This just cannot be ignored; one cannot be oblivious to it. We shall see some of these matters in detail later.
Dr. R.Y. Deshpande writes:
The business of created things
The meeting is over. The minutes have been drafted and passed. The operative clause is the divine Goddess will send a living form of hers to the mortal world. Fate shall be changed in her coming, changed by an unchanging Will. This will happen in Death’s tremendous hour. That is the text. But in the execution of it there have to enter in the human aspects, human process as well, human instrumentation, as things have to happen in the human world. It is that human process which will make it contextual, make it relevant, true and substantial, its functioning participative and meaningful for the human advancement on the spirit-ward path. This birth of hers will happen, has to happen only through the process of Nature as is operational at present, only through it and not through any other occult mechanism if at all there is any. It is not going to be a virgin conception. It has to be through the standard process of sex and reproduction; that is the single way for it to happen. In it is also the mystery of birth, of the soul taking a physical body. There is needed for the incarnation a human intermediary.
Yogi or no Yogi Aswapati must resort to it. He has to father a child. He will have to get back to the business of created things existing as they exist now, the art and craft and technique of the things as are there worked out by the evolutionary wisdom. It may be defective, it may be flawed, full of problems, but there is the enduring quality in it. It assures stability, the desired continuity, the steadiness that another leap can be made. In fact this is a marvel of creation the struggling Nature has brought about. Perpetuation of life through sex in the midst of the all-pervasive death is a fabulous innovation in the material creation. That also means that sex is one more step taking one closer to death.
That immediately poses a problem to our way of thinking and understanding when we have no hold on knowledge of deeper things, things truer and occult and spiritual. If sex is tabooed in spiritual life, in fact proscribed, will Aswapati’s this resort to sex mean his spiritual fall? Yet there is the absolute necessity of it if the divine Boon is to materialise. Does that pose a problem, a difficulty to him, he himself having prayed for the incarnation of the Goddess? coming of the Divine in a human body?
Incarnate the white passion of thy force,
Mission to earth some living form of thee. ||90.37||
Did he anticipate such a situation, that he will have to perform a sex act? Incarnation cannot be without the recognition of the human process, without passing through it, without the sex act coming into play. The undeniable fact is, Savitri of Savitri is the incarnation of the divine Goddess, and her birth has to be through a sex act. She has to pass through the portals of the birth that is a death. There is no escape from it. So the first puzzle or dilemma is, a Yogi getting engaged in a necessary sex act.
Apart from this, there is yet one more dilemma if we go by what the latest biological sciences tell about sex and reproduction which is there for the perpetuation of the species. In the case of Aswapati vis-à-vis the boon the issue of this act is, of the sex act is, there is the specificity of a baby-girl being born, it has to be a baby-girl and not a baby-boy. How is a specific sex act going to assure the birth of only a baby-girl and not a baby-boy? What are the chances of that specificity succeeding? what will determine it? is it in anybody’s control to have this or that, particularly from the genetic point of view which will tell that it is just a matter of which type of sperm happens to reach the egg first. That would mean chance. That would mean tossing a coin, with both the head and tail appearing fifty-fifty in a hundred tosses. This is the governance of the type of an offspring by chance, by the flip of a coin. Is the birth of a baby-girl therefore going to be governed by chance? Yes, says genetics. Are we the outcome of a throw of a dice? Yes, says genetics. That doesn’t appear to be very savoury, doesn’t sound pleasing. The answer according to science is, “Yes, the conception of a baby-girl or baby-boy is a matter of chance.”
But will Savitri’s birth be determined by chance? There is of course the necessity of her birth but is chance going to govern it? That will rob the entire meaning of existence and the spirit’s urge to be splendidly many, bahusyām. It will rather be a cruel joke. Savitri’s birth being determined by chance? In that case Aswapati need not do at all any Yoga-Tapasyā, need not approach the divine Goddess and receive any boon. In the theory of chance world’s desire has absolutely no place in the operation of things. Savitri’s coming will not then be a willed response. That will make the entire rendezvous between Aswapati and the divine Goddess a pronounced in fact a mighty stunning fiction; it will belong to the category of imaginative creation. That will imply the poet indulging in pure fancy which need not be respected. But the insistent reality that is there behind it refuses to accept it.
If you want a baby-girl have sex or, euphemistically speaking, make love on a full moon night. That is the common belief passed on from generation to generation by old women. Genetics says: The sperm with the X chromosome — or female chromosome — has a longer life span than the male sperm, but exhibits decreased motility. Therefore, intercourse that takes place earlier may provide increased probability of a baby-girl. There has to be the right PH balance to ensure that the X chromosome sperm can reach the egg successfully. It is advisable to go for foods that are high in calcium and magnesium. All this looks pretty wise but not convincing at all. It is packed with so many uncertainties that this knowledge starts losing its absolute validity, legitimacy. It is not dependable.
In the case of incarnation it is certainly not the flip of a coin. There are other factors, other deeper verities, other weighty experiences and certainties that exist. The Mother explains:
If the incarnation takes place at the conception, the whole formation of the child to be born is directed and governed by the consciousness which is going to incarnate: the choice of the elements, the attraction of the substance — a choice of the forces and even the substance of the matter which is assimilated. There is already a selection. And this naturally creates altogether special conditions for the formation of the body, which may already be fairly developed, evolved, harmonised before its birth. I must say that this is quite, quite exceptional; but still it does happen.
