|
Archival Notes MORE ON SRI AUROBINDO'S COMING TO PONDICHERRY
In the issue of April 1985, I wrote at some length about Sri Aurobindo's departure from Chandernagore on 31 March 1910 and his arrival in Pondicherry four days later. Since that writing a primary document having some bearing on the incident has been acquired by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives and Research Library. This document does not provide any completely new information, but it supports an interpretation that had been founded in part on a secondary account. This gives the interpretation an authority it would not otherwise have had. An extract from the document in question, the reminiscences of S. Srinivasachari, is reproduced as Document 2.1 Document 1 is a page from a notebook used by Sri Aurobindo in 1909. This was cited in my previous article, but it has never been reproduced. I propose in the present instalment to reconsider a single, relatively unimportant aspect of the incident in question, because my handling of this point has aroused some controversy. My intention in reopening the case is not only to lay the controversy to rest, but also to provide the reader with a practical demonstration of the process of biographical research. In the process the event will be studied in as much detail as the evidence permits. It will be recalled that when Sri Aurobindo decided to go to Pondicherry from Chandernagore he sent a note to Sureshchandra Chakrabarty (Moni) asking him to
1 Our thanks to Mr. S. Parthasarathi. son of S. Srinivasachari and nephew of the S. Parthasarathi frequently referred to below, for allowing us to read, copy and reproduce extracts from his father's reminiscences. go ahead of him to the French colony in order to make arrangements for his stay.2 At the same time, or perhaps shortly afterwards, Sri Aurobindo sent Moni "a piece of paper on which [Sri Aurobindo] had written a few lines that were to be [Moni's] letter of introduction to the Pondicherry friends".3 This letter of introduction and its recipient will be the focus of the present inquiry.
A SURVEY OF THE EVIDENCE
The letter of introduction is referred to in three sources: 1. The account of Sureshchandra Chakrabarty as published in his book Smriti-katha (relevant passages reproduced in the Document cited in footnotes 2 and 3). 2. The account of S. Srinivasachari, from his unpublished reminiscences (relevant passage reproduced as Document 2 in the present issue). 3. The account of M. A. Narayana Iyengar, from his "Foreword" to Parthasarathi's published paraphrase of the Gita (relevant extract printed after Document 2 in the present issue). Items 1 and 2 are primary sources, that is, documents created by witnesses of the event. Item 3 is a secondary source, that is. an account written by a person who relied on the testimony of another. For the moment we will concern ourselves only with primary sources: items (1) and (2) from the above list, and Document 1. We are fortunate to possess accounts written by the two principal participants in the event: Moni and Srinivasachari. (There are also accounts by Sri Aurobindo, who certainly was a participant, although not, of course, a witness of the meeting between Moni and Srinivasachari before his arrival in Pondicherry. Sri Aurobindo's accounts will be left out of consideration for the moment.) The first step in examining a historical document is to establish its authenticity by means of "external" and "internal" criticism, that is, through scrutiny of the document itself, and through scrutiny of its contents. There is no "external" reason to doubt the genuineness either of Moni's or of Srinivasachari's account. Neither, that is, need be considered forgeries. Moni oversaw the publication of his own narrative. Srinivasachari's reminiscences were written for the central government's History of the Freedom Movement Project, and deposited at the National Archives, New Delhi. A copy of the entire document was presented to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives by Srinivasachari's son. The apparent genuineness of both documents is supported by their contents. Both accounts are sufficiently credible to warrant being given serious consideration by the historian. Both are, to be sure, "intentional", that is, both were written for the purpose of providing information on the subject treated. This gives them less interest than an "unintentional" account — one written for another purpose that mentions the event incidentally — would have had. (To make this distinction more clear, I will give a hypothetical example. A contemporary report by a police spy assigned to keep track of the movements of Sri Aurobindo and his associates, but not concerned with the motives, spiritual or other, behind these movements, could
