Sri Aurobindo in Baroda, 1906 Part One The Harmony of Virtue Sri Aurobindo wrote all the pieces in this part in England between 1890 and 1892. He did not publish any of them during his lifetime.   The Sole Motive of Man's Existence   The banquet was half over and the wine in lively progress round the table; yet the ladies did not retire. The presence of women over the wine was one of the cardinal articles of Julian's social creed. The conversation turned on the Christian religion which finall

Report on Trade in the Baroda State   1902   GENERAL SUGGESTIONS. ______   1. Trade throughout the Raj is in a state of depression and decline. The great industries that once  flourished, such as weaving, dyeing, sharafi &c. are entirely broken and though a number of small retail trades have Causes of decline sprung up, the balance is greatly on the side of decline. The main causes of this condition of things are   European competition and that of such towns as Ahmedabad, Poona &c. The

On Translating Kalidasa   Since the different tribes of the human Babel began to study each other's literatures, 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 & 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

III   The Moral Nature   IN THE economy of man the mental nature rests upon the moral, and the education of the intellect divorced from the perfection of the moral and emotional nature is injurious to human progress. Yet, while it is easy to arrange some kind of curriculum or syllabus which will do well enough for the training of the mind, it has not yet been found possible to provide under modern conditions a suitable moral training for the school and college. The attempt to make boys moral and religious by the teaching of moral and religious text-books is a vanity and a delusion, precisely because the heart

Letters from Abroad   IV   Dear Biren, The idea that the Europeans have organised enjoyment just as the Hindus have organised asceticism, is a very common superstition which I am not bound to endorse merely because it is common. Say rather that the Europeans have systematised feverishness and the Hindus universalised inertia and mendicancy. The appearances of things are not the things themselves, nor is a shadow always the proof of a substance... I admit that the Europeans have tried hard to organise enjoyment. Power, pleasure, riches, amusement are their gods and the whirl of a splen

A Great Mind, a Great Will   A GREAT mind, a great will, a great and pre-eminent leader of men has passed away from the field of his achievement and labour. To the mind of his country Lokamanya Tilak was much more, for he had become to it a considerable part of itself, the embodiment of its past effort, and the head of its present will and struggle for a free and greater life. His achievement and personality have put him amidst the first rank of historic and significant figures. He was one who built much rapidly out of little beginnings, a creator of great things out of an unworked material. The creations he left behind him were a new and strong and

VI   What He Did for Bengal   I HAVE kept so far to Bankim's achievement looked at purely as literature. I now come to speak of it in the historic sense, of its relations to the Bengali language and potency over the Bengali race. Of this it is not easy to suggest any image without speaking in superlatives. I had almost said in one place that he created the language, and if one couples his name with Madhu Sudan Dutt's, the statement is hardly too daring. Before their advent the Bengali language, though very sweet and melodious, was an instrument with but one string to it. Except the old poet Bharatchandra, no supreme genius had taken it in hand; hence while prose har

Beauty in the Real   I had ridden down by Shelsford thro' the glittering lustre of an afternoon in March and as I was returning somewhat cold and tired, saw at a distance the pink hat and heavy black curls of Keshav Ganesh and with him Broome Wilson and Prince Paradox. As I trotted up Prince Paradox hailed me. "Come round and have tea with me" he said "we are speculating at large on the primitive roots and origin of the universe, and I know your love for light subjects." "I shall be a delighted listener" I said, and was genuine in the assurance, for I had many a while listened with subtle delight to the beautiful and imaginative talk of Keshav Ganesh. I rode to the s

V   Littleton, Percival   LITTLETON After so long a time, Percival, we meet. It is strange that our ways, upon earth associated and parallel, should in this other world be so entirely divergent.   PERCIVAL Why is it strange to you, Littleton? The world in which we find ourselves, is made, as we have both discovered, of the stuff of our earthly dreams and the texture of our mortal character. Physically, our ways on earth were parallel. We walked together over Cumberland mountains or watched the whole sea leap and thunder Titanically against the Cornwall cliffs. You were stroke and I was cox in