Archival Notes

A NEW PHOTOGRAPH OF SRI AUROBINDO

The photograph reproduced as Plate 1 has long remained in obscurity. It was first published in the Modem Review in November 1909. six months after Sri Auro-bindo's release from the Alipur Jail. The photographer, Sukumar Mitra, was the son of Sri Aurobindo's uncle Krishna Kumar Mitra, in whose house Sri Aurobindo was staying at the time.

CORRESPONDENCE WITH MRINALINI DEVI

Sri Aurobindo was married to Mrinalini Bose in April 1901.¹ In the years that followed the two often lived apart. From this separation issued the correspondence that, since being used as evidence in the Alipur Bomb Trial, has become famous. The prosecution tried to show that certain references in the letters established Sri Aurobindo's complicity in the terrorist activities of his brother Barin's secret society. The judge of the case, disagreeing with this and other contentions of the prosecution, found Sri Aurobindo innocent. Eleven letters from Sri Aurobindo to Mrinalini exist in some form. Three — those dated 30 August 1905,² 6 December 1907, and 17 February 1908³—were published while the trial was in progress: authorised versions of their original Bengali texts were published around 1920. Six other letters (including one written in English) were first published in 1977.⁴ The manuscripts of the two letters that remain, those of 2 July 1902 and 22 October 1905, no longer exist. They are known only in the form of English translations made for use in court. Crude renderings by Bengalis in the hire of the police, these translations can only suggest — and that badly — what the originals must have been like. Happily, the valuable biographical and historical material the letters contain comes through without much distortion in the translations. For this reason the English versions have been reproduced in the present issue. It would of course not be possible to print them as "texts". They have been published as the first and second of the Documents in the Life of Sri Aurobindo.

      The first letter was written after Sri Aurobindo returned to Baroda from die west Indian hill resort of Lanabali (usually spelled Lonavla). He had gone there to attend on his employer, the Maharaja of Baroda. The letter is remarkable mainly for showing Sri Aurobindo's interest in astrology, which, at this period of his life, was profound. Around this time he went through and made notes on a large Sanskrit and Bengali astrological tome entitled Horabijan Rahasyam, by Narayan Chandra Jyotirbhusan Bhattacharya. Sri Aurobindo seems also to have met this prominent

      1 Many details on Sri Aurobindo's wife and their marriage are given in Documents in the Lite of Sri Aurobindo. Archives and Research. Vol. 2. No. 2. pp. 205-09.

        2 A facsimile of the first page of this letter is reproduced as Plate 3.

        3 About this date, see below.

       4 In Sri Aurobinder Patra: Mrinalinidevike likhita (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Baishak 1384 (Bengali era)). In this book two other letters, both fragments written in Pondicherry but never posted, were also published for the first time.

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astrologer, for he once referred in a letter to "Narayan Jyotishi,⁵ a Calcutta astrologer, who predicted, not knowing then who I was, in the days before my name was politically known, my struggle with Mlechchha enemies and afterwards the three cases against me and my three acquittals."⁶

      The letter published as Document 2 is not dated in its available printed form. Fortunately it was spoken of in court as having been written on 22 October 1905 — six days after the Partition of Bengal became an "accomplished fact". At that time Sri Aurobindo was in Baroda. He writes of his younger brother Barindra, who had already begun the work of revolutionary organisation ("the service of his country"); their sister Sarojini was involved in more mundane concerns. Sri Aurobindo's "evening prayer" (one does not know what expression was used in Bengali) refers evidently to his practice of yogic meditation, taken up seriously only two months before.

      The substitution of a dash for the signature is curious, but not unprecedented. Only once in his whole correspondence with Mrinalini did Sri Aurobindo sign his name; and then, oddly, he used his full, formal appellation — "Sri Aurobindo Ghose". Hindu married couples are often rather sparing in their use of personal names; but Sri Aurobindo's anonymity may have had more to do with a certain caution developed by revolutionaries when they communicate by post. Some manuscripts of Sri Aurobindo's sent from Chandernagore to Pondicherry have holes where his signature used to be.

