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The First Hymn of the Rig-veda
MANDALA I, SUKTA 1
1. The Fire I pray, the divine vicar of the sacrifice and ordinant of the rite, the Summoner1 who most founds the ecstasy.
2. The Fire, desirable to the ancient seers, so even to the new, — may he come to us with the gods.
3. By the Fire one obtains a wealth that increases day by day, glorious and full of hero-powers.
4. O Fire, the pilgrim sacrifice which thou encompassest on every side, reaches the gods.
5. Fire, priest of the call, the seer-will rich in brilliant inspirations, may he come to us, a god with the gods.
6. O Fire, the happy good that thou wilt create for the giver, is that Truth of thee, O Angiras.
7. To thee, O Fire, day by day, in the dawn and in the dark, we come bringing to thee by the thought our obeisance,
8. To thee, who rulest the sacrifices of the Way, the shining Guardian of the Truth, growing in thy own home.
9. O Fire, be easy of access to us like a father to his son; cleave to us for our weal.
1 Or, priest of the offering.
HYMNS OF GOTAMA RAHUGANA
MANDALA I, SUKTA 90
1. By a straight leading may Varuna lead us and Mitra with the knowledge and Aryaman, in harmony with the gods.
2. For they are the masters of substance who become in us substance of being and they are the illimitable by their vastnesses and they maintain the laws of their activity in the universality of forces.
3. May they work out for us peace, immortals for us who are mortals, repelling inimical powers.
4. May Indra and the Maruts discern for us paths for our easy progress and Pushan and Bhaga, gods desirable.
5. Yea, and ye three O Pushan, Vishnu and thou who movest in all motions, make for us our thoughts such as are led by the rays of illumination and full of happiness.
6. Sweetness in the winds of life to him who grows in the Truth, sweet flow for him the rivers of being; sweet for us be its growths.
7. A sweetness be our night and our dawnings, full of sweetness the terrestrial kingdom; a sweetness be to us Heaven, our father.
8. Full of sweetness to us be the Lord of Pleasure, full of sweetness Surya, the luminous; sweet become to us the herds of his rays.
9. O Mitra be a peace in us, peace Varuna, peace in us Aryaman; peace Indra and Brihaspati, peace Vishnu wide-striding. MANDALA I, SUKTA 91
1. Thou, O Soma, becomest subject to perception by the intelligence; thou leadest us along a path of utter straightness. By thy leadings our fathers, O lord of delight, were established in thought and enjoyed ecstasy in the gods.
2. Thou, O Soma, by our willings becomest strong in will, thou by our discernments perfect in discernment and universal in knowledge, — thou by our strong abundances strong and abundant in thy might, thou by our illuminations luminous and of puissant vision.
3. Thine now are the activities of Varuna the King, vast and profound, O Soma, is thy seat; pure art thou and delightful like Mitra; thou art powerful like Aryaman, O Soma.
4. The seats that are thine in our heaven and on our earth and on the hills of being and in its growths and in its waters, in those, even all of them, do thou, well-minded and free from wrath, receive to thyself, O Soma, O King, our offerings.
5. Thou, O Soma, art master of Being; King art thou and slayer of the Coverer; thou a blissful power of will.
6. And thou, O Soma, hast control to make us live, that we should not die, — the lord of pleasure who has delight in the song of his affirmation.
7. Thou, O Soma, for him who is already great in the Truth and for him who is young in the Truth, establishest Bhaga in joyance that has power for life.
8. Keep us, O Soma, O King, from all that seeks to become evil in us; let not him come to hurt who is a friend of such an one as thou.
9. O Soma, with those thy increasings that are creative of the Bliss for the giver, become the preserver of our being.
10. Come to us taking pleasure in this sacrifice, in this Word; be in us, O Soma, for our increase.
11. We, O Soma, know how to find expression and we increase thee by our Words; then with a gentle kindness enter into us.
12. Become in us, O Soma, a distender of luminous movements, a slayer of unfriendly powers, a finder of substance, an increaser of growth, a perfect friend.
