Two Fragments

THE ORIGIN OF GENIUS

When the human being puts forth a force in himself which is considerable but acts normally, we call it talent; when it is abnormal in its working we call it genius. It would seem, therefore, that genius is in reality some imperfect step in evolution by which mankind in its most vigorous and forward individuals is attempting to develop a faculty which the race as a whole is not strong enough as yet to command or to acclimatise. As always happens in such a movement, there is a considerable irregularity in the working of the new phenomenon.

[MARBLES]

Institutions, empires, civilisations are the marbles of Time. Time, sitting in his banqueting hall of the Ages, where prophets and kings are the spice of his banquet, drinking the red wine of life and death, while on the marble floor at his feet are strewn like flowers the images of the same stars that shone on the pride of Nahusha, the tapasya of Dhruv and the splendours of Yayati, that saw Tiglath-Pileser, Sennacherib and the Egyptian Pharaohs, Pompey's head hewn off on the sands of Egypt and Caesar bleeding at Pompey's sculptured feet, Napoleon's mighty legions thundering victorious at the bidding of that god of war on the field of Austerlitz and Napoleon's panic legions fleeing disordered with pursuit and butchery behind them from that last field of Waterloo, — Time, the Kala Purusha, drunk with the fumes of death and the tears and laughter of mortals, sits and plays there with his marbles. There are marbles there of all kinds, marbles of all colours, and some are dull and grey, some glorious with hearts of many colours, some white and pure as a dove's wings; but he plays with them all equally and equally he thrusts them all away when he has done with them. Sometimes even, in his drunkenness, he hurls them out of his window or lifts his mace and deals blows here and there smashing into fragments the bright and brittle globes, and he laughs as they smash and crumble. So Time, the god, sits and plays for ever with his marbles.

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Four Fragments

      The war is over, though peace still lingers, her way sadly embarrassed by blockades, armistices, secret negotiations, conferences where armed and victorious national egoisms dispute the blood-stained spoils of the conflict, political and other advantages, captured navies, indemnities, colonies, protectorates, torn fragments of dismembered States and nations, embarrassed most of all perhaps by the endeavour of the world's rulers and wise men to found upon the ephemeral basis of the results of war an eternal peace for humanity. But still the cannon at least is silent except where the embers of war still smoke and emit petty flames in distracted Poland and Russia, and peace though a lame and perhaps much mutilated peace must before long arrive. The great war is over and that may seem the main thing to¹

*

* *

We live under the reign of Science, a reign which from the mouth of its hierophants claims to be a tyranny or at least an absolute monarchy. It makes this claim by right of the great things it has done, of the immense utilities with which it has served, helped, strengthened, liberated mankind, right knowledge of the world, an increasing and already fabulous mastery of Nature, a clear and free intellectual vision of things and masterful dealing with them, liberation from the fetters of ignorance, from blind subjection to authority, from unquestioning political, social, religious and cultural tradition with all their hindrance and their evil.

*

* *

In a word, the religious tendency, the religious spirit in man does not escape from the law of evolution that governs the other parts of his complex psychological nature. Even though its very reason of existence is the inner sense of a soul and spirit within and around us and the search for spiritual truth and experience, that must be in their very nature a suprarational truth and experience, it begins like the rest with

      1 This sentence was left incomplete.

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an infrarational instinct, an infrarational formulation, falls under the influence of the reasoning mind and only at its¹

*

* *

Justice, one says; but what is Justice? Plato's question applies to this as to every other sacred icon set up by men for their worship.

      Justice for each man is what his own type of mind accepts as right and proper and equitable as between men and men. Or, it might be [. . . . . .]² between the community and its constituents, the State and its citizens.

      1 This sentence was left incomplete.

        2 One or two illegible words.

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A Fragmentary Answer to a Critic

      ONE had thought that the Ravi Varma superstition in India had received its quietus. Unsupported by a single competent voice, universally condemned by critics of eminence Asiatic and European, replaced by a style of Art national, noble and suggestive, it is as hopeless to revive this grand debaser of Indian taste and artistic culture as to restore life to the slain. But even causes hopelessly lost and deserving to be lost will find their defenders and unworthy altars do not lack incense. A belated lance is lifted in the August number of the Modern Review for the fallen idol. Neither writing nor substance is of such a calibre that it would have demanded any answer if it had not found hospitality in a periodical which is now a recognised centre of culture and opinion. The writer is not richly endowed either with artistic taste, logical faculty cr correct English; but he possesses in compensation a trenchant though ill-inspired manner of writing, and excels in that Rooseveltian style of argument which by its very commonness and doubtful taste imposes on minds imperfectly instructed in the subject of dispute. It may be necessary, in the present state of Art appreciation in India, to counteract the possible evil that may be done by even so insufficient an apology for the Goliath of artistic Philistinism in India.