2 "Documents in the Life of Sri Aurobindo". Sri Aurobindo: Archives and Research, vol. 9, no. 1 (April 1985). Document 11 (p. 100). 3 Ibid., Document 11 (p. 101). be considered an unintentional account of the events in question. The spy's information could be considered free from the sort of misplacement of emphasis and reading in of meanings that makes retrospective narrative accounts so difficult to work with. Of course the spy's report would have to be scrutinized for signs of other kinds of bias.) Despite their intentionality, both the accounts under consideration have a good "feel" about them. This gives the researcher increased confidence in their reliability. Moni's account is somewhat literary; but this is to be expected, since Moni was a writer. He claimed to be putting down the facts as he remembered them, and the general accuracy of his account in regard to events witnessed by him tends to support his claim. The two accounts then appear to be authentic. But is the information that they contain correct? The way to determine this is to compare or "collate" them with each other and with other accounts. As a rule no retrospective narrative, in particular no narrative written many years after the event, can be accepted in toto. It is a commonplace observation that even the most careful accounts of long-past occurrences contain errors of detail, if not of substance. When a historian possesses two or more accounts of a single event, he must collate them in order to discover their points of agreement and points of difference. He will expect to find a general agreement and a certain amount of disagreement over details. If one account disagrees completely with others on several essential points, the researcher will have to question its authenticity, at least in regard to those points. If, on the other hand, two accounts agree in every particular, he will have to consider the possibility that one of them is derived from the other, or that both are derived from a common ancestor. This would deprive one or both of independent authority.4 When we collate Moni's and Srinivasachari's accounts, we find precisely this sort of general agreement with differences of detail. The main points of agreement, in regard to the episode under consideration, are as follows: 1. Moni came to Pondicherry and gave a letter of introduction to Srinivasachari. 2. After reading the letter, Srinivasachari made arrangements for Sri Aurobindo to stay at the house of Shankara Chettiar. 3. Sometime later Sri Aurobindo, accompanied by Bijoy, arrived in Pondicherry on a steamer of the Messageries Maritimes line. 4. Sri Aurobindo was met on the ship by Srinivasachari and another person who came from the shore on a launch, and later the same day was taken to Shankara Chettiar's house. The agreement on these four essential points argues for the authenticity of both accounts. Moreover, all four points are corroborated by the accounts of Sri Aurobindo published in On Himself. Since all three participants in the incident agree on these points (while disagreeing on others), all four may be considered established as facts. Each of the two accounts under scrutiny contains a good deal of information not contained in the other. This is to be expected. Srinivasachari tells his side of the story, Moni tells his. Some of the information contained in one account but not the
4 The line of critical investigation briefly set forth here has been admirably articulated by Marc Bloch in The Historian's Craft (New York: Vintage. 1953). pp. 110-15. other may be considered somewhat dubious. Moni's elaborate story of being looked on with suspicion by the people he met in Pondicherry, to the degree that he would have been in danger of a beating, or worse, if Sri Aurobindo had not arrived on the Dupleix, seems to me to be a little over drawn. Srinivasachari's account contains at least one statement that is positively incorrect. Shyamsunder Chakra-varti never had anything to do with the Karmayogin. At the time that Sri Aurobindo was met by Parthasarathi in Calcutta, Shyamsunder was in Burma, where he had been deported in December 1908. This error does not reflect adversely on the authenticity of Srinivasachari's account, however, since it is there an incidental point, and Srinivasachari's statement begins with "I think". It should be noted that in formulating the four points of agreement, I deliberately phrased them in such a way as to exclude details about which the two accounts differed. Srinivasachari and Moni both claim to have gone out to the Dupleix on the harbour launch, but disagree over whom they went out with. Srinivasachari says he went out with Subramania Bharati. Moni says he and Srinivasachari went together. Moni's account is too convincingly detailed to be considered mere imagination. But he may have forgotten about Bharati, just as Srinivasachari seems to have forgotten about Moni. One might tentatively conclude that Srinivasachari, Moni, and perhaps Bharati went out to the ship. Another account, however, has Bharati waiting at the pier. Since the matter is of no great consequence, it is better left out of consideration.
WHO DID SRI AUROBINDO SEND THE LETTER TO?