13. O Soma, take thy delight in our hearts as the Herds in their pastures, as the Man in his own dwelling.
14. He, O Soma, who, a mortal has delight in thy friendship, a god's, to him cleaveth the discerning Seer of things.
15. Keep us far from the attack that divides, O Soma, protect us from the evil; flourish in us, a friend taking the ease of his perfect pleasure.
16. Yea, nourish thyself in us, let strong abundance come together to thee from all things and do thou become in the meeting-place of that plenty.
17. Grow full in us with all thy rays, O Soma of the complete ecstasy; be in us full of perfect inspirations that we may grow.
18. Together may they come, thy nourishments, and thy plenties and the abundances of thy strength while thou overcomest the attack that would obstruct; so growing in fullness towards Immortality, O Soma, hold for us the highest inspirations in the heaven of the mind.
19. Those thy seats that they effect by sacrifice by the offering, may they all be encompassed by the action of the sacrifice;1
1 Apparently a corrupt text, requiring the reading yajnah for yajnam; as it stands, it can only mean, distending the movement, pushing ever onward, perfect in energy, slaying all weakness travel forward to the gates of the unconscious, O Soma.
20. Soma giveth the fostering Cow, Soma giveth the swift Steed, Soma giveth the active Hero within who holdeth the seat, who winneth the knowledge, who is fit for the Wisdom, who hath the inspiration of the Father, — these he giveth to the man who divideth for him the offering.
21. Unconquered thou in our battles and art satisfied in the throngs of war, winner of Heaven, winner of the Waters, and our defender in the Crookedness (or of our strength); born in our fullnesses, firmly dwelling in us thou art rich in inspirations and victorious, — by thy raptures, O Soma, may we be intoxicated.
22. Thou hast created all these growths of earth, O Soma, thou the Waters, thou the Rays; thou hast extended wide the mid-world, — thou by the Light hast smitten apart the covering darkness.
23. With the divine mind in us, thou who art divine, O Soma, O forceful fighter, war towards our enjoyment of the felicity. Let none extend thee in grossness,2 thou hast power over all energy; do thou have the perceiving vision for gods and men in their seeking of the Light.
MANDALA I, SUKTA 92
1. Lo these are those Dawns that create for us the perception; in the highest realm of the luminous kingdom they brighten the Light perfecting it like violent men who furbish their arms; the ruddy mothers come, the radiant herds.
"May the sacrificer encompass with his beings all of them as the sacrifice" or "and the sacrifice", — neither of which renderings makes any tolerable sense. 2 Sayana renders, "Let none torture thee"; but it refers to the extension in the gross and obscure material of being natural to [illegible phrase] the covering darkness, as opposed to the luminous subtlety of the divine mind which moves towards the higher Light. 2. Upward have soared the red-active lustres covering heaven; yoked are the ruddy Rays that set themselves perfectly to the work. The Dawns have made the manifestations of things even as before and their ruddinesses have entered into the reddening Light.
3. For as forces that work the bright Energies give their illumination by entering into all things with an equal self-yoking from the supreme realm and thence they bring energy to the right doer, the right giver (who perfectly effects his aims); yea, all things here they bring to the sacrificer who expresses the Soma bliss.
4. Like a dancing-girl she lays bare her clear forms of beauty, like a Paramour she opens her breast casting aside its defences creating Light for the whole world. The radiant herds have left their pen; Dawn has uncovered herself of her robe of darkness.
5. Reddening, the illumination of her has appeared in front, it spreads and assails the Black Dense. They adorn her body as if sunshine in the things of the knowledge, — the Daughter of Heaven has entered into the varied Lustre.
6. We have crossed over to the other side of this darkness and Dawn widening makes her revelations of Light; she smiles and shines wide as joy towards beauty; she manifests in a front of fairness that the mind may be glad and perfect.
7. Luminous guide to true thinkings, the Daughter of Heaven has been affirmed in praise by the Gotamas (the men of light). Thou supportest in us plentifulnesses rich in creations and energies, perceptively received in the nervous movements, led by the rays of illumination.
8. O Dawn, may I enjoy a victorious and energetic felicity; delivered from the Enemy, perceptively received in the nervous powers, thou who shinest wide by an inspiration perfect in activity giving birth to richnesses, — O blissful one, to a plenty vast.