More frequently there are cases in which, just at the moment of its birth, that is to say, of its first gesture of independence, when the child begins to develop its lungs by crying as much as it can, at that moment, very often, this sort of call from life makes the descent easier and more effective.
Sometimes days and at times months pass, and the preparation is slow and the entry takes place very gradually, in quite a subtle and almost imperceptible way.
Sometimes it comes much later, when the child itself becomes a little conscious and feels a very subtle but very real relation with something from above, far above, which is like an influence pressing upon it; and then it can begin to feel the need of being in contact with this something which it does not know, does not understand, but which it can only feel; and this aspiration draws the psychic and makes it descend into the child.
The entire crux of the matter is in “the whole formation of the child to be born is directed and governed by the consciousness which is going to incarnate”. So, everything is already fixed in the Boon itself, the Boon originating from a certain consciousness, the Boon which is a Power, a Force shaping and moulding time and circumstance. It is not Matter through the process of Chance but the Spirit through the process of Matter that is going to determine everything, the consciousness that takes care of all contingencies. In the case of developed beings it is the psychic which chooses everything, the time, the place, the parents, favourable circumstances, everything before it plunges into birth. It actually carries its own sex, of a baby-girl or a baby-boy.
Sri Aurobindo writes:
We see that the mystery of the divine Incarnation in man, the assumption by the Godhead of the human type and the human nature, is in the view of the Gita only the other side of the eternal mystery of human birth itself which is always in its essence, though not in its phenomenal appearance, even such a miraculous assumption. In the ordinary human birth the Nature-aspect of the universal Divine assuming humanity prevails; in the incarnation the God-aspect of the same phenomenon takes its place. In the one he allows the human nature to take possession of his partial being and to dominate it; in the other he takes possession of his partial type of being and its nature and divinely dominates it. Not by evolution or ascent like the ordinary man … not by a growing into the divine birth, but by a direct descent into the stuff of humanity and a taking up of its moulds.
A physical and mental body is prepared fit for the divine incarnation by a pure or great heredity and the descending Godhead takes possession of it. It is “a direct descent into the stuff of humanity and a taking up of its moulds”. The Boon has already fixed it.
This should also take care of the specificity of the divine Goddess taking the birth of Aswapati’s daughter only. True, she must pass through the portals of the birth that is a death. That is now perfectly understandable but she has also to choose circumstances, she has to choose time, choose place, choose her parents. In her case, of the divine Goddess, who else could be a better father than Aswapati? She has made the choice. She comes as his daughter. She comes as Savitri. In it is met the Logic of the Infinite.
We have yet the double dilemma, at two different levels. The first is the psycho-spiritual dilemma in which a Yogi must get ready to engage himself in a tabooed sex act, that which is forbidden in every discipline, in every spiritual practice, forbidden not just as an ethical rule, but because there is something valid in tabooing it as it goes against the occult, inner and spiritual functioning, it delaying and denying all, it upsetting the chemistry of the inner and higher working. We draw ourselves closer to death because of it, of sex. What promotes life promotes perhaps with a greater vehemence death. That is the price we pay for our existence. Each sex act means drawing closer to death. That is the strange irony. Sex enjoyment is but Nature’s bribe to man for the perpetuation of life. More than enjoyment he becomes a slave to her, and slavery to Nature means death.
The other dilemma,—of the soul taking birth in a body without resort anywhere to sex act being made,—is of a relatively minor nature; it is not psycho-spiritual as in the case of an individual but universal belonging to the occult, belonging to the working of universal Nature. If it is not through the instrumentation of sex, maybe the birth could materialise through some occult mechanism, by recourse to the Sankhya process of materialisation, for instance. This is certainly possible, and could well be in the domain of some established universal working; but it lacks the necessary evolutionary endurance, it lacks durability, the needed permanence. If such a birth can appear due to the occult, it can then as easily go away due to the occult. In that sense sex act has given a kind of solidity to the creation. There is no doubt that the modus operandi for perpetuation adopted by Nature has a definite credible merit, something wonderful. The occult precipitation of the higher or subtler is not a part of evolutionary growth, although it may help evolutionary growth, and therefore it is through the evolutionary process that the Boon must materialise. The divine Goddess cannot but pass through the portals of the birth that is a death.
But there remains the most uncomfortable feeling, a Yogi engaged in a sex act. That is not conventional, that is not what the traditions prescribe, that is not what has been taught, there is no example of the sort in the long spiritual history. Not that Rishis have not fallen to sex impulses, not that they did not cohabit with their wives, not that they did not have children some of them becoming famous Rishis; holy and pious people have given themselves to outbursts of passion. Yet abstention from sex, continence, brahmacharya, is the valid rule which is not without foundation. Here is what the Mother says categotically:
… one must abstain from all pleasure-seeking, including sexual pleasure. For every sexual act is a step towards death. That is why from the most ancient times, in the most sacred and secret schools, this act was prohibited to every aspirant towards immortality. The sexual act is always followed by a longer or shorter period of unconsciousness that opens the door to all kinds of influences and causes a fall in consciousness. But if one wants to prepare oneself for the supramental life, one must never allow one’s consciousness to slip into laxity and inconscienceunder the pretext of pleasure or even of rest and relaxation. One should find relaxation in force and light, not in darkness and weakness. Continence is therefore the rule for all those who aspire for progress. But especially for those who want to prepare themselves for the supramental manifestation, this continence must be replaced by a total abstinence, achieved not by coercion and suppression but by a kind of inner alchemy, as a result of which the energies that are normally used in the act of procreation are transmuted into energies for progress and integral transformation. It is obvious that for the result to be total and truly beneficial, all sexual impulses and desires must be eliminated from the mental and vital consciousness as well as from the physical will. All radical and durable transformation proceeds from within outwards, so that the external transformation is the normal, almost inevitable result of this process.
