-12_The Cosmic Divine

I UNDERSTAND now what is your difficulty about the Cosmic Divine. It was not present to my mind because I look at these things from the point of view of facts as they are both to our spiritual and our outward experience — whereas the point of view on which you lay stress is that they are not what they ought to be or what the mind, ethical feeling and the vital in man feel that they ought to be. That this world is full of queer, ugly and inharmonious things is the very plain and self-evident fact which we have to start with, — wherever we may want or hope to arrive. But the whole question is there, whether there is something behind, something that warrants this hope to arrive at something better. For the spiritual experience there is — and this something behind is to it as undeniable a fact as the very apparent character of this world in its surface aspect as a world of Ignorance, tribulation, suffering, disharmony, disorder, obscure Inconscience. To spiritual experience it is not a speculation but a fact that there is a Godhead immanent within behind this flawed and imperfect human nature into some likeness to which this nature can try to grow; there is something behind the cosmic movement with all its disorder which is of the nature of abiding peace, calm, strength, joy and all-embracing universality and to enter into it and abide in it is possible for our consciousness also. It is also a part of spiritual experience that there is something Beyond in which this Divinity — or whatever other name you may give to it — is above the contradiction offered to it by this world of disorder and ignorance; that is the meaning of the Transcendence. Whatever wide differences there may be between different ways of spiritual experience or whatever names may be put on these things, so much is fairly universal. If there were not these certitudes, there could be no assured spiritual life or endeavour.

BE VERY careful to follow my instructions in avoiding the old kind of politics. Spirituality is India's only politics, the fulfilment of the Sanatana Dharma its only Swaraj. I have no doubt we shall have to go through our Parliamentary period in order to get rid of the notion of Western democracy by seeing in practice how helpless it is to make nations blessed. India is passing really through the first stages of a sort of national Yoga. It was mastered in the inception by the inrush of divine force which came in 1905 and aroused it from its state of complete tamasic ajnanam. But, as happens also with individuals, all that was evil, all the wrong samskaras and .wrong emotions and mental and moral habits rose with it and misused the divine force. Hence al1 that orgy of political oratory, democratic fervour, meetings, processions, passive resistance, all ending in bombs, revolvers and Coercion laws. It was a period of asuddha rajasic activity and had to be followed by the inevitable period of tamasic reaction from disappointed rajas . God has struck it all down, - Moderatism, the bastard child of English Liberalism ; Nationalism, the mixed progeny of Europe and Asia ; Terrorism, the abortive offspring of Bakunin and Mazzini. The latter still lives, but it is being slowly ground to pieces. At present, it is our only enemy, for I do not regard the British coercion as an enemy, but as a helper. If it can only rid us of this wild pamphleteering, these theatrical assassinations, these frenzied appeals to national hatred with their watchword of Feringhi ko maro, these childish conspiracies, these idiotic schemes for facing a modern army with half a dozen guns and some hundred lathis, - the opium visions of rajoguna run mad. then I say, "More power to its elbow." For it is only when this foolishness is done with that truth will have a chance, the sattwic mind in India emerge and a really strong spiritual movement begin as a prelude to India's regeneration . No doubt , there will be plenty of trouble and error still to face. but we shall have a chance of putting our feet on the right path. In all I believe God to be guiding us, giving the necessary experiences, preparing the necessary conditions.

I could not come over to Shillong in May, because my stay in Eastern Bengal was unexpectedly long. It was nearly the end of May before I could return to Calcutta, so that my programme was necessarily changed. I return to Baroda today. I have asked for leave from the 12th, but I do not know whether it will be sanctioned so soon. In any case I shall be back by the end of the month. If you are anxious to send Mrinalini down, I have no objection whatever. I have no doubt my aunt will gladly put her up until I can return from Baroda and make my arrangements.

I am afraid I shall never be good for much in the way of domestic virtues. I have tried, very ineffectively, to do some part of my duty as a son, a brother and a husband, but there is something too strong in me which forces me to subordinate everything else to it. Of course that is no excuse for my culpability in not writing letters, - a fault I am afraid I shall always be quicker to admit than to reform . I can easily understand that to others it may seem to spring from a lack of the most ordinary affection. It was not so in the case of my father from whom I seem to inherit the defect. In all my fourteen years in England I hardly got a dozen letters from him, and yet I cannot doubt his affection for me, since it was the false report of my death which killed him. I fear you must take me as I am with all my imperfections on my head.

Barin has again fallen ill, and I have asked him to go out to some healthier place for a short visit. I was thinking he might go to Waltair, but he has set his heart on going to Shillong — I don't quite know why, unless it is to see a quite new place and at the same time make acquaintance with his sister-in-law's family. If he goes, I am sure you will take good care of him for the short time he may be there. You will find him, I am afraid, rather wilful and erratic, — the family failing. He is especially fond of knocking about by himself in a spasmodic and irregular fashion when he ought to be sitting at home and nursing his delicate health, but I have learnt not to interfere with

him in this respect; if checked, he is likely to go off at a tangent and makes things worse. He has, however, an immense amount of vitality which allows him to play these tricks with impunity in a good climate, and I think a short stay at Shillong ought to give him another lease of health.

Another error is worth correcting. The reviewer seems to assume that Sri Aurobindo was sent straight from India to King's College, Cambridge, and that he had [to] learn English as a foreign language. This is not the fact; Sri Aurobindo in his father's house already spoke only English and Hindustani, he thought in English from his childhood and did not even know his native language, Bengali. At the age of seven he was taken to England and remained there consecutively for fourteen years, speaking English and thinking in English and no other tongue. He was educated in French and Latin and other subjects under private tuition in Manchester from seven to eleven and studied afterwards in St. Paul's School, London, for about seven years. From there he went to King's College. He had never to study English at all as a subject; though it was not his native language, it had become by force of circumstances from the very first his natural language.

Austen Leigh was not the name of the Provost [of King's College], — his name was Prothero.¹ It was not he but Oscar Browning, a scholar and writer of some contemporary fame, who expressed admiration for Sri Aurobindo's scholarship, — there was nothing about integrity. He expressed the opinion that his papers, for the Scholarship examination, were the best he had ever seen and quite remarkable.²

There was no positive religious or spiritual element in the education received in England. The only personal contact with Christianity

1 The Cambridge University Calendars for the years 1890-1892 list Augustus Austen Leigh as Provost and C.W. Prothero as Praelector. See also Documents in the Life of Sri Aurobindo, Document 4, p. 96. [Ed.].

