14 Pranayama "He never gave even a remote hint," wrote an overwhelmed Dinendra Kumar Roy, "of all the sleepless nights he kept vigil over my sickbed." He was speaking of how Sri Aurobindo took care of him in 1899, when he was stricken with high fever. They were then living at Mir Bakarali's wada, at Baroda. A military doctor treated him, and "Aurobindo nursed me." D. K. Roy said, "When day after day I lay unconscious owing to the intensity of the fever, he spent sleepless nights nursing me.... All I understood was that without his nursing care I would not have survived.... When, after a long spell, the fever left me, he said to me one day, smiling, 'Roy, this time

16 Break the Habit In the course of a single night Sri Aurobindo could cure a person of a fever and send him fresh and full of strength to his work. A cure without medicines. And Mother. She healed. She healed all wounds —inner or outer —that life is wont to inflict on us. She had such a tender way of doing it too! Oh, how many times did I see her with children who had fallen sick, removing their pain, curing them of fever by passing her hand over and over again, so gently, from the top of the head to the back and down the spine. Then, when she knew that the action was done, Mother would stoop and kiss the forehead of the child. A good night's sleep, and the

12 Lotus and Lotus Dinendra Kumar Roy remarked that in 1900 "Aurobindo was eager to get married." In fact, Sri Aurobindo advertised in Calcutta newspapers for a bride. He was twenty-nine years old and he selected a girl of fourteen for his bride. Her name was Mrinalini Bose. Curiously enough 'Mrinalini' and 'Aurobindo' both mean 'Lotus.' Now olden Hindu traditions say that a wife is the partner in her husband's spiritual life, and helper in the execution of his chosen Dharma. They are companions who walk the same road in life. There is a fullness of sharing between them. Remarkably this couple shared even their names! Aurobindo and Mrinalini. LOTUS and LOTUS. T

21 From His Students It was the evening of 30 december 1938, barely a month after Sri Aurobindo's accident on 24 November. Those attending upon him stood around his bed. The talk turned to his brother Manmohan as a hard-working professor. Sri Aurobindo confirmed that generally the professors don't work so hard. Then, looking at Purani, he said, "I was not so conscientious as a professor." Purani begged to differ. "But," he said, "people who heard you in College and those who heard you afterwards in politics differ from you. They speak very highly of your lectures." "I never used to look at the Notes," recalled Sri Aurobindo, "and sometimes my explanation

45 A Mahratta Shoe "History very seldom records the things that were decisive but took place behind the veil; it records the show in front of the curtain," said Sri Aurobindo. "Very few people know that it was I (without consulting Tilak) who gave the order that led to the breaking of the Congress and was responsible for the refusal to join the new-fangled Moderate Convention which were the two decisive happenings at Surat." He then added, "Even my action in giving the movement in Bengal its militant turn or founding the revolutionary movement is very little known." The morning of Friday, 27 December, dawned. Few had slept the two previous nights as the emi

37 The Bureaucracy The Anglo-Indian bureaucrats were tearing their hair. What was the vernacular press doing? To add insult to injury here was the Bande Mataram merrily using a language that was 'a direct incentive to violence and lawlessness.' But they felt helpless. The Government shared the view of the editor of The Friend of India (The Statesman) who complained that the editorials were too diabolically clever, crammed full of sedition between the lines, but legally unattackable because of the skill of the language. "This agitation," wrote Sri Aurobindo in the Bande Mataram of 4 September 1906, a few days after he had actually joined the paper, "is not an

Table of Illustrations Page Frontispiece, From old issues of The Modern Review (courtesy Patrice Marot) 23 , 54, 214 , 425, 475, 557 12 Krishna Dhan Ghose, from Sukumar Mitra's article on Sri Aurobindo in Basumati, Phalgun 1358 38 Bankim Chandra Chatterji 59 Sarojini Ghose (courtesy Sri Lab Kumar Bose and the late Sri Nirmal Ranjan Mitra) 66 Sri Aurobindo at Deoghar, c.1894 (detail from a group photograph, courtesy Smt. Lahori Chatterjee) 76 Rajnarain Bose's house (courtesy Sri Lab Kumar Bose and the late Sri Nirmal Ranjan Mitra) 86 Bombay's Victoria Terminus early this century (from an old p

27 The National Mantra The Vindhyas, where Barin had gone in search of a temple site, are a chain of mountains that roughly divides India into North and South. Legend has it that once upon a time the mountain began to grow and grow. It grew till it pierced the sky. And then the Sun could not cross it. At a standstill in the northern sky, the sun beat fiercely down on the earth there and burned all creatures great and small. A perpetual day in the North. In the South it was perpetual night. Consternation! Everybody prayed to Rishi Agastya to come to the rescue. As Vishnu always came to the rescue of the heavenly gods, so did Agastya come —time and time a

46 Tilak In times of revolution everything is unsettled. It was an immense revolution that had begun in India. "Revolutions are incalculable in their goings and absolutely uncontrollable. The sea flows and who shall tell it how it is to flow ? The wind blows and what human wisdom can regulate its motions?" wrote Sri Aurobindo in the Bande Mataram, on 6 February 1908. "The will of Divine Wisdom is the sole law of revolutions and we have no right to consider ourselves as anything but mere agents chosen by that Wisdom. When our work is done, we should realise it and feel glad that we have been permitted to do so much. Is it not enough reward for the greatest services that we c

29 "They Laugh. at Death" "Barin was preparing bombs at my place at Baroda," Sri Aurobindo said with a reminiscent smile, "but I didn't know it. He got the formula from Ullaskar Dutt who was a very good chemist. He, Upen and Debabrata were very good writers too. They wrote in the Yugantar." Upen, or Upendranath Banerji (1879-1950), came from Chandernagore, then in French India. Throughout his life he was associated with a number of newspapers, including the Bande Mataram. He wrote profusely, except when he was put in prison by the British government. Upen Banerji and Debabrata Bose "were masters of Bengali prose," Sri Aurobindo declared, "and it was