The only difference between the two accounts that is of any importance to the present inquiry concerns Sri Aurobindo's letter of introduction. Moni wrote that it was meant for unspecified "Pondicherry friends". Srinivasachari wrote that the letter was addressed to his brother S. Parthasarathi Iyengar. Srinivasachari also wrote that Parthasarathi had met Sri Aurobindo some time earlier while Parthasarathi was on a tour of north India to raise capital for the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company, a patriotic venture in which his family had invested heavily. Document 1 is a jotting from a small printed "Diary and Almanac" for the year 1909. In June 1909 Sri Aurobindo used this appointment book for the diary-notations that were published as part of Record of Yoga in the April 1986 issue of Archives and Research. In July 1909, however, Sri Aurobindo certainly used the appointment book for recording engagements. We can assume that he did meet the Secretary of the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company, since Document 2 affirms that the meeting did take place. This Document also gives the name of the person Sri Aurobindo met: Srinivasachari's younger brother Parthasarathi. Documents 1 and 2 taken together provide convincing evidence that Sri Aurobindo had met at least one man of Pondicherry, namely Parthasarathi, before he proceeded to the French colony in 1910. When he wrote a letter of introduction for Moni to give to the "Pondicherry friends", he undoubtedly addressed it to someone known to him. Srinivasachari asserts that the letter was addressed to Parthasarathi care of the India Office. There is little reason to doubt this assertion. Srinivasachari was a first-hand witness of the event. His statement satisfies common sense. The letter certainly was not addressed to him; he would have had no reason to conceal the fact if it was. It therefore may be accepted that the letter was in fact addressed to Parthasarathi care of the India Office. According to Moni, the morning after his arrival in Pondicherry, he went by push-push to the place where he was to deliver the letter. This turned out to be a printing press. (Very probably the press doubled as the office of the India.) No one connected with the paper was there, and Moni was directed to the house of the proprietor, Srinivasachari. According to Srinivasachari, his brother Parthasarathi, to whom the letter was addressed, was not at home, so Moni gave the letter to him instead. Moni's account confirms that "the man ... to whom I gave my letter of introduction was Srijut Srinivasachari". Srinivasachari read the letter and made the necessary arrangements.
A writer of history and biography who wishes his work to be taken seriously must base it on primary sources. He uses secondary sources to provide himself with background information and to gain a general understanding of the subject. He may, in certain circumstances, make use of information in a secondary source that quotes or is based on first-hand material; but such information can never be considered as reliable as information drawn directly from primary materials. When writing the instalment of Archival Notes published in the issue of April 1985, I took two pieces of information from a secondary source, M. A. Narayana Iyengar's "Foreword" to Parthasarathi's posthumously published Bhagavad Gita: A Simple Paraphrase in English (relevant extract reproduced after Document 2). The Foreword was for the most part a life-sketch of Parthasarathi. In it Narayana introduced himself as a "close relative and friend" of Parthasarathi. Here are the two passages from my article in which I presented the information I took from Narayana:
Although clearly a secondary source, Narayana's account seemed to me to be reliable. His source apparently was his relative and friend Parthasarathi himself. Narayana's account agrees in most particulars with established facts. Some of his inferences were less reliable than his data, however. When, for example, he wrote that "a suggestion from Sri S. Parthasarathy Iyengar lay behind Sri Aurobindo's visit to Pondicherry, which led in turn to the establishment of the Aurobindo Ashram", he was evidently giving his relative's meeting with Sri Aurobindo more significance than it deserves. Still, it is not at all far-fetched to suppose that when Parthasarathi spoke to Sri Aurobindo about Pondicherry (which he surely must
5 "Archival Notes". Sri Aurobindo: Archives and Research, vol. 9, no. 2 (December 1985), pp. 120-21. have done) he dwelt on its political advantages. After all, the India, I felt justified in using Narayana's information because it related to a subordinate aspect of the matter under discussion, viz. Sri Aurobindo's coming to Pondicherry. Aware that his account was only a secondary source (even if it was, as is likely, based on oral information from Parthasarathi), I was careful not to incorporate his statements into my own argument, but to present them as assertions made by the writer of Parthasarathi's life-sketch. I assumed that any observant reader would have noticed this device. Of course by including Narayana's statement in my article. I showed that I accepted that part of his information that I made use of. The appearance of Srinivasachari's reminiscences makes it possible to discard Narayana's account. Happily Srinivasachari's account exculpates my use of Narayana's version of Parthasarathi's meeting and conversing with Sri Aurobindo. and of the name written on the letter of introduction. As for Narayana's assertion that Sri Aurobindo came to Pondicherry as a result of his conversation with Parthasarathi, I never accepted that in the first place. After the second of my two statements quoted above, I wrote the following:
