Introduction

Towards Sri Aurobindo's Birth Centenary

WHEN people are with us still, we celebrate their birthdays with a recurrent accession of joy. When they are with us no more, we remember with due solemnity the anniversary of the day of passing. If after their demise they live long in our memories, when the centenary milestone is about to be reached, the death anniversary is by-passed as it were, and the birth centenary is celebrated. Thereafter it is usual to give particular importance only to the Jayanti or birth anniversary.

The question may be posed: Why these anniversaries, and these centenary celebrations? Human memory is short, and caught as we are in the current tempo of living (and dying), it is easy to forget the great men and women of the past, forget their services and achievements, the movements they generated, the institutions they founded, and the causes and ideals they espoused. Since this would be ingratitude as well as improvidence, when with turns of the Wheel of Time the centenaries come, we try to organise suitable celebrations lest we wholly forget our benefactors and weaken the links between the living past and the unfolding future.

Since Independence was won on 15 August 1947, India has celebrated on a more or less nation-wide scale the 2500th year of Buddha Jayanti, the 7th birth centenaries of Vedanta Desika, Namdev and Dante, the 5th birth centenary of Guru Nanak, the 4th birth centenary of Shakespeare, the 3rd birth centenary of Guru Gobind Singh, the 2nd birth centenary of Raja Rammohan Roy, and the birth centenaries of Gurudev Tagore, Lokamanya Tilak, Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi, V. S. Srinivasa Sastri, Gurzada Apparao, Motilal Nehru, C. R. Das, T. Prakasam, V. O. Chidambaram Pillai, Romain Rolland, Lenin, Kolhatkar, Kumaran Asan, and of course Sri Aurobindo. Founders of religion, prophets, poets, patriots, statesmen, makers of literature, leaders of thought, pioneers of tomorrow — without regard to nationality, religion or vocation, political or other predilections, we have remembered them all with gratitude and reverence.

Sri Aurobindo was a revolutionary like Lenin, a patriot like Tilak, C. R. Das and Chidambaram Pillai, a man of God like Guru Nanak and Namdev, an intrepid apostle like Gobind Singh and Vivekananda, a

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nation-builder like Gandhiji, a poet like Tagore, a particular kind of poet like Dante — and there are many who believe that he was also an avatar like the Buddha. The birth centenary of such a power and personality as Sri Aurobindo meant rather more than revived memories, pithru puja and prescribed genuflections.

Soon after the turn of the century, Sri Aurobindo was already a well-known figure on the Indian political scene, and took an active part in the agitation following the (first) "Partition of Bengal" of almost seventy years ago. The Bande Mataram_l prosecution of 1907 and the Alipur Trial of 1908-9 made him something of a martyr as well. But when he retired to Pondicherry in April 1910 (he was still under forty), he gradually receded from the public consciousness except for the small section that read the Arya as it appeared month after month from 15 August 1914 for over six years. What was the quirk of destiny that sent this magnetic enigmatic figure — this Bengali with his Cambridge and Baroda antecedents, this leader in whom Brahmabandhab Upadhyaya had found "the Bhavananda, Jivananda and Dhirananda of Rishi Bankim all in one" — to a corner of South India, a French colonial possession in Tamil Nad? He met there other political exiles from India like Subramania Bharati, V. V. S. Aiyar and Mandayam Srinivasachariar. He embarked on a deep study of the Veda, and he explored the infinitudes of the Supermind. It was a period of 'silent Yoga'.

Again, what was the lild of the Supreme when it brought Madame Mirra Richard (nee Alfassa), later to be known.as the Mother, to Pondicherry to meet Sri Aurobindo on 29 March 1914, and so help the launching of the Arya four months later? It was her presence too that made the establishment of Sri Aurobindo Ashram possible. Like the matrix of the future, the Ashram began taking shape from 1920, and more actively after 24 November 1926 when Sri Aurobindo withdrew into silence and gave her a free hand. But for the nation at large, there were other immediate preoccupations, and other actors were upon the stage.

At the end of the world war, Sri Aurobindo's The Ideal of Human Unity was published in book form, having already appeared serially in the Arya; and Essays on the Gita followed in 1922. In the 'between the wars' period, there were some unsuccessful attempts to persuade Sri Aurobindo to return to politics. It was, however, the publication of The Life Divine in two volumes in 1939-40 that came as a challenge and a hope to a world fighting for very survival. Although living in total seclusion, Sri Aurobindo's was the "eye of the storm" that read the meaning of the war unleashed by Hitler and saw clearly into the future:

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Cities and nations crumble in his course.

A terror holds the peoples in its grip:

World destiny waits upon that foaming lip.

A Titan Power supports this pigmy man ...

Where is the end of your armoured march, O children of Wotan? ...

Have you seen your fate in the scales of God, O children of Wotan,

And the tail of the Dragon lashing the foam in far-off seas?

Presently Sri Aurobindo's 70th birthday on 15 August 1942 was an occasion for remembrance and rejoicing. His Collected Poems and Plays appeared in two volumes, and the first number of Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual was brought out by the Pathamandir in Calcutta. Clearly there were the beginnings of a renewed national attention and also informed international notice. Sir Francis Younghusband greeted The Life Divine as "the greatest book which has been produced" in our time, and not long after, Frederic Spiegelberg called Sri Aurobindo "the greatest living philosopher on earth". The first number of Sri Aurobindo Circle came out from Bombay in 1944, and the quarterly journal, Advent, was launched from Madras in February 1944. Mother India came out as a fortnightly from Bombay, and the Bulletin as a quarterly from Pondicherry. And so on, one journal after another — in English, Bengali, Hindi and other languages — started appearing with the avowed object of projecting Sri Aurobindo's Vision of the Future. All this, when Sri Aurobindo was still with us, giving darsan four times a year, and keeping contact with men and movements here and abroad.

After Sri Aurobindo's passing on 5 December 1950, his Ashram only grew in strength of numbers and range of activities, and his mystic Presence was felt in the Ashram as powerfully as before. Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, which took a significant shape of its own in 1952, has since grown wings of purposive expansion. In February 1956, owing to the initiative of Sri Surendra Nath Jauhar, the Delhi Branch of Sri Aurobindo Ashram was established, and in April the Mother's International School started functioning from there. Next year, on 5 December, Sri Aurobindo's relics were brought from Pondicherry and enshrined in the Delhi Ashram, and so Sri Aurobindo had come to Delhi at last. At Pondicherry, an auxiliary body, Sri Aurobindo Society, was founded with the Mother as President, and the Society opened centres in different parts of India and the world. Another organisation, World Union, was also incorporated at Pondicherry with the aim of hastening the realisation of the Aurobindonian Vision of Human Unity. And, on 28 February 1968, the

stupendous imagintive thrust into the Future — the inauguration of' Auroville' or 'City of Dawn' in close proximity to Pondicherry — took place before an impressive congregation representing almost all the nations of the world.

The recapitulation of these facts will show that, already during the last decades of his life and in the two decades after his passing, a movement had been spontaneously building up, partly to make a serious appraisal of Sri Aurobindo's thought and message, and partly to translate them into practical terms, whether through the experience of salsanghas, the establishment of schools, or experiments in communal or integral living. Nevertheless, as 15 August 1972 seemed to come closer and closer, there was here and there a conscious if as yet unarticulated desire that the occasion of Sri Aurobindo's birth centenary should be celebrated in India and abroad in a fitting manner. By and by this desire acquired a momentum of its own, and had soon world-wide ramifications. It would be best, perhaps, to make a quick review of these efforts under three heads:

(1)the schemes that originated in the Ashram at Pondicherry, and its affiliated branches, centres and auxiliaries;

(2)the schemes initiated by the National Committee for Sri Aurobindo's Birth Centenary; and

(3)the schemes promoted by other agencies, whether in India or abroad.

Naturally enough, there was considerable overlapping calling for accommodation, mutual cooperation or parallel implementation. All that can be attempted here is a rapidly selective review of these wide-ranging centenary celebrations.

Schemes Initiated by Sri Aurobindo Ashram

For the Ashram, of course, and for Sadhaks of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga, the aim all the time is to try to prove worthy of the Master, to live his message, and to do his Yoga. Birthdays are but points of heightened significance in a whole continuum of remembrance and consecration. But a few centenary schemes deserve special mention. The highest place, perhaps, should be given to the launching of' Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library' in thirty large volumes. Ardent aspiration and unflinching faith on the one hand and the Mother's god speed on the other were the sole golden creditat the beginning. But from 1969 onwards, this stupendous enterprise — collection and sorting out of the available material, collation and editing, seeing the matter through the press, getting the necessary paper and ink of

the right quality, commandeering the required strawboard, plastic covers, etc. — went into action, and volume after volume came out, and in the course of three years almost the entire collected edition had rolled out of the superlatively efficient Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press. The de luxe edition is a triumph of book production, and the whole enterprise deserves unqualified praise and owes much to the initiative and sustained labours of Sri Jayantilal Parekh, Sri A. R. Ganguli and their numerous co-workers. It is worth recalling that at the Fourth National Book Fair held in Madras in December 1970, the de luxe edition was adjudged as the First in order of merit and awarded a certificate for supreme excellence in book production in English during 1969-70. An award also came from the Government of India for the excellent printing of The Life Divine and other works in the centenary edition.

While the de luxe edition was priced Rs. 1000 (postage free), a popular edition also was issued by the All India Press, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, by the offset process, and was priced Rs. 500 (postage extra). As for the contents, God's riches are here: The Life Divine, and Savitri, and The Synthesis of Yoga, and several volumes of Vedic, Upanishadic and Gita translation and exegesis, and treatises on social and political thought, and studies of Indian culture, English poetry, and 'overhead' aesthesis. It is doubtful whether, in all human history, there has been a like encyclopaedic mind and inspiring energy of articulation that was also charged with a like power of sustained divination.

Among other publishing ventures from the Ashram, the pride of place should go to the Hindi collected edition in several volumes, and editions in Bengali, Gujarati and other languages, involving a high degree of competence and cooperation on the part of the translators, editors and printers involved in the complex undertaking. This major publishing adventure owes a good deal to the initiative and drive of Sri M. L. Himmatsinka and his associates in All India Press, and it is their ideal to ensure that Sri Aurobindo's principal writings are readily available always in English and the other living languages of India. Besides, several of the Sadhaks of the Ashram — notably, Nolini Kanta Gupta, K. D. Sethna, Sisir Kumar Mitra, Nirodbaran, M. P. Pandit, Arabinda Basu and Manoj Das — have brought out their own books for the occasion, and special numbers of the Ashram periodicals — Mother India, Advent, Purodha, Bulletin, Sri Aurobindo Annual, Sri Aurobindo Circle, World Union, equals one, Sri Aurobindo''s Action, Vaikarai, Dipti and other journals — have also come out.

For outsiders, it is difficult to gauge precisely the manner in which the daily life of the Ashram took on some new functions in the context

of the centenary, how the old and the new unobtrusively merged with one another, and how the ambience of Sri Aurobindo's presence and the Mother's consciousness enveloped everything, and imparted to it all the character of sacerdocy. A World Parliament of Youth, sponsored by World Union, was held at the Ashram Theatre for a week from 27 December 1970, the theme of the conference being 'Evolution of the United Nations into a World Government'. Among those who addressed the Parliament was Dr. V. K. R. V. Rao, the Union Minister for Education. Academic and cultural activities, book and art exhibitions, lectures, music and dance programmes, and production of plays on the one hand; and athletics, games, gymnastics and aquatics on the other: all had a new fervour of intensity and dedication as the centenary approached. The following message, given by the Mother for the March Past on 1 April 1971, struck in fact the key-note of the entire centenary celebrations:

"We are at one of these 'Hours of God', when the old bases get shaken, and there is a great confusion; but it is wonderful opportunity for those who want to leap forward, the possibility of progress is exceptional.

Will you not be of those who take advantage of it?

Let your body be prepared through physical education for this great change!

My blessings to all."

Again, on 1 January 1972, the Mother in her message underlined the significance of the centenary year:

"This year is consecrated to Sri Aurobindo.

To understand his teaching better and to make an effort to put it into practice is certainly the best way of expressing our gratitude to him for all the light, knowledge and force which he has so generously brought down to the earth.

May his teaching enlighten us and guide us, and what we cannot do today we shall be able to do tomorrow.

Let us take the right attitude in all sincerity and this will truly be

A HAPPY NEW YEAR: BONNE ANNEE."

And 'Auroville' too was getting slowly into its proper stride. The Forecomers were already there, the School, Auropress, Auropoultry and other institutions leapt into life, and there were drawn spiritually audacious plans for building 'Matrimandir'. The foundation stone was at last laid

by Nolini Kanta Gupta on 21 February 1971. When Matrimandir is completed in the fullness of time, it is expected to suggest symbolistically the emergence of "the golden sphere of consciousness out of the earth crater", and that would be a challenge and an irresistible invitation to self-exploration, self-discovery and self-realisation. Since as early as 1966 the UNESCO had unanimously recommended the 'Auroville' project as "an endeavour, unique in the world, to reconcile the highest spiritual life with the exigencies of our industrial civilisation" and since it had urged on a later occasion that all member-states — the Governments, the private societies, foundations, etc. — should "observe the Sri Aurobindo Centenary Year which commences on 15 August 1972 and help the Sri Aurobindo Society in every possible way", there is abundant room to hope that "Auroville" will, sooner than later, achieve its many-splendoured destiny.