      One of Sri Aurobindo's best known letters to Mrinalini is dated 23 Scott's Lane,/Calcutta,/ 17 Feb. 1907. It is certain that the year is in error; it should be 1908. The question of the date of this letter was taken up even by the Alipur sessions judge. He concluded that 1907 was "obviously a mistake for 1908".⁷ His decision was based on two facts known to the court, which was extremely interested in Sri- Aurobindo's whereabouts during 1907 and 1908. First, in February 1907 Sri Aurobindo was recovering from illness in Deoghar, hundreds of miles from Calcutta. Secondly, Sri Aurobindo did not take the house at 23 Scott's Lane before February 1908.

      In October 1907 Sri Aurobindo lived for a short time at 19/3 Chukoo Khansama's Lane, a small backstreet located near Calcutta's Sealdah Station. With him were Mrinalini, Sarojini, and Abinash Bhattacharya, a young member of the revolutionary society who was looking after Sri Aurobindo's household affairs. Sometimes Barin and other members of the society visited or stayed with Sri Aurobindo. It was largely because of these visits that the new house had been taken. Sri Aurobindo's increasing involvement in the revolutionary movement made it inadvisable for him to remain with his friend Subodh Mullick at the College Square mansion that Mullick shared with other members of his family.⁸

      Sri Aurobindo's stay at Chukoo Khansama's Lane was short-lived. Less than a month after he moved into the new house, he "fell very ill", and, as he

      5 "Jyotishi" is simply the Sanskrit (and Bengali) word for "astrologer".

        6 Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Yoga (1970), p. 1562.

        7 Text of judgment quoted in Bijoy Krishna Bose. The Alipore Bomb Trial (Calcutta: Butterworth and Co., 1922), p. 157.

        8 See Archives and Research. Vol. 3. No. 1, p. 118 and Plate 3.

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later stated, "on account of my ill-health, I had to give up the said house and go to Deoghar."⁹

      Sri Aurobindo took Mrinalini with him to the Bihar hill resort. A month and a half later he was sufficiently recovered to return to Calcutta for political work. Mrinalini, left behind, wrote to him on 3 December: "Was it a mere fancy on my part when I used to say that if you but took me to Deoghar you would simply come away leaving me there and would clean forget me as soon as you came back to Calcutta?"¹⁰ Certainly Sri Aurobindo had not forgotten about his wife. But he was caught up in the thick of great affairs; the Surat Congress was less than a month away. In the same letter Mrinalini wrote of her great anxiety at Sri Aurobindo's planned attendance. In his reply Sri Aurobindo said that it was not only she who was under pressure:

Will you listen to one request of mine? This is a time of great anxiety for me. There are pulls from every side that are enough to drive one mad. If at this time you also get restless, it can only increase my worry and anxiety. But if you could write encouraging and comforting letters, that would give me great strength. I should then be able to overcome all fears and dangers with a cheerful heart. I know it is hard for you to live alone at Deoghar. But if you keep your mind firm and have faith, your sorrows will not be able to overwhelm you to such an extent. As you have married me, this kind of sorrow is inevitable for you. Occasional separations cannot be avoided, for, unlike the ordinary Bengali, I cannot make the happiness of family and relatives my primary aim in life.¹¹

      Before she received this, Mrinalini wrote again. Here letter, unfortunately, was not "encouraging and comforting". She reiterated her vexation at having to stay in Deoghar in the house of her father's friend Girish Chandra Ghose. "Why should Girish Babu be responsible for keeping your wife?" the twenty-year-old complained. "You have married. After this why should even my father be responsible for me — much less Girish Babu? If you are able to provide for me, well and good, if not, I shall starve and die." This last note was no doubt wasted on Sri Aurobindo, partly because he had more important things on his mind, partly because he was used to this sort of histrionics, and partly because he simply did not let things like this get him upset. His composure in a situation that his wife found unbearable perplexed the girl. "You do not feel insulted even when abused", Mrinalini cried. In this "matter of great humiliation your ignominy is my ignominy. But the man for whom I feel so insulted has very little sense of insult."¹² It was exasperating.

