The Legend The story of Savitri is an ancient story. It is both myth and pre-history. Its characters and contents are occult-spiritual. Given as a human tale, it has several connotations and is loaded with supernatural significance. In fact its symbolic nature is suggestive of the issue involved in this mortal creation, this mrityuloka. The issue is of a divine manifestation in the evolutionary way, evolution that has its beginning in Inconscience. There is a long spiritual tradition which carries in its experience this esoteric sense of the story. The story appears early in the Mahabharata and is charged with the dynamism of the Dharma, the Path of Righteousness. The wor

Résumé of Savitri I: 1 The Symbol Dawn Savitri begins with the primordial Darkness when the gods are still asleep. Out of it has to come a fuller divine manifestation upon earth. But obstructing its path there is the mind of ominous Night and nothing can happen as long it is present. Many were the attempts made earlier but the success was only partial. At times something had stirred on the borderline of dream and waking, but too feeble was the awareness. Again and again the dawn had come with her gifts and had to go back as there was no sufficient response. It is in this circumstance that Savitri, the Daughter of the Sun-God, takes human birth. She identifies herself with

Foreword An Apologia Here is an attempt to present Sri Aurobindo's epic Savitri in brief stanza-like cantos each with just twelve lines. Savitri is a poem written in pentametric blank verse form, mostly with end-stopped lines, running almost to twenty-four thousand in number. Divided into twelve books, as was the tradition for a classical epic, it has forty-eight cantos plus an epilogue. Part I consisting of the first twenty-four cantos was published in September 1950, just a couple of months before Sri Aurobindo's passing away in December of that year; Part II and Part III as a single tome comprising of the remaining twenty-four cantos and the epilogue appeare

Appendixes Contents of Savitri Book One The Book of Beginnings 01: Canto I The Symbol Dawn 02: Canto II The Issue 03: Canto III The Yoga of the King: The Yoga of the Soul's Release 04: Canto IV The Secret Knowledge 05: Canto V The Yoga of the King: The Yoga of the Spirit's Freedom and Greatness Book Two The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds 06: Canto I The World-Stair 07: Canto II The Kingdom of Subtle Matter 08: Canto III The Glory and Fall of Life 09: Canto IV The Kingdoms of the Little Life Page – 89 10: Canto V T

The Tale* The tale of Satyavan and Savitri is recited in the Mahabharata as a story of conjugal love conquering death. But this legend is, as shown by many features of the human tale, one of the symbolic myths of the Vedic cycle. Satyavan is the soul carrying the divine truth of being within itself but descended into the grip of death and ignorance; Savitri is the Divine Word, daughter of the Sun, goddess of the supreme Truth who comes down and is born to save; Aswapati, the Lord of the Horse, her human father, is the Lord of Tapasya, the concentrated energy of spiritual endeavour that helps us to rise from the mortal to the immortal planes; Dyumatsena, Lord of the Shining Ho

Invocation to Savitr tat savitur varam rūpam jyotih parasya dhīmahi | yannah satyena dīpayet || Let us meditate on the most auspicious (best) form of Savitri, the Light of the Supreme which shall illumine us with the Truth. The invocation in Sri Aurobindo's Gayatri Mantra in Sanskrit is to the Sun-God Savitr;̣ accordingly in its English rendering the word Savitri should be read in that context. We celebrate the Birth of Savitr ̣—the Sun-God in the present composition based on Sri Aurobindo's Sāvitr ̣ Page vii She is

Select Bibliography Savitri: Sri Aurobindo (Part One consisting of the first three Books was published in September 1950, a few weeks before Sri Aurobindo's passing away in December of that year. Part Two and Part Three appeared in a single volume in May 1951. The Sri Aurobindo International University Centre brought out the first complete edition in a single volume in 1954; it also included the author's letters on Savitri. In 1972, on the occasion of Sri Aurobindo's birth centenary, Savitri with letters was issued in two volumes as a part of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library Publication; it came as SABCL Vol. 28 and Vol. 29. In 1986 Sri Aurobindo Archives and Res

The Symbol Let us meditate on the most auspicious form of Savitr,̣ the Light of the Supreme which shall illumine us with the Truth. This is Sri Aurobindo's Gayatri Mantra. The meditation is on the auspicious form of the Sun, the Sun of Divine Light. The Mantra affirms that the Light shall illumine us with the Truth. It shall illumine all the parts of our being, even the very physical. In it shall be our true progress. The threefold reality of Sat-Chit-Ananda shall express itself in this creation. The purport is that even the physical shall express the dynamic Truth. In it we shall be immune from contingencies of Time, from the workings of Fate.

Canto One At the river's bend hope took a northward turn— As if stumbling on a strange post of the night Stars found a sudden way through emptiness; Something glimmered to awaken a newer urge, The spirit of things timeless and alone. Gods were yet to be and the enormous hush Held in its still incumbent mood of trance Another surprise getting shaped by death. Colours of wonder flew on rhythmic wings,— And also came repeated pain in the heart. But in rich green silence of the wood at noon Stood Savitri to meet the blemished might. 9 April 2002 Page – 3 Canto Two Music streamed down from blue of the uppe

The Birth of Savitr A Poetic Composition based on Sri Aurobindo's Savitri Author's Note If we are looking for the Word that brings to us the dynamic Divine, our rush is towards Sri Aurobindo's Savitri. It gives us the Truth and the things of the Truth andin it is our soul's completest fulfilment. Therefore all that we achieve we truly owe to Savitri. A year ago I would have least imagined that I would be writing short compositions based on each canto of Savitri. But on 22 March 2002 I received from William Netter a copy of his work entitled Savitrima. This is basically an endeavour to present the metaphysical core of Savitri. The boo