The Mother's own role in the Birth Centenary Celebrations was of a crucial — and also of an etheric — nature. She alone knew the cosmic implications of the event. She both exhorted and encouraged, and set an example herself. Her counsel was available at every stage to everybody. Her directions were unhurried but precise. When the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library and other publication programmes were taken up, she watched their progress with anxious interest, helped in the distribution of matter and choice of illustrations. All activities whether 'big' or 'small' — whether it was the construction of Matrimandir or Bharat Nivas at Auroville, the giving of Relics for enshrinement at some Centre, the delegation of a sadhak to a centenary Seminar, or the sending of a Message of Benediction to a centenary programme — she always brought a divine understanding and a divine compassion into her work. No doubt thousands of sadhaks were engaged in the Centenary Celebrations, but it was her Grace that sustained and brought them safely through.

The concourse of visitors to the Ashram and Auroville in August 1972 was an experience without a precedent, and on the Jayanti Day especially, with its many functions including the Mother's darshan, the many thousands who had gathered felt inexpressibly wafted to heights of aspiration and hopes incommensurable.

At the Delhi Branch of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, a month-long Birth Centenary Yajna was organised by Sri Surendra Nath Jauhar, and was inaugurated on 1 August 1972 by Sri Kedarnath Sahni, Mayor of Delhi. The Mother's International School organised during the month a varied educative programme involving pupils and teachers alike. The Matri Kala Man-dir unfolded Sur Samadhi or a festival of consecrated music and dance from 15 to 21 August, and eminent artistes like Rani Kama, Nandlal Ghosh, Sharan Rani, and Karuna Mayee offered to the living Presence of Sri

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Aurobindo the finest flowering of their sadhana. At a meeting held near Sri Aurobindo's shrine in the Ashram premisses, Sri H. N. Bahuguna, then Minister for Communications, released the centenary Commemoration Stamp and stressed the double significance of the day. The stamp in golden yellow and oriental blue was designed by Jayantilal Parekh, and reproduced the Aurobindonian symbol of the ascending and descending triangles (signifying human aspiration and divine response), with the lotus of manifestation in the waters at the centre, and the supramental Sunrise around. Addressing the meeting held in the Ashram on the 15th morning, Dr. Karan Singh, then Union Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation, highlighted Sri Aurobindo's role in achieving India's independence and his inspiring vision of the future man whose entire being — all his manifold faculties — would be bathed in the divine light.

As at Delhi, at other places too — Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Bhubaneshwar, Baroda, Vijayawada, Madurai, Hyderabad, Rourkela, and elsewhere — local Centres or Study Groups arranged commemorative functions comprising exhibitions, competitions for children, lectures and collective meditation. It was a time of anxiety and expectancy everywhere. People at large were getting used to living in the midst of an apparently unending crisis — the crisis, far from easing, only queering its pitch more and more. In that near-desperate predicament, the Light from Pondicherry seemed to show to the sensitive few the way out of the thickening doom. This was perhaps the reason why children especially felt the fascination of the Aurobindonian Vision, as if fulfilling the promise in Savitri:

A few shall see what none yet understands;

God shall grow up while the wise men talk and sleep;

For man shall not know the coming till its hour

And belief shall be not till the work is done.

The period of two or three years centering round the Birth Centenary on 15 August 1972 saw the enshrinement of Sri Aurobindo's relics at chosen spots in Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Karnatak, Gujarat and, above all, West Bengal. The enshrinement of the relics of saints and divine personalities has a purpose of its own. At the time of the enshrinement at Delhi, Professor Jean Herbert of the University of Geneva expressed the hope that "the presence of those relics at the Delhi Branch of Sri Aurobindo Ashram will have an uplifting influence both on those who live nearby and on a large portion of mankind". It is not surprising therefore that the Delhi example has since been followed by other Sri Aurobindo Centres. In December 1970, relics were taken to Orissa and were received at the Bhubaneshwar Airport

by Sri R.N. Singh Deo, then Chief Minister, and the relics were enshrined on the 10th morning at Jagatsinghpur (Cuttack District) and Jeypore (Koraput District). Again, relics were flown to Hyderabad and were received by Sri P. V. Narasimha Rao, then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, and were presently installed at Proddatur on 5 December 1971. Likewise, relics were taken to Halsangi (Bijapur District) in Karnatak and interred there.

The enshrinement of the relics at Sri Aurobindo Bhavan in Calcutta was, however, attended with impressive ceremony and phenomenal popular enthusiasm.¹ On West Bengal's Governor, Shri A. L. Dias, sending Sri Bhola Sen, a minister in the State Cabinet, to Pondicherry with a request for the relics to the Mother, they were flown on 15th January 1973 to Calcutta and were received at dead of night at the Airport. The motorcade passed through the silent streets "like a symbolic movement of awakening in the unconscious multitude of the great city". The relics were encased in several sheaths — gold, silver, sandalwood and rosewood — with the rosewood alone being visible from the outside. They were taken in the morning to the Alipur Jail where Sri Aurobindo had spent a year in solitary confinement (May 1908 to May 1909), and then to the court room where he had been tried. After resting for a week at Sri Aurobindo Bhavan, the relics started their golden journey covering principal centres in West Bengal: Darjeeling, to the Loretto Convent School, where Sri Aurobindo had studied as a boy, and where now, almost a century later, Catholic nuns, Buddhist priests and Hindu Pandits together paid homage; Kur-seong, where one hundred lamps were lit, and on the Republic Day (26 January 1973), the Lamas joined the procession in prayer; Siliguri where, at the College, there was a photographic Exhibition and a Film Show; Nepu-chapur Tea Estate and Sri Himansu Niyogi's Tea-Garden at Nimtijhora, where people from the adjoining areas came to pay homage; Coochbehar, where at the Town Hall people congregated to view the box of relics and offer Pranam; Jalpaiguri, where the Adivasis of the area joined in the reception and procession; Raigunj, Kaliagunj, Balurghat and Malda, where people in large numbers had darshan of the relics; Berhampur, with Muslim weavers on the way greeting the relics and paying homage, offering a garland cut and designed from silk cocoons, at once beautiful and preserv-able for decade* and truly a symbol of devotion and consecration; Krish-nanagar, Barrakpur, both memorable for the local response and ardour of devotion; Howrah, where Shri Mrutyunjay Banerjee, Education Minister, received the relics; Midnapore, and Bankura on Saraswati Puja Day;

¹ I am indebted to Sri Chhotay Narain Sharma for the details and quotations incorporated in this paragraph.

Purulia, at the Sri Ramakrishna Institute, where the cadets presented a guard of honour to the relics, and the aged Swamiji chanted Vedic hymns in welcome; Asansol, at the Railway Maidan where the relics were displayed on a high altar; Raniganj, Durgapur; Burdwan where the local Vice-Chancellor presided over the public reception; Chandernagore (Chandan Nagar), where Sri Aurobindo had stayed from mid-February to end of March 1910, and where now an immense crowd collected to offer pranam ; Uttarpara, where on 30 May 1909 Sri Aurobindo had made a memorable speech recalling his experience of the Divine in the jail; Jadhavpur University, which has grown out of the old National College where Sri Aurobindo had taught in 1906-7, and where his relics were now received by the Vice-Chancellor and the Governor of West Bengal; and, at last, on 16 February, the procession to Sri Aurobindo Bhavan at 8, Shakespeare Sarani (formerly Theatre Road), the final resting place of the relics. It was the largest non-political procession in living history. At 5:30 p.m., the relics were enshrined to the accompaniment of Vedic hymns.

What matters, it may be asked, if some little space is allotted to the Samadhi in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, and even less space perhaps to the Shrine at Delhi, Calcutta or elsewhere. But a foothold to the Divine is not a mechanically commensurable thing. Sri Chhotay Narain Sharma, who accompanied the relics on their golden journey, recalls the story from the Bhagavata:

"...the Dwarf appeared before the Demon King who was generously distributing alms. The Dwarf asked for only three paces of ground. 'Dwarf, you are so small. How much can you measure in three paces? 'But the Dwarf insisted, 'King, I want no more.' And the boon granted, the Dwarf extended himself beyond the universe, measured the earth in one stride and the sky in another and wanted to know the region to which he could extend his third stride.

The installation of the relics too is the small visible front of a similar spiritual phenomenon....It was a new Force come to Calcutta, to Bengal, a new Force touching Life itself...isn't it a Preamble to the Journey of man to Divinity?"

Schemes Initiated by the National Committee

Aside from the Sadhaks in Sri Aurobindo Ashram and those who may be called committed Aurobindonians, there are many, tens of thousands, who admire him as poet and critic, as prophet of nationalism and father of

Indian revolution, as philosopher and sociologist and political theorist. The celebration of the Birth Centenary of such a power and personality couldn't obviously be confined to Sri Aurobindo Ashram or the Aurobindonians alone. It was thus that early in 1969, when a few friends met at Dr. Karan Singh's residence in New Delhi, the idea was mooted that Sri Aurobindo's Birth Centenary should be celebrated on a national scale, and appropriate steps should be taken well in advance of the event. Dr. Karan Singh, himself the author of a study in depth of Sri Aurobindo's political thought, warmly welcomed the idea, and on 25 April he wrote to a select number of people — chosen, as he said, "not for their official position or social status but for their genuine interest in Sri Aurobindo and his work" — inviting them to meet at his residence 'Manasarovar' on 15 August 1969. In the opening paragraphs of his letter, Dr. Karan Singh admirably set the right tone to the unfolding saga of the Centenary Celebrations :

"As you know, the Birth Centenary of Sri Aurobindo will fall on 15th August 1972. Ardent patriot and prophet of Indian nationalism; profound mystic and poet of outstanding excellence: Sri Aurobindo was one of the most creative thinkers of the present age, and a unique personality even in a century that has thrown up so many great men and women throughout the world.

It is. fitting that his Birth Centenary should be duly observed throughout the country, and indeed all over the world. The Sri Aurobindo Ashrama at Pondicherry has plans to celebrate the Centenary in many ways, and will also co-ordinate the celebrations in foreign countries. Within India, however, I feel that we should set up a National Committee for the Sri Aurobindo Centenary which would plan meaningful projects on a national scale. I am particularly anxious that the celebrations should not be merely ritual observances, replete with the usual panoply of speeches without much inner content. I feel, rather, that the Sri Aurobindo Centenary should result in the setting up of one or more key institutions in the country which would act as creative foci for spreading a deeper knowledge of his teachings in the context of the modern age. It is my conviction that free India, and indeed the entire world, can benefit greatly from a deeper awareness of Sri Aurobindo and all that he stands for...."

Prominent political personalities whose centenaries had revived grateful memories of their services are counted among the makers of modern India. With Sri Aurobindo too the political accent was not unimportant:

but a manifesto like 'Bhavani Mandir', a hymn like 'Durga Stotra', an order of the day like 'The Hour of God', and even several of his Bande Mataram and Karmayogin journalistic missiles were not just "political" effusions of transient interest; rather were they emanations charged with the power of the Spirit, the Agni of the Veda, and were hence instruments of revolutionary spiritual action or transformation. In other words, there was something uniquely exceptional about Sri Aurobindo, and his Birth Centenary ought to mean the generation of forces out of the ordinary. It would no doubt be an occasion to recall the outer events of his extraordinary life and his services in many fields to India and the world; but it would be even more to the point to make the centenary an opportunity for inferring Sri Aurobindo's continuing presence and effective ministry amongst us, and thereby to expose ourselves to his sovereign influence and become his willing instruments for the furtherance of his man-changing and world-changing spiritual action.

At the meeting on 15 August 1969, the provisional National Committee was constituted, and Dr. Karan Singh was persuaded to head the Committee. Tentative plans were discussed, and a smaller Working Committee met from time to time and explored, among other things, the possibility of establishing somewhere in India — at Pondicherry, or Delhi, or a Himalayan retreat — a 'Sri Aurobindo Institute', where scholars and seekers could reside for periods long or short, acquire an intimate knowledge of his thought and teachings in the context of the modern world and its increasingly baffling problems of survival and growth, and carry the message and the force to the wider world. Such a creative Centre of international participation and cooperative thinking on the deepest problems confronting the human race today must in course of time make a profound impact on men and events in India and the world.

In the meantime, the Union Government itself decided to constitute a National Committee for Sri Aurobindo's Birth Centenary, with the President, Sri V. V. Giri, as Patron, the Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, as Chairman, the Union Education Minister, the Lt.-Governor of Pondicherry and the Chief Minister of Pondicherry as Vice-Chairmen, and Dr. Karan Singh as Convener. The earlier unofficial committee now decided to hand over its assets — more in ideas than in cash — to the National Committee, and merge with it. The first meeting of this National Committee was held in New Delhi on 12 October 1970, with the Prime Minister in the chair. The schemes of the outgoing unofficial committee and fresh schemes suggested by members like Sri R. K. Taiwan were before the National Committee. In her opening remarks, the Prime Minister urged that the Centenary Celebrations should not take the form of routine exercises; whatever

programmes were finally decided upon should lead to the creation of institutions of lasting value. At the end of the general discussion, the consensus was that Sri Aurobindo's message had a special relevance in the present-day international situation, and hence a scheme that would enable Sri Aurobindo's ideas and philosophy to be projected at the international level should find a place in the national programme. A Core Committee was appointed to work out the details, and the Committee was given to understand by Dr. V. K. R. V. Rao, then Union Education Minister, that a sum of Rs. 50 lakhs would be made available for the Centenary Celebrations. While Dr. Rao, and his successors at the Education Ministry Sri Siddhartha Shankar Ray and Prof. Nurul Hasan — extended all support to the Committee, the main brunt of responsibility for planning, organisation and execution was, however, willingly and ably borne by the Convener, Dr. Karan Singh, and during the months following he was able to generate a climate of enthusiasm and expectancy in the unfolding Centenary Celebrations all over India, and outside India as well.