(that of Nonconformist England) was of a nature to repel rather than attract. The education received was mainly classical and had a purely intellectual and aesthetic influence; it did not stimulate any interest in spiritual life. My attention was not drawn to the spirituality of Europe of the Middle Ages; my knowledge of it was of a general character and I never underwent its influence.

Sri Aurobindo's first turn towards spiritual seeking came in England in the last year of his stay there. He had lived in the family of a Nonconformist clergyman, minister of a chapel belonging to the "Congregational" denomination; though he never became a Christian, this was the only religion and the Bible the only scripture with which he was acquainted in his childhood; but in the form in which it presented itself to him, it repelled rather than attracted him and the hideous story of persecution staining mediaeval Christianity and the narrowness and intolerance even of its later developments disgusted him so strongly that he drew back from religion altogether. After a short period of complete atheism, he accepted the Agnostic attitude. In his studies for the I.C.S., however, he came across a brief and very scanty and bare statement of the "six philosophies" of India and he was especially struck by the concept of the Atman in the Adwaita. It was borne in upon his mind that here might be a true clue to the reality behind life and the world. He made a strong and very crude mental attempt to realise what this Self or Atman might be, to convert the abstract idea into a concrete and living reality in his own consciousness, but conceiving it as something beyond or behind this material world; not having understood it as something immanent in himself and all and also universal.

It was James Cotton, brother of Sir Henry (who was a friend of Dr. K.D. Ghose) who introduced Sri Aurobindo to the Gaekwar. Cotton became secretary of the South Kensington Liberal Club where two of the brothers were living; Benoybhusan was doing some clerical work for the Club for 5 shillings a week and Cotton took

him as his assistant; he took a strong interest in all the three brothers and when Sri Aurobindo failed in the riding test, he tried to get another chance for him (much against the will of Sri Aurobindo who was greatly relieved and overjoyed by his release from the I.C.S.) and, when that did not succeed, introduced him to the Gaekwar so that he might get an appointment in Baroda. Cotton afterwards came on a visit to Baroda and saw Sri Aurobindo in the College.

On the Barisal Proclamation. On 7 November 1905 Aswini Kumar Dutt and other Nationalist leaders of Barisal issued a proclamation urging the people of the district to support the Swadeshi movement. This proclamation was denounced as seditious by Sir Bampfylde Fuller, the Lieutenant-Governor of the newly created province of East Bengal and Assam. Fuller summoned Dutt and four others "with a view to securing the withdrawal of the Swadeshi Proclamation, but, instead of conducting the proceedings harmoniously and with decorum, His Honour held out threats and menaces and assumed a most insulting attitude towards the delegates." (Bengalee, 18 November 1905)

Shortly after their interview with Fuller, the five Barisal leaders addressed a note to the Lieutenant-Governor's Private Secretary, informing him that, as Mr. Fuller was of the opinion that the proclamation contained "certain expressions that may tend to lead people to commit breaches of peace, we withdraw the same." (R.C. Majumdar, History of the Freedom Movement in India, Vol. II, [Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay, 1975], p. 87, see also pp. 40-41 and 86.) On receipt of this note a District Magistrate issued a notification that the leaders "had withdrawn the appeal because they had understood that the appeal was seditious and provocative of breaches of the peace." (Ibid.) It was apparently shortly after the publication of news of this misleading notification (which ultimately caused the District Magistrate to be fined Rs.120 for defamation), that Sri Aurobindo, then acting as principal of the Baroda College, wrote this article. Its first pages are not available. They had been torn out of the notebook in which it was written even before it was produced as evidence in the Alipore Bomb Case (1908-1909).

Dialogue. Found in Sri Aurobindo's earliest surviving manuscript notebook, this fragment seems to have been written by him at Cambridge in 1891, that is, about a year before he began work on The Harmony of Virtue, the dialogue inspired by Plato (and Oscar Wilde) to which this one is related in form and theme. (See SABCL Vol. 3, pp. 1-64.)

Several versions of the piece exist, from which the present text has been compiled by the editors, who also supplied the title. Alternate words and passages are given as footnotes.

There is an occasional inconsistency as regards the characters' names. The editors have given all names exactly as they appear in Sri Aurobindo's manuscript.

Poetry. This short essay was found in the notebook containing the two lectures on English poetry reproduced in this and the last issue. It was apparently written at the same time as them, being perhaps an extension of the definition of poetry given in the first lecture (see the issue of April 1977, p. 10).

Sketch of the Progress of Poetry from Thomson to Wordsworth. This, the second in the series of lectures prepared by Sri Aurobindo for his classes at the Baroda College during the early part of his career there (1898-1901). is incomplete. No other such lectures have been found among Sri Aurobindo's manuscripts: in later years he does not seem to have prepared himself with this sort of material. He once said, comparing himself to his brother, "I was not so conscientious a professor as Manmohan. I never used to look at the notes and sometimes my explanations did not agree with them at all. . . . Once I was giving a lecture on Southey's Life of Nelson. My lecture was not in agreement with the notes. So the students remarked that it was not at all like what was found in the notes. I replied: 'I have not read the notes — in any case they are all rubbish!'" (Purani, The Life of Sri Aurobindo [1978], pp. 47-48.)

Nevertheless, Sri Aurobindo's students spoke highly of his lectures. "His method of teaching was a novel one," comments one of them. 'In the beginning he used to give a series of introductory lectures for initiating the student into the subject-matter of the text, which gave a fair idea about the author and his views on particular items bearing on the text. After preparing the student to understand the text in this manner, he used to start reading the text in the classroom, stopping wherever necessary to explain the meaning of difficult and obscure sentences. Then after finishing the text, he used to dictate general lectures bearing on the various aspects pertaining to the text. These lectures, which were given at the close of the term, were availed of by many students belonging to other colleges." (Ibid. pp. 63-64.)

Several test questions, some with outlines of answers, which were written by Sri Aurobindo in conjunction with this lecture, have been appended.

The Just Man. Part of the handwritten manuscript of Songs to Myrtilla. this early poem was not published in that collection.

