K.D. SETHNA (AMAL KIRAN)  A CENTENARY TRIBUTE K.D. Sethna (Amal Kiran) A Centenary Tribute   Edited by Sachidananda Mohanty   THE INTEGRAL LIFE FOUNDATION USA   First Edition :November 2004 Copyright : @ Clear Ray Trust, Pondicherry Editor Dr. :Sachidananda Mohanty Printed at : All India Press, Pondicherry, India Published by : THE INTEGRAL LIFE FOUNDATION                        156, Upper Pattagansett Road East Lyme,                        CT 06333, USA Price :Rs. 200/- Typesetby : Kolam Information Services Pvt. Ltd,                   Pondicherry, India

A Clear Ray and A Lamp - an exchange of light   Pradip Bhattacharya   I FIRST met Amal Kiran in 1969, advised by Jayantilal-ji that in him I would find a kindred spirit - and how right he was! He was then living at 23 Rue Suffren, and I used to help arrange his numerous unpublished typescripts (numbering 23 in 1974 as he writes) in a wooden almirah. Whenever possible, I would get hold of newly published material on subjects he was dealing with and send these to him. For instance, in the 1970s he was heavily into Velikovsky. I was able to obtain issues of the journal published by the Velikovsky Society and keep Amal updated. Later, I sent him arti

Amal Kiran's Contribution to the Study of Indian Prehistory   Akash Deshpande   AMAL KIRAN developed a systematic understanding and exposition of the subject of Indian prehistory over a period of nearly forty years. Four books by him bear upon this subject. Two are devoted entirely to this topic, while two more touch upon it with considerable emphasis.   It is evident that as a historian, Amal has minutely pored over several hundred original research sources and findings covering a wide array of viewpoints and methodologies. Nothing has been rejected from consideration on doctrinaire or dogmatic grounds; each item has been dealt with on its me

Part VI  List of Publications   List of Published Book   1. 1923 Parnassians (4 Essays) 2. 1941 The Secret Splendour, Bombay: Published by K.D. Sethna. 3. 1947 Evolving India: Essays on Cultural Iissues, Bombay: Hind Kitabs Limited. 4. 1947 The Poetic Genius of Sri Aurobindo, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2nd ed. 1974. 5. 1949 The Adventure of the Apocalypse, Bombay; Sri Aurobindo Circle. 6. 1951 The Passing of Sri Aurobindo: Its Inner Significance and Consequence, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram. 7. 1952 Life-Literature-Yoga: Some Letters of Sri Aurobindo, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram

-046_PartV Extracts from Amal Kiran's Works-The Passing of Sri Aurobindo The Passing of Sri Aurobindo: Its Inner Significance and Consequence*   I   No one can write about my life because it is not on the surface for men to see" - this is what Sri Aurobindo said when the idea of a definitive biography was mooted. There is no doubt that, except perhaps for his brilliant academic career in England and the early phases of his fiery political period in India, his life was too deeply inward for its utmost sense and motive and achievement to be unravelled by a narration of external events supplemented by a psychological commentary. To arrive at some vision of it one would have to catch an inkling

K.D. Sethna as the Editor of Mother India   Nilima Das   K.D. SETHNA (Amal Kiran) is a veteran editor of the journal Mother India, Monthly Review of Culture. Nirodbaran says: "Sri Aurobindo had made Amal a political thinker and a commentator as well. When Mother India was started in Bombay with Amal as its editor, he used to send his editorials for Sri Aurobindo's perusal and sanction. I used to read them to Sri Aurobindo. The Mother found one editorial too strong and brought it to his notice. But he approved of it. He considered Mother India as his paper, as did the Mother consider the Bulletin as her paper.   "During the twelve years

-048_PartV Extracts from Amal kiran's Works-The Problem-Its Indian Implications The Problem: Its Indian Implications -the Historical Questions Involved*   In India the problem of Aryan origins has not only a bearing on the remote past. It has also a relevance to the immediate present. Ever since Western historians pronounced, and the historians of our country concurred, that a Dravidian India had been invaded by the Aryans of the Rigveda in the second millennium B.C., there has been a ferment of antagonism, time and again, between the North and the South.   The Northerners, figuring in their own eyes as Aryan conquerors, have occasionally felt a general superiority to the Southerners who have com

-039_PartIII Sri Aurobindo's Vision-Ranajit Sarkar The Rose and the Flame: Psychic and Spiritual Poetry   Ranajit Sarkar     "The truth which poetry expresses," Sri Aurobindo says, "takes two forms, the truth of life and the truth of that which works in life, the truth of the inner spirit."1 In a general way, we can say that the poetry which expresses the second form of truth is mystic. But this poetry is not something uniform. The spirit is infinite, therefore the mystic's vision of the spirit too takes many forms. And the poetry that expresses the vision cannot easily be grasped within a clear definition. However, when we study mystic poetry we discern two main movements: the psychic

A Man of Letters   Sonia Dyne   K.D. SETHNA (the "Dear Amal" of a correspondence spanning more than twenty years) is a prodigious letter-writer. The 'clear ray' of his sparkling intelligence muminates any subject to which his attention is drawn, and ( no matter how profound the observation or how complex the question under consideration, his quick wit and gentle humour plays over it like sunlight on an ocean's depth. I am among the fortunate recipients of some of these wonderful letters - a few of the longer ones have already appeared in print as part of the series published in Mother India.   My first letter from Amal is dated May 18th, 1979.

-045_PartV Extracts from Amal Kiran's Works-Select Poems Part V   Extracts from Amal Kiran's Works   Select Poems from The Secret Splendour: Collected Poems*   I   (Has this poem too "brainy" an air? What do you think of the turn in the last stanza?)   Your Face   Your face unveils the cry, Divinely deep, Heard from the inscrutable core Of mystic sleep—   A lure of rapturous tune Where vision fails, Like a nest of heaven-hearted Nightingales.   No hush of love could catch That soul of swoon:  Dawn's body ever crossed My dream too soon.   But now with a face of dawn Night yearns to me, Kindling