But that is a different thing. Here Aswapati the Yogi who had the most transcendental realisations has to now consciously and aimedly resort to a sex act. Is that degradation?
Aswapati has to father the divine Goddess’s mortal birth. He is a Yogi par excellence no doubt, and is nevermore subject to the laws and influences of Nature. But that cannot preclude him from adopting the mechanism of Nature, her tools and methods, the process of procreation and perpetuation, her art and craft and technique which is her present mode to immortality. In fact there is no other way for the birth, of the soul entering into creation, without sex, and he has to resort to it, be he a Yogi or anyone else. He has to accept it. He has to get back to the business of created things. He had asked for her birth, and he must be ready to bring it about. He does it not in the smallness or pettiness of man but in the greatness of a Yogi. Only one who is above sex can triumphantly use sex as a means of getting the wanted thing done. One may fool oneself in the process but that cannot deny the reality of it. Aswapati has to become a father, and he does become, become consciously. It looks, that is a more difficult, a more challenging job he had done than approaching the Goddess and getting a boon. In it a flame-child is born, one who will be the Supreme’s sword and lyre.
Indeed, is that uncomfortable, that uneasy feeling of ours who are not yogis of any worth? any consequence? need it be respected? does it deserve any consideration? are we the ones who are going to pass judgements on the acts of yogis although there are any number of Peter Heehses in the world who will do it for a coin? What is our qualification to do that? Ignorance. For one who is given to spiritual life sex act is a retrograde step. That is the general rule. This is particularly so when there is the tendency to yield to sex passion, to gratify sex hunger, to fulfill sex desire, to have unbridled proclivity for it. These come in the way of developing finer and subtler perceptions, of intuition entering into our faculties, they clouding our consciousness, they pushing back our life by years.
What is not acceptable, in fact what is certainly deleterious is sex indulgence, and for it sexual abstinence is not the cure; the cure is in sex purification and sex transcendence. That should also mean that the sex act has to be a purposeful spirit-driven function, there has to be a kind of purity in it, the purity of a flame burning in its diamond intensity. It should be free of all turbidity, should not be governed by the vital, by lust and possessiveness, by passion and craving and emotion. It has to be without deceiving oneself, deceiving which is not difficult also to detect. It should be of the nature of tranquil Full Moon in the cloudless Autumn Night. Possibly we could expect this from a Yogi like Aswapati. He is not subject to sex, he is above sex; but that aboveness does not mean he can’t use sex for a particular purpose. He is above created things, and that does not mean that he can’t or won’t exploit created things—if he has a specific result to obtain. He remains un-tinged by these actions of his, because these actions take place with a yogic fire, Yogāgni, ever burning in the fire of the Spirit, Fire that purifies. The chant always is:
O Fire, thou art the seer and the ordainer, the priest of the call, the purifier to whom must be given sacrifice, rapturous, strong for sacrifice, one to be prayed in the pilgrim-rites with illumined thoughts, O brilliant Flame!
Actually it is the birth of this child, the divine flaming girl-child, which makes Aswapati’s Yoga-Tapasyā a perfect accomplishment, the reward of spiritual perfection; it brings fruition to it. The birth of a divine child through a sex act itself makes that sex act absolutely super-yogic in which Nature becomes a happy participant:
Him desire and adore, for he is the first and chief who brings to perfect accomplishment your sacrifice, since he takes all offering of the Aryan peoples and makes them to shine with light; he is the son of Energy, the bringer of boons, the flood of strength. The godheads hold the Flame that gives the treasure.
Let us read what the Mother had said years ago:
Yoga in its process of purification will lay bare and throw up all hidden impulses and desires in you. And you must learn not to hide things nor leave them aside, you have to face them and conquer and remould them. The first effect of Yoga, however, is to take away the mental control, and the hungers that lie dormant are suddenly set free, they rush up and invade the being. So long as this mental control has not been replaced by the Divine control, there is a period of transition when your sincerity and surrender will be put to the test.
The key is “the Divine control” which is already there with Yogi Aswapati; for him there is no question of the period of transition. He “takes up human action and uses human methods with the human consciousness in front and the Divine behind.”
Talking about Avatars Sri Aurobindo makes it clear in a letter: “Avatars can be married and have children and that is not possible without sex.” Obviously that also applies to a Yogi desiring to have a child, but his “desiring” can be of a different kind; it cannot be the human lust, not wolfishly eating into each others vitals, into each others flesh. It has to be the expression of the truth of the godhead of divine Kama, the godhead of divine Love.
“…there is an accumulation of energy at the sex-centre, a great accumulation of energy, and those who have control over these energies,” tells the Mother, “succeed in mastering them and raising them up, and they place them here [at the centre of the chest]. And here is the centre of the energies of progress. This is what is called the seat of Agni, but it is the energies of progress, the will to progress, that are here. So the energies concentrated in the sex-centre are pulled upwards and placed here. And they increase considerably, so that the sex-centre becomes absolutely calm, peaceful, immobile.” That is already yogic.