SCOTT'S LANE

      Despite his other preoccupations, Sri Aurobindo was not indifferent to Mrina-lini's request to be provided with a proper home. Before he left Calcutta he asked Abinash to be "on the lookout for another house". Abinash's search resulted in

      9 From a written statement submitted to the Alipur court by Sri Aurobindo's lawyers. Sri Aurobindo signed the statement, but he did not write it. See On Himself (1972). p. 52.

         10 Alipur Bomb Trial Exhibit 1123-1 (court translation).

         11 A.B. Purani. The Life of Sri Aurobindo (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram. 1978), pp. 93-94.

         12 Alipur Bomb Trial Exhibit 288 (court translation. English improved slightly).

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the renting of 23 Scott's Lane. The proximity of this house to the Bangabasi College makes one suspect that Girish Chandra Ghose. the principal of that institution, had a hand in acquiring it. Girish Babu certainly was not without motivation. Rent on the new house was first paid for the month of February (see Document 3). Since Sri Aurobindo returned from Surat on the second or third of the month, we may assume that if the new house was not waiting for him, he moved in only a short time after his arrival. Mrinalini came down from Deoghar to join him, probably also in February.¹³ Sri Aurobindo and his family remained at Scott's Lane for only three months — until the end of April.

      They were eventful months. Important both to Sri Aurobindo and to Barin was the arrival in Bengal of Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, the yogin from whom they had received initiation the month before. Since his departure from western India. Sri Aurobindo had stopped meditating according to Lele's instructions. As Sri Aurobindo later said:

He asked me if 1 meditated in the morning and in the evening. I said, "No." Then he thought that some devil had taken possession of me and he began to give me instructions. I did not insult him but I did not act upon his advice. I had received the command from within that a human Guru was not necessary for me. As to dhyana— meditation — I was not prepared to tell him that I was practically meditating the whole day.¹⁴

      Lele also went to Deoghar, where Barin and others had gone to practise yoga and bomb-making. Barin's idea was to set up a religious-political ashram on the lines of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's Anandamath. In 1905 Sri Aurobindo had sketched a plan for such an institution in his pamphlet "Bhawani Mandir". Barin, endeavouring to give the idea concrete shape, desired Lele to provide the necessary spiritual guidance. The Maharashtrian yogi, however, was not pleased when he learned of the group's revolutionary side. He told Barin that India would obtain freedom without recourse to violent methods. He also said that if Barin persisted in his course, he would fall into a ditch. Barin was not in a mood to listen. He went back to Calcutta and began working with more vigour than ever at "the Garden" in Maniktolla.

THE GARDEN

      The Muraripukur Garden was a piece of property located in "an obscure quarter of the suburb" of Maniktolla. Since the death of their father K.D. Ghose, it had been owned jointly by Sri Aurobindo and his three brothers. 32 Muraripukur Road consisted of a "rather large piece of ground", seven bighas (one hectare) in extent, at the centre of which was a small "garden house" (bagan bari).¹⁵ Such properties were common features of old Calcutta. Second homes built by the affluent on the outskirts of town, they provided a place away from the hustle-bustle

      13 Alipur Bomb Trial testimony published in the Bengalee (Calcutta) on 11 January 1909.

       14 A.B. Purani, Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo, second series (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram. 1974). pp. 62-63.

       15 Plate 4 is a photograph of the Garden first published in The Alipore Bomb Trial in 1922. It may have been taken as early as 1908. Plate 5 is a much more recent photograph. The house has since been demolished. (See Nolini Kanta Gupta. Reminiscences (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1969). p. 11.)

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Plate 1

ARAVINDA GHOSH.

( Latest Portrait)

Photograph by Sukumar Mitra.