9. Divine she beholds all the worlds, wide shines1 her vision and she gazes straight at things; she awakens every living soul for action and finds the Word for all that aspires to mind.
10. Again and again is she born, she, the Ancient Goddess, and she glorifies one equal form. She as the slayer and cleaver of the Animal, diminishes its strength and in her deity wears away the being of the Mortal.
11. She has awakened opening wide the very ends of Heaven and continually she pushes away her sister Night diminishing our mortal periods. Paramour of the Sun, she has her light from her lover's eye of vision.
12. Varied in light and richly enjoying, it is as if she widens her animal Powers and wide she distends like a sea that breaks its way and she limits not our divine activities when she is seen in our perceptions by the rays of the Sun of illumination.
13. O Dawn energy of plenty, bring to us that varied richness whereby we can found our creation and our extending.
14. Here and today, O Dawn of the radiant herds, Dawn of the forceful steeds, Dawn of the wide illumination, shine out upon us with ecstasy, O Lady of the Truths.
15. O Dawn, energy of the plenty, yoke today thy steeds of red activity, then bring to us all enjoyable things.
16. Ye, O bounteous Ashwins, drivers of the Steed, with one mind direct your downward car along the path of the luminous rays, the path of the golden Light.
1 Or illumines 17. Ye who have made for the creature the Light of heaven thus a splendour, carry force to us, ye, O Ashwins.
18. Twin bounteous gods with your luminous movements who create the bliss, you may those steeds that are awakened by the Dawn bring to the drinking of the wine of Bliss.
I am obliged to seek the protection of publicity against attempts that are being made to prejudice my name and reputation even in my retirement at Pondicherry. A number of individuals have suddenly begun to make their appearance here to whom my presence seems to be the principal attraction. One of these gems heralded his advent by a letter in which he regretted that the Police had refused to pay his expenses to Pondicherry, but informed me that in spite of this scurvy treatment he was pursuing his pilgrimage to me "jumping from station to station" without a ticket. Since his arrival he has been been making scenes in the streets, collecting small crowds, shouting Bande Mataram, showing portraits of myself and other Nationalists along with copies of the Geneva Bande Mataram and the Indian Sociologist as credentials, naming men of advanced views as his "gurus", professing to possess the Manicktola bomb-formula, offering to kill to order all who may be obnoxious for private or public reasons to any Swadeshist and informing everyone, but especially French gendarmes, that he has come to Pondicherry to massacre Europeans. The man seems to be a remarkable linguist, conversing in all the languages of Southern India and some of the North as well as in English and French. He has made three attempts to force or steal his way into my house, once disguised as a Hindustani and professing to be Mr. Tilak's durwan. He employs his spare time, when not employed in these antics for which he claims to have my sanction, in watching trains for certain Police-agents as an amateur detective. I take him for a dismissed police spy trying to storm his way back into the kingdom of heaven. Extravagant and barefaced as are this scoundrel's tactics, I mention them because he is one of a class, some of whom are quieter but more dangerous. I hear also that there are some young men without ostensible means of livelihood, who go about Madras figuring as my shishyas, instructed by me to undertake this or that activity, and request people to pay money for work or for my maintenance. After this letter I hope they will lose this easy, source of income. I have authorised no such youths to collect money on my behalf and have directed none to undertake any political activity of any description. Finally I find myself besieged by devotees who insist on seeing me whether I will or not. They have crossed all India to see me — from Karachi's waters, from the rivers of the Punjab, whence do they not come? They only wish to stand at a distance and get mukti by gazing on my face; or they will sit at my feet, live with me wherever I am or follow me to whatever lands. They clamber on to my windows to see me or loiter and write letters from neighbouring Police stations. I wish to inform all future pilgrims of the kind that their journey will be in vain and to request those to whom they may give reports of myself and my imaginary conversations, to disbelieve entirely whatever they may say. I am living in entire retirement and see none but a few local friends and the few gentlemen of position who care to see me when they come to Pondicherry. I have written thus at length in order to safeguard myself against the deliberate manufacture or mistaken growth of "evidence" against me, e.g. such as the statement in the Nasik case that I was "maintained" by the Mitra Mela. I need hardly tell my countrymen that I have never been a paid agitator, still less a "maintained" revolutionist, but one whom even hostile Mahatmas admit to be without any pecuniary or other axe to grind. Nor have I ever received any payment for any political work except occasional payments for contributions to the Calcutta Bande Mataram while I was on its staff.