SRI AUROBINDO'S ADESH
At least four times in conversation and three times in writing Sri Aurobindo said that he came to Pondicherry as a result of what he referred to variously as a "voice", a "call", or an "adesh". The Sanskrit word is preferable since it can be given a precise significance. Adesh means "command". The word survives in some modern Indian languages in this sense. In Yoga adesh means an imperative direction from the Divine. It differs from other sorts of guidance in that it cannot be disobeyed. Referring specifically to the adesh that directed him to come to Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo said in 1938: "I could not question. It was Sri Krishna's Adesh. I had to obey."7 Voices, visions and the like are not generally made the objects of historical inquiry, because their existence can neither be proved nor disproved to the intellect. One believes or disbelieves in such phenomena in accordance with one's background, upbringing, experience, etc. History deals with assertions that can in principle be shown to be true or false on the basis of objective evidence. Historical truth is of course not the same as truth in mathematics or the hard sciences, since the materials the historian has to work with cannot be treated in the same way as numbers, physical constants, etc. One could say that there are degrees of historical
6 Ibid., p. 121. 7 A. B. Purani. Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo. (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust. 1982), p. 550. Seven accounts of the Adesh are given as Documents 3-9 in the present issue. "truth" dependent on the strength of the surviving evidence. That Sri Aurobindo left Calcutta on 1 April 1910 is about as certain as anything in history. There exist a number of documents, many of them primary, that support this assertion.8 That Suresh Chakrabarty came to Pondicherry to establish contact with local revolutionaries and to make arrangements for Sri Aurobindo's stay is also quite certain, since three witnesses — the three chief participants in the event — left reliable records that this happened. That the name on the letter of introduction Suresh brought to Pondicherry was that of S. Parthasarathi Iyengar can also be accepted as fact, since a reliable primary source, and a secondary source that may be derived from independent testimony, assert that this was the case. (Another primary document that might have mentioned the name does not, but this second document at least does not contradict the first.) That Suresh Chakrabarty's life and limb would have been in danger if Sri Aurobindo had not arrived on the Dupleix is an assertion that, in my opinion, contains as much fiction as fact. It is presented as fact in a generally reliable primary document, but the context is dubious, and the matter is trivial in any case. That Shyamsunder Chakravarty was connected with the Karmayogin at any time in 1909 is false. Hundreds of reliable documents prove that he spent this entire year in confinement in Burma. These five assertions, ranging from a completely reliable one to a completely false one, have one thing in common: they are all in principle verifiable. Some assertions of this sort may never be proved or disproved due to lack of conclusive evidence (history is full of such examples); but if sufficient evidence were uncovered, their truth or falsehood could be determined one way or the other. There are other assertions, however, that by their very nature can never be proved or disproved from a historical standpoint. That Sri Aurobindo came to Pondicherry as a result of an adesh is one such assertion. Any scholar whose interests carry him beyond the established confines of his discipline must recognize the distinction between verifiable and non-verifiable assertions, that is, between questions that can be decided in accordance with the methodology of his discipline and those that cannot. In a recent article on the historicity of Jesus, a Christian scholar, the Rev. John P. Meier, has formulated the distinction with sufficient clarity. I will quote the relevant portions of Meier's essay. (There are advantages in referring to an article whose central assumption, the divinity of Jesus, is not accepted, as a matter of dogma, by the majority of my readers.) Meier writes that "the Jesus of history is by definition open to empirical investigation by any and all observers", but that "the resurrection lies outside the scope" of his article, since it was "not an ordinary event of our time and place, verifiable in principle by believer and unbeliever alike." Faced with the assertion that Christ rose from the dead, believer and unbeliever react in accordance with their mental and spiritual orientation. "In the end", concludes Meier, "there is a hermeneutics [system of interpretation] of belief and a hermeneutics of unbelief."9 I submit that an adesh from God is, like the resurrection, "not an ordinary event of our time and place". The reality of an adesh can only be experienced by
