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Notes on the Texts
Record of Yoga: 1-15 January 1914. The heading "1914. January.", followed by part of a verse from the Rig Veda (1.13.6), was written by Sri Aurobindo on an otherwise blank page of the exercise book begun on 22 December 1913. The Record of 1-15 January 1914 occupies fourteen pages of this notebook.
Record of Yoga: 12 March-14 April 1914. The heading "Record of Yoga. March. April. /1914." was written by Sri Aurobindo on the front cover of the exercise book used to keep the Record of 12 March to 14 April 1914. The notebook he had been using for the Record of January was abandoned on the fifteenth of that month; many pages of the notebook were left blank. No explanation is given in the Record for the two-month gap between 15 January and 12 March. This fact (for such gaps were usually explained) and the abrupt beginning made on 12 March suggest that there may have been a Record kept during this period which has been lost. There is, however, no positive evidence to support this supposition.
India and the British Parliament. This article was published in Indu Prakash, a bilingual (Marathi and English) weekly newspaper of Bombay, on 26 June 1893. Like most newspaper articles of the time, it was unsigned; beneath the title was printed "(Communicated.)". In the next issue of Indu Prakash (3 July 1893) the following note appeared under the heading "India and the British Parliament": "Under this heading we had a communication from a very able writer in our last issue. Our readers must have been struck with the tone and conclusions of that article. We shall be very happy to receive any communication from our readers on the subject. Meanwhile we are trying to get a series of articles on the question and the one implied therein as to where we are drifting and in what direction our political work should lie. The last article will thus be a kind of trumpet note." This note undoubtedly was written by K. D. Despande, the editor of the English section of Indu Prakash, whom Sri Aurobindo had befriended when both were students at Cambridge. One month later, on 7 August 1893, the first instalment of Sri Aurobindo's series New Lamps for Old appeared in Indu Prakash. "India and the British Parliament", which came out just four months after Sri Aurobindo's return from England, was his first published prose writing. |