Greek Epigram. A free metrical translation of an English poem. (See Documents in the Life of Sri Aurobindo. Document 6. pp. 98-99.) The form used is the elegiac couplet (see below). The two versions of the poem shown in facsimile on page 22 differ from one another only slightly, the second being apparently a revision of the first.

Quantitative Experiments. The first of these pieces, all of which were written in Pondicherry, probably after 1930, has as its subject the metrical form in which it is written, i.e. the elegiac couplet (hexameters and pentameters). The next three lines are translations of Latin hexameters, using the same metre in English. The Latin originals are:

The Ganges. A different poem on the same subject appeared in our last issue. This hexametric fragment was written before 1906.

Iliad. The opening lines of Homer's epic, translated by Sri Aurobindo into English hexameters during his Baroda period.

The Problem of the Hexameter. An incomplete draft of an essay written around 1914. The title is the editors'.

An Answer to a Critic. This is a revised and considerably enlarged version of a letter published in SABCL Volume 5, pages 551-53, and Volume 9, pages 398-401. The letter was written in answer to questions posed by a disciple of Sri Aurobindo apropos of some comments made by an English critic on Sri Aurobindo's theory of true English quantity as set forth in his essay On Quantitative Metre (SABCL Vol. 5, pp. 341-87). A note of the disciple containing further examples is appended.

The First Hymn of the Rig-veda. With this issue we begin a series of translations of and commentaries on the first hymn of the Rig-veda. Sri Aurobindo returned again and again to this hymn during the forty years of his Vedic studies. The development of his psychological interpretation and linguistic treatment of the ancient hymns is illustrated by his handling at different times of the first one, a hymn of the Rishi Madhuchchhandas to Agni, the mystic fire. In order best to show this progression, we have attempted to arrange the different translations and commentaries, many of which are incomplete, in chronological order. The first translation, reproduced in this issue, seems to have been done around 1912.

Hymns of the Atris. Under this title appeared in the Arya between August 1915 and December 1917 a series of translations of the hymns to Agni, Mitra-Varuna etc. from the fifth Mandala of the Rig-veda. (See The Secret of the Veda. pp. 347-488 and 524-35.) Translations of most of the rest of the hymns of this Mandala have been found among Sri Aurobindo's papers. The hymns to Indra are reproduced in this issue, those to other gods will be published in future issues. It should be noted that these translations, unlike those which appeared in the Arya, were never finally revised by Sri Aurobindo.

The Karmayogin — A Commentary on the Isha Upanishad. This incomplete commentary, the first chapter of which was printed in our last issue, was written in Baroda in 1905 or 1906.

The Cosmic Divine. This incomplete letter was written by Sri Aurobindo to one of his disciples during the 1930s.

Extract from a Letter. This, the only surviving passage from a letter written by Sri Aurobindo to Parthasarathi. one of his earliest friends in Pondicherry. was copied by Sri Aurobindo into one of his Pondicherry notebooks.

A Letter of Sri Aurobindo to His Father-in-law. Shri Bhupal Chandra Bose, the father of Sri Aurobindo's wife Mrinalini, was living in Shillong when Sri Aurobindo wrote this letter to him, just before resigning from the Baroda state service. Barindrakumar, Sri Aurobindo's younger brother, seems to have been staying in Calcutta at the time.

Sri Aurobindo on Himself. The first of these five notes was written apropos of a review of Sri Aurobindo's Collected Poems and Plays (1942), which was published in the literary supplement of the Times of London on 4 July 1944. The other four appear also to have been written during the 1940s to correct erroneous printed statements about Sri Aurobindo's life. It should be noted that in the first, second, fourth and fifth notes Sri Aurobindo speaks of himself in the third person.

Definitions of Sanskrit and other Indian words used by Sri Aurobindo in the first two issues of Sri Aurobindo:Archives and Research are given below. Words already listed in the Glossary to the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library have not been included, unless used in a way not used in the Centenary Library. This Glossary thus constitutes an addenda to the Centenary Library Glossary. As in that Glossary, most proper names and words occurring in poems or as philological examples have been omitted.

*adehanipatat,* as soon as the body falls away.	*karmi,* the doer of works.
*ajnanam,* ignorance.	*kasrat* [Hind.], physical exercise.
*arya,* noble verse, a type of Sanskrit couplet.	*karmamargin,* one who follows the path of works.
*aya* (ayah) [Hind.], a waiting maid or nurse.	*krtya* (Kritya), magical process, enchantment.
*barabau* [Beng.], "the eldest bride" i.e. the wife of the eldest brother in a family.	*martyaloka,* the condition of mortality in the gross body; world of mortals; the earth.
*baramama* [Beng.], eldest maternal uncle.	*mejdada* [Beng.], second brother (as ad-dressed or referred to by brothers and sisters junior to him).
*daiva,* divine.	*meso* (Mesho) [Beng.], uncle (mother's sister's husband).
*daitya,* demon, son of diti.	*pansupari,* betel leaf and nut; reception where these are offered to guests.
*feringhi ko maro* [Hind.], kill the European.	*srngara* (Sringara), sexual attraction.
*gharjamai* [Beng.], a son-in-law who lives in his in-laws' house.	*subhasita,* a thing well said.
*jhi* [Beng.], a maidservant.	*tyagin,* one who practises *tyaga* (renunciation).
*jnani,* the seeker of knowledge.	*tyagi* (nominative).
*jnanamargin,* one who follows the path of Knowledge.
*Kama,* the God of Love.

I am sorry indeed that I have not been able to find any records pertaining to the studies of Sri Aurobindo, nor have 1 been able to find any photographic material or registers of that period. If such records existed as I am sure they did, they must have perished in the great earthquake of 1934, when the building known as the Boys School collapsed. I am, however, enclosing a photograph of the school building as it existed in those days.¹ The name of the then Reverend Mother was Mother Joseph Hogan.

From a letter of M. Victorine. Loreto Convent, Darjeeling, to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives and Research Library, 19 July 1973.

The High Master has asked me to reply to your letter of February 12th. I will try to answer your questions in the order that you ask them.