8 See "Documents in the Life of Sri Aurobindo", Sri Aurobindo: Archives and Research, vol. 9, no. 1 (April 1985), and Plate 6 in the same issue. 9 John P. Meier. "Jesus among the Historians". New York Times Book Review. 21 December 1986. p. 19. the person receiving the adesh. Others may believe or disbelieve in it according as they are inclined. As far as I know, none of the many historians who have written about Sri Aurobindo's departure from Calcutta — a significant historical event, since it marked the end of his career in politics — has put forward his adesh as the reason for the departure. Since most of these historians made use of the book On Himself, in which Sri Aurobindo twice mentions the adesh, it is apparent either that they did not accept the possibility of imperative divine guidance, or that they considered the matter to lie outside the scope of their study. It is perfectly legitimate for academic scholars to refuse to take occult and spiritual factors into consideration when they write about the ordinary course of events. Our acquaintance with such phenomena is not sufficiently intimate to permit accurate reporting, much less cogent generalization. This is not to say that occult and spiritual factors lie completely outside the purview of historiography. And when we come to biography, particularly the biography of spiritual figures, these factors cannot be evaded. To take another example from the Christian tradition, students of the life of Joan of Arc will differ in their interpretation of her actions according as they believe that her voices were real or imagined or falsehoods. Joan claimed they were real. Her testimony is preserved in genuine primary documents. But the modern scholar cannot consider her testimony as proof, any more than he can consider the verdict of the court of Rouen as disproof, of the genuineness of her voices. It would not be possible to understand Sri Aurobindo's life, particularly his life after 1905, without taking his yogic experience into account. When one writes about his departure from Calcutta one has to face squarely his assertion that he went as the result of a divine adesh. One's interpretation of the incident will depend on whether one accepts the adesh or not. In my previous articles I have always spoken of Sri Aurobindo's adesh as the cause of his departure.10 I did so on what I consider acceptable grounds. Sri Aurobindo was the only one who could speak authoritatively about the matter. His accounts of it are consistent. His testimony appeared to me to be valid, and I accepted it. By doing so I put myself in a position analogous to that of a student of the life of Joan of Arc who accepts her voices as genuine. But my acceptance did not oblige me to suspend all consideration of the political and other circumstances surrounding his departure.
There are some who hold that an adesh acts independently of all other forces in the world. A historian cannot concern himself overmuch with speculations of this sort, for they belong to the field of theology and not his own discipline.11 Since, however, the subject of this inquiry is Sri Aurobindo, it would not be out of place to consider what he has written about the relationship between the divine force and
10 "Archival Notes", Sri Aurobindo: Archives and Research, vol. 8, no. 2 (December 1984), pp. 230, 246; vol. 9, no. 1 (April 1985), pp. 109.113, 120; vol. 9, no. 2 (December 1985), pp. 154-55. A number of readers (?) of my articles seem to have concluded that I denied that Sri Aurobindo acted in accordance with an adesh. i invite such persons to (re)read the articles. Rereading them myself after two and more years, I cannot understand how what I wrote, whatever the deficiencies of my expression, could have been construed by a careful reader in a sense exactly opposite to the one I intended. 11 To the one who experiences it, an adesh is not a matter of speculation. Theology is the systematization of beliefs about the spiritual experiences of others. other forces. If I understand him correctly, he holds that the divine force does not act independently of cosmic forces.12 Writing not about the particular action of the divine force known as adesh, but about "the Force" (his term) in general, Sri Aurobindo said in a letter of 1936: "The Force does not act in a void and in an absolute way. ... It comes as a Force intervening and acting on a complex nexus of Forces that were in action and displacing their disposition and interrelated movement and natural result by a new disposition, movement and result."13 It seems to me to be at least plausible that an adesh operates within the same nexus of forces. Returning to the particular