      Photograph from The Modern Review

November 1909

Plate 2

Mrinalini Ghose

Nainital, May 1901

Plate 3 

Letter from Sri Aurobindo to Mrinalini

30 August 1905

(Alipur Bomb Trial Exhibit 286/1)

Plate 4    The Muraripukar Garden

Plate 5    The Garden House

of the capital where one could escape for week-end amusement. But "if there had once been at 32 Muraripukur Road a garden property so-called", by 1908 the name had become, "as is so often the case with things in this country, a misnomer". This is in the words of the judge of the Alipur Bomb Trial, who visited the property in 1909. He found that "it had been allowed to run wild and a good deal of jungle had sprung up". In 1906 Sri Aurobindo had tried to sell it, but could find no one interested in a property "infested by monkeys".¹⁶

      The premises, located in an "out of the way place", were, in the words of the judge, "surrounded on three sides by other gardens, and on the fourth side there is a large field. No. 32 is not on the main Muraripukur Road, but is reached from it by a narrow lane which terminates at the entrance to the garden where it reaches two masonry pillars standing on either side of the entrance."

      A person passing between these pillars in 1908 would have found the grounds "neglected and overgrown with trees and shrubs". Within are "two tanks of stagnant water"; three others are located on the periphery of the grounds. Ahead, "facing away from the approach road", is the "small masonry one-storied house with a verandah back and front". Attached to this building, which is in "dilapidated" condition, is "a thatched shed apparently intended for Puja purposes". Not far away is another temporary shed, "mat-walled" and open.¹⁷

      The Garden in Maniktolla was becoming known in Calcutta as the site of an "ashram". Our visitor would therefore not be surprised to find some of the Bengali youths he sees wearing the ochre robes of the sannyasin. One of those so clad appears older than the rest, some of whom could hardly have reached sixteen. The visitor supposes this to be the guru of the ashram about whom he has heard. His hunch is confirmed when the man is introduced with respect, at least so much respect as a bunch of fun-loving boys can manage, as "Upen-da"— Upendranath Bannerjee.

      Few people coming to the Garden are at first aware of everything going on inside. Newcomers discover soon enough that the garden house serves both as dormitory and as classroom of a unique educational institution. But only the elect know that the "Puja" (worship) performed in the thatched shed involves "practical instructions in the use of bombs and explosives" — ritual pleasing to the goddess Kali. Only the elect know that in the small mat-walled hut is located a forge for the casting of bomb-shells.

      New recruits were not immediately taken into confidence. Even Biren Nath Ghose, a relative of Mrinalini's who was among those later arrested, declared: "While at the Maniktolla garden I did not notice any arms or ammunition or bombs, etc., being stored there." Biren's next remark, however, shows the spirit which was motivating these heroic youths: "But if I could [have known] of the mission of the party seen at Manicktolla, as it now transpires, I would have gladly assisted them in carrying out their object."¹⁸

      16 In the code-language of the Garden "monkeys" meant detectives; here however it is the simian sort that are referred to.

        17 This description is a composite drawn from the following sources: Alipur trial proceedings, published in the Bengalee. 13 January and 7 May 1909: Government of India. Home Political Department A, May 1908. Nos. 112-50. p. 11. Government of India. Home Political Department D. May 1908. No. 17. p. 1; Government of Bengal Confidential File 170 of 1908. p. 7.

       18 Confession of Biren Nath Ghose. Government of India. Home Political Department A. May 1909. Nos. 112-50. p. 38.

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      The story of Biren's coming to the Garden is typical and instructive. After giving up his studies in Dibrugarh, Biren went to Khulna to join the national school there. As it turned out he did not join the school; but he did while in Khulna make the acquaintance of Indu Bhusan Roy, a member of Barin's group. When the two met again in Calcutta, Indu told Biren that "in a Maniktolla garden there was a religious asram where Gita, Upanishads and Indian philosophy were taught by Upendra Nath Bannerjee." Since, as Biren later related, "I was a man of religious turn of mind, I went to Manicktolla garden where I met Upendra Babu. I eventually stopped there. . . ."