The Core Committee met at regular intervals, and also appointed its own Sub-Committees and Working Groups. It was felt that the house in Calcutta where Sri Aurobindo was born or had spent his boyhood days and the house in Baroda where he had resided should be secured for the nation to be used as worthy memorials. Thus, on Dr. Karan Singh's request, the Government of Gujarat agreed to donate Bungalow No. 15, Dandi Bazar, Baroda — Sri Aurobindo's residence from 1894-1906, when he served as Private Secretary to the Maharaja Saiyaji Rao Gaekwad or as Professor of English and Vice-Principal of the Baroda College — to Sri Aurobindo Society for establishing a permanent memorial to Sri Aurobindo. The Bungalow was formally handed over on 29 September 1971 by Shriman Narayan, then Governor of Gujarat, at a function presided over by Dr. Karan Singh.

Again, a Sub-Committee appointed to determine the correct place of birth of Sri Aurobindo met on 30 January 1971 and recorded the finding that No. 8, Theatre Road, was the house in Calcutta in which Sri Aurobindo had passed a number of his boyhood years, and rcommended that the house, then in the possession of the Government of West Bengal, might be secured as a gift to establish a memoial to Sri Aurobindo. At the request of the Core Committee, Dr. Karan Singh pursued the matter with the West Bengal Government who ultimately, not only gifted the building for establishing 'Sri Aurobindo Bhavan', but also made some provision for its maintenance. During the agonising months in 1971 when the war of liberation was being fought in Bangla Desh, 'Mujib Nagar' was located in this historic house — which was no mere fortuitous coincidence but rather a

meaningful link between the Father of Indian Revolution and the latter-day liberation of Bangla Desh.

There were other important decisions and developments too, and a second meeting of the National Committee was called on 15 December 1971. But the Indo-Pakistan war erupted suddenly, and the meeting had to be postponed. In that hour of crisis, Dr. Karan Singh thought that the "spiritual nationalism" of Sri Aurobindo had tremendous relevance, and so he circularised Sri Aurobindo's article 'The Hour of God' with the magnificent exordium and peroration:

"There are moments when the Spirit moves among men and the breath of the Lord is abroad upon the waters of our being ... periods when even a little effort produces great results and changes destiny....

In the hour of God cleanse thy soul of all self-deceit and hypocrisy and vain self-flattering that thou mayest look straight into thy spirit and hear that which summons it.... But being pure cast aside all fear; for the hour is often terrible, a fire and a whirlwind and a tempest, a treading of the winepress of the wrath of God; but he who can stand up in it on the truth of his purpose is he who shall stand; even though he fall, he shall rise again; even though he seem to pass on the wings of the wind, he shall return. Nor let worldly prudence whisper too closely in thy ear; for it is the hour of the unexpected."

By the time the postponed meeting of the National Committee met, after the liberation of Bangla Desh, on 26 April 1972, the Core Committee had already determined the main outlines of the Centenary Programmes covering, in the words of the Convener, "a broad spectrum of activities designed to make a lasting impact upon the mind of the nation, particularly the younger generation". At the first meeting of the National Committee, Sri R. K. Talwar had urged that 'Auroville' was "the one single project that seeks to help mankind in taking the next step in evolution by uplifting the consciousness to a higher level", and had pleaded for liberal assistance for the construction of 'Bharat Nivas' or the India Pavilion. In the final allocation of funds, the Core Committee set apart Rs. 10 lakhs for 'Bharat Nivas' and another Rs. 10 lakhs for the 'Auroville' Education Projects (Pavilion of Consciousness, After School I and II, Mandala, and Teachers' Quarters) already approved by the Union Education Ministry. The other allocations were as follows:

There was some difference of opinion as to whether the remaining Rs.10 lakhs should be used for the establishment of 'Sri Aurobindo Youth Centres', or a Sri Aurobindo Institute at New Delhi in the vicinity of Jawahar-lal Nehru University, or a number of 'Sri Aurobindo Bal Kendras' in the bustees of Calcutta and other major urban concentrations in India. Prof. Nurul Hasan, Union Minister for Education, felt that Bal Kendras or Children's Centres would benefit the slum dwellers and make a salutary impact on this unprivileged section of the community. The Prime Minister also thought that such Bal Kendras, if properly planned and worked, might go a long way in building the character of the child and producing a better type of human being along the lines envisaged by Sri Aurobindo. She stressed, however, the importance of selecting suitable people to run the Centres, for the success of the whole project would mainly depend on this. It was ultimately decided that 16 such 'Sri Aurobindo Bal Kendras' should be started in the first instance, 4 each at Calcutta and Bombay, 3 at Delhi, 2 at Madras, and 1 each at Hyderabad, Bangalore and Ahmedabad. Each Kendra would have a building of its own with a spacious hall, provided with the necessary furniture, a small library of children's books, albums of photographs of interest to children, globes, atlases, a radio set, material for play and games, instruments and other educational equipment. The scheme has since been welcomed by the State Governments concerned who will be responsible for the actual running of the Kendras. As regards the establishment of an Institute for Study and Research in Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy, it was resolved that this might be left to the initiative of Sri Aurobindo Society.

Schemes Initiated by Other Agencies

Apart from the programmes organised by Sri Aurobindo Ashram and its affiliated institutions and those promoted by the National Committee for Sri Aurobindo's Birth Centenary,.many other agencies and institutions also spontaneously came forward to contribute to the success of the Centenary Celebrations. The Union Ministry of Communications issued a memorial stamp with Aurobindonian symbolic overtones. The Union Education Ministry brought out a special Sri Aurobindo Number of their Cultural Forum in August 1972. The Indian Council for Cultural Relations likewise published a special Sri Aurobindo Number of Indian Horizons in October 1972, simultaneously in English, French, Spanish and Arabic. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, headed by Srimati Nandini Satpathy and later by Sri I. K. Gujral, drew up and executed various mass

media programmes, including national broadcasts over the All India Radio on the different shining facets of the immortal diamond that is Sri Aurobindo, a 'Light and Sound' spectacle on Sri Aurobindo shown at Calcutta and Delhi, a feature on the 'Auroville' Project, recitations of poems, presentation of plays on Sri Aurobindo, and Radio and TV interviews. The Publications Division brought out a short biography of Sri Aurobindo by Dr. Prema Nandakumar for children, and an attractive and informative Picture Album. The Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity issued special portraits of Sri Aurobindo for wide distribution, and posters for display. The Ministry of External Affairs also extended cooperation in a big way. Their many Missions abroad organised Centenary Celebrations on 15 August 1972, and put up Exhibitions on the life and work of Sri Aurobindo with the help of material supplied by Sri Aurobindo Society. The 30-volume sets of Sri Aurobindo's complete works were distributed through the Indian Missions to Heads of Governments, Universities and important cultural organisations. Typical of the enthusiasm evinced abroad in the Centenary Celebrations even in small countries was the response in Trinidad and Tobago. There was an enterprising organising committee headed by Mr. S. M. Aga, the High Commissioner of India, and it held several meetings between January and November 1972, and the programmes included publications for wide distribution, essay competitions for various age-groups, exhibitions, dramas, concerts, TV and film shows. Lectures and seminars were held at Port of Spain, San Fernando, Rio Claro, St. Augustine, Chaguanas, Takarigua and Sangre Grande. At the end of the celebrations, the committee expressed the unanimous opinion that the enthusiasm generated already should be kept up and every effort should be made to keep Sri Aurobindo's message alive by raising a permanent memorial like a Cultural-Meditation-Religious Centre in Sri Aurobindo's name. Numerous were the academic and cultural institutions that received complete sets of the 30-volume edition of Sri Aurobindo's writings: Australian National University, Canberra; University of Queensland, Brisbane; University of Vienna, Austria; the Royal Library at the Hague; Gamel Abdul Nasser Polytechnic, Conakry (Guinea); Municipal Library, Irbid, Amman; and so on, covering the old world and the new, and both the long-established and the more recent educational institutions. There is reason to believe that the intellectual and spiritual impact of these sets of 'Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library' on sensitive people the world over is by no means insignificant, and may be expected to yield more and more fruitful results in the coming years. An Indian student at Dakar, for example, was inspired by these books to present a thesis on Sri Aurobindo's Savitri in December 1973 to the University

of Dakar (Senegal) and successfully to defend it for her masterate degree.¹ From the "four ends of the world" come inquiries stimulated by the impact of the 30-volume Canon with its comprehension of the entire territory of human knowledge, wisdom and spiritual illumination. There is no doubt this global proliferation of Sri Aurobindo's thought facilitated by the distribution of Centenary Library will in good time create a climate favourable to man's survival and inner change and outer harmony and peace.

At its General Conference in October-November 1970, UNESCO had included in its approved Programmes and Budget for 1971-2 the Birth Centenary of Sri Aurobindo, whose life and work should give fresh inspiration to the idea of human dignity and provide renewed impulse for the promotion and realisation of peace through unity, understanding and cooperation between men and nations. The October 1972 issue of Courier, which appeared in several languages, carried articles on Sri Aurobindo, the Auroville Project and his views on Human Unity. The French and Indian National Commissions for Cooperation with UNESCO held a joint commemorative meeting in Paris in October 1972 to coincide with the General Conference. The Director-General of UNESCO addressed the meeting on Sri Aurobindo. The Centenary Celebrations in Paris highlighted the main events in Sri Aurobindo's life and the milestones in Auroville's development, both against the Indian cultural background. Sri Aurobindo Society of Great Britain had a programme which included the publication of a Centenary Symposium, Sri Aurobindo: 1872-1972—Herald and Pioneer of Future Man.

In India, of course, almost every State, every University, and most educational and cultural institutions had their own instructive programmes like exhibitions, seminars, commemorative publications, memorial lectures and unveiling of portraits of Sri Aurobindo. The Banaras Hindu University instituted a Sri Aurobindo Chair, and Prof. Arabinda Basu was appointed as the first Professor, and he also gave the first series of Sri Aurobindo Memorial Lectures (sponsored by the U. G. C.) in the University of Delhi in 1972.² Under the auspices of the University of Bombay, two lectures on Sri Aurobindo's World-Vision were given on 21st and 22nd September 1972, and at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla, six lectures on Sri Aurobindo's Savitri ('Dawn to Greater Dawn')

¹Prof. D. P. Singhal of the University of Queensland wrote on 20 July 1973 to the High Commission for India at Canberra giving the assurance that the students would profit by the works of Sri Aurobindo: "May I say that your help to the cause of Indian History and culture is being given to a very active department, and I am sure that it will be most profitably used."

²The second series of three lectures were given on 'Sri Aurobindo — Prophet qf Next Future' by K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar in September 1974 in the University of Delhi.

were given, both series by K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar. The Centre for Advanced Study in Philosophy at the University of Madras organised from 4th to 7th September 1972 a seminar on 'Sri Aurobindo and the Concept of Evolution' under the direction of Dr. T. M. P. Mahadevan. Earlier, in March, the Jawaharlal Nehru Museum and Library at New Delhi organised a course of four lectures on divers aspects of Sri Aurobindo. Of even greater interest was the Exhibition arranged by the Museum and Library. It brought together a good deal of rare documentary and pictorial material and threw a revealing light on the vicissitudes of Sri Aurobindo's career and the many inspiring facets of his historic role. The Deendayal Research Institute, New Delhi, held an all-India essay competition in Hindi and English on 'Sri Aurobindo's Message for Today', and awarded seven prizes to the winners. The R.S.S. organised a well-attended meeting at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi, on 20 August 1972, and the late Guruji Gol-walkar was among the speakers who underlined the avatar-role of Sri Aurobindo in the Indian renaissance.

The Significance of the Centenary Celebrations

It is hardly possible to review, even in the most cursory manner, the two-year long celebrations at the individual, institutional, local, regional, national and international levels. A full history may have to be spread over several volumes, and the materials have not been collected yet, and are perhaps unlikely ever to be got together. As a formal overture to the Centenary Celebrations, a function was held on 15 August 1971 in Sapru House, New Delhi, with Sri G. S. Phatak, Vice-President of India, in the chair, and speeches on Sri Aurobindo were delivered by Dr. Karan Singh, Sri Kireet Joshi and Dr. H. L. Maheshwari. Thus, although the celebrations may be said to have begun a year before the actual birth centenary and continued for a year or more afterwards (for a seminar on Sri Aurobindo was held in Andhra University, Waltair, as late as November 1973), more specifically the year 1972 was named as the Sri Aurobindo Centenary Year, which was also the Silver Jubilee Year of Indian Independence. The two events were almost invariably — and not unreasonably — identified with one another. If Gandhiji was the Father of the Nation, if Tilak was the Father of Indian Unrest, Sri Aurobindo was the Father of Indian Revolution. Almost every newspaper and journal in India — even college and school magazines — brought out special numbers on 15 August 1972 or in close enough proximity to the date. And there were few writers who missed the double significance of the date.