instance under consideration, I think it at least plausible that the adesh that directed Sri Aurobindo to go to Pondicherry operated within a nexus of forces that included the attempts of the British to have him arrested, and the recently established contact between him and the revolutionaries of Pondicherry. I do not ask anyone disinclined to agree with this interpretation to accept it. I put it forward as an idea that I considered both valid and useful, and therefore worthy of consideration by others. I will now, with some relief, depart from regions that lie outside the proper province of the historian. In fact, I do not think that the question needs to be examined from an unnecessarily elevated level. Even a cursory acquaintance with the situation before, during, and after Sri Aurobindo's departure from Calcutta would seem to make it difficult to discount political factors altogether. Sri Aurobindo went from Calcutta to Chandernagore secretly and stayed there secretly. He went from the French enclave of Chandernagore, where he was safe, at least temporarily, from British arrest, to the securer French enclave of Pondicherry, where he was still safer. In applying for the medical certificate needed to sail to Pondicherry, he used a false name, because, as he later said, "If I had given my name, I would have been at once arrested."14 Government records confirm that the police were on the lookout for Sri Aurobindo. As he sailed, a belated warrant for his arrest was issued in Calcutta. After his arrival in Pondicherry he remained in complete seclusion for more than three months, not stepping out of the house where he had been given shelter, nor allowing the young men staying with him to do so. For the next two decades he was always on guard against possible British interference, and grateful to the French for providing him with a safe haven. I have no difficulty accepting that Sri Aurobindo came to Pondicherry as the result of an adesh, and at the same time accepting that there were political factors behind his departure. I dealt with this question in a previous instalment.15 My explanation there was intended not as a proof of one thing or another, but as an attempt to show how the data of two different fields of experience could be harmonized.
I have written a couple of thousand words to explicate two relatively unimportant events (Sri Aurobindo's meeting with Parthasarathi in Calcutta and his writing a letter of introduction to him). It took another two thousand to relate these events
12 Readers interested in this question may consult the references listed in the Index to the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library under "Divine Will", "Divine Force", "Force, the", etc. 13 Sri Aurobindo, On Himself (1972), p. 210. 14 A.B. Purani, Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo (1982), p. 550. 15 "Archival Notes", Sri Aurobindo: Archives and Research, vol. 9, no. 2 (December 1985), pp. 218ff. to a matter of much greater significance: the adesh that directed Sri Aurobindo to go to Pondicherry. In my narratives of April and December 1985 I covered the same ground in a few hundred words. This prompts me to make two observations. First it would be impossible, or at any rate highly undesirable, for the writer of a historical narrative to set down all his reasons for accepting each piece of information that he made use of. The result would be cumbersome, long-winded, and dull as ditch water. Secondly, his reasoning process "must necessarily be subjective". The last phrase is taken from the note that heads the present article, and will head each subsequent instalment in this series. The note goes on to say that when the historian reasons about the material he has collected, "evaluations, judgments and conclusions, explicit or implicit, must be made at every step". I hope the reader has been able to form some idea of this process. The rules of historical methodology provide the practitioner with an objective framework within which he can exercise his judgment. His documentation, his accuracy, his reasoning, and his tone provide his readers with a set of criteria by which they can exercise their critical judgment on his conclusions. Despite trends that would reduce history to a quantitative science — attempts that in my opinion are bound to fail — the documented narrative remains the most widely accepted means of presenting the results of historical and biographical research. It is certainly the only method that is of any interest to the general reader. By using all the sources that are available, the writer of a biographical narrative can create an account more accurate, more detailed, and more interesting than one based on one or two selected sources. There are risks involved in this eclectic approach. The more factors there are in an equation, the greater the possibility of error. But if all sources are handled carefully — that is, in accordance with a sound methodology — the risk will be offset by the richness of the result. No biographical narrative can ever be more than a shadow of the life it attempts to delineate, but a shadow is better than darkness. Peter Heehs |