      I may, perhaps, be suffered to express my wonder at the ideas of manners and good breeding which this apologist thinks permissible in critical controversy. Dr Coomaraswamy is a critic of established reputation, whose contributions to the study of Indian Art are valued in every country in Europe and Asia where the subject itself is studied. Sister Nivedita's literary genius, exquisite sympathetic insight and fine artistic culture are acknowledged by all who have the faculty of judging both in England and India. Mr Havell has a recognised position in the criticism of Art. One may differ from such authorities, but one is at least bound to treat them with some show of respect. Mr Havell seems to have been protected by his recent official position from the writer's disrespect, though his authority is dismissed cavalierly enough. Against Sister Nivedita he does not vent his spleen unguardedly, though he cannot refrain from vindicating his superiority

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by patronisingly describing her as "the good Sister Nivedita." But towards Dr Coomaraswamy, possibly because he is an Indian like the writer himself, he seems to think himself entitled to be as offensive as he chooses. He gets rid of the Doctor's acknowledged authority by introducing him as "a Geologist," and emphasizes the spirit of this introduction by sprinkling his pages with similar phrases, "the Geologist," "the Doctor." The intention seems to be to represent Dr Coomaraswamy as an unknown man without credit in other countries who is trying to pass himself off as an authority in India. It is possible the disciple of Ravi Varma holds this view; if so, one can only wonder what Himalayan cave of meditation has been his cloister in the last few years of his existence! And what are we to say of this characteristic specimen of wit? "We cannot expect anything better from a Geologist, who naturally loves and is made to love everything rigid and stony." Am I to answer him in his own style by retorting that we cannot expect anything better from a student of Ravi Varma than theatrical wit and schoolboy impertinence? I prefer to suggest to him that manners which are allowed on the platform, at the hustings and in newspaper controversy in matters of political passion and interest are not expected in the urbanity of literature, Art and good society. I have felt myself compelled to commend thus at length and severely, because it is too much a habit in our country to have resort to this kind of illegitimate controversy in matters where only superior taste, knowledge and insight should tell. I have done with this unpleasant part of my duty and proceed to the writer's arguments as distinct from his witticisms.

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Srevian*

A TALE OF PREHISTORIC TIMES

PREFACE

This is the story of a dream that often came and always fled, a dream that continued by snatches and glimpses through a succession of nights, at intervals of weeks, the mind returning again and again to the unfinished vision, the imagination and intuition filling in the gaps and interstices of a half told tale. Visions of waters blue in an immortal sunlight or grey in the drifting of a magic welter of cloud and rain, rocks swept by the surf and whistling in their hollows with the wind, island meadows and glades many-pictured above the sea, rivers and haze-purpled hills, a scene of unimaginable beauty where forms moved that had not lost the pristine beauty of man before the clutch stiffened on him of early decay and death, of grief and old age, where hearts beat that had not lost the pulsations of our ancient immortality and were not yet attuned to the broken rhythms of pain and grief. The impression of such an atmosphere and background remains which the linking of ineffective details and the effort of words which are laden with the thoughts of an afflicted and oppressed humanity, strive vainly to restore. For those colours we have lost. When we speak of brightness, it is a subdued brilliance that is the utmost our imaginations can conceive; we mean only a broken hint of rapture when we talk even most eagerly of enjoyment and bliss.

A FRAGMENT

      It is not only that the sable blackness of the crow's wings has in it wonderful shades of green and violet and purple which show themselves under certain stresses of sunlight, but that the black itself, sable of wing or dingy of back and breast has itself a beauty which our prejudiced habits of mind obscure to us. Under its darkness, we see, too, a glint of dingy white.

      * The spelling of this name is doubtful; perhaps "Srevina".

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At the Turn of the Century

      The last century of the second millenium after Christ has begun; of the twenty centuries it seems the most full of incalculable possibilities and to open the widest door on destiny. The mind of humanity feels it is conscious of a voice of a distant advancing Ocean and a sound as of the wings of a mighty archangel flying towards the world, but whether to empty the vials of the wrath of God or to declare a new gospel of peace upon earth and goodwill unto men, is as yet dark to our understanding.

*

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OLD MOORE FOR 1901

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An Early Fragment

ON THE CONGRESS MOVEMENT

      WITH the opening of the twentieth century there is visible in India — visible at least to a trained political observer who is accustomed to divine the flux and change of inner forces from the slight signs that are the first faintly heard footsteps of the future and does not limit himself to the imposing and external features which are often merely the landmarks of the past — a remarkable and most vital change in the feeling and thought habit of our nation or at least of those classes in it whose thought and action most tells on the future. The lifestream of our national existence is taking a massive swerve towards a far other ocean than the direction of its flow hitherto had ever presaged. If I say that the Congress movement has spent itself, I shall be reminded of the Ahmedabad Congress, the success of the Industrial Exhibition and the newborn enthusiasm of Gujerat. Are these, it may be said, symptoms of decline and weakness? The declining forces of a bygone impetus touching a field which it had not yet affected, assume thereby some resemblance to their first youthful vigour but must not on that account be mistaken for the great working vitality of youth and manhood. The political activity of the nation gathering itself into the form of the Congress rose for some time with noise and a triumphant surging impetus until like a wave as it culminates breaking upon rocks, it dashed itself against the hard facts of human nature and the elementary conditions of successful political action which the Congress leaders had never grasped or had chosen to ignore; there it stopped and now there is throughout the country the languor, the weakness, the tendency to break up and discohere of the retiring wave. But behind and under cover of this failure and falling back there has been slowly and silently gathering another and vaster wave the first voices of which are now being heard, the crests of whose foam are just mounting here and there into view. Soon it will push aside or assimilate its broken forerunner, occupy the sea and ride on surging and shouting to its predestined failure or triumph. By the succession of such waves shall our national life move forward to its great and inevitable goal.