23 February 1911
On Poetical Genius. This long paragraph was written around the turn of the century as part of the first section ("Its Authenticity") of Kalidasa's "Seasons". It was omitted by Sri Aurobindo when he published the essay in the Karmayogin in 1909. In Sri Aurobindo's manuscript this passage follows the sentence "This imperfection... self-expression", coming near the end of the first paragraph of the essay (SABCL Volume 3, p. 250).
Vikramorvasie: The Characters. These pages constitute a thoroughly revised version of what is published in SABCL Volume 3, pp. 263-301, as Kalidasa's Characters. In the present version several passages omitted from the earlier version have been included, the order of the material has been significantly changed and many corrections of words and punctuation have been made. Sri Aurobindo wrote these essays on the characters in Kalidasa's drama Vikramorvasie shortly after finishing his translation of the play around 1900. They were never prepared by him for publication and they remain in a rather rough state in his manuscript notebooks. Essentially there are four essays, one on Pururavas (the hero), one on Urvasie (the heroine), one on the Apsaras (of whom Urvasie is one) and one on the various minor characters. The essay on Pururavas is complete in one piece; but the others are formed of separate passages that have had to be put together editorially. In some cases Sri Aurobindo left sufficient indications of his intentions to make the assemblage certain; in others the editors have been forced to make decisions about the order of the passages. The state of the manuscripts has necessitated other editorial operations, such as the addition of paragraph indentations, etc.
In the Gardens of Vidisha or Malavica and the King. This is Sri Aurobindo's fair copy of his translation of the first act of Kalidasa's drama Malavikagnimitra. An incomplete rough draft of this translation has already been published in SABCL Volume 8, pp. 137-54.
The First Hymn of the Rig-veda. We published in our last issue what we thought to be "Sri Aurobindo's last known rendering" of Rig-veda 1.1. The present translation, found since then, is apparently later, dating from the early 1940s.
Selected Hymns. These translations of Rig-veda 1.90-92 were done on 23 and 24 May 1914.
Letter to the Hindu. This letter was published in The Hindu (Madras) on 24 February 1911, below this heading: "Babu Aurobindo Ghose writes us from 42, Rue de Pavilion, Pondicherry, under date the 23rd instant [23 February 1911]."
Words already listed in the Glossary to the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library have not been included.
durwan (Hindi, properly daravan), porter, gate-keeper (of a king). gendarme (French), a policeman. genus irritabile vatum (Latin), the irritable race of poets. [Horace. Epistles 2.2.10]
(Continued from the issue of April 1981)
Spot verification, such as was described in the last issue, can be of much use in purging a printed text of typographical and editorial corruptions. But if one's aim is to produce a text that is as near perfect as the materials will allow, spot verification is not sufficient. Numerous errors will always escape the notice of even the most careful reader. The only way to arrive at an ideal text is to examine and make use of each available version of a work. All variants must be noted and evaluated from the point of view of the textual critic. He must decide which readings are to be printed as parts of the text and which relegated to the critical apparatus (notes, tables etc.). At the same time doubtful, suspicious or corrupt readings must be located and, if necessary, emended. In this way an eclectic text that represents the author's intentions better than any existing text — a critical edition — will be established. An attempt is being made to apply this procedure to the text of Sri Aurobindo's epic Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol.