“Birth is the first spiritual mystery of the physical universe,” writes Sri Aurobindo, “death is the second which gives its double point of perplexity to the mystery of birth; for life, which would otherwise be a self-evident fact of existence, becomes itself a mystery by virtue of these two which seem to be its beginning and its end and yet in a thousand ways betray themselves as neither of these things, but rather intermediate stages in an occult processus of life. At first sight birth might seem to be a constant outburst of life in a general death, a persistent circumstance in the universal lifelessness of Matter.”
In another place: “According to one idea Desire is the creator and sustainer of things, — Desire and Ignorance. By losing desire one passes beyond the Ignorance, as by passing beyond Ignorance one loses desire; then the created world is surpassed and the soul enters into the Divine Reality. Kama or Madan here [in Love and Death] speaks as Desire the Creator, an outgoing power from the Bliss of the Divine Reality to which, abandoning desire, one returns, ānandambrahmanovidvān, possessing the bliss of the Brahman.”
Here is Madan’s speech in Love and Death:
By me come wedded sweets, by me the wife’s
Busy delight and passionate obedience,
And loving eager service never sated,
And happy lips, and worshipping soft eyes:
And mine the husband’s hungry arms and use
Unwearying of old tender words and ways,
Joy of her hair, and silent pleasure felt
Of nearness to one dear familiar shape. …
Cold lusts that linger and fierce fickleness…
Only with death I wrestle in vain, until
My passionate godhead all becomes a doubt.
Mortal, I am the light in stars, of flowers
The bloom, the nameless fragrance that pervades
Creation: but behind me, older than me,
He comes with night and cold tremendous shade.
Hard is the way to him, most hard to find,
Harder to tread, for perishable feet
Almost impossible. …
O ignorant fond lover, not with tears
Shalt thou persuade immitigable Death.
He will not pity all thy pangs: nor know
His stony eyes with music to grow kind,
Nor lovely words accepts. And how wilt thou
Wrestle with that grim shadow, who canst not save
One bloom from fading? A sole thing the Gods
Demand from all men living, sacrifice:
Nor without this shall any crown be grasped.
This is lyricism of sweetness and felicity and not crude lust and passion. This is one of the finest poetic passages in the early narrative poems of Sri Aurobindo.
In this overall context let us read a few things from the writings of Sri Aurobindo, some of them absolutely the last pieces he wrote in 1949-1950; in them he speaks of the issues of sex apropos of the new and marvellous creation poised for descent upon earth.
Sex and sexuality and all that springs from sex and testifies to its existence had to be banned and discarded from the spiritual life, and this, though difficult, is not at all impossible and can be made a cardinal condition for the spiritual seeker. This is natural and inescapable in all ascetic practice and the satisfaction of this condition, though not easy at first to fulfil, becomes after a time quite feasible; the overcoming of the sex instinct and impulse is indeed binding on all who would attain to self-mastery and lead the spiritual life. A total mastery over it is essential for all spiritual seekers, the eradication of it for the complete ascetic. This much has to be recognised and not diminished in its obligatory importance and its principle.
□□□
… all recognition of the sex principle, as apart from the gross physical indulgence of the sex impulse, could not be excluded from a divine life upon earth; it is there in life, plays a large part and has to be dealt with, it cannot simply be ignored, merely suppressed or held down or put away out of sight. In the first place, it is in one of its aspects a cosmic and even a divine principle: it takes the spiritual form of the Ishwara and the Shakti and without it there could be no world-creation or manifestation of the world-principle of Purusha and Prakriti which are both necessary for the creation, necessary too in their association and interchange for the play of its psychological working and in their manifestation as soul and Nature fundamental to the whole process of the Lila. In the divine life itself an incarnation or at least in some form a presence of the two powers or their initiating influence through their embodiments or representatives would be indispensable for making the new creation possible. In its human action on the mental and vital level sex is not altogether an undivine principle; it has its nobler aspects and idealities and it has to be seen in what way and to what extent these can be admitted into the new and larger life. All gross animal indulgence of sex desire and impulse would have to be eliminated; it could only continue among those who are not ready for the higher life or not yet ready for a complete spiritual living. In all who aspired to it but could not yet take it up in its fullness sex will have to be refined, submit to the spiritual or psychic impulse and a control by the higher mind and the higher vital and shed all its lighter, frivolous or degraded forms and feel the touch of the purity of the ideal. Love would remain, all forms of the pure truth of love in higher and higher steps till it realised its highest nature, widened into universal love, merged into the love of the Divine. The love of man and woman would also undergo that elevation and consummation; for all that can feel a touch of the ideal and the spiritual must follow the way of ascent till it reaches the divine Reality. The body and its activities must be accepted as part of the divine life and pass under this law; but, as in the other evolutionary transitions, what cannot accept the law of the divine life cannot be accepted and must fall away from the ascending nature.
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There is one problem raised by sex for those who would reject in toto the obligations imposed by the animality of the body and put forward by it as an insistent opposition in the way of the aspirant to a higher life: it is the necessity of the prolongation of the race for which the sex activity is the only means already provided by Nature for living beings and inevitably imposed upon the race. It is not indeed necessary for the individual seeker after a divine life to take up this problem or even for a group who do not seek after it for themselves alone but desire a wide acceptance of it by mankind as at least an ideal.