1. The ICS Class was a group of senior boys who were working for the ICS entrance examination. The class was organised by the School, and had no official recognition from the ICS. There were five such boys at St. Paul's in Ghose's last year, of whom he appears to have been the only Indian. He stood second in the class, and passed 11th — out of all candidates — into the ICS.

2. Elected to St. Paul's. Ghose was elected, by competitive examination as a Foundation Scholar. There were — and are—153 such scholars at the School at any one time. They receive remittance of part of their fees, and are regarded as the intellectual elite of the school. 23 such scholars came to St. Paul's in September 1884.

3. Ghose would have entered the School in September 1884. I don't know if he moved to London then, or already lived in London. In our Admission Registers his father's address is given as 49 St. Stephen's Avenue, Shepherd's Bush² Shepherd's Bush is within a mile or so of the then site of St. Paul's School, in West Kensington, and Ghose could have travelled to School on foot or by bus. At the same date Manmohan Ghose, his brother, came to St. Paul's. His address was the same, but the entry refers not to his father, but to his guardian, whose name was W.H. Drewett.³

Manmohan Ghose was a poet, barrister, inspector of schools and professor at Goa and Calcutta and served for a time in the ICS. He was a friend of the well-known poet Laurence Binyon, who was also at St. Paul's. Binyon wrote a memoir

2 This address is, of course, not that of Sri Aurobindo's father. Dr. K.D. Ghose, who was residing at the time in Bengal

3 The Rev. W.H Drewett acted as guardian for all three of Dr. K.D. Ghose's sons from 1879 to 1884. when Drewett emigrated to Australia. It was at this lime that Drewett's mother took the three boys to London and engaged the house at 49. St Stephen's Avenue for them and herself

of Manmohan. published as an introduction to his Songs of Love and Death (Black-well. Oxford, 1926): but it says little about his brother, except that Aurobindo was the more brilliant scholar of the two.

4. The school terms began—and begin—in September, January and April: but the largest number of boys always enter in September. Aurobindo certainly did so. in 1884.

5. Aurobindo Ghose left St. Paul's in July 1890. I don't know where he spent the few months before going up to Cambridge.

6. Aurobindo Ghose entered the School in the sixth Class, being promoted to the seventh in 1885, the Middle Eighth in 1886, and then to the Highest Form, the Upper Eighth in 1887. Most of his studies will have been in the Latin and Greek Classics: but in 1889 he was awarded Second Prize in the Butterworth Prize Examination "for knowledge of English Literature, especially of Shakespeare". In November 1889 at meetings of the School Literary Society, Ghose took part in discussions of Swift and Milton.

Letter of Hugh Mead, Librarian, St. Paul's School, to the Archives, 22 February 1973.

There is no examination for passing out of St. Paul's School other than the Public examinations which were taken in the last century. The Scholarship examination of King's College was taken at Cambridge under the supervision of the College authorities. There was one examination but several papers, further details of which can be obtained from King's College.¹ The Scholarship was paid from the foundation of King's College and not by Her Majesty's Government. The I.C.S. recruited its new members by public competition administered by the Civil Service Commission.

From a letter of Miss M.E. Newton, Assistant Librarian, St. Paul's School, to the Archives, 21 October 1975.

1. Scholarships are awarded at King's College as the result of examinations which are held at the College. Candidates are not accepted unless they have a good school academic record in examinations.

2. 1 think the figure of £80 can be taken as correct [as the amount of Sri Aurobindo's scholarship]. . . .²

3. Candidates in Aurobindo's day applied to the College of their choice and indeed some candidates applied, and took examinations, at other Colleges, which often meant several journeys to Cambridge.

2 A letter from the Provost. King's College. 27 September 1977. confirms £80 as the amount of Sri Aurobindo's Open Entrance Scholarship

Nowadays Colleges combine and candidates indicate their choice of College or Colleges on their entry form.

4. His studies at King's would have been under a Supervisor, but he would, most likely, have received instruction from one or more College tutors. He would also have attended University Lectures organised by the Classical Faculty of the University.

5. It is not likely that he would have had instruction from G.W. Prothero who supervised historians (but not Greek history).

6. Praelector.¹ An office which entailed submitting all new members of the College for 'matriculation', i.e. signing on in the University Senate House which included signifying their acceptance of all University regulations. The Praelector also submitted members for their Degrees.

7. Prothero never was Provost. Leigh was elected in 1889 and followed by M.R. James in 1905.

8. It is normal for students to leave Cambridge on completion of their instruction and on taking their degree.

The I.C.S. is not a University examination, so we have no record of when and where Aurobindo sat the test.

9. Charles Porten Beachcroft² was admitted to Clare College on 19 March 1890 and matriculated in October 1890. He entered the I.C.S., but did not appear to have read Classics.

From a letter of Donald Loukes, Assistant Librarian, King's College, Cambridge, to the Archives, 1 October 1975.

Sri Aurobindo took the Examination for Scholarships, Exhibitions and Admissions in December 1889. When he came here in 1890 he read for the Classical Tripos, so that I think that he will have taken the Classical papers in the entrance examination. There were five Classical papers: 1. Translation from English verse and prose into Latin verse and prose. 2 Translation from English verse and prose into Greek verse and prose. 3. Translation from Latin verse and prose into English. 4. Translation from Greek verse and prose into English. 5. Questions on Classical grammar and history.

I am sending you separately copies of the question papers which Sri Aurobindo will have taken in December 1889. I am afraid that the College does not keep the answers submitted by candidates, so that we do not have those written by Sri Aurobindo.

As Sri Aurobindo came from St. Paul's school, he was eligible for the Open scholarships, for which anyone from any school in the country could compete. There were also Eton scholarships, which were available only for boys from Eton, the sister foundation of King's. As a result of Sri Aurobindo's performance in the examination, he was elected by the College's Electors to Fellowships on 19 December 1889

2 Sri Aurobindo's contemporary at Cambridge, who later was Session's Court Judge at the Alipore Bomb Trial, in which Sri Aurobindo was the chief accused

to the first vacant Open Scholarship. This means that, in the examiners' opinion, he was the best of the candidates for scholarships. He came higher than a very distinguished Kingsman, R.P. Mahaffy, the eminent lawyer.

