Sayaji Rao Gaekwar, the Maharaja of Baroda with the members of his family and some of the officers of the State. Sri Aurobindo is reported to be standing third from the right. NOTE   As the present publication of Sri Aurobindo's Collected Works progressed, a considerable amount of new material came to light. Wherever it was possible some of this material was included in the volumes assigned to the concerned subject. However, even after this a good deal remained and to accommodate it some of the volumes had to be

Government by Panic ONE does not know precisely how to take the extraordinary accounts of the charges against Lala Lajpatrai and the panic among Europeans which have been reaching us from the North. We used to think the English deficient in imagination, but the vivid and fluorescent powers of fancy which this panic has revealed, puts all our preconceived ideas to rout. Not only have the Government given vent t6 an outburst of poetical fancy beyond all parallel but they have insisted on staging and enacting their dramatic creation in real life. Sir Denzil Ibbetson reminds us of that great aesthetic realist, Nero, who made slaves and prisoners enact the parts of class

Partition and the Government THE situation in the country is such that the Government will be bound before long to devise some effective means to meet it, and what can that means be except the revocation or some material modification of the Partition of Bengal which is the apparent cause of the present crisis. The Government must have seen already that without some such revocation or modification of the administrative arrangements in Bengal, as will reunite at least the Bengalee-speaking populations of the province under one local Government, the present discontent will not be allayed. They have tried many things during the last twelve months; - persecution

SUPPLEMENTTO VOLUME 15 SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THOUGHT Preface to the first edition (1919) of THE IDEAL OF HUMAN UNITY Preface * THE chapters of this book were written in a serial form in the pages of the monthly review, Arya, and from necessity of speedy publication have been reprinted as they stood without the alterations which would have been necessary to give them a greater unity of treatment. They reflect the rapidly changing phases of ideas, facts and possibilities which emerged in the course of the European conflict. The earlier chapters were written when Russia was still an Empire and an autocracy, the latter parts

On Translating Kalidasa SINCE the different tribes of the human Babel began to study each other's literature, the problem of poetical translation has constantly defied the earnest experimenter. There have been brilliant versions, successful falsifications, honest renderings, but some few lyrics apart, a successful translation there has not been. Yet it cannot be that a form of effort so earnestly and persistently pursued and so necessary to the perfection of culture and advance of civilisation is the vain pursuit of a chimera. Nothing which mankind earnestly attempts is impossible, not even the conversion of copper into gold or the discovery of the elixir of life or

SUPPLEMENT TO VOLUME 29 SAVITRI The following note on the story of Savitri and its significance was found in one of Sri Aurobindo's note-books. It may profitably be read before starting on his epic. And it is for this reason that it has been reproduced here although it is included in Volume 26, On Himself, page 265. The Tale of Satyavan and Savitri THE tale of Satyavan and Savitri is recited in the Mahabharata as a story of conjugal love conquering death. But this legend is, as shown by many features of the human tale, one of the many symbolic myths of the Vedic cycle. Satyavan is the soul carrying the divine truth of being within itse

Letter to his Sister Baroda Camp 25th August, 1894 My dear Saro, I got your letter the day before yesterday. I have been trying hard to write to you for the last three weeks, but have hitherto failed. Today I am making a huge effort and hope to put the letter in the post before nightfall. As I am now invigorated by three days' leave, I almost think I shall succeed. It will be, I fear, quite impossible to come to you again so early as the Puja, though if I only could, I should start tomorrow. Neither my affairs, nor my finances will admit of it. Indeed it was a great mistake for me to go at all; for it has made Baroda quite intolerable to me. There is a

Aikya O Swadhinata Page- 120 Page - 121

SUPPLEMENT TO VOLUME 12 THE UPANISHADS Sri Aurobindo wrote a number of commentaries on Isha Upanishad from different points of view at different times. Of the three included here the last two were left incomplete and the first begins only with Part II which itself is unfinished. The first and second commentaries seem to belong to Sri Aurobindo's Baroda Period and the third to the early Pondicherry Period. This supplement is additional to the one already included in Volume 12. Page-197 THE KARMAYOGIN A COMMENTARY ON THE ISHA UPANISHAD PART II KARMAYOGIN THE IDEAL CHAPTER IV The Eterna

SUPPLEMENT TO VOLUME 26 ON HIMSELF Letter to his Father. The passage reproduced here is part of a letter written by Sri Aurobindo to his father K.D. Ghose (evidently from Cambridge before December 1890). It was quoted by K. D. Ghose in a letter to his brother-in-law on December 2, 1890. This entire letter was published in The Orient, an illustrated weekly of Calcutta, on 27th February 1949, in facsimile. Letter to his Father-in-law. Sri Aurobindo wrote this letter on February 19, 1919 after the death of his wife Mrinalini Devi on December 17, 1918. Letters to Anandrao and "M" (Motilal Roy). These letters, except one which was recently found, have