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In India there has been always from the earliest times a widely spread belief in the possibility and reality of the use of these powers by men with an advanced knowledge of these secret things or with a developed spiritual knowledge and experience and dynamic force and even, in the Tantras, an organised system of their method and practice. The intervention of the Yogi in bringing about a desired birth of offspring is also generally believed in and often appealed to and the bestowal on the child so obtained of a spiritual attainment or destiny by his will or his blessing is sometimes asked for and such a result is recorded not only in the tradition of the past but maintained by the witness of the present. But there is here still the necessity of a resort to the normal means of propagation and the gross method of physical Nature. A purely occult method, a resort to supraphysical processes acting by supraphysical means for a physical result would have to be possible if we are to avoid this necessity: the resort to the sex impulse and its animal process could not be transcended otherwise. If there is some reality in the phenomenon of materialisation and dematerialisation claimed to be possible by occultists and evidenced by occurrences many of us have witnessed, a method of this kind would not be out of the range of possibility. For in the theory of the occultists and in the gradation of the ranges and planes of our being which Yoga- knowledge outlines for us there is not only a subtle physical force but a subtle physical Matter intervening between life and gross Matter, and to create in this subtle physical substance and precipitate the forms thus made into our grosser materiality is feasible. It should be possible and it is believed to be possible for an object formed in this subtle physical substance to make a transit from its subtlety into the state of gross Matter directly by the intervention of an occult force and process, whether with or even without the assistance or intervention of some gross material procedure. A soul wishing to enter into a body or form for itself a body and take part in a divine life upon earth might be assisted to do so or even provided with such a form by this method of direct transmutation, without passing through birth by the sex process or undergoing any degradation or any of the heavy limitations in the growth and development of its mind and material body inevitable to our present way of existence. It might then assume at once the structure and greater powers and functionings of the truly divine material body which must one day emerge in a progressive evolution to a totally transformed existence both of life and form in a divinised earth-nature.
AUM NAMO BHAGAVATE
Presentation of the Savitri Data
It is a fact the drafting of Savitri went through several stages during several periods of time, from 1916 to 1950. There are thousands of pages in the handwriting of Sri Aurobindo himself and later by dictation, these again revised at various stages. To compile the final text of Savitri from this enormous material is not at all an easy or straightforward task. In addition to that the Press proofs of the documents which were getting printed and published are no more available, this when the author had revised or added at this stage a good deal of new material.
Necessarily, in view of such features,—and more importantly from the point of editing the Savitri-text,—we must take due care of the complexities and many possible dimensions that are present in the entire work of presentation. While we must congratulate the editors of the 1993 Revised Edition of Savitri a cautious approach must also be present. It is never unlikely that the entire editing is not scientifically-mathematically objective. The subjective elements of the individuals are understandably present in the final draft. This is bound to cause concern to an authentic student and researcher of Savitri. Perhaps in the overall pragmatics of the job and with due understanding and appreciation a suggestion could be made in the following.
No doubt, in the context of editorial revisions of Savitri the overall picture as emerges is that of conflicting viewpoints in certain cases. Either at times it hurts insensitively the sentiments of devotees or else brings frustration to genuine researchers of the poem who are not given the relevant details. It is necessary that we take due care of the complexities and the many possible dimensions that are present in the entire work.
In this regard perhaps the best procedure for the editors of the Savitri-text could be to take the first complete version that appeared in two volumes in 1950-51 as the basic reference. Part One of the epic was published in September 1950, before Sri Aurobindo’s passing away in early December of that year, and Part II and Part III as the second volume within months of that day, in May 1951. To take care of the “slips and oversights” that might have occurred in this edition, extensive research notes and references can be provided in a supplementary archival document; these might include several readings as we have in different drafts.
Presentation of data should be the primary concern in any objective editing. It is well appreciated that carrying out such an exhaustive job can never be an easy archival task; but then, possibly that is the only kind of an undertaking which would do some justice to the poem as well as to the poet. This entails an enormous amount of labour but the gain is a certain objective scientific documentation that can stand permanently as reference material for generations to come who may have another approach towards the epic.
For an alert or perceptive reader of tomorrow this archival data will prove to be a help of immense value. When followed, it will also have the advantage of avoiding the charge of introducing in the edited text one’s own likings and dislikings, one’s biased or natural subjective notions regarding matters poetic or spiritual or metaphysical. By presenting such “factual” details of research on the Savitri-drafts a new chapter of study can open out to enter into its spirit in another way. It is believed that this procedure will be in tune with the spirit in which the Savitri-chapter appears in Nirodbaran’s Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo.
But in the truest sense these are perhaps issues of a minor kind and generally might have relevance only in their academic contexts. What is significant is the authenticity as well as the validity of the Word of Savitri in its pristine glory and the power that can give expression to the Real-Idea in our life. That is the truest value of its poetry and that will always remain faultless and free, — because behind it is the yogic force of its creator.
Reference may be made to the following:
https://savitri.in/blogs/light-of-supreme/appendix-editing-savitri-a-comment-part10/
Briefly, as a constant daily reader of Savitri, I have no trouble with “twixt: in this passage. I must assume that those who have trouble with it take it to mean something that it does not mean to me! A tempest in a teacup? I hope the “twixt” reading will survive into the final (really final?!) version.