When Independence came on 15 August 1947, Sri Aurobindo had remarked that it was no mere "fortuitous accident". If Jawaharlal Nehru described the advent of Freedom as "our tryst with Destiny", Sri Aurobindo saw in the synchronisation "the sanction and seal of the Divine Force that guides my steps on the work with which I began life, the beginning of its full fruition". The birthday of India's Independence is not linked up meaningfully with any important date in the lives of our other great freedom-fighters and nation-builders. As early as 1905, Sri Aurobindo had spoken in the course of a letter to his wife, Mrinalini Devi, that he was possessed by three mighty obsessions or frenzies: to identify himself with his people, to see and experience God, and to rid the Mother — prostrate bleeding Mother India — of the Rakshasa of alien rule who was draining her of her life-blood. Love of God, love of country, love of the people — three loves that were one love — were the terrible passion, ecstasy, madness that ruled him, drove him along paths adventurous as well as dangerous, and made him in the course of three or four years the perfervid evangelist of nationalism and inspired prophet of independence. Through reliable intermediaries, Sri Aurobindo exercised from Baroda fairly effective long-distance control over the revolutionary movement in Bengal and maintained close links with the movement elsewhere. Lord Curzon's decision to "partition" Bengal was the spark needed to set the political situation aflame, and Sri Aurobindo knew the time for active participation had come. When he wrote the dynamite-charged Bhavani Mandir, and followed it up with the nuclear-powered 'Hymn to Durga' (Durga Stotra), these really meant the ringing announcement of 'the Hour of God', and India could never be the same again. In Dr. Karan Singh's words, it was Sri Aurobindo's Bhavani Mandir "that became the gospel of Indian revolutionaries, and it was with a smile and the cry of 'Bande Mataram' on their lips that thousands of patriots faced repression and even death at the hands of the foreign rulers". By mid-1906, when Sri Aurobindo had left Baroda for Calcutta, a new era had been ushered indeed: the era of the Bande Mataram: the era of the Nationalist trinity, Bal-Pal-Lal: the era of the call for Independence: the era of Swadeshi, boycott, National Education and passive resistance: in short, the era of the determined awakening of the Indian nation from the prolonged coma of servitude and tamas.

In his Independence Day Message forty years later, Sri Aurobindo mentioned his five long-cherished dreams — or what had looked at the time like impracticable dreams — namely: a free and united India, a resurgent and puissant Asia, a world-union of the different warring nationalities, a diffiusion of India's Oxygen of spirituality over the whole world, and finally, "a step in evolution which would raise man to a higher and larger

consciousness", opening the way to the emergence of "individual perfection and a perfect society". If communist humanism is in principle an improvement upon the individualistic-capitalistic order of inequality and exploitation, then supramental communism — reared upon the soul's brotherhood and the annihilation of egoistic separativity—will effect the final "breakthrough", facilitating the establishment of the Kingdom of God upon the earth. Such were Sri Aurobindo's frenzies of love, such the aurora borealis of his five-fold dreams and visions. Indeed, it would not be wide of the mark to say that Sri Aurobindo's life was verily "a life of allegory" (in Keats's pregnant phrase), in which he enacted and progressively sought to realise the three frenzies and the five dreams. And this epic of action and realisation is yet to be concluded.

On 15 August 1947, when Independence came linked with partition and the carving out of Pakistan, while not enthusing over that "fissured freedom", Sri Aurobindo nevertheless hinted at a hope for the future:

"...the old communal division into Hindus and Muslims seems now to have hardened into a permanent political division of the country. It is to be hoped that this settled fact will not be accepted as settled for ever or as anything more than a temporary expedient. For if it lasts, India may be seriously weakened, even crippled: civil strife may remain always possible, possible even a new invasion and foreign conquest. India's internal development and prosperity may be impeded, her position among the nations weakened, her destiny impaired or even frustrated. This must not be; the partition must go. Let us hope that that may come about naturally, by an increasing recognition of the necessity not only of peace and concord but of common action, by the practice of common action and the creation of means for that purpose. In this way unity may finally come about under whatever form...by whatever means, in whatever way, the division must go; unity must and will be achieved, for it is necessary for the greatness of India's future."

Twenty-four years afterwards, the "two nations theory" that was supposed to have justified the partition of India died of its own sickened appetite. Already India and Bangla Desh have forged a union of hearts through their common aspirations, trials and sacrifices. But surely the world hasn't seen the end of miracles. And perhaps a master-stroke of statesmanship on the part of the leaders of Pakistan can yet annul the rages and ravages of the last twenty-seven years. It is the Phoenix Hour for the Indian subcontinent, for this season of travail and apprehension and uncertainty

could be alchemised into the hour of rebirth and rehabilitation, and Pakistan, India and Bangla Desh could even now form a confederation or a sub-continental economic community, thereby redeeming the poisoned time and remoulding our common destinies. And if such a consummation could be brought about in the near future, that would only mean the fulfilment of Sri Aurobindo's prophecy — uttered on the grave occasion of Gandhiji's martyrdom — that Mother India would yet "gather round her her sons", now numbering about 750 millions, and "weld them into a single national strength in the life of a great and united people".

The synchronisation, then, of Sri Aurobindo's Birth Centenary and the Silver Jubilee of the coming of Independence was no chance occurrence, but was in the nature of a fresh affirmation of the deeper identity between spiritual realities and surface vicissitudes. Whether at the ceremony of the release by Sri Siddhartha Shankar Ray on 1 January 1972 at India International Centre of the LP Record of Readings from Sri Aurobindo by Dr. Karan Singh — the Symposium on 'Sri Aurobindo and the Reconstruction of India' inaugurated at Hyderabad by Sri P. V. Narasimha Rao three months later — or Exhibitions of Sri Aurobindo literature arranged at the time of the Sahitya Akademi seminars, always the challenge was to take one's fill of the present occasion and thereby to expose oneself to the power, the spiritual force, the creative Agni of the Man. An Exhibition of the works of Sri Aurobindo — in original and translation — was doubtless an educative experience, a feast for the eyes, a stimulus to the mind, an awakening of the soul. But what a history behind the visible facade of the beautifully printed and produced volumes! While the de luxe edition of the Complete Works is the handiwork of the dedicated labours of a countless number of ardent sadhaks in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, even so not all the Master's writings have been traced and published. In house-searches, changes in residence, police seizures, court proceedings and the uncertainties of combative public life, many of Sri Aurobindo's writings were lost, and while some have since been recovered, a good deal must be presumed lost for ever. Numberless were the letters he wrote or dashed off to his disciples sitting with pen in hand most of the night, numberless the drafts and revisions of poems, numberless the notes, sketches and commentaries, but these too are unlikely to achieve publication in full. As for literature on Sri Aurobindo, it is a growing phenomenon, and since Sri Aurobindo has become an inexhaustible quarry for Ph.D. material in divers Faculties, this derivative academic literature is likely to assume formidable proportions in course of time. Translations of Sri Aurobindo's works form another expanding gallery of Sri Aurobindo literature. Such translations are both necessary and difficult, indeed almost impossible of accomplishment — for

most efforts are either terribly anaemic or they are travesties of the original — except when a comparable literary genius takes up the work in the spirit of sadhana. This too has happened off and on, and will happen again. Even Savitri, the unique experiment in mystic-symbolistic poetry, has lured many a translator, and some of the versions — Vidyavati Kokil's in Hindi, Pujalal's in Gujarati, T. V. Kapali Sastri'sin Sanskrit, for example — have been hailed as meritorious efforts. Of particular interest must be Huta's astonishing attempts to render Savitri in colour, and these volumes, Meditations on 'Savitri', embody the insights gained through a priceless collaboration between the artist and the Mother. The Book Exhibitions in India or abroad were thus invitations to a great intellectual and spiritual adventure, but as yet such Exhibitions can be no more than the beginning of beginnings, the first hesitant attempts to lift the brown curtain between Sri Aurobindo and the great majority of 'common readers'. But the effect has been not unsimilar to the 'symbol dawn' described in the opening Canto of Savitri:

One lucent corner windowing hidden things

Forced the world's blind immensity to sight.

The darkness failed and slipped like a falling cloak

From the reclining body of a god.

The far-flung schedule of the Birth Centenary Celebrations was packed with excitement and significance, and happily elicited the cooperation of a large number of people from different levels of life: politicians, students, officials, academics, professionals and others. It was somewhat like the construction of the dam between Bharat and Sri Lanka, as described in the Ramayana — even the squirrel's modest contribution being relevant in its own way and hence readily acceptable to the Divine. Apart from the more prominent participants, there were the anonymous donors, the unknown admirers and the obscure volunteers who spared neither money nor time nor labour to make a success of the celebrations. Considering the short interim between the planning of the programmes or decisions with regard to the acquisition and reconditioning of the houses at Baroda and Calcutta and their actual execution, it must be said that almost the entire gamut of the intention and hope saw complete realisation within the stipulated time. The Centenary Collected Edition — all the volumes except the comprehensive Index — saw publication before 15 August 1972. Most of the books and special journals and birth centenary brochures came out early enough to reach the centres of interest the world over. The Seminars, especially, called for careful planning in advance, but the necessary cooperation

was available, and one was left in the end with a feeling of general satisfaction.

The Regional Seminars on Sri Aurobindo and Indian Literature

Twenty languages and their literatures now come within the purview of Sahitya Akademi's programme of activities, and in a series of four Regional Seminars on 'Sri Aurobindo and Indian Literature', these languages were grouped as under, partly for convenience and partly on a strictly regional basis:

Madras, 8-9 April 1972: English, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu Bombay, 13-14 May 1972: Gujarati, Marathi, Rajasthani, Sindhi, Urdu , Calcutta, 10-11 June 1972: Assamese, Bengali, Maithili, Manipuri, Oriya Varanasi, 8-9 July 1972: Dogri, Hindi, Kashmiri, Punjabi, Sanskrit

Of the languages that enjoy a currency more or less all over India or in several States, Sanskrit and Hindi were assigned to Varanasi, Urdu to Bombay, and English (for no particular reason) to Madras. The double theme of the Seminars — 'Sri Aurobindo and Indian Literature' — was an invitation to writers and scholars to assess the impact of Sri Aurobindo's life and literary achievement on the divers regional literatures and on Indian Writing in English; and also to review Sri Aurobindo's theory of literature and his interpretation of Indian literature, and evaluate their relevance to, and influence on, the ruling concepts and current trends in the several literatures of contemporary India. Whether in life or literature, the attempt to insulate ourselves from new forces or influences must prove unavailing. The pressure of ideas, events and personalities is constantly there, and from great dynamos of thought and action — Marx, Mazzini, Freud, Tilak, Lenin, Gandhiji, Sri Aurobindo — emanate radiations that charge and change the climate of human thought and the tempo of human action. But of course "influence" is an elusive thing: we constantly breathe in and breathe out, for it is the very condition of our life, but who can say from what ends of the world the atoms stream in, and where they are ultimately wafted to? Notwithstanding all that the critics have said, poetic creation remains a mystery — a mystery even to the poet himself! We have seen how Sri Aurobindo acknowledged in his Independence Day Message of 15 August 1947 that in the course of his life he had been deeply involved in certain national and world movements: the freedom and unity

of India, the resurgence of Asia, the urge towards human unity, an overflow into the West of the waters of Indian spirituality, and, lastly, a spurt in evolution resulting in man's self-transcendence and the flowering of a supramental consciousness. While Sri Aurobindo wrote lyrics, epics and poetic dramas and turned out treatises on philosophy, sociology, politics, education and aesthetics, what stamped them with uniqueness, what still makes them glow with life, is their electric connection with Sri Aurobindo's three mighty frenzies or loves and his profound involvement in the five stupendous "dreams" or movements of his time. In other words, a theme like the "influence" of Sri Aurobindo on this or that literature includes rather more than his writings, though even these are of impressive and almost frightening bulk. If Sri Aurobindo was indeed "the poet of patriotism", "the prophet of nationalism and the lover of humanity" (as C. R. Das described in his peroration to Judge and Jury towards the close of the Alipur Trial), if he was the promoter of Asian resurgence and of human brotherhood and of oneness in the Spirit, and if he was also the engineer of a new Consciousness surpassing the "mental", then surely the thought and literature of the last fifty or sixty years must — now here, now there: here in greater intensity, there in lesser — reveal the "influence", be it direct, indirect, or occult, of that Power and that Personality. And nothing less than this was the theme of the four Regional Seminars.

As a poet in English, Sri Aurobindo began as a late Victorian romantic, but quickly moved on to his own distinctive terrain and to the far plateaus of spiritual ardour and ascent. His Yogic experiences and realisations at Baroda, at the Alipur Jail, and at Chandernagore and Pondicherry — his successive "caves of tapasya" — and his growing intimacy with the Vedic hymns added further intensities to his poetic articulation, and gave him also the clue to what he called "overhead aesthesis", the aesthesis behind "mantric" poetry. While he has explained his theory at some length in The Future Poetry and in many of his letters, it is in some of the passages in Savitri, especially in the following from Book IV, Canto 3, that we have the most vivid description of what such mantric poetry does to the sahrdaya whose soul no less than heart is wide awake:

... when the mantra sinks in Yoga's ear,

Its message enters stirring the blind brain

And keeps in the dim ignorant cells its sound;

The hearer understands a form of words

And, musing on the index thought it holds,

He strives to read it with the labouring mind,

But finds bright hints, not the embodied truth:

Then, falling silent in himself to know

He meets the deeper listening of his soul:

The Word repeats itself in rhythmic strains:

Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body's self

Are seized unalterably and he endures

An ecstasy and an immortal change;

He feels a Wideness and becomes a Power,

All knowledge rushes on him like a sea:

Transmuted by the white spiritual ray

He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm,

Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech:

This new poetry of the soul would both be a harking back to the piercing elemental utterances of the Vedic Rishis, and also a lightning-charged cantering towards a future world self-poised and self-puissant and self-perfecting, and governed by the emerging supramental Truth-Consciousness. Thus Sri Aurobindo's "overhead aesthesis" is merely of a piece with his evolutionary concept of man and nature, the last of the "dreams" he had mentioned in his Independence Day Message.