As a scholar, Sri Aurobindo will have received not only money, but also certain privileges, for example that of wearing a different academic gown from non-scholars. I have been unable to find out exactly what privileges scholars had in 1889; these tend to be a matter of tradition rather than being written down, but might be, for example, a better choice of room, being allowed to reside in College for longer periods, and so on. I think that scholars also had duties, such as to read the Lesson in Chapel, or to read Grace before meals in Hall, but Sri Aurobindo would have been excused from that sort of thing, if he wished, on religious grounds.

From a letter of Dr. Penelope Bulloch. Archivist of 20th century papers. King's College Library, Cambridge, to the Archives, 27 January 1977.

Dr Bulloch suggests that one of the privileges of a scholar might have been to have "a better choice of room. . . ." In fact there was a long tradition, which continued even into the 1950s, that most scholars when they first arrived should have rooms in the area known as "the drain". This was not quite so unpleasant as it might sound! The area in question, which was in fact the area where Sri Aurobindo had his rooms, was on an isolated island of King's College territory "on the other side" of King's Lane and was reached from the College by a sub-way under the lane, hence the name. I doubt if the inhabitants would have considered that this constituted "a better choice of room". It was rather a tradition that that was where the scholars lived. The rooms were in fact dilapidated even in Ghose's day and there were already plans for demolition, though the reconstruction did not in fact take place until 1967. . . .

Finally, about the Porson reference. Dr Penelope Bulloch has done a lot more research on your behalf. It is evident that Ghose prepared the two "Greek epigrams" which were shown on the photocopy which you sent me¹ as alternative answers to a question set in the examination for the Porson Scholarship which was advertised on 7 December 1891 and entailed taking no less than twelve papers in Greek and Latin during the period 8 January to 14 January 1892.

The actual question appeared in the first paper which was taken on 8 January 1892 between 9 a.m. and 12 noon and which required candidates to provide a Greek translation of the following English poem:

We have not identified the Carlton in question nor the precise source of the poem. It is possible that Ghose was a candidate for the Porson Scholarship; alternatively it is possible that his King's College supervisor set him the Porson Scholarship paper as an exercise to provide practice for the Classical Tripos examination which he was due to take in June 1892.

It would have been rather surprising had Ghose actually competed for the scholarship because if he had won it it would have been worth £60 a year and tenable for four years, and, as far as we know, Ghose was planning to leave the University in any case in the summer of 1892 in his capacity as a potential ICS recruit. .. .

The possibility that at this date Ghose may have been interested in the idea of not joining the ICS is of interest. The holder of the Porson Scholarship was required to spend most of his time in Cambridge but he could supplement his Scholarship stipend by undertaking: teaching for Colleges, or perhaps even by obtaining a College Fellowship.

However, as I indicated above, it may be that Ghose simply look the Porson examination papers by way of an exercise.

From a letter of Professor Sir Edmund R. Leach FBA. Provost, King's College, Cambridge, to the Archives, 12 September 1977.

Sri Aurobindo was known as A.A. Ghose when he was here in Cambridge. . . ¹ He was here for two years between 1890 and 1892 when he obtained First Class Honours in Part I of the Classical Tripos.. ..

Under the regulations for Part I of the Classical Tripos which were in force between 1881 and 1920, the Tripos list was divided into three classes each of which was further sub-divided into three divisions, the names in each division being in alphabetical order. This was the only Tripos in the University in which a class list was presented in this complicated fashion. Ghose (Sri Aurobindo) was evidently one of the two best Classics of his year in King's College. He and an undergraduate named Churchill both obtained First Class Honours, and in the College Prize list Churchill appears as having won the Richards Prize for Divinity and Classics while Ghose won prizes not only for Greek lambics but also for Latin Hexameters. I am afraid that the texts which were entered in these competitions have not been preserved.

From a letter of Professor Sir Edmund R. Leach FBA. Provost, King's College. Cambridge, to the Archives, 21 March 1973.

According to the regulations in force in 1892 the examination for Part I of the Classical Tripos should have commenced on the "Monday after the last Sunday

1 "Sri Aurobindo dropped the 'Ackroyd' from his name before he left England and never used it again" (SABCL Vol. 26, p. 2.) Until 1906, however, he signed his name Aravind A. Ghose

but one in May" (which would have been Monday, 23 May in 1892) Bad continued for six days. The University Almanac for 1891-92 shows the examination as beginning on Saturday May 21st. I imagine that on the Saturday the proceedings were simply a matter of enrolment.

From a letter of Professor Sir Edmund R. Leach FBA. Provost. King's College, Cambridge, to the Archives, 4 June 1973.

On searching the local directories I found that the South Kensington Liberal Association or Club used 42, Hogarth Road for the years 1892-3. The Secretary is listed as James S. Cotton so it seems quite possible that he repeated his earlier hospitality.¹ I further found in the voter's list for 1893 only a reference to a lodger at 42, Hogarth Road, Benoy Bhushan Ghose who occupied one unfurnished room on the top floor at 4/6 per week. Is this one of the brothers? As both directories and voters' lists would relate to information collected in the previous year the dating² would be about right.

From a letter of Melvyn Barnes, Borough Librarian and Arts Officer, Central Library, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, to the Archives, 23 June 1975.

1 Between 1887 and 1889 Sri Aurobindo and his brother Benoybhusan stayed at 128. Cromwell Road. London, then the headquarters of the South Kensington Liberal Club, through the generosity of the Club's Secretary, Mr. James Cotton. (See pp. 88-89.)

2 I.e. 1892. Sri Aurobindo left King's College. Cambridge, in October 1892. The last English address given for him in the King's College Tutor's Book is 42. Hogarth Road. London. It is likely that he stayed here with Benoybhusan for a short while before finding separate lodgings at 6, Burlington Road, Bays-water. (See Purani, The Life of Sri Aurobindo [1978]. p. 13.)

Book II of The Life Divine was first published as "Volume II" by the Arya Publishing House, Calcutta, in July 1940. Subtitled "The Knowledge and the Ignorance — The Spiritual Evolution", it consists of twenty-eight chapters in two parts. The first fourteen chapters, six of which are entirely new, and eight of which are revised forms of chapters which had previously appeared in the Arya, constitute Part I, "The Infinite Consciousness and the Ignorance". Of the fourteen chapters which make up Part II, "The Knowledge and the Spiritual Evolution", the first eight are at least partly revised forms of chapters or parts of chapters which had appeared in the Arya. The remaining six chapters are entirely new.