After Christmas, and to put an end to this debate, which is nothing more than a storm in a teacup…
This Ego is the Adversary’s domain. Weak or strong, sensible or ridiculous, outrageous, humble, modest, virtuous, or a “bastard,” and so on—the combinations are endless, more or less fortunate, more or less unfortunate! Its pleasures are numerous, even to the point of being vulgar, violent, self-destructive, and so on. It lies at the root of religions and ideologies, and science is no stranger to its self-serving machinations, almost sacralized, and yet, what arrogant pretensions!
It has openly, unrestrainedly, become the alpha and omega of all existence, considered indestructible with incredible adaptive capacities.
From a state of transit and perpetual transit, in the ebb and flow of the Infinite bearer, it has imposed itself through Lies and Death, multiplying via genetics and, why not, through its machines, across the entire Earth, until it aspires to be the master of Space, to conquer in order to satisfy its gargantuan appetites.
Nations are the swelling of its recurring disease and never miss an opportunity to expose its primal barbarity.
Education, Culture, even Spirituality—everything becomes a means to grow and devour prey within its reach, whether willing or coerced, with supposedly higher reasons, in the name of the State, Identity, and other such nonsense.
So many possibilities, since they are immeasurable (only and nothing more, for that matter), that this Adversary, called Asura in other realms, knows how to combine with art and ingenuity, even making us believe, through the ego, that it is the cornerstone of all existence!
And yet, it does not spring from the thigh of Jupiter, but from the hidden folds of the Divine, and for the Divine.
This inadequate word, subject to trivial and limited controversies, designates only one dimension that, in its entirety, belongs to the order of the Sacred, much to the chagrin of the thugs of a dying utilitarianism (is time relative?). Grandeur, nobility, beauty, truth—these are the qualities to be attained, even daring to leap into the Unknown, which is no longer dangerous if approached with sincerity and self-offering at the rendezvous of History, beyond our fantastical stories.
A basic presence, first and last, in the background of all thoughts, actions, and essential reasons for being.
Yes, on one level, everything is perfect in itself, a Fact, undetectable by our usual probes, damaged by the powerful driving force of Desire, a vehicle hurtling towards nowhere. In the opposite direction of Desire lies Ananda, which will set things right, to God’s time.
Ultimately, everything in relationships, down to the cellular, atomic, and even more so, body, is measured by the yardstick of the infinitely small and the infinitely large; the ego, becoming a source of error, with dangerous (though perhaps not so dangerous) turmoil on the surface.
To be discovered with the Strength of Soul, a “fuel” that burns away insanity and transforms what must be. And this, come what may, against all odds!
So, why write, why reach out to the Other; still some egocentric dross, unsettled remnants?
Yes, somewhat, but not entirely!
Let us strive to transform these remnants, now indigestible (though not for everyone), into a higher alchemy, transcending our plaintive litanies, our audacious arrogance, our Dantean pretensions—low-grade when laid bare.
At this turning point for humankind and for life itself, a little bit of wonder, planted in this supposedly absurd soil, can and must change everything.
And this small amount, relayed, amplified, multiplied, will become the opportunity to embody Possibilities that align the opposing Force with a means that has once again become creative, “divinely speaking,” so that it may recover its mission: to expand the realm of God (let us dare to use this adventurous word). This forgetting of himself (God), this attempt to venture forth to the point of losing himself, with maps in hand, was decided, decreed with full knowledge of the causes and consequences.
Neither sin, nor error, nor accident of a monstrous nature, just an incident, with obstacles to overcome, hearts held high and souls on their shoulders.
A shadow was born, but without having failed to conceal a Sun in the deepest recesses of the emerging darkness.
They were glimpsed by some and recognized by others, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, who were tasked with defeating the last vestiges of Resistance.
They traversed the very last flanks of the Adversary, from end to end, so that Men and Women, returned, animated by an ancient Memory, having the glorious Future inscribed in a simplified formula, after so many mental convolutions, might participate in this long-awaited Apocalypse.
Nourished, nourished, enlivened in the sacred and preserved folds of the ego, nurtured by God in His unalterable dimensions, it will elevate humankind, like a Friend, a Companion, a Score of itself, within itself and by itself.
Singular, cosmic, transcendent, let us be the preconceived Artist and strive to play until we attempt perfect harmony. Awaken and Will. A little human being on the march.
And a big thank you to Anuraj for his studious, well-documented responses that reveal the essential. Savitri was subject to revision, but this poem, so full of beauty, cannot be altered by the pretensions of a translator. Likewise, the Agenda of Supramental Action on Earth, which was protected in high places, is and will be an exceptional document, both for the revelations it grants and for the help it offers us. This Agenda is my gift to those who love me. Thank you, Mother.
Savitri, a formidable epic, that of Sri Aurobindo, will no longer be subject to foolish interpretations, for they will tell us directly what they have been and will be. Sri Aurobindo is neither a teaching nor a religion, but an Action that comes directly from the Supreme.
It is up to the disciples never to forget this, since their Presence is still and forever pregnant. And so far ahead of our quibbles, our petty stories. Arise, ye dead. A little man, who sends a bottle into the sea for the beauty of the gesture.
Why should we look at this again, except by insisting on what Mother Herself has said on the subject?
Our main work as readers of Savitri would rather be to plunge into the Vibration brought down by the Master with the will to surrender to the Lord and observe silently what comes in from above…
Claude, you have a precious impeccable point about our association with Savitri. But then there are many dimensions in the abundant versatility and richness of Savitri. I would say that Savitri was not written for the devotees, not for them alone, but has been given as a supreme revelation by a Yogi-Poet who is also the supreme Master of Literature. We must see from these several angles if we are not miss the wonders and joys it offers for growth and expansion, of our widening of consciousness.