In the Republic of Letters, every poet, every creative writer — be his medium of expression Assamese, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil or any other language — is, from one point of view, an autonomous power in his own right. On the other hand, if no man is an island, no poet is altogether an island either: poets function autonomously, yet in a sovereign ambience that encompasses them all. The universe is a cosmos, — no static cosmos either, but a dynamic and evolving one. There are filiations, correspondences, radiations, fall-outs, assimilations, and neither Time nor Space is of much consequence in the realm of the Spirit. Over sixty years ago, Subramania Bharati, V. V. S. Aiyar and Mandayam Srinivasachariar used to meet Sri Aurobindo evening after evening in his rooms in Pondicherry, and talk flowed freely, and humour bubbled forth, wit sparkled, and of course poetry was endemic in the atmosphere. Some years later, Veluri Chandrasekharam, the physicist J. A. Chadwick (Arjava), the musician Dilip Kumar Roy, the physician Nirodbaran, the poets Sundaram, K. D. Sethna, Pujalal, Nishikanto, Harindranath Chattopadhyaya, Shudda-nanda Bharati and others gravitated to Sri Aurobindo Ashram and came under his influence for longer or shorter periods, and still others — Bendre, Puttappa, Gokak and Mugali in Kannada and Sumitranandan Pant and Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar' in Hindi — struck new fire from the central effulgence that was Sri Aurobindo. But the full story is not known. The detailed soundings are yet to be made, the comprehensive picture is yet to be

drawn. In this situation, the four Regional Seminars certainly gave a push to such inquiries and made possible at least a tentative assessment.

Among the participants in the four Regional Seminars were several of the leading lights in contemporary Indian literature, poets, novelists, dramatists, scholars and critics. What brought them together was a common love of literature, "a shared concern for the future and a sincere desire to pay homage to a great son of India, a Rishi of the modern age, and a prophet of a new world order. Although in their individual approaches to the theme of the Seminar there were variations of stance and pace, differences in emphasis or in the selection of illustrative material, the pooling together of so much knowledge and experience resulted in the emergence of the right discriminations and the right affirmations.

About 35 papers were presented at the four Regional Seminars, and there were also supplementary papers and discussions. At the National Seminar too, papers on Sri Aurobindo's interpretation of the Vedas and Upanishads and of the Gita were given by Dr. T. M. P. Mahadevan and Sri Rohit Mehta respectively, and on Sri Aurobindo as a Critic by Prof. Umashankar Joshi and Sri Ka Naa Subramanyam. These many papers could be broadly divided under the following inter-linked themes deriving from the main theme, 'Sri Aurobindo and Indian Literature':

(1)Sri Aurobindo's reading and interpretation of India's literary history;

(2)Sri Aurobindo's theory of poetry and views on 'overhead aesthesis';

(3)The impact of Sri Aurobindo's life and thought and literary achievement on the various Indian literatures;

(4)The impact, in particular, of Sri Aurobindo's aesthetic theories on contemporary Indian writing in the different languages.

There was some overlapping, and inevitably there was also some repetition. No papers were presented at the Regional Seminars on Sri Aurobindo's own literary achievement. This was happily made good at the National Seminar in August and the International Seminar in December, when papers were given on Sri Aurobindo the Poet by Sundaram, on the Seer-Poet of Savitri by Prema Nandakumar, V. K. Gokak, Murillo Nunes de Aze-vedo and Dilip Kumar Roy, and on Sri Aurobindo as Dramatist by Prema Nandakumar.

In his paper in Hindi at the Varanasi Seminar, Sri Chhotay Narain Sharma drew attention to the spiritual slant in Sri Aurobindo's interpretation of Indian literature. In Sri Aurobindo's view, literature is valuable to the extent there is a Presence behind it. The poet sees and expresses the Truth beyond our everyday vision: hence is he called satya srutah. Sri

Aurobindo's interpretation and assessment of Indian literature from Vedic times to the present and his vision of the 'overhead planes' of consciousness in poetry constitute a major achievement in literary history and criticism. His discrimination and assignment of intensities of poetic articulation to divers gradations of consciousness (mind, higher mind, illumined mind, intuition, overmind) is of an "astronomical nature". To the normal sight the stars appear to be set at the same height in the sky. It is the astronomical vision that gives us the sense of their appalling distances from one another. So too Sri Aurobindo's demarcation of the planes of consciousness influencing or supporting a literary work, and their respective distances or differences from one another, is a kind of critical telescoping that adds a new dimension to the methods of critical evaluation, and even to the possibilities of future literary activity.

In his paper on 'Sri Aurobindo and Sanskrit' (Varanasi), Dr. V. Raghavan made a detailed and systematic study of Sri Aurobindo's varied contributions — expositions, interpretations, translations — and concluded:

"...in Sri Aurobindo we have one who, more than others of the age of modern renaissance, spoke most specifically and fully on Sanskrit and Sanskrit literature and brought out, in brilliant analysis and interpretation, the beauty and significance of the different forms of Sanskrit literature from the Veda to poetry and drama in the modern world.... His is the most literary and aesthetic analysis, and is unlike what a student of Sanskrit is normally fed upon in the works of the Orientalists. For those who would like to read and enjoy Sanskrit literature, whether as treasuries of high thought or as creations of artistic beauty, the evocative writings of Sri Aurobindo form an inspiration."

Speaking more particularly of Sri Aurobindo's interpretation of the Vedas, Dr. T. M. P. Mahadevan remarked at the National Seminar:

"...we have unstinted and unreserved admiration for his (Sri Aurobindo's) insights into the secrets of the Vedic hymns. He has made the most valuable and marvellous contribution to the study of the Veda, the watershed from which the perennial river of Indian literature flows."

And Sri Rohit Mehta declared that "a genius of the stature and eminence of Sri Aurobindo appears but once in many centuries, and his appearance

is a spiritual phenomenon of a great revolutionary magnitude", and Sri Aurobindo's approach to the Gita was one of synthesis — "not a synthesis born of analysis but of integration" — and the whole argument of the Gita, as interpreted by Sri Aurobindo, "is a movement from morality to spirituality". Also, speaking generally of Sri Aurobindo's impact on modern Indian literature, Sri T. K. Bhattacharya (Calcutta) made this affirmation:

"Sri Aurobindo's powerful influence has contributed an elemental force to the Indian renaissance, arresting the rot that had set in.... A towering intellect has supplied sustenance to a civilisation that is getting revitalised.... In Indian literature today, therefore, Sri Aurobindo is an unseen but potent force."

Aside from the directly traceable influence on this or that literature (and this influence, quite obviously, hasn't been uniformly distributed), on one or another writer (because each is driven by his own daemon), the nature of the impact itself is beyond question. For the main thrust of the influence has been, in Dr. Sisirkumar Ghose's words (Madras Seminar): "Not a return to the past, that futile exercise in nostalgia, but a challenge to fresh embodiment, such is the impact of his vision."

Coming to individual literatures, one would naturally expect that Sri Aurobindo's impact would be most pronounced and most wide-spread on Bengali his mother-tongue, and also Tamil, since he spent the latter and more important half of his life in Pondicherry which is "the heart of Tamil land". Gurudev Tagore himself, in his magnificent tribute to Sri Aurobindo in 1907, spoke for the Bengali race and all India as well:

The fiery messenger that with the lamp of God

Hath come — where is the king who can with chain or rod

Chastise him? Chains that were to bind salute his feet,

And prisons greet him as their guest......

----the spirit of Bharat-land,

O poet, hath placed upon thy face her eyes afire

With love, and struck vast chords upon her vibrant lyre............

Rabindranath, O Aurobindo, bows to thee!¹

Sri Aurobindo's own Bengali writings take up one whole volume in the Centenary Library, and comprise poems, stories, articles on the Veda, Upa-nishads, Gita, Purana, his prison experiences, Nationalism, and editorials

¹ Translation by Kshitish Chandra Sen.

from Dharma, the weekly journal in Bengali which he edited during 1909-10. Although he learned Bengali from a tutor after his return to India from his "exile" in England, he quickly acquired an easy mastery of the prose medium, and his hymn Durga Stotra came to be charged with infinite purpose and potency, truly a mantric emanation rather than a poem. His Kara-Kahini (prison-memories) is packed with vivid description and is enlivened by humour. His letters to Mrinalini his wife are classics of their kind. It is hardly surprising therefore that Sri Aurobindo has greatly influenced Bengali writing, directly with his own Bengali outpourings, and indirectly through his life and thought or through the work of his disciples —Nolini Kanta Gupta, Anilbaran Roy, Dilip Kumar Roy, Nishikanto, Nirodbaran, C. C. Dutt, Nolini Sen, Suresh Chakravarty, Sahana Devi, Aruna Devi and others. Anirvan and Surendranath Basu are among those who have successfully translated Sri Aurobindo into Bengali. The younger writers who speak with an Aurobindonian voice are Samir Kanto Gupta, Robi Gupta and Prithwindra Mukherjee. Many Bengali Aurobindonians are bi-lingual, handling both the mother-tongue and English with an almost equal mastery. Tagore, the second world war, the coming of independence along with the second partition of Bengal, Marxism and naxalitism are among the forces that shape contemporary Bengali literature, but Sri Aurobindo is a major influence too, not the less important for being not always obvious or clearly acknowledged. An occult force, a spiritual power, an oceanic surge of striving, a grand defiance of difficulty, an infallible invocation of the indwelling reserves of the Spirit: these are elements that are not amenable to conventional critical assessment. But even so, the Aurobindonian touch or echo is usually unmistakable.¹ Numerous are the poetic tributes too, and here is the first stanza of Nishikanto's tribute in Dilip's English rendering:

The earth is holy ground since thou art born

And walk'st her clay.

At thy angel tread a new-lit sun at morn

Wakes every day.

As for Tamil, Sri Aurobindo clearly influenced Subramania Bharati, and Bharati is the maker of modern Tamil literature. Sri Aurobindo was introduced to the Rural, Nammalvar and Andal by Bharati, and made a few sensitive renderings in English. At the Madras Seminar, Prof. T. P. Meenakshisundaran pointed out that Sri Aurobindo's new interpretation

¹ I am indebted to Sri Chhotay Narain Sharma for answering some queries relating to Sri Aurobindo's influence on Bengali literature.

of the Veda in terms of mystic symbolism came to Bharati as a revelation, and one result was his Vachana Kavithai (Prose Poems):

"This is one great influence of Sri Aurobindo on the Tamil poetry of modern times. The poem, Ulik-kutu (Dance of Pralaya) reminds one of the Kali of Bengal or Shaktism, rather than the Kali of Tamil land, using the new interpretation of mythological symbols... an influence working also on Bharati's followers."

In her paper on 'Sri Aurobindo's Influence on Tamil Poetry', Dr. Prema Nandakumar said that Sri Aurobindo's Vedic interpretation had its direct outcome in Bharati's Tamil translation of some of the Vedic Riks as well as the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, as also the rendering of sakti-tattva in many of Bharati's songs of the Pondicherry period. As Amrita, who knew both Bharati and Sri Aurobindo very well at the time, has recorded:

"Bharati's source of inspiration was from this afflatus of Knowledge and Power that ushered in a fresh Age. He recited and sang all his songs and poems—almost all of them—each as it rose from his soul to Sri Aurobindo, before releasing them to the public. Times without number Bharati could be seen coming out of Sri Aurobindo's room his face beaming with a heavenly glow."

Bharati's own tribute to Sri Aurobindo has been rendered as follows by Prema Nandakumar:

O Truth-visioning Cobra in Yogic trance,

Fashion the dance to beat the worlds anew;

O puissance-crested Cobra divine,

Hasten to reveal your godhead to our view.

O crown of Shiva, primordial Lord,

O Aravind-named Cobra auspicious made,

Come now and dance with shining uprisen hood

And receive us within its sheltering hood.

One of Bharati's disciples, Shuddhananda Bharati was an inmate of Sri Aurobindo Ashram for many years, and he has acknowledged that his massive epic Bharata Shakti is his "vision of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, who figure in it as Shuddha and Shakti. The mahdkavya embalms the spirit of his (Sri Aurobindo's) integral Yoga". Another distinguished Tamil poet, Desigavinyakam Pillai, offered this tribute to Sri Aurobindo

Scouring the deeps of Scripture

As solvent of doubts,

Chasing away the False

To realise the Truth,

In Pondy Yogi Aurobindo

Blazoned the Light Divine.¹

It may be that in recent Tamil literature Sri Auribondo's influence is not clearly perceptible. Gandhism and Marxism and other ideologies claim many adherents, but even today there are poets like Janandanan who can apostrophise Sri Aurobindo as follows:

My Lord Aurobindo with

the Grace-laden eyes!

O sculptor of a Brave New World!

Disdaining the sound of wealth

you smiled

And a New World was born.

As a lonely sentinel you are

showing us the way

For the death of night

and permanence of bliss !²

Sri Aurobindo's considerable influence on Gujarati literature is understandable, partly because of his long stay at Baroda ("Gujarat is almost a homeland, as good as Bengal", according to Sundaram), and partly because of the lead given by sadhaks like A. B. Purani, Sundaram, Pujalal and others. Kannada and Oriya are two other languages that have proved fruitfully responsive to the Aurobindonian light, as may be seen from the papers of Prof. Gokak and Prof. Sahgo respectively. In Telugu, Veluri Chandrasekharam was an able exponent of Integral Yoga, and his salutation to the Master has a taut intensity and beauty that are preserved even in V. Chidanandam's translation:

Blessed indeed am I having seen the fathomless ocean,

Blessed having beheld the infinite sky,

Wonderfully blessed to have sat

At the lotuses of your feet, O Aurobindo!

1,2 English rendering by Prema Nandakumar.

