CHAPTER TWO1         PROPHETIC DAWN         In studying the work of one whose whole life was a continuous fulfilment of the Will of God, our first concern should be to have in view the principal factors that formed the fabric of his being and of the country from whose soil he sprang. The meaning of his life may suggest itself through an attempt to discover what place it occupies in the historical development of India, and what significance it has for her future.         It seems he came just when his coming was most called for, we may add, when it was decreed by Providence. What he said and did was the culmination of the past endeavours of the race, of its high achievem

CHAPTER FOUR         NATIONALISM AS DHARMA         Momentous was the beginning of the twentieth century. The Shakti of India was dynamically at work for her political liberation the seed-idea of which she had already sown in the one who was to be its high-priest. ' The voice incarnate of India's soul,' he uttered the truth of the New Nationalism, not as a passing political expedient, but as an abiding aspect of the immortal Idea which is India's portion to fulfil in the divine ordering of things. Nationalism in modern times is nothing but an aggrandisement of national egoism. Here was a unique evangel, a broader, nobler and mightier conception of the awakened soul of this anc

  CHAPTER FIVE         TOWARDS A LARGER LIBERATION       THE spiritual visions and experiences Sri Aurobindo had in jail were indication enough that he was from then a passive instrument of the Divine-having no movement, no thought, no action of his which was not willed by God. In fact, this had begun even before, as he had himself said in :his letters to his wife , and of which all his external activities gave ample evidence. One so guided cannot indeed err, at least in the deeper sense of the Spirit's direct governance of the souls open to its influence. It was, as he himself said, a command of God that brought Sri Aurobindo to Pondicherry from Chandernagore where i

CHAPTER IX   A FAR-SEEING PIONEER   THE SIGNIFICANCE of India's historic development cannot be properly grasped unless she is seen, as seers have seen her, in her own true light: India is a Sakti, a Mother-Force of the world, a power of God manifest in a material form, her geographical integrality indivisible from her soul, her history and geography inseparably bound up, her culture an age-old unity of rich diversities.         This oneness of India is confirmed by her history which all down the ages shows that when for any reason the whole country could not be reached by a new movement—and in ancient times the paucity of communications and transport was an obvious hindra

CHAPTER VI   STANDARD-BEARER   A great soul comes into the pages of history when he makes some particular contribution in any field of human activity. Rammohun had the pride of place in his country's annals for his invaluable pioneer-work. But will that be saying the whole truth about him ? Was he not far greater than his work ? And was not his outer work, stupendous though it was, only a fraction of his more important work in the inner life of his people into which he infused the fire of his soul—the fire by which he sought to chase away the medieval darkness from the mind and heart of the race and impel it to move towards the Dawn of which he himself was the herald ? It was this

CHAPTER VII   RECOVERING NATIONAL SELF         FROM THE VERY beginning Devendranath was fortunate in having as his collaborators some of the best and most gifted men of his time. Indeed he had the capacity of choosing the right type of men to help him in his work for his country. Some of these are distinguished figures in the early history of the Indian renaissance. In fact, it is they who along with their leader initiated the movement for the recovery of the national self. When Devendranath started the Tattwabodhini Patrika he appointed Akshaykumar Datta (1820-1886) its Editor, and this he did because the latter, though a rationalist, was a man of exceptional intellectual ho

INDEX   Abanindranath Tagore, 113,261, 270, 312; life, work, contributions, as founder of the New School of Indian Painting, 318-342; O.C. Gangoly on, 329, 331; E. B. Havell on, 330; Marquess of Zetland on, 332; Kakuzo Okakura on, 333; W. Rothenstein on, 333. Abhedananda, Swami, 215, 249. A.E., 38, 265. Agastya, Rishi, 4, 374"75- Aitareya Brahmana, 8. Aiyar, V.V.S., 236. Ajanta frescoes, 319-20, influences of, 320- 21. Akbar, 28. Akshayakumar Dana, 82, 85, 93-94. Akshayakumar Maitra, 268. Americans, The, 403. Amrita, how drawn t

CHAPTER IV   HOW IT BEGAN   THE first phase of the impact of the West on India, and its repercussions in the life of the people make a romantic story. Its effervescence having subsided, the new ferment calmed down to a new but needed force that shook off the inertia of the people and liberated their mind into an impassioned endeavour to rise and be their own selves again. Significantly enough, the onslaught of the West came upon India when her ancient ideals had visibly faded, and her people had moved away from dharma, lost the will and energy for any fresh effort, far less, for a new going-forth. The force that was Western culture started working in the mind of India, particularl

CHAPTER V   FORERUNNER   ALL down the ages it has been her spirituality that has kept up the lifeline of India's civilisation. Indeed every fresh endeavour, social, cultural and even political, has had at its back a renewal or a resurgence of this force. Awakened India would mean an India awakened to this inherent strength of her soul breathed into her first by the Vedic Rishis, and since then developing through vicissitudes of time and fortune towards her own self-realisation and the realisation of her mission in the world. A rebirth into that strength must therefore be the condition for a new resurgence of her national being. To that end India will have to pass through a process,

CHAPTER XI   'A SOLDIER OF LIGHT'1   A STREAK OF the New Dawn gleamed on India's horizon when along with other things her sons started on their quest of the truth and greatness of their past, on which to rebuild the present for a greater future. Here also the start was given by Rammohun and continued by Devendranath, Rajnarayan and others with what results already stated. But this past in their case did not go farther than the immortal treasures of the Upanishads. Earlier, Devendranath had leanings towards the Veda as an infallible scripture, but later under the prevailing influence of Western rationalism he restricted himself only to those of its truths that conformed to reason