From the various comments that are present on the Post it is clear that there is a problem as far as the editing of Savitri is concerned. This is because of thousands and thousands of Savitri pages as manuscripts, copies, dictations, typescripts, revisions and additions even at the proof stages, and so on. There is a certain need for looking into these details, and the details. The editorial team has done an excellent job. But in the ‘final revision’ personal understanding and perception have entered in. The question is, How does one guard oneself against it, try to get the exactness of the “intention” of the poet himself, if we can talk of an intention of the Poet? A suggestion has hence been made to make Savitri-papers accessible to the inquirer-researcher for his own study and acceptance. Let me make a reference to the following, for instance.
“The Savitri revision controversy has rocked the Ashram for a decade or two. RY Deshpande was part of the team that finalized the Savitri revisions and he says that even Nirodbaran expressed his unhappiness over some of the revisions. The late Jugal Kishore Mukherji wrote a fifty page letter to Amal on these revisions. … I will throw a challenge which Deshpande has long been insisting upon: Make all the Savitri manuscripts public. Put them up on the Net for all to see and judge for themselves the legitimacy of the revisions of the Archives editors.”
[http://savitri.in/library/resources/lives-of-sri-aurobindo/may-22-2013
http://www.thelivesofsriaurobindo.com/2013/05/apropos-of-savitri-and-prof-manoj-das.html%5D
Now that the technology exists to allow the publication of the manuscripts without altering them, I fully agree with this proposal.
But don’t we miss the essential when we focus on our own perception of this or that alternative interpretation, instead of silently receiving it at the level of consciousness where we are and abstain to discuss and comment about “our” understanding of it, which inevitably is limited?
Sri Aurobindo and Mother always insisted on living the yogic experience from inside. Savitri is the most powerful and sacred tool given to us by the Master to help us doing so.
Every way of engaging ourselves with Savitri is allowing Savitri itself to work in us. This will of course vary from individual to individual and must be allowed to go that way. The main point is, be with Savitri who gives us the truth and the things of the truth, and all the joy of it, its spirit living more and more in us. Calm and settled will will then bring about miracles and miracles.
Dear Sir,
Reading your comments regarding the erroneous translations of Savitri, I shudder to think what would have become of the Agenda of Supramental Action on Earth. Numerous cuts and censorship would have marred Mother’s gift to those who loved and still love her. Satprem, after so many years at her side, was able to restore the entirety of these meaningful and blessed conversations to our turbulent times.
I understand your remarks all the more easily, since Mother repeatedly emphasized the excesses of some disciples.
The original Savitri text is preserved, as is that of the Agenda; thank you to those who will appreciate them for what they are.
They are so very much present when one reads Savitri and the Agenda of Supramental Action on Earth.
Thank you, sir, for your insight, which reveals the lack of scruples some people have had towards their work. Sincerely, Christian Couyssat.
Agenda, … Well, well … Agenda means Essential Agenda. It is the work of the divine Consciousness working in the very physical. In the entire history of spirituality there are only three things, the Rig Veda that came down some ten thousand years ago, Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri, and the Mother’s Essential Agenda. Nothing else then can bring the full glory of the manifesting Spirit in this creation, its operative dynamism.
The question is: should a scholastic-academic approach, for instance, towards Savitri be there at all or not, it belonging to a particular literary genre?
Let us not forget that she made her soul the body of our condition, on November 17, 1973, before and after, for that matter. She left us the Agenda of Supramental Action on Earth, which is the continuation of the Yoga of Self-Perfection. Those who can read, without grievous passions and other distortions, can and must progress in order to give substance to their sacred undertaking.
The King, after a formidable epic, calls upon the Mother of Worlds, who agrees to send Savitri to Earth, within a Humanity in crisis, for a new evolutionary cycle.
He departed on December 5, 1950. Between the 5th and the 9th of that month, he transferred everything to the Body of the Mother of Worlds, who continued until she lost all her powers in order to undertake the Yoga of the Cells.
They are terribly present, hence the dark repercussions on the surface, since they are not very sincere and are too approximate in our translations of their noble work. But nothing will be lost, and year after year, we will clear the furrows, the paths before the roads, which will be trodden by their Sons and Daughters, imbued with their Love, through the Body of the Earth!
Therefore, the quibbles and comments concerning the actions of some and others, supported by the Asura, are of lesser importance. Savitri descends back to Earth with Satyavan within her.
It is up to us to know how to continue, to finalize, to translate as best we can, what they have imprinted deep within our consciousness.
Here in the West, only individuals can undertake this task.
There in the East, through India, which received the Vedas, they have the ardent obligation to move forward, always forward!
May the Indian Union not be a delusion, and why not, undo the error that gave birth to a disastrous partition. Let us not be blinded by the deceptive curtains that will inevitably crumble following their covert actions, and the evolutionary push translated as accurately as possible into reality. A Man.
We must no longer translate, but embody each one in their own way. Humanity is at its core; let us extract its very essence.
They descended to the abyss. They crossed Death and defied Lies.
None of the powers of the old world can be precursors of what is coming, what is already here, already. At most, they can be intermediaries during this period of transition, ordained long ago from on high!
