Notes on the Texts

Yoganga. This outline was written in the same notebook and at the same time as "Shanti Chatusthaya" (A & R, vol. 2 [1978], pp. 188-91). The date of writing was sometime between 1914 and 1917.

Sapta-chatusthaya: The "Scribal Version". This explanation of Sapta Chatusthaya is the most complete one available. There is no manuscript of the piece in Sri Auro-bindo's hand, but there can be no doubt that he was its author. The text survives only in the form of transcripts written down by disciples. Several of these "scribal copies", as the editors term them, have been collated in order to establish the present text.

      One of the scribal copies may date from as early as 1914; two others are from the mid-1920s, and most or all of the rest from the 1930s. These copies were made either from a now-lost manuscript written by Sri Aurobindo, or from one or more written records of a series of talks given by him. The scribal copies are certainly on the whole reliable records of Sri Aurobindo's words; but all of them contain obvious copying errors. Because of this, a much freer hand has been used in the editing of this piece than would have been permissible if the text was based on a handwritten manuscript.

      The text is "eclectic", that is to say, where variant readings occur, the editors have selected the one that seemed best now from this and now from that scribal copy. Where the scribal copies agree but the reading is clearly corrupt, an editorial alternative has been printed within square brackets, as part of the text, and the scribal version given as a footnote. (Such footnote variants are preceded by "S", for scribal copy.) Minor editorial alteration of spelling, number, punctuation, etc. has been done silently.

Record of Yoga. See Archival Notes for a general introduction to Record of Yoga. In the present note we give (1) textual information on the three segments of the Record published in the present issue, (2) a general statement of editorial method. Diary Entries: 17-21 June 1909. Sri Aurobindo made these notations during a tour of East Bengal (the present Bangladesh) a month and a half after his release from Alipore jail in May 1909. It is evident that he was deep in sadhana during the two-day journey from Calcutta, and the busy days of meetings and speeches that followed. The principal event of the tour, historically speaking, was the speech Sri Aurobindo delivered on 19 June 1909 at the Bengal Nationalist Party's Provincial Conference, held that year in Jhalakati, a town in Bakarganj District. On pages 57-66 of Volume 2 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, the text of this inspired speech is reproduced. To call it such is not hyperbole: Sri Aurobindo's diary notation "Speech from chitta". may perhaps refer to the mind-level through which his words were transmitted.

Categorical Record Notes: 28 January-17 February 1911. During this period Sri Aurobindo made Record entries under the following headings: "Physical." "Communications". "Vision of other worlds". "Record of the Drishti", "Siddhis". and "Record of Ideal Cognitions". The entries were written on scattered pages of a notebook used first in Baroda as a book catalogue, and later in Pondicherry for various prose and poetic writings.

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"Record of the Yoga": 13 January-8 February 1912. The Record for this period, entitled "Record of the Yoga", was kept in a notebook used first in Baroda for literary essays, and later in Pondicherry for notes and articles on linguistics and other subjects. Record notes occupy twenty-four pages of the notebook. The notes of 14-15 January were kept on a separate sheet. The Record of 12 December to 11 January, referred to in the first sentence of the entry of 13 January, has not survived. The long blanks which come after many sentences, the third of the first entry, for example, seem to lake the place of paragraph indentations. Sri Aurobindo was perforce very frugal of paper in those days.

Editorial method. Record of Yoga has been transcribed verbatim from Sri Auro-bindo's handwritten manuscripts. No word or significant mark of punctuation has been changed, added or removed without clear notification to the reader. The handwriting of the manuscripts is neat and the text presented few difficulties of transcription; but since it was scarcely revised by the author, it contains a small number of obvious slips. These have been emended editorially. Every emendation or other editorial operation has been enclosed within square brackets; if necessary, an explanatory footnote has also been given. Every word and mark of punctuation not enclosed in square brackets is reproduced exactly as it appears in the manuscripts. The only exceptions to this rule involve certain trivial matters which would require a longer explanation than they are worth.