      For us of the new age, who are to mount on the rising slope of the

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wave even if we do not live to ride on its crest, the first necessity is to understand the career of our predecessor, the principle of its life and the source of its weakness. I have said that the Congress movement broke itself on the hard facts of human nature

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Marginalia

ON MADHUSUDAN DUTT'S VIRANGANA KAVYA

A Virgilian elegance and sweetness and a Virgilian majesty of diction ennoble the finer Epistles of these Heroides; there is too a Virgilian pathos sad and noble breaking out in detached lines and passages, as in Shacountala's sorrowful address to the leaf and the single melancholy line , but the more essential poetical gifts, creative force, depth or firmness of meditation, passionate feeling, a grasp of the object, consistency and purity of characterisation are still absent. They were not in the poet's nature and such gifts if denied by Nature, are denied for ever. What exists even faintly can be developed, transformed, strengthened, but what does not exist, cannot be produced by labour.

नासतो विद्यते भावो नाभावो विद्यते सतः

The Epistle of Tara is perhaps less satisfactory; the fiery outbursts of a monstrous and lawless passion needed a stronger imagination than Madhousudan's to conceive and execute them. The elegances of the Epistle, with its graceful rephrasing of outworn classical images and its stately love-conceits is out of place where the volcanic sheerness of a Webster could alone have been appropriate. Nevertheless the passage in which Tara complains of the unclean love she cannot avoid or control is not without a noble dignity of passion; and shows with what charm the poet could invest the plainest and most hackneyed images. And there are lines in this latter part which have the true note of that terrific passion, [e.g.] her cry ; the magnificent distichs etc. and etc. and the powerful closing line have all a dramatic simplicity, fire and force which belong to the highest poetry only. Would that Madhusudan had written not only stray lines, distichs, passages, but whole poems in this spirit. The deplorable want of a discerning criticism and false conceptions of poetry early imbibed have done untold harm to our best and most promising writers.

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Selected Hymns

SEVEN HYMNS FROM THE EIGHTH MANDALA

MANDALA VIII, SUKTA 94

1. This is the Cow¹ that suckles all from her teats, the mother of the Maruts, lords of fullness, who seeks the inspired knowledge; she is under the yoke and a bearer of the chariots.

2. This is she in whose lap the gods have established the laws of their activity and the sun and moon also for vision.

3. Therefore do all of us who aspire and do the works of sacrifice declare ever in themselves the Maruts for the drinking of the Soma wine.

4. This is the Soma that has been distilled; of this the Maruts drink and they who are the self-ruling lords and the two Aswins.

5. Mitra and Aryaman drink and Varuna of this Soma that is purified by the extension in matter and established in the three seats of our being and has with it the daughter² of the worlds.

6. According to his acceptance,³ verily, of this Soma rich in the light, [Indra] has in the dawn the intoxication of its joy as the priest of the offering.

7. What is this light and force that the masters of solar knowledge have manifested? Purified in discernment they cross over those who assail them as over the flowing waters.

8. What manifestation must I accept today for you, the vast gods who by the self have your overcoming power of light?⁴

9. They who have given wide extension to all mortal things and to the luminous spaces of heaven, — the Maruts to the Soma-drinking.

10. I call for you from heaven those pure-discerning Maruts for the drinking of this Soma wine.

      1 गौर . Proof of the symbolic use of the word गौः the Cow. Here the Chit-Shakti from which all conscious knowledge is derived — see line 6 सुतस्य गोमत .

          2 जावतः. जा = Mother or Daughter, and refers to गौः. Cf. गोमतः next line.

          3 जोषमाँ. See Padapatha [which has जोषं आ— ed.].

          4 दस्मवर्चसाम्. Crucial for sense of  दस्म.

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11. They, the Maruts, who have made firm the two firmaments, them I call to the drinking of this Soma wine.

12. Yea, that Marut host who are lords and seated on the hill, I call to the drinking of this Soma wine.

MANDALA VIII, SUKTA 95

1. The Words of our thought mount upon thee in the Soma-outpourings as men upon a chariot, O thou [who] hast the delight of the Word; they yearn (or expand) utterly towards thee, O Indra, as mothers towards a child.

2. Its pure-bright outpourings (fall) are impelled towards thee, O Indra, enjoyer of speech; do thou drink of this food; O Indra, in all creatures it is ready placed for thee.