The chapters of the revised second book of The Life Divine may be classified according to three categories: (1) chapters which are revised forms of chapters published in the Arya tending to follow more or less closely the structure of the original chapter; (2) chapters which are composed partly of new material and partly of revised material from the Arya; (3) chapters which are entirely new. See the table on page 104.

The revision of the twelve chapters in the first category, viz. Chapters III, IV, VII, VIII, IX, XI, XII, XIII, XVII. XVIII, XIX, and XX, was begun on printed pages cut out from the author's copies of the Arya. In the margins and between the lines of the text Sri Aurobindo added words, phrases and sometimes sentences, paragraphs or long passages which run over onto the margins of several pages. Words and phrases are replaced by others, or are simply struck out. Less commonly paragraphs, passages or even pages of a chapter are omitted. The revised chapter was typed by Sri Aurobindo's secretary and on this typescript Sri Aurobindo very often made substantial alterations. There was a greater tendency for changes to be made in newly written or more heavily revised passages than in passages left unchanged from the original Arya version. The press copy for chapters which received little revision was occasionally retyped from the first revised typescript; for others, one, two or even three more typescripts were made and subsequently revised before the final form of the chapter was arrived at.

Of the twelve chapters in the first category,. Chapters III, VIII and IX are the least revised; nevertheless each of these chapters is more substantially changed than any of the chapters comprising Book I. Chapters IV, VII, XI, XII, XIII, XVII, XIX and XX contain a greater number of changes and additions, yet they follow for the most part the structure of the original. Chapter XVIII is changed so much that it may be considered rewritten.

XXI, and XXII, consist of a combination of (1) new material composed in the manner described below for entirely new chapters and (2) material from the Arya revised in the manner described above. The combination was of three types. In Chapters XVI and XXII a single revised Arya chapter retaining its original structure has added to it an approximately equal amount of newly written material. In Chapter XV, separate passages from a single revised Arya chapter are combined with new passages in such a way that the Arya material is absorbed into the new structure. In Chapter XXI, the combination is of the same type as in Chapter XV, except that separate passages from two Arya chapters are used. The revision of those passages is extensive and their integration with the new material so thorough that the chapter may be considered practically new; only a few paragraphs from one of the Arya chapters have remained relatively unaltered.

The manuscript material for these four chapters consists of (1) pages of the Arya journal like those described under the first category of chapters, (2) handwritten sheets like those described below, (3) the revised typescripts common to all the chapters of Book II. Each chapter was revised and retyped several times before the final form of the chapter was reached.

The first draft of each of the entirely new chapters, viz. Chapters I, II, V, VI, X, XIV and XXIII-XXVIII, was written by hand on large loose sheets of good quality bond paper. This was in contrast to Sri Aurobindo's usual habit of using very small sheets, often of the "chit-pad" variety, for drafts. The handwriting of these manuscripts flows on without any sign of hesitation; there is practically no striking out of words or phrases or any rewording of sentences. However, at times a whole passage is cancelled and rewritten below, or a chapter is left off and commenced again on a new sheet of paper. The writing appears sometimes to have been interrupted; in such cases it is begun again on similar or expanded lines. Occasionally parts of a chapter were written and revised separately before being combined in later drafts. In some instances the first handwritten draft is typed and revised, but later integrated into another handwritten draft which encompasses the earlier draft while widening considerably the scope of the chapter— a process different from the simple combination of separately written parts.

Subsequent drafts of these chapters are, as usual, revised typescripts. It was during the revision that new ideas and new turns of phrase or other stylistic changes were introduced. There was again a greater tendency on Sri Aurobindo's part to re-revise parts which had been changed previously; that is, the newly written or more heavily revised passages from earlier typed copies. Passages left untouched through several stages of revision generally remained the same until the end.

The question of the relation of the contents of these new chapters to material from the Arya omitted in the revision is beyond the scope of this paper. A chapter has been considered new if the first draft of it was handwritten by Sri Aurobindo and no obvious similarity of structure exists between the new chapter and any chapter of the Arya series. But it should be mentioned that Sri Aurobindo wrote a note for Arya Chapter XL, "The Fundamental Character of the Ignorance" (omitted in the revised edition¹), indicating that the chapter was to be replaced

by a newly written Chapter V (expanded into Chapters V and VI at a later stage). Similarly, new Chapter XXIII, "Man and the Evolution", bears obvious relation to Arya Chapter XXXVI, "Man and the Evolutionary Movement", a chapter we have considered as having been eliminated by Sri Aurobindo. Two other Arya chapters which have been omitted, viz. Chapter LI, "The Necessity of the Gnostic Being" and Chapter LII, "The Spiritual Gnostic Being", have titles which suggest some relation to new Chapter XXVII, "The Gnostic Being". However, there is no obvious similarity between the substance of the old chapters and that of the new.

Most of the mottoes for the chapters of Book II are new; many of the later chapters in the Arya series did not have mottoes at all. Only Chapters VII, IX, XVI and XVIII retain mottoes used in the Arya; to these additional mottoes were added in the revised version. A.B. Purani, who was one of the disciples attending on Sri Aurobindo when this text was being prepared for publication, used to select and write out for Sri Aurobindo different passages from Sanskrit texts; Sri Aurobindo chose some of these and translated them as mottoes. Many of the translations were done first in a small notebook and later transferred by Sri Aurobindo by hand to one of the later drafts of the title pages of the chapters.

In 1944 a second edition of Book II, again called "Volume II", was brought out by the Arya Publishing House. The text of this edition, which incorporated a few minor corrections of the author, has been used for all subsequent editions.

With its twelve entirely new chapters and five largely new or rewritten chapters, the revised second book of The Life Divine must be considered a greatly expanded and largely rewritten work. Even those of its chapters which were first published in the Arya and retain their" original structure in the revised version have been, unlike any of the chapters of the revised first book, changed substantially. None of Sri Aurobindo's other "revised" works have been the subject of such a complete recasting. It is evident from the manuscripts that the work is comprehensive and systematic, consisting of the repeated revision of drafts for every chapter, so that by the time of publication, the whole text had been gone over thoroughly many times.