      Biren, with some others, began to "study Gita, etc. [and] received religious instructions from Upendranath Bannerjee."

While thus engaged I received hints from Upen Babu that the main object of our study was to make ourselves spiritually advanced to such an extent as to serve country and ultimately secure its independence and that a course of religious training for one complete year would make a student fit for work. I was not given any hint as to how. I was to serve the country after one year's religious training, but this much I was given to understand that I was to give up all secular concerns and sacrifice my life. I agreed to serve the motherland in the way he described and prepared my mind to undergo all sorts of hardships and privations necessary for the purpose."¹⁹

      All the above was told to a police inspector for use in a court of law. But there is no reason to doubt the substance of Biren's ingenuous confession. No less reliable are some details on the course of study at Maniktolla given by Kristo Jiban Sanyal, aged fifteen at the time of his arrest:

In the garden Upen Babu used to teach us Upanishads and politics and Barindra Babu, Gita and History of Russo-Japanese war and Ullas Babu delivered lectures on explosives on two occasions.²⁰

      This ashram clearly provided a more diverse curriculum than most institutions of the sort. The full syllabus of the school, along with a list of members, a daily schedule, and many other fascinating details, may be found in Document 4.

GREY STREET

      Sri Aurobindo seems to have visited the Garden only once. Barin, when questioned on this point, told the Deputy Superintendent of Police: "We invited Arabindo Babu once to this garden to partake of food with us, and he did so."²¹ But for the most part Sri Aurobindo "had nothing to do with" the garden boys.²² Nolini Kanta Gupta, in his Reminiscences, tells of an occasion when Sri Aurobindo declined an invitation to visit Maniktolla.²³

      If a member of the conspiracy wanted to speak to Sri Aurobindo, he went to

      19 Ibid., p. 38.

        20 Ibid., p. 39.

        21 Confession of Barindra K. Ghose in Home Political Department A. May 1908, Nos. 112-50, p. 26.

       22 Nirodbaran, Talks with Sri Aurobindo. Part II (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1971), p. 244.

        23 Nolini Kanta Gupta, op. cit., pp. 16-17.

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meet him at 23 Scott's Lane. This happened no less than eighteen times between 25 March and 27 April 1908. The figure can be given with such accuracy because during this period the police were watching the house closely, and making detailed reports of what they saw. They also were shadowing every person who went into or came out of the Garden.

      On 28 April, in the evening, Sri Aurobindo removed from Scott's Lane to 42 Grey Street. At this address, in two separate buildings, were a house he planned to live in, and the office of the newspaper Navashakti. Sri Aurobindo had decided to take up this Bengali journal, which, because of difficulties with the law, had for some time failed to come out. Document 5 is a memorandum about the reorganisation of the Navashakti. Item 2 shows Sri Aurobindo's connection.

      No issue of the reorganised Navashakti was ever brought out. On the morning of the fourth day after his shifting, Sri Aurobindo woke up to find a posse of police surrounding him.

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Outline Bibliography

Of the Works of Sri Aurobindo

INTRODUCTION

Scope. This bibliography gives basic information on all the books of Sri Aurobindo. It consists of three separate lists: Primary Works in English, Subsidiary Works in English, and Works in Bengali.¹ The information given is (1) title; (2) proper edition number and, where there is more than one impression, proper impression number; (3) printed designation, i.e. the edition/impression number or equivalent printed on the imprint page of the book, which is often at variance with the proper edition/ impression number; (4) place of publication; (5) publisher; and (6) date. The bibliography is not intended to be more than an outline — a sort of scaffolding for a complete descriptive bibliography. The principal questions it seeks to settle are three: (1) What are the separate titles constituting the corpus of Sri Aurobindo"s written work, their total number and alphabetical order? (2) Which of these titles are to be considered "primary" and which "subsidiary"? (3) How many editions and impressions of each title have been printed, and what are the serial numbers of these editions and impressions?

