Vikramorvasie   The Characters   Pururavus is the poet's second study of kinghood; he differs substantially from Agnimitra. The latter is a prince, a soldier & man of the world yielding by the way to the allurements of beauty, but not preoccupied with passion; the subtitle of the piece might be, in a more innocent sense than Victor Hugo's, "Le Roi s'amuse". He is the mirror of a courteous & self-possessed gentleman, full of mildness & grace, princely tact, savoir-faire, indulgent kindliness, yet energetic withal & quietly resolute in his pleasure as well as in his serious affairs. "Ah, Sire" says Dharinie with sharp irony "if you only showed as much diploma

VI   Sense-Improvement by Practice   ANOTHER cause of the inefficiency of the senses as gatherers of knowledge, is insufficient use. We do not observe sufficiently or with sufficient attention and closeness and a sight, sound, smell, even touch or taste knocks in vain at the door for admission. This tamasic inertia of the receiving instruments is no doubt due to the inattention of the buddhi, and therefore its consideration may seem to come properly under the training of the functions of the intellect, but it is more convenient, though less psychologically correct, to notice it here. The

The Brain of India I   THE TIME has perhaps come for the Indian mind, long pre-occupied with political and economic issues, for a widening of its horizon. Such a widening is especially necessary for Bengal. The Bengali has always led and still leads the higher thought of India, because he has eminently the gifts which are most needed for the new race that has to arise. He has the emotion and imagination which is open to the great inspirations, the mighty heart-stirring ideas that move humanity when a great step forward has to be taken. He has

"Rupam" 1   THE APPEARANCE of this superb quarterly admirable in its artistic get-up and its fine reproductions of Indian sculpture and painting, admirable in the accomplished excellence of its matter, -the name of the editor, Mr. O. C. Gangoly, the one man most especially fitted by his knowledge and capacity for this work, is of itself a sufficient guarantee of excellence, -is a significant indication of the progress that is being made in the revival of the aesthetic mind of India. Assailed and corrupted in a time of cultural decline and arrest of its creative and artistic faculty by a

Hindu Drama   The origin of the Sanscrit drama, like the origin of all Hindu arts and sciences, is lost in the silence of antiquity; and there one might be content to leave it. But European scholarship abhors a vacuum, even where Nature allows it; confronted with a void in its knowledge, it is always ready to fill it up with a conjecture and this habit of mind while it has led to many interesting discoveries, has also fostered a spirit of fantasy and dogmatism in fantasy, which is prejudicial to sane and sober thinking. Especially in the field of Sanscrit learning this spirit has found an exceptionally favourable arena for the exercise of its ingenuity; for here th

"Hymns to the Goddess" 1   THIS IS one of a series of publications by Mr. Arthur Avalon consisting of texts and translations of the Tantras. The hymns collected and translated in this volume are, however, taken from other sources besides the Tantras. Many of them are from the considerable body of devotional hymns attributed by tradition to the philosopher Shankaracharya, a few from the Mahabharata and the Puranas. Most are well-known stotras addressed to the various forms and names of the female Energy, Mother of the worlds, whose worship is an important part of that many-sided and synthetic who

Opinions Written as Acting Principal, Baroda College   1905   Resolving a Problem of Seniority in the High School   College Office Baroda 3rd. May 05.   Mr Nag was appointed in the Baroda High School by His High. ness the Maharaja Sahib but being on leave has not yet joined his appointment. I believe that His Highness the Maharaja Sahib while reserving to himself the full right to make appointments on other weighty grounds, is always willing to give the utmost consideration to the claims of seniority of old and deserving servants. Moreover the position

III   His Official Career   THUS equipped, thus trained Bankim began his human journey, began in the radiance of joy and strength and genius the life which was to close in suffering and mortal pain. The drudgery of existence met him in the doorway, when his youth was still young. His twenty-first year found him at Jessore, his fifty-third was the last of his long official labour. Here too however his inveterate habit of success went always with him. The outward history of his manhood reads more brilliantly even than that of his youth, and if he did not climb to the highest posts, it was only because these are shut to indigenous talent. From start to finish, his ability,

V   The Training of the Senses   THERE are six senses which minister to knowledge, sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste, mind, and all of these except the last look outward and gather the material of thought from outside through the physical nerves and their end-organs, eye, ear, nose, skin, palate. The perfection of the senses as ministers to thought must be one of the first cares of the teacher. The two things that are needed of the senses are accuracy and sensitiveness. We must first understand what are the obstacles to the accuracy and sensitiveness of the senses, in order th

Part Eight   Reviews   Sri Aurobindo wrote the first of these book-reviews in 1909 for publication in the Karmayogin. He wrote the others between 1915 and 1920 for publication in the Arya, a philosophical journal of which he was the editor and principal writer. "Suprabhat"   THE PAPER Suprabhat, a Bengali monthly edited by Kumari Kumudini Mitra, daughter of Sj. Krishna Kumar Mitra, enters this month on its third year. The first issue of the new year is before us. We notice a great advance in the interest and variety of the articles, the calibre of the writers and the