III         'THE DEBATE OF LOVE AND DEATH'         Again Death's laboured plea misfires. Sophist, beguiler, perverter of truth, Death has tried to veil the Real with his own dark semblance. He has called Truth to vindicate his lie; his is the truth that slays, not like Savitri's, the truth that saves. Isn't Death aware of the true nature of the evolutionary race? In inert Matter itself lay God in a self-wrought swoon:         The Timeless took its ground in emptiness       And drew the figure of a universe,       That the spirit might adventure into Time       And wrestle with adamant Necessity       And the soul pursue a cosmic pilgrimage.37   It has b

 XII         THE SYMBOLISM OF THE 'SACRIFICE'   Since there is this tremendous extension in significance as regards the victory, it has to be matched by a proportionate elaboration and heightening of the antecedents and preparations as well; and this is the reason why the Books covering Aswapati's Yoga, Savitri's Yoga, and Savitri's struggle with Death seem to occupy so much space. The seeds of all these are in the original, but Sri Aurobindo has planted them on rich soil and given them what seems almost like extravagant nurture.         Aswapati's Yoga is in the main cast in the form of a journey through the Worlds; Savitri's is likewise a penetration into the "In

  XIII        'IN THE SELF OF MIND'         It is as though Aswapati has passed the last camp and has finally touched Everest:         At last there came a bare indifferent sky       Where Silence listened to the cosmic Voice,...       He stood on a wide arc of summit Space       Alone with an enormous Self of Mind.123   There are evidently no more heights to conquer, no more worlds to traverse; Aswapati has reached the centre of Silence, "the mystic birthplace of the soul". Is this the end, the very last lap of his quest?         The great perturbed inquirer lost his task;       Nothing was asked nor wanted any more.       There he

 SECTION D         'THE BOOK OF YOGA'   I        'THE JOY OF UNION; THE ORDEAL OF THE FOREKNOWLEDGE OF DEATH AND THE       HEART'S GRIEF'         'Fixt fate: Free will' is the seeming paradox at the heart of existence. Man has freedom of choice, but once the choice has been made, he cannot control the consequences. As we sow, so shall we reap. Is even the act of choice no real choice at all but an item of unalterable predestination? Is, then, 'free will' itself a delusion?   Man's hopes and longings build the journeying wheels That bear the body of his destiny And lead his blind will towards an unknown goal. His fate wit

 SECTION C   'THE BOOK OF FATE'     I         THE WORD OF FATE'         In the old legendary story, when Savitri returns to her father, she finds the Sage Narad with him. When she says she has chosen Satyavan as her consort, Narad ejaculates that it is a wrong decision: not because Satyavan is not worthy in every way, but because he is fated to die in a year's time. Aswapati asks her to choose again, but Savitri says that she can but choose once. Narad now advises the king to allow the marriage to take place.         This raises a number of questions. What is predestination? If fixed fate is a fact, of what use is free will? What is fate, after all?

 II         'THE WAY OF FATE AND THE PROBLEM OF PAIN'   Sage Narad has unveiled Savitri's future; a future that is death. But Savitri, undaunted, has accepted the challenge, and instead of changing her path, has decided to travel on the same road, although fraught with seeming annihilation. And she has uttered the word of fate that she believes more in her own immortal destiny than in the blind workings of a mechanical God. The king and the rishi sit quiet looking straight into the "eyes of Fate", not willing to disturb the workings of Providence. But Savitri's mother will not so easily be silenced. Although she is the queen, yet is she a human mother also who cannot bear

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION         The first edition appeared on 24 November 1962 and the second on 24 November 1985. Apparently the Mother has willed a twenty-three-year gap between editions for Sri Aurobindo's Savitri: A Study of the Cosmic Epic (earlier titled A Study of Savitri)] Her grace has sustained me throughout my life. When my father, Prof K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar, communicated to her that a panel of three examiners from England had recommended the award of the degree of Doctor of Letters summa cum laude for my thesis, A Study of Savitri, she gave instructions for its publication immediately. Sri K.D. Sethna read the manuscript and suggested some impr

 XV         'THE KINGDOMS OF THE GREATER KNOWLEDGE'         Returning to consciousness "after a measureless moment of the soul", Aswapati knows that here once and for all has "closed the finite's crawl to the Infinite". This is an experience without parallel, and Aswapati feels new-made; renewed, purified, strengthened:         Absolved from the ligaments of death and sleep       He rode the lightning seas of cosmic Mind       And crossed the ocean of original sound;...135   He gains new insights into the heavens above and the abyss below, and he grows in the "wisdom of the timeless Child". One more effort at self-transcendence, and all tha

    VI         LEGENDS AND MYTHS         It should be remembered that myths, legends and symbols shade into one another and they are the creations of man, especially poetic man, awake, alert, inquiring and responsive. A.E. (George Russell) wisely says:         The myths were born       Out of the spirit of man and drew their meaning       From that unplumbed profundity...       ...Yet from fleeting voices       And visionary lights a meaning came       That made myth contemporary. And those       Who read may find titans and king within       Themselves.18         The notion that myths, legends, symbols belong to the childhood of the human race, t

  IV         'THE TRIPLE SOUL-FORCES'         Savitri's single-minded quest has now brought her almost to the threshold of her inmost, her secret soul. She is met, one by one, by the soul's triple forces, each embodied as a mother spirit, as a Madonna. First the Madonna of suffering, Mother of sorrows and grief divine; next, the Madonna of might, Mother of works and force; and last, the Madonna of light, Mother of joy and peace. Each claims to be Savitri's soul, and each is partly right; but Savitri cannot, she will not, accept these partial identifications. She will not stop till the full splendour of self-discovery overwhelms her.         First to meet Savitri during the