In the left-hand column are listed the last twenty-five chapters of The Life Divine as published in the Arya and in the right-hand column the twenty-eight chapters comprising Book II of the Revised Edition. The relation between the chapters of the two versions is briefly indicated.				Part I. The Infinite Consciousness and the Ignorance
			I.	Indeterminates, Cosmic Determinations and the Indeterminable (New)
			II.	Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara — Maya, Prakriti, Shakti (New)
			III.	The Eternal and the Individual* (Arya XXXV (1) & (2) )
			IV.	The Divine and the Undivine* (Arya XXXVII (1) & (2) )
XXVIII.		The Knowledge and the Ignorance (Revised VII*)	V.	The Cosmic Illusion; Mind, Dream and Hallucination (New)
XXIX.		Memory, Self-Consciousness and the Ignorance (Revised VIII*)	VI.	Reality and the Cosmic Illusion (New)
XXX.		Memory, Ego and Self-Experience (Revised IX*)	VII.	The Knowledge and the Ignorance* (Arya XXVIII)
XXXI.		The Boundaries of the Ignorance (Revised XI*)	VIII.	Memory, Self-Consciousness and the Ignorance* (Arya XXIX)
XXXII.		The Integral Knowledge (Revised XV**)	IX.	Memory, Ego and Self-Experience* (Arya XXX)
XXXIII.		The Progress to Knowledge (Revised XVII*)	X.	Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge (New)
XXXIV.		Knowledge and Immortality (Omitted)	XI.	The Boundaries of the Ignorance* (Arya XXXI)
XXXV.(1) & (2)		The Eternal and the Individual (Revised III*)	XII.	The Origin of the Ignorance* (Arya XLI)
XXXVI.		Man and the Evolutionary Movement (Omitted)	XIII.	Exclusive Concentration of Consciousness-Force and the Ignorance* (Arya XLII)
XXXVII . (I) & (2)		From the Undivine to the Divine (Revised IV*)	XIV	The Origin and Remedy of Falsehood. Error,Wrong and Evil (New)
XXXVIII.		The Ascent and its Downward Eye (Revised XVIII*)		Part II The Knowledge and the Spiritual Evolution
XXXIX.		The Ascent out of the Ignorance (Revised XIX*)	XV.	Reality and the Integral Knowledge** (Arya XXXII)
XL.		The Fundamental Character of the Ignorance (Omitted)	XVI.	The Intergral Knowledge and the Aim of Life: Four Theories of Existence* * (Arya L)
XLI.		The Origin of the Ignorance (Revised XII*)	XVII.	The Progress to Knowledge — God. Man and Nature* (Arya XXXIII)
XLII.		Exclusive Concentration of Tapas (Revised XIII*)	XVIII.	The Evolutionary Process — Ascent and Integration* (Arya XXXVIII)
XLIII.		The Order of the Worlds (Revised XXI**)	XIX.	Out of the Sevenfold Ignorance Towards the Sevenfold Knowledge* (Arya XXXIX)
XLIV.		Rebirth (Revised XX*)	XX.	The Philosophy of Rebirth* (Arya XLIV and XLVI)
XLVI.	[sic]	The Philosophy of Rebirth (Revised XX*)	XXI.	The Order of the Worlds** (Arya XLIII and XLVII)
XLVII.		Rebirth and Other Worlds (Revised XXI and XXII)	XXII.	Rebirth and Other Worlds; Karma, the Soul and Immortality**
XLVIII.		The Crown of Rebirth (Omitted)		(Arya XLVII)
XLIX.		The Metaphysical Basis of the Divine Life (Omitted)	XXIII.	Man and the Evolution (New)
L.		The Four Theories of Existence (Revised XVI**)	XXIV.	The Evolution of the Spiritual Man (New)
LI.		The Necessity of the Gnostic Being (Omitted)	XXV.	The Triple Transformation (New)
LII.		The Spiritual Gnostic Being (Omitted)	XXVI.	The Ascent Towards Supermind (New)
LIII.		Conclusion (Omitted)	XXVII.	The Gnostic Being (New)
			XXVIII.	The Divine Life (New)

In this issue various material connected with Sri Aurobindo's stay in England between 1879 and 1892 has been presented. We have extracted from his earliest notebooks three hitherto unpublished texts: an incomplete prose dialogue, a poem in English, and another in Greek (pp. 5-7, 20-22). Also from Sri Aurobindo's own pen are five recently discovered autobiographical notes (pp. 87-89). Other information relating to Sri Aurobindo's English sojourn may be found on page 28 (footnote 2) and page 85. In Documents in the Life of Sri Aurobindo (pp. 95-100) appear extracts from letters written to researchers of the Sri Aurobindo Archives and Research Library in reference to Sri Aurobindo's early life and education in Darjeeling and in England.

Additional facts which could not be presented in the form of documents are given below.

In Document 2 (pp. 95-96) Mr. Hugh Mead mentions that Sri Aurobindo was active in the St. Paul's School Literary Society in 1889. It has also been learned that Sri Aurobindo joined The Union, another school society, in 1887 and that in 1888, in a debate held by the French Debating Society, he supported the motion "Que la langue de Volapuk devrait etre etudiee par tout le monde" (Resolved that Volapuk — an artificial international language invented about 1879 by Johann Schleyer — should be studied by everyone).

In the Cambridge University Calendar for the year 1891, it is recorded: "Books to the value of £15 are given annually by [King's] College for the best exercises in Greek and Latin Verse Composition. This year prizes for Greek Iambics were awarded to Ghose and Kittermaster, and a prize for a Latin Ode to Kittermaster." This excellent first year performance by Sri Aurobindo was bettered by him in 1892 when "prizes for Greek Iambics were awarded to Ghose and Earp, and a prize for Latin Hexameters to Ghose." The same year Sri Aurobindo won "books bearing the College arms, to the value of forty pounds" for having distinguished himself in the College Examination in Classics (i.e. the Classical Tripos).