3. Drink for the rapture, O Indra, the Soma brought by the Bird of swiftness and distilled here for thee, for thou art the master and king of all the series of the peoples.

4. Hear thou the call of Tiraschi who adoreth (seeketh after)¹ thee, fill him with a felicity full of the light and perfect in energy; great art thou.

5. Tiraschi, who, O Indra, has created for thee a new Word of expression that has the rapture and a thought in the perceiving mind (or the mind, O Perceiver), that is ancient and nourished on the Truth.

6. That Indra let us establish in praise whom all words and utterances² increase; let us bring out his ancient mightinesses and enjoy them.

7. Come ye now and let us establish in praise Indra purified by the purified Sama and increasing by purified utterances; purified in aspiration let him rejoice.

8. O Indra, purified do thou come to us with purified increasings of thy presence, purified hold in thee our felicity, purified rejoice and be full of delight.

9. For purified, O Indra, thou bringest felicity and, purified, thou givest thy raptures to the giver; purified thou slayest the things that cover, purified thou bringest thy full plenty to light.

      1 सपर्यति R[oo]t to attain, touch..taste.

        2 उक्थ utterances or expressions of desire.

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MANDALA VIII, SUKTA 97

1. With all thy enjoyments, O Indra, that thou hast brought in thy fullness of Heaven from the Mighty Ones, O master of fullnesses, increase him who establishes that by the praise and those who in thee have set clear the seat of the sacrifice.

2. That nervous force and mental light and undecaying enjoyment which thou, O Indra holdest, establish it in that sacrificer who expresses in him the Soma and has the discernment and not in the creature of sense-activity.

3. That Power in us who has an inert activity after the way of sleep and seeks not the godhead, may he exhaust himself by his own movements; afterwards establish in us continuously an increasing felicity.

4. When, O Lord of Might, thou art in our higher being and when thou art in the lower, O slayer of the Coverer, he who has the Soma carrieth thee hence to thy home with the heavenward motion, O Indra, by his maned Words.

5. Yea, whether thou art in the luminous space of Heaven or in the established world of the great Ocean or in an earthly dwelling, O strongest of the slayers of the Coverer, or in the mid-world, arrive.

6. So do thou the Soma-drinker in our Soma-juices poured, O master of brilliant force, give us the joy by a delight that is of the perfect truth, O Indra, and by a felicity all-pervading.

7. Abandon us not, O Indra, but become to us full of the rapture of fulfilment¹ (or our companion in the rapture); thou comest to us with increase and thou bringest fulfilment of our works; O Indra, abandon us not.

8. Thou with us, O Indra, take thy seat in the Soma-offering for drinking of the sweetness; effect for thy lover, O master of fullnesses, thy vast presence with us, O Indra, in the Soma-offering.

9. The gods possess thee not nor mortals, O lord of the hill of being; thou by thy shining might masterest with thy being all births and the gods possess not thee.

      1 सधमाद्यः. Sense to be fixed.

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10. They all together (with one impulse) have formed Indra as the Strong Purusha who overcomes all armies and gave him being that he might rule, supreme by his might of action and [ ]¹ in the supreme, full too of fierce intensity and force and strength and swiftness.

11. When the masters of joy have set Indra vibrating in sound² for the drinking of the Soma, when they have set in action the Lord of Swar for his increase, then he held firmly the law of his activity by his force, by his increasing manifestations.

12. By vision these illumined powers bend him into a nave (for the action), the words vibrating towards his seeings,³ and luminous and unhurtful they thrill the hearing in their speed with the words that realise.

13. To that Indra I call, the master of fullnesses, fierce-intense and ever holding without aught to conceal him his flashing strengths; may he in fullest strength by the words of our thought act in the sacrifice and as lord of the lightning set all things in us on the good path towards the felicity.

14. Do thou, O Indra, know these cities that by thy force, O strong one of the flashing force, thou mayst destroy them; for in fear of thee, lord of the thunderflash, tremble all the worlds and heaven shakes and the earth.

15. O Indra, hero and rich brightness, may that truth in me protect; carry me safe over multitudinous streams as over the waters. When wilt thou distribute to us, O Indra, of that felicity that is universal in form and utterly desirable, O King?

MANDALA VIII, SUKTA 98

1. Sing ye the Sama to Indra illumined, to the vast a Sama vast, to him who maketh the law, to him who sees, to him who labours.

2. Thou masterest with thy being, O Indra; 'tis thou that hast made Surya to shine; thou art universal doer and universal deity; great art thou.

      1 Blank in MS. Sri Aurobindo's note: आमुरिम्. Sense to be fixed.

        2 स्वरन्ति. Sense to be fixed.

        3 मेषम्. Lit[erally] him who looks and sees. R[oo]t मिष् cf. मिषत् Ait[areya] Up[anishad] — by slesa the Ram.

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3. Burning bright with thy lustre thou goest to Swar, to the luminous world of Heaven; the gods travail to have thy friendship, O Indra.