Use of italics. Most words underlined by Sri Aurobindo in the manuscript have, following the usual editorial convention, been italicised in the text. The editors have also used italics to indicate words that were added after the original entries were written by the author. Such instances are explained in notes. These two sorts of italic-isation constitute a slight deviation from an absolutely literal representation of the manuscript. Note, however, that where Sri Aurobindo's underlining of words was done with a special purpose, the underlining (without italics) has been retained in the text.

      Editorial notes, both those within the body of the text and footnotes, have been printed in italics. Notes by Sri Aurobindo, and variant readings, etc. by Sri Aurobindo that are reproduced in notes are printed in Roman type. (Editorial introductions or explanations of authorial variants or notes have been printed in italics.) Emendations and other editorial operations. Six classes of editorial operations may be distinguished :

      1. Addition of words, letters or marks of punctuation that are not in the manuscript. There are four subcategories:

      (a) Supply of words or letters unintentionally left out by the author.

      (b) Supply of words not written by the author, the lack of which might cause unnecessary confusion to the reader.

      (c) Transliteration of some phrases written in Devanagari (Sanskrit), Bengali, Greek or other scripts.

      (d) Expansion of abbreviations.

      2. Supply of words lost by mutilation of the manuscript; or indication of gaps that cannot be filled on account of mutilation or illegibility.

      3. Omission of extraneous words.

      4. Replacement of words considered authorial slips by editorial emendations.

      5. Supply of editorial information within the body of the text.

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      6. Editorial footnotes.

      Footnotes have been used to give all editorial information not supplied within square brackets. In particular, they have been used when the information to be supplied is long, complicated, or not presentable in the form of classes (1) to (5). Please note that

      (a) Editorial information is given only when there is a difficulty with the text, or when the manuscript contains information not representable typographically. No explanations, glosses, commentary, etc. have been given in footnotes.

      (b) Footnotes by Sri Aurobindo (some of which were written marginally) are identified as such. The reference mark for his notes is an asterisk (as in the manuscript); superscript numbers have been used as reference marks for editorial footnotes.

      (c) Every word whose reading is doubtful is indicated by a footnote. Non-English words. The Record contains many words and phrases from various languages Sanskrit, Bengali (and other modern Indian languages), Greek. Latin, French, etc. Definitions of most of these will be found in the Glossary. In the text they have been printed exactly as they were written in the manuscripts. Most words of languages normally written and printed in foreign (i.e. non-Roman) scripts were written in transliterated form by Sri Aurobindo. He did not do this with a scholarly consistency, but used now one, now another system of transliteration, and sometimes no system in particular. Non-Sanskrit-knowing readers should not be distressed by the number of ways in which a single Sanskrit word can be represented in English. Foreign words have not been italicised unless they were italicised by Sri Aurobindo. He began italicising Sanskrit words around September 1914. It was at this time that he took up the review Arya, where most Sanskrit words were printed in italics.

Yogic Sadhan. This book was received by Sri Aurobindo as automatic writing in 1910. See Archival Notes and the note preceding the text for information on automatic writing in general and on Yogic Sadhan in particular. The text in the present issue follows that of the second edition (1920), which was revised lightly by Sri Aurobindo. The few deliberate revisions that were made to the edition of 1933 have been incorporated. (The edition of 1923 is textually insignificant.) In one or two places it is evident that a variant reading of 1920 was the result of a transmission error, and not authorial revision. In these cases the reading of the first (1911) edition has been reinstated. Handwritten manuscripts of Chapters 7, 8 and 9 exist. These are not the original automatic writings, but transcripts made by Sri Aurobindo. They have been read against the printed text, and a few words and phrases that were omitted from the edition of 1911, and all subsequent editions, have been found. The omission of some of these was clearly unintentional ; in such cases the manuscript readings have been reinstated. On the next page is printed a table giving all differences between the present text and the edition of 1920. The last column shows the source of the text reading. "1986" indicates an emendation introduced by the editors of Archives and Research.

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