VOLUME 1   THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO   © Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 2003 Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry   PRINTED IN INDIA   Early Cultural Writings Pu

II   The Bengal He Lived In   THE SOCIETY by which Bankim was formed, was the young Bengal of the fifties, the most extraordinary perhaps that India has yet seen, -a society electric with thought and loaded to the brim with passion. Bengal was at that time the theatre of a great intellectual awakening. A sort of miniature Renascence was in process. An ardent and imaginative race, long bound down in the fetters of a single tradition, had had suddenly put into its hands the key to a new world thronged with the beautiful or profound creations of Art and Learning. From this meeting of a foreign Art and civilisation with a temperament differing from the temperament which

Two Pictures   THE Modern Review and Prabasi are doing monthly a service to the country the importance of which cannot be exaggerated. The former review is at present the best conducted and the most full of valuable matter of any in India. But good as are the articles which fill the magazine from month to month, the whole sum of them is outweighed in value by the single page which gives us the reproduction of some work of art by a contemporary Indian painter. To the lover of beauty and the lover of his country every one of these delicately executed blocks is an event of importance in his life within. The reviews by brin

Part Six   The Chandernagore Manuscript   Sri Aurobindo wrote all the pieces in this part in 1910. He did not publish any of them himself, but many were published in 1920 ­ 22 without his editorial supervision. They are reproduced here from his manuscripts.   Passing Thoughts [1]   Religion in Europe   There is no word so plastic and uncertain in its meaning as the word religion. The word is European and, therefore, it is as well to know first what the Europeans mean by it. In this matter we find them, -when they can be got to thin

On the Mahabharata       Notes on the Mahabharata   of Krishna Dwypaiana Vyasa.   prepared with a view to disengage the original epic of Krishna of the island from the enlargements, accretions and additions made by Vyshampaian, Ugrosravas & innumerable other writers. by Aurobindo Ghose   Proposita. An epic of the Bharatas was written by Krishna of the Island called Vyasa, in 24,000 couplets or something more, less at any rate than 27,000, on the subject of the great civil

VII   Our Hope in the Future   BUT PROFOUND as have been its effects, this revolution is yet in its infancy. Visible on every side, in the waning influence of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, in the triumph of the Bengali language, in the return to Hinduism, in the pride of birth, the angry national feeling and the sensitiveness to insult, which are growing more and more common among our young men, it has nevertheless only begun its work and has many more fields to conquer. Calcutta is yet a stronghold of the Philistines; officialdom is honeycombed with the antinational tradition: in politics and social reform the workings of the new movement are yet obscure. The Angl

The Spirit of the Times   The life & personality of Kalidasa, the epoch in which he lived and wrote, the development of his poetical genius as evidenced by the order of his works, are all lost in a thick cloud of uncertainty and oblivion. It was once thought an established fact that he lived & wrote in the 6th century at the court of Harsha .. Vikramaditya, the Conqueror of the Scythians. That position is now much assailed, and some would place him in the third or fourth century; others see ground to follow popular tradition in making him a contemporary of Virgil, if not of Lucretius. The exact date matters littl

National Education   The whole movement of the national life of India at the present moment may be described in one phrase, -a pressure from within towards self-liberation from all unnatural conditions which obstruct or divert its free and spontaneous development. It is the movement of a stream trying to break open a natural path for its dammed-up waters. This effort takes inevitably many sides and aspects; for in politics and administration, in society, in commerce, in education, this national life finds itself bound up in forms, condemned to move in grooves which give no natural play to the new aspirations, powers and tendencies

Part Five   Conversations of the Dead   Sri Aurobindo wrote these dialogues in 1910 or shortly before. He published the first two in the Karmayogin in 1910. The other three were published in 1920­23 without his editorial supervision; they are reproduced here from his manuscripts.     I   Dinshah, Perizade   DINSHAH Perizade, the shades of Iran were not so cool and sweet as these in our city of Mazinderan. The gardens that bloom on the banks of the river of peace are carpeted with lovelier and sweeter-sc

VII   The Training of the Mental Faculties   THE FIRST qualities of the mind that have to be developed are those which can be grouped under observation. We notice some things, ignore others. Even of what we notice, we observe very little. A general perception of an object is all we usually carry away from a cursory half-attentive glance. A closer attention fixes its place, form, nature as distinct from its surroundings. Full concentration of the faculty of observation gives us all the knowledge that the three chief senses can gather about the object, or if we touch or taste, we