4. Come to us, O Indra, as one delightful and ever-victorious and not to be obscured and wide-extended on all sides like a mountain and the master of Heaven.

5. For, O true in thy being and Soma drinker, thou hast taken possession of both the firmaments; O Indra, thou art the in-creaser of him who produces for thee the Soma, for thou art the master of heaven.

6. For thou art he who shatters, O Indra, these ranged cities and the slayer of the plunderer and the increaser of man, the mental being, and the master of Heaven.

7. So, O Indra who takest delight in the word, we set free our large desires towards thee, as men travelling by the sea who are carried forward on its waves.

8. As the sea is increased by the rivers that join it, so thee, O hero, the thoughts of the soul increase and once increased swell yet more from day to day, O dweller on the hill.

9. By the aspiring chant they yoke the two bright steeds of his swift impulsion in a wide car with a wide yoke; coursers that bear Indra and their yoke is the word.

10. Do thou, O Indra of the hundred willings and the various activities, bring to us force and strength, bring to us the energy that overcomes the shock of the hosts.

11. For thou, O master of substance, O lord of the hundred willings, hast become to us our father and become to us our mother; now 'tis the bliss of thee that we seek.

12. To thee in thy plenty, O master of force to whom many call, I turn my speech, O lord of the hundred strengths of Will; do thou give to us a perfect energy.

MANDALA VIII, SUKTA 99

1. Thee now and yesterday the Purushas have nourished and poured¹ in their store, O master of the thunderflash; do thou

      1 भृण् to bring and pour in, to pierce, etc.

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then, O Indra, hearken to those who here bear up the burden of thy affirming praise and come to thy place of rest.¹

2. Take there thy joy (of the Soma), O thou brilliant and beautiful, for that we desire; in thee the Disposers tend to their becoming. Thy supreme inspirations must be expressed in the Soma-pourings, O Indra who hast delight in the word.

3. They move as if to their home in Surya; all the things of Indra do ye enjoy; by his force we hold in the mind the riches of his substance, as if our portion for enjoyment, in that which is born and that which is becoming.

4. Confirm in praise the giver of substance who has joy that does no hurt; good are Indra's joys; he has not wrath against one who giveth him his desire as a sacrifice, urging his mind to the gift.

5. Thou, O Indra, in the charges overcomest all opposers; slayer of non-expression, begetter of things art thou and he who carries all things through to their goal, do thou carry so all who would make the passage.

6. According to thy strength the two worlds follow after thee in that passage as mothers their child; all opposers fall away before the passion of thee when thou piercest, O Indra, the Coverer.

7. Move hence in your increase to the ageless who smites and is not smitten, the swift one, the conqueror, shooter and mightiest charioteer, unpierced who increases the [. . .]²

MANDALA VIII, SUKTA 100

1. Behold, I go in front of thee in my body and all the gods follow after me behind; when in me thou hast set thy portion of enjoyment, O Indra, it is by me, verily, that thou doest thy mighty works.

2. I place thy enjoyable food of the sweetness before thee; set for thee as thy enjoyment be this Soma that I have pressed out; O unattached, thou art my friend and on my right, now let us two slay the multitude of the Coverers.

3. Bring forward for Indra the truth for his affirmation in praise

      1 स्वस् to sleep, rest, enjoy.

        2 तुग्रश्च not translated.

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and increase its plenty, if the truth be that he is. "Indra is not," Nema said of thee, "who hath seen him? who is it that we would affirm with praise?"

4. "Lo here, O My lover, I am, behold me even here; all things created I possess in being by my might; Me the teachings of the Truth increase and I am the render who rend the worlds.

5. "When the rejoicers in the Truth have ascended to me seated alone on the back of the resplendent world, Mind in Me made answer to their hearts and my lovers like children cried aloud."

6. All those deeds of thine have to be expressed in the Soma-sacrifices, which thou hast done, O Indra master of the fullness, for him who presses out the Soma, as when thou for Sharabha builder of the knowledge (or friend of the seers) didst uncover the supreme substance massed in its multiplicity.

7. He who covereth it in you, runs forward now as if something separate here; in utterly into the heart of the Coverer Indra has hurled his lightning flash.

8. Moving swift as mind the Bird has sped beyond this iron city, he has reached Heaven and brought the wine of Soma for the master of the lightning.

9. Within the ocean of being lies his lightning covered over with the water; many forward-flowing waters coming together bear to it its food of strength.

10. When Speech, uttering things that thought has not distinguished, sits as queen of the gods rejoicing, then from the Four she milks out their force, draughts for our drinking. But to what place unknown goeth her highest?

11. The gods have given being to Speech divine and her the herds¹ utter in all the forms that being has taken; may she, even Speech the Cow of the milking, full of rapture and milking out for us force of being and force of impulsion come to us perfectly affirmed.

12. O Vishnu, our comrade, stride out thy widest! O Heaven, yield thy world to Indra's lightning as it pushes wide. We two would slay the Coverer, we two would pour out the rivers of being; let them flow released in the [impulsion]² of Indra.

