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Notes on the Texts
Notes on the Mahabharata. This article (part of which will be published in the next issue of A & R) was written not long after September 1901, when an article by Velandai Gopala Aiyer entitled "The Date of the Mahabharata War" was published in The Indian Review (Madras). In the portion of Sri Aurobindo's article to be published in the next issue, he referred to Aiyer's study as "a recent article of the Indian Review, an unusually able and searching paper on the date of the Mahabharata war". In the portion published in the present issue, he alluded to the argument of a scholar named Weber, which was cited by Aiyer in his article. The physical evidence of the manuscript indicates only that the article was written before 1906. It was never completed. There are signs that Sri Aurobindo looked at it again around 1909, but he never gave it a full revision. In 1932 the manuscript was discovered by his secretary Nolini Kanta Gupta, who wrote to Sri Aurobindo of his intention to copy the article out. Sri Aurobindo replied on 23 April 1932: "Is this essay still in existence; if so, you can rescue it and I will see what can be done with it." Nolini did make a transcript, but unfortunately it was never revised by Sri Aurobindo. The portion of the article published in the present issue was published in Vyasa and Valmiki and later in The Harmony of Virtue (pp. 141-78). The present text has been carefully checked against the manuscript. A table of emendations appears at the end of Notes on the Texts.
Record of Yoga: 15 April-1 June 1914. Sri Aurobindo kept the Record for this period in a single notebook. On its cover he wrote: Record of Yoga— April 15th to 1914
Sri Aurobindo wrote a heading for 2 and 3 June, but made no entry under these dates. He then abandoned the notebook. When he resumed the Record on 10 June, he started a new notebook.
Draft of a Letter. This historically important draft-letter was written to Saurin Bose, a cousin of Sri Aurobindo's wife Mrinalini. Saurin, a member of Sri Aurobindo's household in Pondicherry, was on a trip to Bengal. The letter from him to Sri Aurobindo that elicited Sri Aurobindo's reply was in all likelihood received by Sri Aurobindo on 30 May 1914. (See Record of Yoga under that date. Note also the sum of Rs 400 mentioned in the Record under 29 May and in this draft. This same sum and others were mentioned in a letter [Supplement (1972): 455] written to Motilal Roy shortly afterwards.) Two planned events referred to in the draft-letter also help to date it: the issuing of the prospectus of the Arya "later this month", and the forthcoming occupancy of the house at 7 Rue Dupleix by Paul Richard and the Mother. The prospectus was issued in mid June 1914 (see Documents in the Life of Sri Aurobindo). The Richards probably occupied their house on 2 or 3 June (see the Record under the date 1 June). Taking all this evidence together, it may be said with some confidence that the draft-letter was written on 1 or 2 June 1914. It never was completed, signed or sent. Presumably another letter was written and sent in its place. The draft-letter published here provides the interesting piece of information that Sri Aurobindo's monthly review Arya was first to be called The New Idea. This was the name of a society started by Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and Paul Richard in May 1914 (see letter of 5 May to Motilal Roy in Supplement [1972]: 454).
"Arya". This text appeared inside the front cover of every issue of Arya from the first issue (August 1914) to the last (January 1921). It was not signed, but undoubtedly was written by Sri Aurobindo. The French translation, which appeared inside the front cover of every issue of the French edition of Arya reads as follows:
The "Arya's" Second Year: Appendix. These four paragraphs and one sentence formed part of the article. Our Ideal (SABCL 16: 301-15) when it was first published in Arya in August 1915, one month after "The 'Arya's' Second Year" (SABCL 17: 397-98). They were omitted from Our Ideal when it was included in the book Ideal and Progress in 1921. They are nevertheless of considerable interest, and are republished here for the first time since 1915.
Two Postcards. These postcards were written in French by the Mother in September and November 1911. The first one is to her friend Johannes Hohlenberg, a Danish painter who was living in Paris. Cluses is a town in Haute Savoie, the department in which the French Alps lie. The second card was written to Alexandra David-Néel, the famous explorer and writer, who had written to the Mother from Colombo. Both postcards are in the Mother's handwriting but both, as the signatures show, were from Paul Richard as well as from her. The tone and substance of the first one perhaps owe something to Richard.
TABLE OF EMENDATIONS
Words, letters and punctuation marks printed in square brackets in the text and not listed in this table are simple editorial interpolations (i.e., something apparently omitted by the author has been supplied by the editors). Other departures of the printed text from strict adherence to the manuscript are listed below, including the removal of extraneous words and the restoration of words cancelled without substitution (CWOS).
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