Information has been received not only about Sri Aurobindo's academic career at St. Paul's School and King's College, Cambridge, but also about his curriculum and examination record as a probationer in the Indian Civil Service (ICS). Mr. Mead mentions in his letter of 22 February 1973 (Document 2, pp. 95-96), that Sri Aurobindo was a member of St. Paul's "ICS Class", "a group of senior boys who were working for the ICS entrance examination". At Cambridge Sri

Aurobindo, successful in the examination (see Mr. Mead's letter), had not only to fulfil the obligations of his Classical Scholarship, but also, under the auspices of the Board of Indian Civil Service Studies, which provided "such assistance in preparing for. . . periodical examinations, and also such special supervision, as they may think necessary," to study all the subjects which a future administrator of India had to master. These included law, the history and geography of India, political economy, vernacular languages (in Sri Aurobindo's case Bengali and Hindustani) and classical languages (in Sri Aurobindo's case Sanskrit). The examinations for law were under three heads, viz.:

General Jurisprudence demanded a knowledge of classical as well as modern laws and institutions. To show his competence as regards Proceedings of English Courts of Justice, Sri Aurobindo was "required to send in . . . reports, composed and written by himself, of a specified number of cases heard by himself in Courts of Justice." A systematic study of Mr. Justice Stephen's Digest of the Law of Evidence as well as of The Indian Evidence Act was necessary in order to be able to answer the written and viva voce questions on the Law of Evidence. Full knowledge not only of British codes of law but also of traditional Hindu and Moham-medan law was required to show competence in Laws of India. Among test questions for the history and geography of India were: "Mention the dynasties, principal important events, and distinguishing features of the Muhamedan Empire, in Hindustan and the Deccan, from 1000 A.D. to 1526 A.D." and "Where are Sirhind, the River Saraswati, Palibothra, Vijayanagar, Golkonda; and what are the situation and height in feet of the highest peak in Northern and Southern India?" Recommended works of political economy included texts of Smith, Mill and Ricardo.

As a probationer who had chosen Bengal (Lower Provinces), Sri Aurobindo was required to study Bengali, the mother tongue that he had never spoken in India (see p. 87). The course included the reading of stories and petitions and the study of grammar. Hindustani, or Urdu, as we would say, was similarly studied. One of the books assigned was Khwajah Nazir Ahmed's Taubutu-n-Nasuh. In Sri Aurobindo's earliest preserved manuscript notebook a portion of this work has been neatly copied in Nastaliq script and translated.

Hindustani was for Sri Aurobindo an optional language, one which he studied for only one year. Sanskrit, his other optional language, was studied for two, long enough for him to acquire considerable proficiency. His reading text was The Story of Nala (Nalopakhyanam), the well-known tale from the Aranyaka Parva of the Mahahharata. In 1937 Sri Aurobindo wrote to a disciple that he "learnt Sanskrit by reading the Naladamayanti episode in the Mahabharata . .. with minute care several times." (SABCL Vol. 26, p. 366)

One of Sri Aurobindo's contemporaries at Cambridge was Charles Porten Beachcroft,

who went up to Clare College as an undergraduate in October 1890, the same month that Sri Aurobindo went up to King's. Both had been admitted to the ICS in July of the same year, Sri Aurobindo standing eleventh and Beachcroft thirty-sixth in the open examination. It perhaps was this circumstance that gave rise to the story, current at the time of the Alipore Bomb Trial (1908-09) — where Beachcroft was Sessions Judge and Sri Aurobindo the chief accused — that Beachcroft had stood second to Sri Aurobindo in Greek. According to Mr. Donald Loukes of King's College. Beachcroft does not appear to have read classics (see Document 4, pp. 96-97).

Plates 4 and 5 show, from different angles, the building where Sri Aurobindo lived during his stay at Cambridge between October 1890 and October 1892. The building has since been demolished. In the foreground of Plate 4 is Chetwynd Court, through which Sri Aurobindo passed to reach staircases M and N (lower left). These led to a sub-way which passed under King's Lane (see Document 6. pp. 98-99.) Although the rooms in this building were reserved for King's College's scholars, it is evident from Oscar Browning's remarks about them that they were not the best in Cambridge: "that wretched hole," wrote the well-known historian, and "that box" (SABCL Vol. 27, p. 419).

Sri Aurobindo's quarters, which were on the second floor of the building, consisted of "Keeping Room looking South. Bed Room looking North and Gyp Room." A Gyp Room is a small kitchen with sink, stove and cupboards. As far as can be determined, none of the windows seen above the wall in the background of Plate 4 belonged to Sri Aurobindo's bedroom, which was at the extreme eastern end of the building and does not seem to have been included in the photograph. Plate 5 gives an overview of the King's Lane area from another angle. The bare brick wall directly in the centre of the photograph is the west end of the building occupied by Sri Aurobindo. The copyright of these photographs, which were taken by Edward Leigh in 1965, belongs to King's College. They are reproduced with permission.

We are indebted for most of the above information to Professor Sir Edmund Leach FBA, Provost, King's College, Mr. Donald Loukes and Dr. Penelope Bulloch of the King's College Library, the India Office Library and Records, and Mr. Robert Orton.

The editors regret to announce a few errors occurring in the April issue of Sri Aurobindo: Archives and Research:

(1) The name of the newspaper of Nasik referred to in the introduction to Nasik Speech is probably Warta ("News") and not Wrata, as printed in the police report from which the speech was taken.

(2) "Kaas" (page 5, line 1) may be a misprint for Kavyas ("poems", i.e. the Mahabharata, Ramayana, Puranas etc.). Perhaps the "vy" dropped off accidentally at the police press.

Marathi-knowing readers may be interested to learn that translations of six of Sri Aurobindo's speeches, including the Nasik Speech, were printed in the Sanjivan, a quarterly published by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, in 1962 and 1963 (Vol. 13, No. 3 to Vol. 15, No. 1).

(3) The word ghorjamai, glossed by us as "an exacting son-in-law" (page 70, footnote 9), may in fact be gharjamai, which signifies a son-in-law who lives in his in-laws' house. In Bengal short a is pronounced and sometimes transliterated as o. Sri Aurobindo's meaning is not changed in any case.

(4) A reference to a certain Mr. Dayabhai Damubhai has been found in a file of the Central Record Office, Baroda. This gentleman, or a namesake of his, is perhaps a better candidate for being the "Mr. Damn-you-bhai" mentioned by Sri Aurobindo than Mr. Dayabhai Harjivandas (see page 74, footnote 18). No information is forthcoming on "Mr. What-you-ah".