      1 पशवो = गावः: or simply all animals.

        2 प्रसवे [Sri Aurobindo cancelled "impulsion" but did not substitute anything for it.]

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MANDALA VIII, SUKTA 101

1. Richly so that mortal becomes passive for the extension in him of the godhead, who has called¹ Mitra and Varuna into his being to possess it² and give the offering.

2. Abundant is their force and wide their revealed vision; they are the Purushas, the Kings, far of range their inspired hearing ;³ they by action as with a crowd of arms guide the chariot (of the Delight) along with the rays of the Master of Illumination.

3. There is one who runs forward as your messenger, O Mitra and Varuna, iron-browed, impetuous in rapture.

4. He who taketh not delight in the questioning nor in the calling back nor in the converse, from him protect us in the shock, with your arms protect.

5. Chant ye to Mitra and Aryaman a Word of force,⁴ O thou rich in the Truth, a supreme and rhythmed word to Varuna, a song of affirmation to the Kings.

6. They have set in movement a substance of being active and pleasurable, one child of the three; they immortal and un-oppressed behold the Seats for mortal men.

7. The Words of my thought are in labour upward, full of illumination are the deeds that I shall do. Come then both of you one in comradeship to the offerings that they may go to their goal.

8. Now that we offer to you a delight⁵ free from the Rakshasas who detain, O Aswins rich in the plenty of substance, come bringing forward the supreme⁶ Lady of the offering and [protect her],⁷ O ye Purushas, ye whom the hymns of Jamadagni express.

9. To our sacrifice that reacheth to Heaven come, O Vayu, with

      1 आचक्रे. the obverse expression of आभू,—junction of two personalities in conscious being and bringing into junction.

       2 or for fulfilment. अभिष्टये. Sayana अभिमतसिद्धि. It probably expresses the action of the god who projects his personality on to the consciousness of the human being so that he seems to approach and stand over or in it by a sort of application of soul to soul.

         3 दीर्घश्रुत्तमा. — Dutt.

         4 or "of love".

         5 or wealth.

         6 प्राचीम्. S[ayana] seems to make it an epithet of नरा. [Dutt:]

         7 Lightly cancelled in MS.

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perfect thoughts; for thee within the purifying sense this Soma with its upward motion was worked into this pure brightness.¹

10. The Master of the sacrificial substance comes by straightest paths to the offerings that they may go to their goal; now, O thou who yokest the steeds of Life, do thou drink in us of both, drink of the pure Soma and of that which is rich with the Rays.²

11. Truly art thou the great, O Master of Illumination, truly art thou the great, O son of Infinity; great art thou in thy being and a greatness is thy labour; verily, art thou the great.

12. Truly, O Surya, art thou vast in inspiration, ever, O god, art thou the great; by the greatness of the gods art thou the Mighty One, for they set thee in front, in a pervading and unconquerable Light.

13. Lo, she who is here below and luminous with realisation and shaped³ and ruddy-bright, here appeareth coming to us as one varied in hue⁴ between his ten arms.

14. They travelled with a motion that went beyond the three worlds of beings;⁵ others entered around that illumination.⁶ Vastly he stood within the worlds, purified and resplendent he entered in.⁷

15. Mother of the Rudras is she, daughter of the Vasus, sister of the Adityas, periphery of the Truth. Now do I speak to that man who hath the perception; hurt not the Light that is without stain of evil, the Infinite who divideth not.

16. The Light who knoweth the Words and sendeth for the Word, whom all the thoughts approach to serve, who, divine, has [for]⁸ the divine Powers gone abroad let not the mortal cleave away from him in the littleness of his understanding.

      1 श्रीणानो.  . उपरि seems to be omitted in Dutt's translation.

        2 गवाशिरम्. .

        3 रूपा.

        4 चित्रा. — D[utt].

        5 प्रजाः is taken as nominative, but it might be objective.

        6 अर्कम्. — but above अर्किणी is taken = स्तुतिमती.

       7 हरितः. See whether accusative plural of हरित्. [If so taken, the word becomes the object of "entered "; with this in mind Sri Aurobindo changed "in" to "into" and began to write another word, but stopped.]

        8 Cancelled without substitution.

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Notes on the Texts

From Man to Superman: Appendix

Al Late 1940s. MS.NB S"7", 248. Heading: "From Man to Superman" (used as the title of this collection, cf. piece A2). Above "Beyond him" and apparently meant to precede or replace that phrase is a word or phrase that is illegible. Published here for the first time.

A2 Middle to late 1940s. MS.NB S"S4", 141-37 (backwards). Heading: "From Man to Superman /I" (used as the title of this collection, cf. piece A1). The manuscript of this piece, unlike those of most of the Appendix pieces, presented difficulties not so much of illegibility, as of incompleteness; Sri Aurobindo seemingly did not write down the continuation of certain phrases. (Perhaps his bad eyesight made it difficult for him to confirm what he had already written.) Published here for the first time. A3 Middle to late 1940s. MS.NB G66, 12-28. Heading: "Superman". This manuscript, and some of the others, exhibits the peculiarity that the second of two consecutive tall letters is usually omitted, thus "Matter" is regularly written "Mater". Published here for the first time.