And Madiraju Ranga Rao's Manavijayam — especially the concluding section 'Yuga Darshanam' — is, in Dr. Adapa Ramakrishna Rao's view, "obviously inspired by Sri Aurobindo's prophecy about the emergence of a unique world order". In Assamese, Sri K. C. Das sees clear evidence of Sri Aurobindo's impact, and writers like Ambikagiri Raychaudhury, Nila-mani Phukan, Ratnakanta Barkatki, Durgeshwar Sharma and others have embodied in their work Aurobindonian "spiritual and mystical ideas". In Hindi, the two major poets — Sumitranandan Pant and Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar' — both drank deep from the Fount; "...if Pantji approached Sri Aurobindo for the light of thought", says Sri Narendra Sharma, "Dinkarji went to him for the power of passion". As for Vidyavati Kokil, she "has arrived where she is, not so much for Sahitya, as for Sadhana".

On the other hand, in Marathi, although Senapati Bapat has translated about 10,000 pages of Sri Aurobindo and although in his political days he had close contacts with leaders of Maharashtra like Tilak and Moonje, there is evidently little visible impact on the literature. This applies more or less to Punjabi, Sindhi, Manipuri, Rajasthani, Dogri, Kashmiri, Maithili and Malayalam. In Urdu, the work of Iqbal has similarities with that of Sri Aurobindo, although there was perhaps no direct influence.¹

As regards the impact in particular of the Aurobindonian "overhead aesthesis" — or of Savitri, and some of Sri Aurobindo's later poems like Rose of God and Thought the Paraclete — on modern Indian poetry, it is perhaps too early to think of a definitive assessment. The theory itself is not widely known, nor correctly understood; and, besides, between theory and practice, a gulf may intervene. "I think," said Sri Ka Naa Subra-manyam at the National Seminar, "that Sri Aurobindo, in trying to include the mystic element, in criticism too as in poetry, sought to make a new system of criticism — a fact misunderstood often by practitioners of poetry and criticism in India." Dr. Raghavan thinks that Sri Aurobindo stated "in his own manner" the Sanskrit theory of Rasa. Sri Manoj Das, in his paper at the Calcutta Seminar, referred to two anticipations of Aurobindonian insights in the early Oriya poetry of Sarala Das and Balaram Das. Mrs. Jyotsna Deodhar, author of a novel in Marathi on Sri Aurobindo's life, remarked at the Bombay Seminar that the WORD is "the bridge between the communion and the communication.... Poetry is the outcome of communion, communication and WORD. This WORD Sri Aurobindo prefers to call Mantra". Dr. S. S. Kohli (Varanasi Seminar) referred to Guru Arjan, for whom the Rasa of Hari was the

¹ As for Sri Aurobindo's influence on English, the interested reader is referred to K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar's 'Sri Aurobindo's Impact on Indian Writing in English' in Sri Aurobindo Circle, XXX Number (1974), pp. 76-101.

only valuable Rasa, and added: "This aesthetic experience of Guru Arjan is the aesthetic experience of Sri Aurobindo in which there is a constant union of Rasa and Ananda at the highest spiritual level." Prof. Mugali, speaking at the Madras Seminar, thought that B. R. Bendre's theory and experience of 'caturmukha-saundaryd' — sensuous, imaginative, intellectual, spiritual beauty — was derived from Sri Aurobindo.

But although the participants either didn't find such mantric utterance in contemporary Indian poetry, or found it only fitfully or feebly, they strongly felt that Indian poetry would gain greatly if it could develop, at least in the future, along the lines indicated by Sri Aurobindo. Thus Prof. Meenakshisundaran:

"May we make an appeal to the rising generation of Tamil poets to listen to this (Sri Aurobindo's) beautiful theory of Future Poetry and elevate their ancient language to the level of a proper language for this future poetry, and close with a prayer that such Future Poetry may be born and flourish in Tamil".

Srimati Padma Sachdev thinks that "Dogri poetry can and should get guidance and inspiration from Sri Aurobindo". Dr. A. Aiyappan affirms that "recent poetry in Kerala is spiritual... not in the narrow sense but in the broad subliminal sense". And Dr. Waheed Akhtar said at Bombay:

"Sri Aurobindo, in the technical sense, is perhaps the only original philosopher of modern India. He deserves to be studied deeply ... his theory of poetry is relevant to contemporary literature and can be helpful in exploring the future possibilities of the literary expression of poetic vision."

The National Seminar on 'Sri Aurobindo's Vision of India'

The four Regional Seminars led up to the National Seminar, held in Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi, from 16 to 20 August 1972. Whereas the Regional Seminars were confined to an examination of the nature and extent of Sri Aurobindo's influence on the several literatures of contemporary India, the National Seminar ventured to get close to Sri Aurobindo's marvellous Vision of India and the World, for he thought of India always as the Guru of the Nations, as holding the key to the future destiny of the world. Without vision there is no life, no hope of a future. Never was this more urgent than at the present time. Sri Aurobindo's vision was simply that

of individual perfection leading to a perfect society. India's subjectivism and spirituality were as relevant to this as the West's preoccupation with the outer world as exemplified in their galloping science and technology. Sri Aurobindo's was thus an integral and global vision admitting of no exclusions, no wrong emphasis, no lopsided development. Here past history is not denied, present discontents are not wished away, and future possibilities are not fancy-fed merely. It should be stimulating and rewarding, therefore, to explore all the ramifications of the Aurobindonian Vision, and to consider too the difficulties standing in the way of its realisation.

The several sessions of the National Seminar were thus devoted to a consideration of the poet and dramatist and critic, the nationalist, revolutionary and political thinker, the mystic, philosopher and prophet of a new social order, the Yogi and the visionary laureate of the Future and its supra-mental architect as well. In such apparently facet-by-facet studies, there is the danger of our taking the part for the whole or making affirmations like the proverbial blind men trying to size up the unwieldy elephant. We talk of the poet, critic of poetry and art, the interpreter of scripture, the integral Yogin, the prophet of Supermind, the architect of the Life Divine: but the same Light illumines them all, the same Agni sustains their many-splendoured phosphorescence. The Seer has achieved confrontation of Reality: the Poet has hymned his "gloried fields of trance": the philosopher has sought to interpret the vision of evolving Man in terms of the reasoning intellect: the Yogi has formulated a method, a multiform technique, for achieving the desired change in consciousness: the sociologist and political thinker has thrown out seminal hints relating to the organisation of tomorrow's society and a global human polity: the creative critic has sensed the rhythms of the "future poetry" and described how the "new" poet will ride on the wings of an elemental spirituality and articulate the ineluctable melodies of the Spirit: and the poet of Savitri has made good his own prophecy that we might expect from the poet of overhead aesthesis "the song of greatest flight that will reveal from the highest pinnacle and with the largest field of vision the destiny of the human spirit and the presence and ways and purpose of the Divinity in man and the universe".

Inclusive of the auspicious Inauguration by President V. V. Giri, there were nine sessions spread over five days. About 25 papers were presented, and there were supplementary speeches, there were interventions, questions, answers, elucidations — occasional cross-fire too, and rapid reconcilement of seemingly opposing points of view. Attendance seldom fell below fifty, and among the participants were many of the leading lights in literature, philosophy, politics, education, Yoga, who brought to the discussions a commitment to rational inquiry, a mingling of experience

and enthusiasm, knowledge and scholarship. The papers were weighty, varied and wise, — one or two were books almost. The discussions were wide-ranging, because Sri Aurobindo is a universalist; and notwithstanding the slight dislocations in the programme due to the non-arrival or late arrival of some of the invitees, the argument followed a discernible stair of ascent. Great names — Shankara, Hegel, Karl Marx, Pascal, Nietzsche, Darwin, Vivekananda, Kierkegaard, Mahatma Gandhi, de Chardin, Heidegger, Iqbal, Bergson, Russell—-punctuated the discussions; the diverse continents of knowledge — history, ethics, psychology, sociology, aesthetics, mysticism, symbolism — were invoked off and on; and very occasionally there was the risk of the participants getting away from Sri Aurobindo altogether. But the churning went on with competitive good humour in the ocean of Aurobindonian thought, and pearls of great price, perhaps the chalice of Amrita itself, were vouchsafed to the participants giving them a sense of fulfilment. Wasn't the Seminar, in a manner of speaking, a Yajna as well? A "Special Correspondent" reported in the Statesman (Delhi: 21 August 1972) at the end of the Seminar:

"And Sri Aurobindo emerged as the polymath he really was under the strict examination of both devotees and non-devotees. His was a meaningful and eventful life in an India that was complex and torn by different forces.... He was poet, critic, writer of plays and epics, philosopher, prophet, yogi and other things in one. He was, in his attitude, revolutionary as well as reactionary. He was revivalist but he was also modernist. He was a dreamer of dreamers, an Utopian among Utopians, but also a realist among realists. He was practical and idealist all at the same time.... And the score of papers offered at the Seminar reviewed much that was permanent and of value in Indian life."

Although there is here an understandable murmur of exasperation, the general tone of admiration and appreciation is unmistakable.

In his Inaugural Address, President Giri set the key-note for the Seminar by affirming that Sri Aurobindo's philosophy is "really meant for the Future Man". At the first of the regular sessions, Prof. Suniti Kumar Chatterji made a rapid review of the three phases of Sri Aurobindo's life — study and preparation: political leader and freedom-fighter: Spiritual Power and World Teacher — and described him as "the poet of the divine Vision of India and the World, and of Man and Nature and of the Ultimate which includes everything". From integral Vision to integral Yoga, which was the theme of Sri R. R. Diwakar. All life is Yoga, an adventure

in realisation; but it is man's privilege, as a self-conscious creature, to participate in evolution and hasten its pace. "Towards the Future": the unconscious movement of Nature, of Life: the conscious movement of Yoga: the movement towards individual, collective, total Perfection: but not in some distant Elysium, but here "on this bank and shoal of time", perhaps in this life itself: the movement, the march towards the perfect man, the "gnostic man", the perfect life, the Life Divine — the Life Divine here and now! These ideas, dreams, hopes, visions recur again and again, dream is half-enacted as reality, and sometimes exceeded. It is a striving, a struggle, a dialectic, a climb sometimes an invocation followed by an immediate response and integration, sometimes a set-back, and a new determined lurch onward. It is the whole adventure of Consciousness upon the earth, and Sri Aurobindo is to be viewed as a star-gazer, as a pioneer, as a path-finder, as an engineer of Tomorrow's World. In his own life too, Sri Aurobindo had been on the move: from nationalist and revolutionary to mystic and Yogi, from the poet of Urvasie to the poet of Savitri, from the Vision of Bharat to the Vision of the Future Man and the Future World. Thus, even to take the proper measure of Sri Aurobindo's manifold yet integral achievement calls for multi-pronged effort and attention almost akin to the discipline of integral Yoga.

In his paper on 'Sri Aurobindo as Prophet of Nationalism', the late Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar' said feelingly that Sri Aurobindo was "a human colossus, pure in character, possessed of the highest intellect"; and that he "uttered things which had not been uttered before, churned the Indian mind as had never been churned through the centuries, and set the pace for India's freedom movement in the future". This was the Sri Aurobindo of the Bande Mataram days. But Alipur and Pondicherry added new dimensions of experience and consciousness, and he could now comprehend at once tradition and modernity and future possibility. In Dr. Alam Khund-miri's words, "history as a category of thought finds its place for the first time in Indian philosophical discussion in the writings of Sri Aurobindo". Also, like Vivekananda and Gandhiji, Sri Aurobindo too was fully aware of "man's suffering as a social and political being" and felt the need for its total elimination. As regards Sri Aurobindo's conception of the supra-mental or "gnostic" man, Dr. Khundmiri thought that it was similar to Iqbal's "future man" and Heidegger's "authentic being". Sri Shiva Prasad Singh, in his paper on 'Sri Aurobindo's Evolutionary Concept of Man', remarked that it was very different from Darwin's view. If Copernicus had "reduced the earth to a speck among melting clouds, Darwin reduced man to an animal fighting for his transient mastery of the globe"; but Sri Aurobindo's concept of man, "though based on an unknowable superconscient

force, is an encouraging thesis of the undaunted victory of the human over material power".

Sri Aurobindo visualised the emerging supramental Truth-Consciousness as an engine of individual, social and racial transformation, with collateral fall-out that will charge the future poetry and art too with new intensities of power and beauty. In Sri Aurobindo's social thought, the central insight is that a human aggregate (family, nation, society), like an individual, has a developing mind and soul behind the more easily perceivable body, organic life and moral and aesthetic temperament; and indeed it is this mind and soul that holds the clue to the destiny of the rest. Which really means that, unless this inner reality of mind and soul is seized and transformed, any attempts at outer reform alone cannot usher in Utopia, the Welfare State or the Kingdom of God. But even the social aggregate or the nation is no more than the necessary mid-term and intermediary between the atomic individual and the human totality, but helping these apparent extremes to fulfil each other.

While this thesis of social and racial transformation is presented brilliantly and persuasively in Sri Aurobindo's The Human Cycle and The Ideal of Human Unity, and in the papers presented at the National Seminar by Dr. Kishor Gandhi and Dr. Madhusudan Reddy, it is nevertheless in Savitri that the whole dialectic of challenge and response and integral transformation is shown as something actually happening before our very eyes, almost involving and re-charging our sensibilities in the process. Like Sri Aurobindo's theory of overhead aesthesis and mantric poetry, his view of art has also opened vistas of infinite future possibility. "The theory of expansion of consciousness put forward by Sri Aurobindo," said Dr. Mulk Raj Anand, "is one of the most significant contributions to human thought in the twentieth century." The "future poetry" has in some considerable measure been anticipated in Savitri, but the "future art" still awaits effective realisation. There are hints and guesses and brief lights of course in the work of some spiritually-oriented artists, but a total flowering is yet to come. Will 'Auroville' accomplish this needed efflorescence? As Dr. Anand says:

"...one can only wait to see how his (Sri Aurobindo's) general theory of spirituality will work out in the hands of the International architects who are building the new model Auroville Township, as these disciples may have grasped the meaning of Sri Aurobindo's ecstatic cosmic visions in terms of their personal techniques, materials and design, within the humanist framework, which emphasises all man's needs and interests."