"Book". For the purposes of this bibliography a book is defined as a separate printed work not issued periodically (as a journal), or in instalments (as a fascicle). It must consist of at least five pages, be bound in some fashion, and have a hard or paper cover. Printed documents consisting of one to four pages and having no cover have been considered leaflets or broadsides, and excluded. The book must have been produced, if not for commercial sale, then at least for selective distribution.

      Most of the books listed here have a form that was determined by Sri Aurobindo.² Selections, compilations, and other works in which an editor not working under Sri Aurobindo's direction had an equal or greater hand in determining the form have either been excluded or, if of sufficient interest, relegated to the subsidiary list.

      Primary and subsidiary works. This distinction has been made for the convenience of the makers of the bibliography. Certain books, although containing material written by Sri Aurobindo that is of outstanding value, are better treated as compilations than as primary titles. This is especially true of certain collections of letters. Many books containing selections from Sri Aurobindo's correspondence were prepared under his direction, for example, The Riddle of this World, Bases of Yoga, and the four series of Letters of Sri Aurobindo. These books must be listed as primary titles. Letters on Yoga, the successor of Letters of Sri Aurobindo, must be treated in the same way, even though it was organised after Sri Aurobindo's passing. But such books as Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo. Guidance from Sri Aurobindo,

      1 Only the first of these lists is published in the present issue.

       2 This applies even to such posthumous titles as New Lamps for Old and Sonnets. The form of the first was determined by Sri Aurobindo at the time of its constituent articles' first periodical publication. The manuscripts of his sonnets contain sure indications that he envisaged publishing them as a separate collection. About collections of letters see below.

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and Life, Literature, Yoga owe their form more to the disciple whose correspondence they chiefly or wholly contain than to Sri Aurobindo. Despite the fact that they contain letters not published elsewhere, they cannot be considered primary titles.

      Other books, although exclusively Sri Aurobindo's, are of too ephemeral a nature to be included in the same list as his principal works. An important consideration here is whether the book has an imprint (reverse title) page. The first edition of several books of Sri Aurobindo were produced using the same types as were used to print the work in a journal. Some of these works, for example, Chitrangada, Rodo-gune, Vasavadutta, and The Viziers of Bassora, must be considered "books". All of them have proper imprint pages, and most have had subsequent separate printing histories. Other works, such as The Birth of the War-God and Two Plays, do not have imprint pages, and have proved ephemeral as separate titles. Such works have been relegated to the subsidiary list.

Titles. Titles are listed as they occur on the title pages of the books. Proper subtitles have been included, for example, Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol, and The Harmony of Virtue: Early Cultural Writings. In this Outline Bibliography "subtitles" that are more in the nature of explanatory notes than parts of the name have been excluded, for example, the second elements of After the War (World War I) and The Century of Life: The Nitishataka of Bhartrihari Freely rendered into English Verse. 

      Books that have been known by more than one title are listed under one only. Variant titles differing little from the main titles are mentioned in footnotes. Variant titles that occupy a different alphabetical position from the main title are listed (without serial numbers) at that postion with cross references. Some books that underwent slight textual change along with the change in title have been treated in this way, for example, On Yoga II/Letters on Yoga.

Edition/impression. An edition of a book is the full number of copies of that book produced as the result of a single act of composition Composition may be by any process: hand-set typography, monotype, linotype, photocomposition, etc.

      An impression of a book is the full number of copies produced at a given time (one press run). An edition may have one or more impressions. When the act of composition determining the edition is preserved in some physical form and used again after the first publication, the result is a new impression. The physical form of preservation may be standing types, a plate, a monotype roll, a photographic image or even printed matter from which a photographic image is made.

      Recomposition always makes for a new edition. This is true even if the old text is followed exactly, and even if the pattern of composition is followed down to the exact number of words in each line.