The Revision of Part One of Savitri
Sri Aurobindo worked on Savitri over a thirty-four year period, from 1916 to 1950.1 In its first dozen or so drafts the work does not exceed fifty handwritten pages. During the thirties the first of this narrative poem's "cantos" was developed into three "books" consisting each of many cantos. By 1944 a draft of the first "part" of the poem consisting of three books (twenty-four cantos) had been completed. This draft, handwritten by Sri Aurobindo in two columns on standard-size bond paper, was then revised. Many of the extensive alterations were written by Sri Aurobindo, but a good number were set down at his dictation by his disciple Nirodbaran. Some of the revision is on the double-column manuscript; longer passages were written on small sheets of a "chit-pad", which were later pinned to the manuscript, or else were written in separate notebooks. The work of revision did not stop here. The entire first part was now hand transcribed by Nirodbaran into a 393-page ledger. This transcription was then read out to Sri Aurobindo and revised at his dictation. After this a typed copy incorporating the new revision was made. This was revised in its turn; sometimes two stages (top and carbon copies) or even three stages of revision exist. At this point, in the year 1946, separate cantos began to be printed. They appeared
1 The earliest surviving draft of Savitri is dated "August 8th 9th/1916". The present writer believes that this is the first draft of the poem. A companion of Sri Aurobindo's at Baroda. Dinendra Kumar Roy, has written that Sri Aurobindo was working on a poem dealing with the legend of Savitri and Satyavan around 1900. No trace of such a poem exists, despite the fact that a great number of Sri Aurobindo's writings from the Baroda period have survived. It may be that the poem Dinendra Kumar saw was Love and Death, written in 1899. The Ruru-Pramadvara legend treated in this poem has many similarities to the Savitri-Satyavan legend. In any case, Sri Aurobindo almost certainly wrote the Savitri draft of 1916 without any reference to an earlier version. This makes it practically, even if not absolutely, the first draft of a new poem. either in journals published from Calcutta or Bombay by groups connected with the Ashram, or in small fascicles printed by the Ashram press. The proofs of these journal-instalments or fascicles were read out to Sri Aurobindo and corrected by him. He also heard and corrected the printed text of each of the cantos after it was published. Finally, in 1950, the whole of the first part was printed in book form by the Ashram press. The proofs of this first edition were read to Sri Aurobindo, and he made some changes and additions. No other edition of Savitri was issued during Sri Aurobindo's lifetime. The double-column handwritten manuscript of Part One of Savitri is sometimes called its "final version". It is indeed the last manuscript written by the author, but it can hardly be considered final, since it lacks some 1500 of the approximately 12,000 lines of the full text — more than twelve per cent. The various manuscripts which came after the double-column version contain, in addition to the new lines, innumerable changes of words and punctuation in existing lines. There are no less than six manuscripts (more accurately, stages of development) between the handwritten version and the first edition of 1950. These have been alphabetically identified as follows: A — Handwritten and hand-revised double-column draft B — Lengthier additions to (A) handwritten by Sri Aurobindo or his scribe on chit-pad sheets or in separate notebooks C — Scribal transcription of (A) + (B), handwritten in a ledger and hand-corrected D — Typed copy (or typed copies, designated D1, D2...) of (C) E— Proofs of (F) F — Fascicles or journal-instalments consisting of one or more cantos, revised by hand G — Proofs of the 1950 edition
The corrected proofs (E and G) have not survived; all the other stages of the revision are preserved in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives.
The Making of a Critical Edition
How is an editor wishing to prepare a critical text of Savitri to deal with this material? But first, why should it be necessary to prepare a new text, "critical" or otherwise, of such a well-established work? The entire first part of Savitri was seen through the press by Sri Aurobindo. Could any new text be more ideal than the one he himself approved? We have seen that an author is not responsible for every point, indeed not even for every word that is printed as his. He certainly cannot be held responsible for typographical errors, even if he was given an opportunity to correct them. Similarly he is not responsible for errors of transcription made by copyists of his manuscript, nor for unnecessary editorial "improvements". The principal task of the editor of a critical text is to remove all such "transmission errors". To find them, he must backtrack from the printed text to the author's manuscript, and check every operation in which anyone but the author has had a hand. He must ensure that all transitions were made without error, that nothing falsifying the author's intentions has slipped into the text. In the development of Part One of Savitri there are two principal stages where errors of transmission might have occurred. These are the scribal transcription (Stage C) and the typed transcription (Stage D). Errors also might have taken place at any other point where revisions were transferred from one stage to another, as between Stage D and Stage E. Indeed human error was possible at every point where revisions were written down scribally, in other words, at