Some indications there are already — dots, and lines, and first faint formulations, also the base of the mystical tremendum of 'Matrimandir' — and one hopes, one is certain, that all will find magnificent fulfilment in "God's transforming hour".

To return to Sri Aurobindo's 'Vision of India', how was this 'Vision' different from a mere 'view' that is limited by place, time, circumstance and one's own temperament? A 'view' is rather static, almost two-dimensional; and a William Archer, a Miss Mayo, an Arthur Koestler, a Nirad Chaudhuri, a V. S. Naipaul is apt to see through coloured glasses or a distorting lens. But a 'Vision' is synoptic, more like the cosmonaut's glimpse of the Earth from his vantage position on the Moon. And a Seer's or Rishi's 'Vision' comprehends at once past-present-future, all levels of experience from the material to the spiritual, and both the flux of phenomena and the realm of transcendence. A 'Vision', above all, is a gift of Grace, a spray of new Light, and an imperative summons to action.

The 'Vision' came to Sri Aurobindo at first in momentary flashes, but sometime after his return to India, it became more or less a settled thing. He saw India as the puissant but prostrate Mother, the people as a vast mass of emasculated brotherhood and sisterhood, and he saw too the Rakshasa of foreign rule, the incubus, the blood-sucker. Bhavani Mandir leapt out of Sri Aurobindo's agonised mind and creative energy. The Mother was prostrate because the children were sunk in tamas — "afathom-less zero occupied the world!" Bharat Shakti, Bhavani Bharati, was "composed of the Shaktis of all the millions of units that make the nation, just as Bhavani Mahishamardini sprang into being from the Shaktis of all the millions of gods assembled in one mass of force and welded into unity". As long as the children didn't awake, the Mother would be in jeopardy; and Sri Aurobindo's self-imposed task was to make the people awake, arise, scare or drive the Rakshasa away, and set the Mother on her pedestal again.

But, then, if the Mother was prostrate because the children were tamasic, the children were tamasic only because they wouldn't invoke the veiled infinite Shakti of the Mother. Hence Sri Aurobindo composed Durga Stotra — a mantric incantation that was to galvanise the children, the people, through the invocation of the Mother's Shakti. It was the 'Hour of God' indeed, with the people waking up from their slothful drowse, awakened by and waking up the Mother, and getting ready to end the night of slavery and trim the light of new life and hope.

This 'Vision of India' as the shackled and prostrate Mother who had to be retrieved by the children was presently gathered into a larger and richer Vision that came as a fruit of Sri Aurobindo's prison-experiences

in Alipur. Bharat was more than a nation, she was the Guru of the nations; Bharat was a concept, a force, a way of life, a dharma — the sanatan dharma that included the essence of all religions. In the secret cavern of the soul of the Muslim, the Christian, as much as in that of the Hindu, the Divine had his retreat and home. Thus Sri Aurobindo's earlier visionary movement from Bharat in bondage to Bharat free, now grew into a movement from Humanity wrapped up in darkness and ignorance and suffering to Humanity that should be liberated into light and knowledge and happiness. It was really the Vision of the immersion of the Divine in the inconscience of terrestrial existence, its awakening from that trance of involution, and the possibility of the ultimate re-emergence or efflorescence of the Divine in Man and the World. It was, in fact, the Vision of the Supermind, and what it could do to transform our flawed existence into the Life Divine.

With the launching of the Arya, it became possible for Sri Aurobindo to set forth in full amplitude and all richness of detail the logic of the intended or inevitable movement from mind to supermind, man to superman. Then, after the second coming of the Mother in April 1920, Sri Aurobindo was able to establish his "deva sangha" as a pilot-project for the eventual transformation of his dream and vision into realised actuality. He constituted himself into a one-man Planning Commission, as it were, to initiate the process that will accomplish the change from the mental to the supra-mental consciousness. Since the universe is a cosmos, no chaos, you cannot really destroy anything without destroying everything, nor create anything new without at the same time re-creating everything else. If man could change, the world would change; and therefore man must first impose a zero-ceiling on his ego, or achieve ahankar hatao, the annihilation of the ego. From a very different range of experiences, the psychiatrist R. D. Laing also has come to an identical conclusion:

"True sanity entails in one way or another the dissolution of the normal ego, that false self competently adjusted to our alienated social reality: the emergence of the 'inner' archetypal mediators of divine power, and through this death a rebirth, and the eventual re-establishment of a new kind of ego-functioning, the ego now being the servant of the divine, no longer its betrayer."¹

If in addition to the containment and virtual annihilation of the ego, the supramentalisation of the human consciousness also can come about, then the Life Divine would have arrived at last.

Two giant doubts spring up sometimes to cloud the clarity of the

¹ The Politics of Experience, Penguin Edition, p. 119.

Aurobindonian Vision of the Future. First about physical transformation. But this needn't mean a mechanical immortality. Physical health, efficiency, sufficiency, control over time, passions and appetites, these are important enough; and, besides, if man is potentially God and could become god with a change in consciousness, his body too might partake somewhat of this change. "Does it mean, then," asks V. Chandrasekharam, "that the Supramental Yogin will live in an immortal body for ever?" And his answer is, "We do not think so. It means he will not oblige death, that is all."¹

Secondly, there is the question of urgency. Man's current potentiality to destroy himself and the world is immense. Where's the time, then, for the supramental change to arrive and take a hand in the redemption and transformation of the world? But unlike the earlier spurts of evolution, the leap to the supramental change might occur in a short time. In Sri Aurobindo's words:

"The first obscure movement of the evolutionary Force is marked by an aeonic graduality; the movement of life-progress proceeds slowly but still with a quicker step, it is concentrated into the figure of millenniums; mind can still further compress the tardy leisureliness of Time and make long paces of the centuries; but when the conscious Spirit intervenes, a supremely concentrated pace of evolutionary swiftness becomes possible."

Always, always, the issue between life and death, new birth and still-birth, is poised precariously. This very moment could be the Hour of Annihilation — or the Hour of God. One is left therefore with the sheet-anchor of Faith, and firm reliance on the power of Grace:

O Sun-Word, thou shalt raise the earth-soul to Light

And bring down God into the lives of men...

When all thy work in human time is done,

The mind of earth shall be a home of light,

The life of earth a tree growing towards heaven,

The body of earth a tabernacle of God.

¹ Cf Sri Aurobindo: "This consummation of a triple immortality, — immortality of the nature completing the essential immortality of the Spirit and the psychic survival of death, — might be the crown of rebirth and a momentous indication of the conquest of the material Inconscience and Ignorance even in the very foundation of the reign of Matter. But the true immortality would still be the eternity of the spirit; the physical survival would only be relative, terminable at will, a temporal sign of the spirit's victory here over Death and Matter". (The Life Divine, Centre of Education Collection, p. 981).

Awakened from the mortal's ignorance

Men shall be lit with the Eternal's ray...

The International Seminar on 'Human Unity'

From the 'National' to the 'International' Seminar. Since, in the immediate context, the all-important problem was war or peace, co-destruction as the result of the unleashing of a thermo-nuclear war or co-existence and harmony through the play of wisdom and commonsense, it was decided by the Core Committee of the National Committee for Sri Aurobindo's Birth Centenary that the theme of the International Conference, to be held from 5 to 7 December 1972, should be 'Human Unity', with three sessions devoted respectively to (1) Problems of Human Unity; (2) Sri Aurobindo and the Ideal of Human Unity; and (3) The Auroville Experiment in Human Unity. The inauguration on 5 December at the India International Centre, New Delhi, was a memorable experience. A distinguished gathering of Indian and foreign delegates, and invitees including the Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, and the Union Education Minister, Prof. Nurul Hasan, were present. Notable among the foreign delegates were Angelo Morretta (Italy), Oliver Lacombe (France), Buckminster Fuller (U.S.A.), Hajime Nakamura (Japan), Judge Perry S. Millar (Canada), A. L. Basham (Australia), Takdir Alisjahbana (Indonesia), S. A. Ashraff (Bangla Desh), C. V. Devan Nair (Singapore), Kamal Jumblatt (Lebanon), and the Indian delegates included V. K. R. V. Rao, R. R. Diwakar, Uma-shankar Joshi, Navajata, D. S. Kothari, V. K. Gokak, Ganga Saran Sinha, Surendra Mohan Ghose, and Romesh Thapar. In the course of his learned and eloquent Inaugural Address, Dr. Karan Singh welcomed the delegates who represented "an outstanding galaxy of talent drawn from various fields of human endeavour", and set the theme of the Seminar, and the relevance of Sri Aurobindo to it, in their right perspective. Science and technology had advanced indeed —

"The breakthrough in aviation technology, in rocketry, in space travel have all contributed to the development of this concept of Space-ship Earth, a single ecosystem, a single unity, and more and more people are beginning to realise that unless this world is in fact looked upon as a single unit, and unless human unity becomes an actual living reality, the future of the world itself will be gravely endangered."

But it was also an ominous thought that "there is enough destructive

weaponry today to destroy the human race many times over". Of the thinkers who had addressed themselves to this problem, "the most fascinating and the most powerful of these approaches has been that of Sri Aurobindo, a truly remarkable man born a hundred years ago, an amazing man even in the most amazing 100 years that the human race has ever witnessed". And Sri Aurobindo's solution was simply a "new quantum leap" in evolution to be encompassed by "integral Yoga".

In his key-note address on 'The Problems of Human Unity', Prof. Olivier Lacombe discussed the problem in its structural and dynamic aspects, and concluded with the inspiring affirmation:

"The building principle of the human being is what philosophical tradition calls soul. The human soul is the Form of man.... Man, finite in his being, is open to the infinite by means of knowledge and love.... Is not all this the signature of the soul on Man, and is not man's soul the seal of his unity, rather than the mask for his own split self?"

Prof. Lacombe's stress on "knowledge and love" was carried farther in Prof. Hajime Nakamura's paper on 'The Ideal of Compassion-Love'. While expatiating on the role of saints and Bodhisattwas, he made a pointed reference to the Tamil saint, Tondar-adi-pody-alvar:

"His image always represents a standing posture with a parcel or burden on the right shoulder ... it represents his ideal to take on himself the sufferings of all men".

Prof. Takdir Alisjahbana of Indonesia said that "a new and broader solidarity as well as ethics has to arise", and hence what was needed was "a new all-inclusive transformation" of the human mind and its individual, social and cultural expression. Prof. C. I. Gulian (Romania) said that he completely shared Sri Aurobindo's humanist ideal, "this craving of man and society for perfection". Mary Taunay (Brazil) referred to the current reality of war, terror and misery in world, and added:

"...he (Sri Aurobindo) penetrates the most concealed parts of the human soul, dissecting it, not only in an analytic and materialistic point of view, but above all, under a new prism, the spiritualistic view."

Dr. O. W. Markley, in his weighty paper on 'Unity with Diversity', remarked that civilisation had reached a stage when the 'Industrial-State

Paradigm' should give place to METANOIA, a radical transformation of the mental consciousness. In much the same way, Dr. Pierre R. Etevenon, in his paper 'From Modern Science towards Sri Aurobindo's Integral Knowledge', stated that the "objectivity principle" ruling science since Aristotle's time is valid no more; hence the need for integral Knowledge as envisaged by Sri Aurobindo. Dr. Robert Linssen, again, in his paper 'Sri Aurobindo and Modern Science', affirmed that "recent developments in modern sciences have confirmed several aspects of Sri Aurobindo's teachings", and in particular: (1) "the unity of spirit and matter in the universe"; (2) "unity of spirit and matter in man"; and (3) "the role of man as the living expression of the Divine in matter".¹ And several papers presented at the International Seminar — those, for example, by Amaury de Riencourt, R. R. Diwakar, Edith Schnapper, Madhusudan Reddy and Aster Patel — discussed specifically Sri Aurobindo's diagnosis of the malady of human disunity and misery and the spiritual cure advanced by him in his writings.

And yet, pending the actual "quantum leap in evolution", what can we do to preserve mankind from extermination by war, ecological pollution and other evils? In his paper, 'The Sevenfold Path of Human Unity', Dr. Haridas Chaudhuri referred to some of the measures to be taken as a kind of holding operation so that there may be a chance for the breakthrough in evolution and the consequent change and transformation. Sri Aurobindo himself had said in 1950, in the Postscript chapter he contributed to a new edition of his book The Ideal of Human Unity, that it was for "the men of our day and, at the most, of tomorrow" to find the answer to the current imbalance between exponential technological progress and chilling moral stagnation. Not long after, the American statesman, Adlai Stevenson, uttered this grave warning to the global human community:

"We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, and, I will say, the love we give to our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave to the ancient enemies of man, half free in a liberation of resources undreamt of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of all."

¹ These three may be compared with Victor Firkiss' "new naturalism" (oneness of man and cosmos), "new holism" (oneness of part and whole) and "new immanentism" (the para-mountcy of the inner reality), which together might make a "new metaphysic".

U. Thant, then U.N. Secretary-General, said in 1969 rather ominously:

"I do not wish to seem overdramatic, but I can only conclude from the information available to me as Secretary-General, that the members of the United Nations have perhaps ten years left in which to subordinate their ancient quarrels and launch a global partnership to curb the arms race, to improve the human environment, to defuse the population explosion and to supply the needed momentum to development efforts. If such a global partnership is not forged within the next decade ...the problem... will be beyond our capacity to control."