A4 Middle to late 1940s. MS.LS Glee, 1-4. Heading: "Mat[t]er" (see note to piece A3). Pages 5-6 of the same manuscript are so filled with textual difficulties that they have been omitted altogether. The last phrase printed here is followed in MS by "it is in [? position] and [? combination]" (end of MS page 4). Published here for the first time.

A5 Middle to late 1940s. MS.NB G66, 30-34 (cf. pieces A3 and A6). Heading: "The Conscient in unconscious things". Published here for the first time.

A6 Middle to late 1940s. MS.NB G66, 35-42 (cf. pieces A3 and A5; written immediately after A5). Heading: "The Consciousness below the Surface". Published here for the first time.

A7 Middle to late 1940s. MS.NB S"S3", 29-48. Heading: "Is Consciousness Real". The single asterisks represent three horizontal asterisks in MS. Published Mother India, vol. 27, no. 11 (November 1975), pp. 884-86.

A8 Late 1940s. MS.LS Glff, 1-2. Heading: "The Psychology of Integral Yoga". Published here for the first time.

A9 Late 1940s. MS.NB S"125", 38. In MS a number of words exist only as scratches in the paper; the ink did not flow out of the pen. Published here for the first time.

A10 Middle to late 1940s. MS.LS Gldd, 7-9, 1-4 + Gldd(A), 10-13. Despite the Archives' numbering of the loose sheets, this piece was apparently begun by Sri Aurobindo on pages 7-9 and continued or recommenced on pages 1-4 (pages 5-6 are an unrelated fragment too full of textual difficulties to reproduce). Pages 1-9 were copied out in that order, with many omissions and mistranscriptions, by a disciple, and presented to Sri Aurobindo for confirmation and correction. Working both with his original MS and the disciple's transcript, and using his disciple Nirodbaran as amanuensis, Sri Aurobindo subsequently attempted to produce a readable text, but proceeded only as far as original pages 1-4, which were partly rewritten. For the most part the rewritten version has been used by the editors as the text for the second segment of this piece. However, the existence of two manuscripts for this segment has

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given rise to variant readings, since not all mistranscriptions were necessarily corrected by Sri Aurobindo and since parts of the handwritten version not transcribed in the copy presented to him, which he consequently rephrased to fill in the blanks in the transcript, have been deciphered by the present editors and incorporated in the text. Thus, in paragraph 4, sentence 3, "or systematised" and "humankind," are the editors' reading of words originally transcribed "unsystematised" and "mankind". Again, in the penultimate sentence of the same paragraph, "subliminal to" is the editors' decipherment of what was left blank in the transcript and filled in by Sri Aurobindo "veiled within". Finally, in the same sentence, "and unless we know" and "must escape us", deciphered by the editors, were not read by the original copyist; the first blank was filled in by Sri Aurobindo to make a new sentence: ". . . possibilities. It discloses through these things the secret of Consciousness and the knowledge of our whole being." Published here for the first time.

Na Kinchidapi Chintayet. MS.LS GAlc, 1-3. Written probably early in 1910. The "past articles" mentioned at the end of the first paragraph may be ones published in the Karmayogin in February 1910, in particular "The Three Purushas" (published 12 February) and "The Strength of Stillness'" (published 19 February). The present article also has some relationship to "Hathayoga" and "Rajayoga", which seem to have been written for the Karmayogin around the same time, but were never published there, since Sri Aurobindo ceased to edit the journal when he went to Chandernagore in February. The title of the present article is a quotation from the Gita (6.25): "One should not think of anything at all."

The Psychology of Yoga. MS.NB V2, 153-54. Written circa 1912, probably after the pieces on Theosophy that follow it in the present issue. Never published during Sri Aurobindo's lifetime. Most of the piece published SABCL vol. 17, 183-84. All but the first sentence of the last paragraph has hitherto been held back from publication; the rest of the paragraph is appearing in print for the first time here.

The Claims of Theosophy. MS.LS GAlf, 24-28. Written circa 1910-12, certainly after January 1908, when Sri Aurobindo met V. B. Lele, the "member of the Theo-sophical Society who [gave] me spiritual help" mentioned in paragraph six. The article was never published during Sri Aurobindo's lifetime. Since the individuals mentioned are no longer living, and since it should be obvious to any reader that Sri Aurobindo was anything but "narrow and intolerant" in his criticism, it has been thought appropriate to publish this essay and the next at the present time. However much Sri Aurobindo may have disagreed with some of the methods or doctrines of Theosophy, he was well aware of the pioneering work done by this movement, which "with its comprehensive combination of old and new beliefs and its appeal to ancient spiritual and psychic systems, has everywhere exercised an influence far beyond the circle of its. . . adherents" (The Foundations of Indian Culture, SABCL vol. 14, 16). If he thought Theosophy in some ways unsuitable to the Indian temperament, he was well aware that it "has really done some work in Europe" (unpublished talk: PT MS2, 122). He assured a disciple who had been associated with the Theosophists: "I have nothing against it [the Theosophical Society] nor against any of the Theosophists, to all of whom I wish the best. I am not against them." (Bulletin, vol. 21, no. 3, p. 59)

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Science and Religion in Theosophy. MS.NB V2, 94-95. Circa 1910-12. Heading in MS: "Papers on Theosophy / II / Science & Religion in Theosophy". ("The Claims of Theosophy", although not so identified, is evidently the first of this series of papers.)