      It is sometimes difficult to tell whether a new publication was produced using a monotype roll, in which case it is an impression; or whether it was recomposed on exactly the same pattern as the old, in which case it is an edition.³

      Significant alterations to the text of a new publication make for a new edition, even if the publication was not wholly recomposed. If the alteration is authorial

      3 This difficulty exists, for example, with Poems. Past and Present (1952),The Mother (1960), and The Hour of God (1970).

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(even if executed by an editor), and not of a very minor nature, the result is considered a new edition. Editorial correction of errors, typographical or other, does not normally make for a new edition; neither do rejustification and similar printing operations. In any case, if a substantial part of the new publication is recomposed, the result is a new edition.

      When printed sheets of a given impression of an edition are issued in a new form, sometimes with the inclusion of new material not written by the author, the result is called an "issue". Several issues of books of Sri Aurobindo are mentioned in footnotes.

      Only the above factors have been taken into consideration in order to determine whether a given publication is ah edition or impression. Designations given by the publisher or printer, even if printed on the imprint page of the book, have not been followed unless the evidence of printing bears them out.

      Many books of Sri Aurobindo were misidentified by the publisher or printer. Mistakes were often due to an imperfect understanding of the distinction between edition and impression. A number of books that were recomposed without textual change were designated impressions instead of editions. On the other hand, some impressions were called editions as a result of a confusion between the bibliographical and trade meanings of the term "edition". A publisher may signalise the differences in format between two differently produced impressions of a book by calling one a "de luxe edition" and the other a "popular edition". The bibliographer does not consider such differences to be determinative of a new edition. Even photographic reduction or enlargement of a new impression does not make it an edition.

      Since so many past publications of Sri Aurobindo were given the wrong edition/ impression number, the old numbers have been discarded. This Outline Bibliography, which is the official listing of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, the present publishers of all the works of Sri Aurobindo, is the new standard. All future publications will be numbered in continuation of the series established here. For reference and comparison, the old, rejected numbers have been given within parentheses under "Printed Designation". The new serial number is composed of two or three numbers separated by points. The first number is the serial number of the book (according to its place in the alphabetical order); the second number is the proper edition number; the third number, where it occurs, is the proper impression number.

Publisher. The publisher is listed as printed on the title page of the book. If no publisher is given on the title page, the information has been taken from the imprint page. Preference has been given to publishing houses rather than to individual "publishers", whose names often were printed merely to conform to a legal technicality. Individuals have been listed as publishers only when no house is mentioned. If no publisher at all is mentioned, nor can be inferred, the name of the printing press has been given.

Date. If the date of publication is not printed on the title or imprint page, "n.d." (no date) is put in place of the date. After this, the presumed date, usually preceded by "c." (circa, i.e. approximately), appears within parentheses.

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   PRIMARY WORKS IN ENGLISH  

      1 In 1966 Macmillan and Company. Calcutta, brought out a school edition of Baji Prabhou with introduction and notes. A second impression of this was brought out in 1968.

        2 Volume 1 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library.

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      3 In two volumes.

        4 Volumes 6 and 7 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library.

        5 Volume 5 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library.

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      6 Up till 1950, when a "combined edition" was brought out, the two "series" of which Essays on the Gita is comprised were published in separate volumes which had separate printing histories. The First Series had five "editions" (1922, 1926, 1937, 1944, 1949) and the Second Series three "editions" (1928, 1942 (second impression 1945), 1949). Since it is desirable to consider Essays on the Gita as a single title, the pre-1950 editions of the two series have, so far as possible, been listed in pairs. The two members of each pair have the same publisher and format. Three such pairs constitute three complete editions of the book. Two editions of the First Series that have no corresponding edition of the Second Series have been listed as incomplete editions.

         7 Incomplete edition, consisting of only the First Series of essays.

         8 Volume 13 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library.

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      9 Volume 14 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library: entitled The Foundations of Indian Culture and The Renaissance in India. The Renaissance in India was dropped from the impressions of 1975 and 1980.