Faith and trust are formidable weapons that must be honed to the highest degree in order to cut the Gordian knot, which lies before all seekers at the very end of so many human, all too human, peregrinations. Let us dare to leap into the unknown, aligned with the calling board from which whispers the intensity and magnificence of their Force of Love for the Earth and for Humanity. Beware, contrary winds will arise, just as they arose after their departure from the earthly realm.
But they can only shatter against our deep-seated determination, nourished by the wisdom of Savitri, by the Agenda of Supramental Action on Earth following the revelations of the Veda. Aum Namo Bhagavate.Debout les morts.
One last point, and I apologize for taking up space on a quality website dedicated to their work, but it’s necessary.
There isn’t a single, essential agenda with interviews detailing Cellular Yoga, and the agenda should be considered less important due to the topics covered.
This includes everything from the disciples’ behavior and the evolution of the Ashram to the comments and additions of the disciple who recorded Mother’s words.
It’s a collection of material.
The difficulties faced by each individual; the transformation of the Ashram into a vast enterprise that was and was subject to numerous setbacks during their lifetimes and afterward; the observations on humanity as a whole evolving on a planet so badly damaged by subsequent events—these are all important topics, the backdrop for an action, a supramental action on Earth.
We must free ourselves from all risky polemics, from bitter passions, from preconceived ideas instilled by the Adversary through certain individuals who undoubtedly played a somewhat harmful role.
Did everything have to be written down, transcribed?
And who was, or still is, responsible for deciding which interviews deserved to be made public?
Furthermore, Satprem, let’s name him, consider his responsibility, he who lived this recounting of the epic so closely, through cassette recordings that reached his subconscious. Try to grasp what Mother gave him, this gift to all of Humanity.
Thus, even if he wasn’t always at his best, according to some, wasn’t he simply a faithful hero, both during the interviews and after his departure? It was a battle. It ended in victory, and what do the consequences matter, they are now irrelevant.
The last book Sri Aurobindo reviewed was The Book of Destiny.
How many times did he emphasize the paramount importance of this work, given the turmoil around him?
He departed accepting the terrible earthly conditions.
She departed making her soul the very essence of our condition.
Never forget these facts. They reveal the incarnation of the Divine on Earth.
Three centuries, he said. Here is one past.
The other two can be traversed with their help, terrible if insincere, marvelous if offered wholeheartedly.
This is what I dare to write, since Essential Agenda has called to me.
Hoping for no misunderstanding, following the translation of my text via Google, and touching on a sensitive subject since it addresses the resistance of the world, which will undoubtedly be eradicated following swift action.
Certainly, there will be panic, but at the heart of the cyclone, Beauty will grow, overcoming the resistance of the world. A huge thank you to Satprem; I apologize, but I feel compelled to pay tribute to him again and again, he who knew how to elevate his humanity to the measure of what they were, are, and will be. FORWARD, ALWAYS FORWARD, AGAINST ALL ODDS.
In short, since “Agenda” means essential, I was mistaken in my assessment of this document.
However, for others who have stirred up controversy around its publication, my words can be understood in that light.
Not to rally these veterans, but rather to illustrate how difficult it is to translate the magnificence of their noble work into reality.
Moreover, this Battle was inevitable, since the Mother of Worlds is the first of the iconoclasts, just like Sri Aurobindo, who wanted to lead India to its highest peaks and most wondrous depths.
Thus, I apologize for misinterpreting your post.
But I stand by my writing in order to clarify certain facts that were neither regrettable nor reprehensible, but rather highlight the immeasurable impact of their actions.
How wonderfully ordered everything is!
Following the posting of my humble comments, I’m listening to the interview from May 22, 1966.
It just goes to show that nothing is insignificant and everything is rich in knowledge.
And I can’t help but be amazed by so many perfect synchronizations.
God shall grow up while the wise men talk and sleep!
A very, very, very good year to all of you heading towards our home port in the Wonder of wonders, the only one worth anything, before crossing into the high seas for a Victory over death and lies, the only one that deserves special attention.
Marc Desplanque from Auroville writes in an email the following
I would go for the interpretation below:
When Sri Aurobindo wrote “in”, he evidently meant that during the times when Aswapaty’s “building brain” had ceased from its activity and was in a state of calm, a condition of quietude, making an interval of “pause”, he had received “thoughts” from far-off unearthly regions. In other words, these supra-mundane thoughts were received when the usual mental constructions were in abeyance. With this meaning, the line was a straightforward statement. It had no “round-aboutness”, no “complexity in structure”. Similarly straightforward would have been a line if Sri Aurobindo had wished to say that the opposite was true—namely, that the activity of the building brain and not the recurrent pause in it rendered Aswapaty a recipient of superhuman influences. …
Now, with “twixt” instead of “in” to precede “pauses”, one has to take Sri Aurobindo as resorting to “round-aboutness” and “complexity in structure” in order to suggest the same situation by saying that everything happened in the space of time between one pause and another and that nothing happened at the time a pause was there. Sri Aurobindo is made to imply not just that the presence of the “heavenly visitors” was felt during intensely busy cerebral processes but also that it was felt only during them and never if there was any calm, quietude, “pause”.
RYD: This is quite acceptable.The Aurobindonian thrust is on “activity” rather than on “quiet” which is there always even during an intense activity. This is what he had told to Lele when he met him last in Calcutta before his coming to Pondicherry.
https://thewindsofwonder.org/2026/01/10/about-twixt-an-email-exchange/