Hinduism and the Mission of India. MS.NB G8, 57-58 + 58B(A)-58D(A). Written circa 1910-12. The first pages of this essay have been lost; the title has been supplied by the editors. Manuscript notations show that around this time Sri Aurobindo was planning to write or had written some articles on "Evidences of Hinduism" and "The Foundations of Hinduism" —this piece may be all that survives of these essays. In any case it certainly was written as a part of a series of articles (see beginning of the last paragraph); perhaps it has some relation to "On Original Thinking", "The Interpretation of Scripture" and "Social Reform" (SABCL vol. 3, pp. 110-24), the topics of all of which seem to be alluded to in the second paragraph of the present piece. Hitherto unpublished except for the second from the last paragraph, which appeared in the Advent in August 1973, p. 10. The Biblical story mentioned in the second paragraph is told in Exodus 33. 18-23 ("thou shalt see my back-parts").

A Fragment. MS.NB G7, 146 (a loose sheet). Written circa 1910-12, apparently for insertion in an essay such as "On Original Thinking", one of the "Epistles from Abroad", or another writing. The editors have been unable to find where Sri Aurobindo intended the paragraph to go.

Five Fragments, (a) MS.LS GAle, 1; (b) MS.NB GA5, 6; (c) MS.NB GA5, 3; (d) MS.NB GA5, 4; (e) MS.LS GAlk, 1. All but the last, circa 1916-17; the last circa 1927. The pieces deal with aspects of the same theme, and so have been grouped together.

Two Fragments, (a) MS.LS V3-1, 5a. Circa 1910-14. A last fragmentary sentence with some doubtful words has been omitted from the text. It reads: "Sometimes, Nature seems to prepare by heredity for this its few [new?] experiments [experiment?] and fine flower of humanity, (b) MS.LS Glf, 4. Circa 1910-14. Cancelled heading: "Marbles". Published Bulletin, Vol. 4, no. 2 (April 1952), 16.

Four Fragments, (a) MS.NB G38, 18. Circa 1918-20 (the first world war ended in 1918, conflict between Poland and Russia continued until 1921). (b) MS.NB G37, 2. Arya period (1914-20). (c) MS.NB G44, 17. Circa 1927. (d) MS.NB S "120", 121. Late 1940s. A rather illegible manuscript.

A Fragmentary Answer to a Critic. MS.LS Gld, 1. Written shortly after August 1910, when the article referred to, "Comment and Criticism. The Indian Fine Arts Critics", was published in The Modern Review (Calcutta), vol. 8, no. 2,207-13. The author of this article, identified in the Review as "a student of Mr. Ravi Varma, the famous Indian Artist", made disparaging remarks about such critics as Coomaraswami and Sister Nivedita.

Srevian. MS.LS V3j, 1. Circa 1910-14. This preface, probably not complete, is all the exists of a proposed story.

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A Fragment. MS.NB VI, 32. This delightful little note is from the period 1910-12.

At the Turn of the Century. MS.NB G2, 91a; MS.NB G13, 37. Under this title the editors have published two short pieces evidently written in the first years of the twentieth century. Work on the first fragment was broken off abruptly; the full stop at the end was supplied by the editors. The second piece may have been copied from somewhere—perhaps an almanac called "Old Moore"? — but the general turn of the language appears to be Sri Aurobindo's.

An Early Fragment on the Congress Movement. MS.NB G13, 17B(A). Written probably in 1903 (the Ahmedabad Congress was held in December 1902). One cannot but be struck by the accuracy of Sri Aurobindo's prophecy—voiced well before the awakening of 1905, at a time when there was little in the country to encourage such a view.

Marginalia. Written in Sri Aurobindo's copy of the great Bengali poet Michael Madhusudan Dutt's Virangana Kavya (Calcutta: Vidyaratan Press, 1885), during the early part of the Baroda period (1893-1900).

Selected Hymns. MS.NB I"8", 1-13. Written circa 1913. "Dutt", mentioned in two footnotes to Sukta 101, refers to R.C. Dutt's translation of the Rig-veda into Bengali.

TABLE OF DATES AND NOTEBOOKS OF PIECES

IN THE APPENDIX TO FROM MAN TO SUPERMAN

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TABLE OF EMENDATIONS

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