every stage A to G. In fact in its passage through its various stages very few significant errors have entered into the text of Savitri. But given the importance of the poem to numerous readers today, and the more numerous readers of the future, no pains taken to purify it could be considered useless. But how is one to locate a few "needle"-sized errors in a "haystack" formed by thousands of pages of handwritten, typed and printed manuscripts? The textual editor's work may be broken down here, as always, into the stages mentioned in the first instalment of this essay: inventory, choice of copy-text, collation, and emendation. A great deal of time is needed to carry out all these operations thoroughly, but practical considerations have a determining effect on how much time can be given. The ideal means of collation of the manuscripts of Part One of Savitri would be to read each stage of the poem against the one that precedes it — B against A, C against B, etc. On a rough estimate, for two people working three hours weekly, one cycle of such a collation would take six years. And at least three cycles would be needed to ensure a reasonable standard of perfection. Collation is, as Gaskell says, "An appallingly laborious process, and is one which ... is liable to a good deal of error." For large institutions "it is no longer necessary to collate unaided, since copies (or photocopies) can be compared mechanically."1 But collating machines are prohibitively expensive. A small archives is obliged to look for a shortcut. What the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives has done in the case of Part One of Savitri is to read the earliest stage (Sri Aurobindo's handwritten manuscript) against the latest (the edition of 1972). When any differences between these two versions are noted, the source of the change or addition is sought among the eight stages that intervene, viz., Stages B-G and the printed editions of 1950 and 1954. If the transmission of the text has been carried out correctly all the way through, no irregularities will be noticed. If, however, a mistake of copying, typing or composing has taken place, the discrepancy will be visible. When an error has been identified and its source discovered, the text can be changed to accord with the correct reading. This shortcut method is obviously not so foolproof as a complete collation. It is not adequate to discover a deliberate authorial change made after Stage A that was not carried over to subsequent stages. A special search for such missed changes would have to be made. Fortunately this would not be difficult, and once done could be considered sufficiently complete, since deliberate authorial changes stand out clearly from fair copies (Stage C) and typed and printed manuscripts (Stages D-F).
Examples from Part One, Canto One of Savitri
A few examples from the first canto of Savitri will make the editorial process
1 Philip Gaskell, A New Introduction to Bibliography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 374. clear. (All book references are to the Centenary Edition.) On page 4, line 5, the following line occurs:
An instant's visitor the godhead shone:
In manuscript A the line ends with a full stop. The colon was introduced in transcript C. A close examination of manuscript A shows the colon to be the result not of revision, but of faulty copying. There are indeed two dots at the end of the line; but one of these is the dot of an "i" in the line below. Seen together the two dots look like a colon, and were copied as such in C. This tiny error was not noticed by Sri Aurobindo when transcript C was read out to him. The colon is not, however, what he wrote. In the critical edition it will be replaced by a full stop. In the whole of Canto One only ten suspected errors of transcription have been found. Of these, seven involve, like the first example, accidentals — minor matters of punctuation and capitalisation. Only three substantive errors have turned up. One occurs in a line printed on page 7 of the Centenary Edition (line 32).
And from its deep chasms welled a dire return,
The line is first written in manuscript B. This manuscript, it must be said, is practically illegible. In spite of this Sri Aurobindo's scribe was able to copy it almost without mistake. Here, however, Nirodbaran nodded. Sri Aurobindo did not write "deep", but "dim". The error, introduced in transcript C, was never removed. "Dim" will replace "deep" in the critical edition. Similar to this mistake is a scribal miscopying of "to" for "of" in line 7, page 5. The third substantive error is the only one of great significance. It is one of the rare cases where a copyist has missed an entire line. In manuscript B Sri Aurobindo wrote:
Her self and all she was she had lent to men, Hoping her greater being to implant And in their body's lives acclimatise That heaven might native grow on mortal soil.
The third line was not copied in transcript C (see p. 7, lines 7ff). This is especially unfortunate, since one might suppose that Sri Aurobindo would have wanted to revise the line when it was read back to him. He often retouched the details of a line in the stage immediately following its first writing. Here he was given no chance to revise, and the line must be reinstated as originally written. The problem of editorial form is the last problem that the textual critic must face. How is he to present the text and the variant readings of a critical edition? Variants can either be given as footnotes, or listed at the back of the book. The second alternative, which allows for an uncluttered and easy-to-read "clear text", is preferable for a work not intended principally for scholars. |