One of the participants at the International Seminar, Mr. James F. T. Bugental, said the same thing though in different words:

"There can be little doubt that the potentiality for a global catastrophe now exists....If the next decade escapes collapse, there is more likelihood that what we do now and in the coming five years could affect the odds for survival in the 1980's."

Writing in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, John Piatt said four years ago that mankind is now caught in a "transformational crisis", and posed these questions:

"...can we achieve a nuclear stabilisation in time? Can we mobilise the necessary intelligence and energy for self-structuring all our other great changes?... these are the crucial questions of the next few months and years."

In another context, Mr. Buckminster Fuller had remarked: "For the first time in history we are all now faced with world responsibility. We can't leave it to the big leader, the big king, anymore: we are all involved, and our personal disciplines are important." Are we, then, wise enough, brave enough, resolute enough, to meet and master and beyond the challenge — or, must we slothfully or criminally acquiesce in the self-slaughter of human civilisation?

It is easy enough to try to evade this sense of crisis, till the cataclysm overtakes humanity some day. But even those who are deeply concerned, who feel that mankind is now really jammed up in the climactic crossroads of its terrestrial journey, even they aren't agreed as to what should be done to meet the crisis and canter towards a worthwhile future. Discussing the

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problem at the International Seminar, Prof. Olivier Lacombe posed these alternatives:

"Must we wish tomorrow's man to be more perfectly human or more than human ? In other words, must we look for the fulfilment of man or, beyond man, for the superman?"

It is possible that science and technology, closely allied to global humanism, can yet solve our problems and establish a world government on reasonably durable foundations. For a couple of decades at least, a nuclear war has somehow been avoided, and there is no reason why Kissingerian brinkmanship may not give the world the necessary breathing time for real concord between the nations to develop, take root and endure.¹

On the other hand, the trend of recent history seems to indicate that it is the technological thrust itself, with its increasing exteriorisation of human interests and human activity, the insatiable greed for things, the craze for growthmanship, the heady pace of living, the recklessness, the despair, — it is these that make it more and more difficult to save civilisation from its imminent jump into the abyss. We witness today a breakdown in family life, academic life, communal life, national life and international relations. In her Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Lecture delivered last year, Dr. Margaret Mead took a very serious view of the human situation today, and pleaded for the mobilisation of the total human experience and knowledge to avert in time the threatened extinction of the race. Perhaps — perhaps — behind the violences and perversions and confusions and conflagrations, something is obscurely striving to be born. As Count Amaury de Riencourt has remarked:

"In an underground, almost subliminal way, something like a crude synthesis is actually taking place, deep down in the psyche of contemporary man. The trend in the West, especially in the United

¹ In a review of the International Seminar which he had attended, G. Monod-Herzen says that the meetings were fruitful and very pleasantly organised, and notwithstanding differences in approach to the problem — reforming present establishments, or effecting a change in human consciousness — there was a note of reasoned optimism which "strengthened in the members of the remarkable seminar, the hope of a future of peace and harmony". He adds that the magnificent experience of 'Free Progress' at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education "has been proving for the past ten years that children can be perfectly happy in their school and develop harmoniously both physically and spiritually. It is those who have the privilege of having had this education who will no doubt be among the best prepared to realise this human unity for which the whole world feels the need" (Sri Aurobindo Circle, XXIX Number (1973), p. 124).

States, is unmistakable; the growing disillusionment at the core of industrial civilisation ... the refusal to countenance the dehumanising technology which entails a new artificiality of life, the impersonality of the fast-increasing bureaucracies required to run the increasingly complex administrative establishments of modern States, the destruction of Nature's ecological balance and the increased pollution, thanks to which industrialised and urbanised man is in the process of drowning in his own garbage, all this impels man to search for a new way of life..."

Sensitive people — the youth generation especially — are often a prey to impatience and the spirit of rebellion, and feel inclined to experiment with uninhibited violence, drugs, sex, hippiedom, naxalitism and other forms of extreme nonconformity. It is not unlikely, however, that out of this very wreckage may emerge something new:

"...everything points to a change of pace in history which might well be pointing to the end of history itself and usher in an entirely new geological age — hopefully, the age of superman" (Amaury de Riencourt).

This was Sri Aurobindo's faith too, or rather his conviction, and he felt that mental man was destined to exceed himself and usher in the superman. But what was intuition or a fact of spiritual experience to Sri Aurobindo sixty years ago is being progressively confirmed by advanced science today, as pointed by Dr. Etevenon and Dr. Robert Linssen (quoted earlier). "Oh the mind, the mind has mountains!" the poet Hopkins exclaimed, but whole encyclopaedias and libraries are compressed within the numberless DNA and RNA molecules in our body's cells, and these treasure the accumulated memories of the entire history of the universe since the dawn of creation. The needed, and perhaps preordained, breakthrough in consciousness must therefore liberate, not the- mind alone, but the very cells of the body, releasing sunrealms of knowledge, power and love, bringing about a supreme interiorisation of experience, so that — as with the underground waters — there may be instantaneous commingling and communication and concord. If in our inner life the rift between man and god, matter and spirit, could be healed, then inevitably the healing of the rift between man and nature, man and collective man, must follow as a matter of course.

In the Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, the underlying postulates are the oneness of matter and spirit, the world as the field of progressive divine manifestation,

and the inbuilt dynamism of evolutionary change from the mental to the supramental realms; and the operative key is the psychic principle, which is ordinarily asleep in body, life and mind, but once awakened and brought into play, it can re-establish the lost contact with the supramental Truth-Consciousness (Supermind), and also bring it down to energise, illuminate and fulfil our terrestrial existence.

Sri Aurobindo has laid down the theoretical foundations of his Yoga in The Life Divine, and has touched upon many of its practical aspects in The Synthesis of Yoga, The Mother and in his numerous letters to his disciples. But it is in Savitri that the great sphinx riddle of terrestrial existence and its definitive solution are projected as a cosmic drama of struggle and victory and transcendence. The poem comprehends both Aswapathy's apocalyptic Vision of the Future and Savitri's mighty struggle and victory. There is a moment in the course of his travels in the occult worlds when Aswapathy sees the "things to come":

A giant dance of Shiva tore the past,

There was a thunder as of worlds that fall;

Earth was o'errun with fire and the roar of Death

Clamouring to slay a world his hunger had made;

There was a clangour of Destruction's wings:

The Titan's battle-cry was in my ears,

Alarm and rumour shook the armoured Night.

This is what we already witness, for this surreal world of jet travel, moon-landing, hijacking, oil politics, round-the-clock gheraos, black-money economics, topsy-turvied education, anarchic sex life, and careering pollution seems fated to end in the breaking of the nations and the shattering of civilisation. But Aswapathy-Sri Aurobindo also saw the end of the Night and the great New Dawn of the Supramental Age:

I saw the Omnipotent's flaming pioneers

Over the heavenly verge which turns towards life

Come crowding down the amber stairs of birth;

Forerunners of a divine multitude

Out of the paths of the morning star they came

Into the little room of mortal life.

I saw them cross the twilight of an age,

The sun-eyed children of a marvellous dawn,

The great creators with wide brows of calm,

The massive barrier-breakers of the world...

Their tread one day shall change the suffering earth

And justify the light on Nature's face.

Savitri is visionary poetry, and presents in symbolic terms a drama that is being played already, and hints at a conclusion that is not yet concluded. But 'Auroville', which embodies the beginnings of the materialisation of the Mother's 'Dream' and Sri Aurobindo's 'Vision', is there for all to see: an organic growth, though still in its earliest stages. Sri Navajata's "working paper" on 'Auroville' served as the basis of a most fruitful discussion on the last day of the Seminar, and among those who spoke were Mr. Buckminster Fuller, Udar Pinto of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Mr. P. L. Verma (the builder of Chandigarh), Mr. P.N. Kirpal, Mr. C. V. Devan Nair from Singapore, Mr. P.P. Narayanan from Malaysia, Principal J.G. Bennett of Sherborne House, Cheltenham, United Kingdom, and Mrs. Margaret Smithwhite, President of Auroville International (London). After Prof. Arabinda Basu's summing-up of the Seminar as its Director, Dr. Karan Singh gave the Valedictory, which gathered and blended the main notes of the Seminar into a piece of memorable music worthy of the occasion.

The Celebrations — and After

Now that the Centenary Celebrations are over, what next? These celebrations are a bridge or causeway across the waters dividing the past and present from the future. We have successfully crossed the ocean, and reached the other side — but Rama's army, after the crossing of the sea, had still to fight the enemy and vanquish him. The memory of Sri Aurobindo, his message, has been taken beyond the first century. The de luxe and popular editions in thirty volumes are there, but the books must be read more widely and pondered more and more deeply. Sri Aurobindo Bhavan at Calcutta and other memorial institutions — at Baroda, at Bhubaneshwar — have come up, but they have to function with increasing efficiency on the issue of translating the Aurobindonian message into action.

In one of her truly seminal observations, the Mother had said that "what Sri Aurobindo represents in the world's history is not a message, not even a revelation, but a decisive action direct from the Supreme". The 'teaching' of course is there, in overwhelming elaboration and packed opulence of divination, in the stupendous prose sequences of the Arya period, notably The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, The Secret of the Veda, Essays on the Gita, The Human Cycle, The Ideal of Human Unity, The Foundations of Indian Culture and The Future Poetry. The 'revelation'

is blazed forth in the iridescent splendour of Savitri. But the coming of Sri Aurobindo has meant something more: the release of a certain force, the beginnings of a certain action — action by human beings in the terrestrial context, but action receiving its authority and initiation from the Supreme. In other words, Sri Aurobindo came to get a movement going — we shall call it a movement in evolution, but a movement so radical that it must really be viewed as a revolution — and get us all involved in the movement; or, to put it simply, a movement from division to union, from separation to reunion, from corruption to incorruption, from imperfection to perfection, from the human to the Divine. We begin with the individual, but the individual fulfils himself, on the one hand (and with a widening sweep of comprehension) in society and the human family; and, on the other, in the nation and in the world. Not to live in the ego — individual, collective or institutional — but to live in the deeper reality or self within, and thereby grow into communion with others, all others, and circumambient Nature as well: to instal the charioteership of the Divine to control our physical movements and vital and mental impulses, and guide us through the confusing ways of the world. It is not easy, but nothing less than such a revolution in our inner and outer life can meet the grim challenge of our times. At the Ashram and at Auroville — and, may be, at other select spots too — this is being attempted more or less like controlled experiments or pilot projects, but this is not enough. It is not a question of our choosing between our present occupation (whatever it may be) and Yoga, but rather bringing the spirit of Yoga — soul-awakening, spiritual direction, psychic harmony — into our everyday life at home, at the academy, office, factory, farm, council, everywhere, and all the time. And it is only if the Centenary Celebrations have in some measure at least led to such an awakening — in individuals, in groups, presently in wider and wider circles — only then can we really say that the Celebrations have achieved their real aim.

A word or two about this Commemoration Volume. At the meeting of the Core Committee held on 18 January 1973, it was felt that there was a corpus of valuable material as a result of the various Seminars and the other commemorative functions, and "it would be a fitting finale to the Celebrations if this material were carefully edited and brought out as a Commemoration Volume matching the de luxe and library editions, already brought out, of Sri Aurobindo's works". Accordingly, an Editorial Committee was constituted with Dr. Karan Singh as Chairman, and Dr. D. S. Kothari, Sri Ganga Saran Sinha, Prof. Arabinda Basu and myself as members; and I was also asked to undertake the responsibility of selecting the material for inclusion in the volume. This has proved a difficult task. After

carefully going through the formidable mass of material, I selected about one-third of the papers presented or addresses given at the various Seminars, and arranged them under nine heads so as to suggest a full arc in the development of the theme and purpose of the Centenary Celebrations. The selection and arrangement have been approved by the Editorial Committee. And I may add that, although not all the papers could be included (owing to the exigencies of space), the full list of the papers presented at the different Seminars is given in the Appendices, and my Introduction has freely drawn upon all the papers.

The Introduction aims at giving a broad conspectus of the Centenary Celebrations as a whole, with special emphasis on the schemes initiated and financed by the National Committee and in particular the series of Seminars, regional, national and international. Some of the needed material wasn't available, and no records had been kept of the extempore speeches, interventions and discussions. I had to rely generally on the notes I had jotted down at the time, and on the ready help of the officers of the Sahitya Akademi. I must here record with pleasure my gratitude to Dr. Karan Singh and the other members of the Editorial Committee for their trust and counsel, and to the sadhaks of Sri Aurobindo Ashram for the devotion and taste with which they have produced this Commemoration Volume. I am grateful no less to the officers concerned at the Union Ministry of Education for facilitating the publication of this work.

One last word: what is our feeling at the end of this Festival of Sri Aurobindo's Birth Centenary? For over five years, since the first meeting at 'Manasarovar', Dr. Karan Singh's residence, we have constantly taken Sri Aurobindo's name, invoked his Presence, fingered the pages of his writings, recited his poems, ruminated on his thoughts, and tried to prove not altogether unworthy of his great spiritual ministry amongst us. And now that the Centenary Celebrations are ended, what is the Aurobindonian gift of Grace to us all? And for this too, the words must needs come from him:

All now is changed, yet all is still the same.

Lo, we have looked upon the face of God,

Our life has opened with divinity.

We have borne identity with the Supreme

And known his meaning in our mortal lives.

K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar

Mylapore, Madras

15 August 1974