INTRODUCTION The Collection of letters - The English Language and the Indian Spirit - preceding the present one was appreciated by "an audience fit though few" interested in the adventure of India's contribution to the varied world of English poetry. This audience is expected to welcome the cut and thrust of two idealistic friends on a much larger scale covering a greater field of literary reference fanning out essentially from the same central theme as before. This theme is the poetic vision and work of Sri Aurobindo, mostly exemplified in his epic Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol. In the course of the main discussion a diversity of subjects, both personal and general, cam

-006_Chapter 005 (Page 221-Page 268).htm From K.D. Sethna I have been a little slack in replying to you, but the procrastination has brought me to a very important day on which to launch my letter. August 15 has for India two far-reaching significances to commemorate. There is the birth of Sri Aurobindo whose fight for freedom was seminal in many respects, not least the first clear-cut demand for total independence, and to whom India's political freedom meant a chance for her to develop without any impediment or distraction a spiritual light for the world. According to him, this light has to gather together all the various past shades and generate the vision of an ultra-violet reaching out to the all-tr

-041_PartIII Sri Aurobindo's Vision-Hemant Kapoor Sri Aurobindo and the Law of Contradiction Hemant Kapoor   Many years ago, K.D. Sethna, then a young man and an aspiring intellectual wrote to the Mother saying that Sri Aurobindo had been illogical in one of his writings. The Mother reported this to Sri Aurobindo saying, "This young man feels you are illogical." Perhaps Sri Aurobindo had laughed. Philosophy had been Sethna's subject as an undergraduate.   K.D. Sethna is completing a hundred years this November. Some time ago when I mentioned the above incident of his salad days to him he chuckled and as is his wont with me, merrily recounted the whole episode to me. Sethna's poetry thrills me

K.D. Sethna: The Creative Critic   Goutam Ghosal   RESEARCHERS of critical theories must remember that Sri Aurobindo has touched virtually on every critical issue. Because he has condensed his material, the purpose of the researcher would be to pick up the clues for detailed explanation of them. Unfortunately, most of the academic projects on Sri Aurobindo have ended up with long passages with insufficient and irrelevant commentaries on them. Some of the critical works of K.D. Sethna will teach us how we should go about investigating the Master's work in an academic way, which may also be an original way of expanding the condensed texts of Sri Aurob

-049_PartV Extracts from Amal kiran's Works-India the Secular State India the Secular State*   The Right Interpretation and the Wrong   India has been declared a Secular State and the advanced elements in the country are proud of this declaration - but in a rather vague way. Nobody seems to know what are the exact implications of secularity. And quite a number of people even doubt if, except in name, India is any more secular than Pakistan who has declared herself a Muslim State with the name of Allah an integral part of the constitution. The doubt is occasioned by the fact that most of our leaders and ministers openly encourage belief in a religious order of the world.   Even Nehru, socia

Amal Kiran - My Wonderful Teacher Huta Hindocha   The MOTHER arranged my reading with Amal Kiran (K,D. Sethna) in 1962.   Sri Aurobindo had first introduced Savitri to Amal in private drafts and written to him most of the letters that are now published along with the Epic.   For the first time Amal and I met in 1961 upstairs in the passage which connects the Mother's and Sri Aurobindo's rooms. I casually asked him about a chess board because the Mother and I were doing something on the theme. He drew it and made me understand it.   When we started our reading of Savitri, some interested people warned Amal against me and asked h

The Sky Sings...   Ashalata Dash   The sky sings his glory; The sea swells far and wide,  The soil smiles beside While I push a soul-suffused Centennial baby In a wheel-chair-pram.     The baby scatters  His fun and smile  As of a cute child Of ten-months old. His wise joviality Impresses the traffic And the passers-by  In a magic circle Of exuberant ecstasy.     As a companion Or as a meek matron  I feel nothing but pride  In pushing his wheel-chair  Or seeing him Pushed by my side.     My motherly heart, Sealed so long Opens abr

EZRA POUND'S CLASSIFICATION OF POETRY * EXAMPLES FROM SAVITRI We have divided, à la Patmore, the poetic phrase into the piquant, the felicitous, the magnificent. Now we may make another kind of division—three classes, each of which can hold all the three Patmorean types. I shall borrow it from the Anglo-American modernist poet Ezra Pound. I believe Pound is at present in a mental home—but not because he is a poet. Poets are already mad in a special way—they cannot go mad in the ordinary manner: it must be the non-poetic avatar of Pound that has qualified for the mental home. Anyway, his classification of poetry which I am about to adopt hails fro

6 Sheer Spiritual Light "Overhead Poetry " Sonnets, Lyrics, Compositions in New Metres Sri Aurobindo's latest work is the most unique he has done, but its deepest characteristic is not its new metre. This characteristic is equally patent in his recent poetry within the general bounds of traditional technique. To evaluate it effectively we have to speak in terms of planes of consciousness. And it will not suffice just to dub it mystical. No doubt, mystical poetry has a psychology distinct from that of poetry that is secular, but in literature mysticism itself functions on various planes. Whatever its sources, the expression it fin

COVENTRY PATMORFS CHARACTERISATION OF THE POETIC PHRASE* THREE ILLUSTRATIONS FROM SAVITRI Coventry Patmore distinguishes the poetic phrase under three heads: piquancy, felicity, magnificence. And he remarks that the supreme phrase of poetry mingles all these qualities in various measures. Let us try to define the terms. Piquancy in poetry is an agreeable sharpness, a pleasantly disturbing irritant, a sort of fine paradoxicality. "Felicity" is a term very often used for all kinds of appropriate poetic expressions. In a special sense distinct from what the other two terms connote, felicity in poetry is a strikingly apt delightfulness which