         10 Volume 9 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library.

         11 The same month that this impression (in reduced facsimile) was published, a part issue comprising pages 489 to 561 (end) was separately bound and offered for sale. The imprint page of this issue, which was given the title Letters on Poetry. Literature and Art, contained this information: "Only Part Two of The Future Poetry and Letters on Poetry, Literature and Art."

         12 Volume 3 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library. Some copies of the Popular Edition (Second Impression) were subsequently issued in a new binding for separate sale.

         13 Volume 17 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library.

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      14 Volume 15 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library; entitled Social and Political Thought.

        15 Volume 11 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library.

        16 Title changed editorially to Ideals and Progress.

        17 Title changed back to Ideal and Progress.

        18 Entitled The Ideal of the Karmayogin and Karmayoga. Contains only the two articles with these titles.

        19 About this phrase see the note of Sri Aurobindo published in the edition of 1974.

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      20 The imprint page of this edition listed a "Fifth Edition", printed in 1938. No copy of this "edition" is known to exist, nor is there any mention of it in contemporary correspondence between Sri Aurobindo's secretary and the Arya Publishing House. In all likelihood no edition of 1938 was ever printed. It is extremely doubtful whether the 1937 edition could so soon have been exhausted. The listing in the 1945 edition (carried over to subsequent editions) was probably due to a clerical error.

        21 Volume 2 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library. Some copies of the Popular Edition (Second Impression) were subsequently issued in a new binding for separate sale.

        22 "First Series" was added in the second edition;

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      23 Published in two tomes under the title On Yoga II.

        24 Incomplete edition, consisting of only the first tome (enlarged) of On Yoga II. "Letters on Yoga" was added here as a subtitle.

        25 Volumes 22, 23 and 24 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library.

        26 Published in three volumes.

        27 Part I and Part II bound separately.

        28 Part I and Part II bound together.

        29 Incomplete edition, consisting of Volume I only.

        30 In one volume.

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      31 In two volumes.

        32 Volumes 18 and 19 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library.

        33 In one volume.

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      34 Volume 25 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library.

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      35 Volume 26 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library.

       36 Some copies of this impression were issued with the addition of an introduction and notes as the "Third Edition (Enlarged)".

       37 Publisher not given. Printed (like Collected Poems and Plays) at Government Central Press, Hyderabad.

       38 In 1973 a limited edition of 100 copies "NOT FOR SALE" was "composed and printed by students of the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education".

       39 An edition of this book was planned and partly printed during the late 1920s. Several sets of all the forms but the first of this unreleased edition exist.

       40 So designated on the imprint page; called "the sixth" edition in the Editor's Note. In fact this edition was the third: it was enlarged by the addition of a new chapter as "Appendix I".

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      41 Before this first complete edition of 1950-51 was published, parts of Savitri were released in separate printed fascicles.

        42 An incomplete edition, consisting of Part One only.

        43 Volumes 28 and 29 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library.

        44 In one volume.

        45 This impression in reduced facsimile was issued in one volume in August 1970. Four months later another, separately composed edition was published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. This edition of December 1970 was found to be textually defective and was soon withdrawn from circulation, most of its copies being destroyed.

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      44 In one Volume.

        46 Entitled On the Veda.

        47 Volume 10 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library.

        48 This date is evidently in error, since this impression in reduced format could not have preceded the full-sized Popular Edition.

        49 No copy of this edition is known to exist. It is mentioned in a letter (Manmohan Ghose to Rabindranath Tagore) of 24 October 1894. It was probably printed privately at the same press as the second edition.

        50 Copies of this privately printed edition are often found sewn together with copies of the 1896 (?) edition of Urvasie.

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      51 Entitled Speeches of Aurobindo Ghose. Another edition having this title was at least partly printed, probably before 1930, at Sri Gauranga Press, Calcutta, by Arya Publishing House. The two known copies of this unreleased edition lack title pages and the last 40-60 pages of the text.

        52 Volume 27 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library.

        53 Entitled The Mind of Light.

        54 Volume 16 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library.

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