'Savitri' by Sri Aurobindo - Page 1 of 10   VOLUMES 33 and 34 THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO © Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1997 Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry PRINTED IN INDIA Savitri a Legend and a Symbol   Publisher's Note   The writing of Savitri extended over much of the later part of Sri Aurobindo's life. The earliest known manuscript is dated 1916. The original narrative

  BOOK TWELVE   Epilogue   Epilogue   The Return to Earth   OUT OF abysmal trance her spirit woke. Lain on the earth-mother's calm inconscient breast She saw the green-clad branches lean above Guarding her sleep with their enchanted life, And overhead a blue-winged ecstasy Fluttered from bough to bough with high-pitched call. Into the magic secrecy of the woods Peering through an emerald lattice-window of leaves, In indolent skies reclined, the thinning day Turned to its slow fall into evening's peace. She pressed the living body of Satyavan: On her body's word

  Canto Five   The Finding of the Soul   ONWARD she passed seeking the soul's mystic cave. At first she stepped into a night of God. The light was quenched that helps the labouring world, The power that struggles and stumbles in our life; This inefficient mind gave up its thoughts, The striving heart its unavailing hopes. All knowledge failed and the Idea's forms And Wisdom screened in awe her lowly head Feeling a Truth too great for thought or speech, Formless, ineffable, for ever the same. An innocent and holy Ignorance Adored like one who worships formless God The unseen Light she could not claim nor own. In a simple puri

  Canto Five   The Godheads of the Little Life   A FIXED and narrow power with rigid forms, He saw the empire of the little life, An unhappy corner in eternity. It lived upon the margin of the Idea Protected by Ignorance as in a shell. Then, hoping to learn the secret of this world He peered across its scanty fringe of sight, To disengage from its surface-clear obscurity The Force that moved it and the Idea that made, Imposing smallness on the Infinite, The ruling spirit of its littleness, The divine law that gave it right to be, Its claim on Nature and its need in Time. He plunged his gaze into the siege of mist That

' Savitri ' by Sri Aurobindo - Page 1 of 10   Note on the Text     Note on the Text   SAVITRI began as a narrative poem of moderate length based on a legend told in the Mahabharata. Sri Aurobindo considered the story to be originally "one of the many symbolic myths of the Vedic cycle". Bringing out its symbolism and charging it progressively with his own spiritual vision, he turned Savitri into the epic it is today. By the time it was published, some passages had gone through dozens of drafts. Sri Aurobindo explained how he wrote the poem: "I used Savitri as a means of ascension. I

  BOOK TEN   The Book of the Double Twilight   Canto One   The Dream Twilight of the Ideal   ALL STILL was darkness dread and desolate; There was no change nor any hope of change. In this black dream which was a house of Void, A walk to Nowhere in a land of Nought, Ever they drifted without aim or goal; Gloom led to worse gloom, depth to an emptier depth, In some positive Non-being's purposeless Vast Through formless wastes dumb and unknowable. An ineffectual beam of suffering light Through the despairing darkness dogged their steps Like the remembrance of a glory lost; Even while it grew, it seemed un

  Canto Two   The Kingdom of Subtle Matter   IN THE impalpable field of secret self, This little outer being's vast support Parted from vision by earth's solid fence, He came into a magic crystal air And found a life that lived not by the flesh, A light that made visible immaterial things. A fine degree in wonder's hierarchy, The kingdom of subtle Matter's faery craft Outlined against a sky of vivid hues, Leaping out of a splendour-trance and haze, The wizard revelation of its front. A world of lovelier forms lies near to ours, Where, undisguised by earth's deforming sight, All shapes are beautiful and all things true.

  Canto Three The House of the Spirit and the New Creation   A MIGHTIER task remained than all he had done. To That he turned from which all being comes, A sign attending from the Secrecy Which knows the Truth ungrasped behind our thoughts And guards the world with its all-seeing gaze. In the unapproachable stillness of his soul, Intense, one-pointed, monumental, lone, Patient he sat like an incarnate hope Motionless on a pedestal of prayer. A strength he sought that was not yet on earth, Help from a Power too great for mortal will, The light of a Truth now only seen afar, A sanction from his high omnipotent Source.

  Canto Four   The Dream Twilight of the Earthly Real   THERE came a slope that slowly downward sank; It slipped towards a stumbling grey descent. The dim-heart marvel of the ideal was lost; Its crowding wonder of bright delicate dreams And vague half-limned sublimities she had left: Thought fell towards lower levels; hard and tense It passioned for some crude reality. The twilight floated still but changed its hues And heavily swathed a less delightful dream; It settled in tired masses on the air; Its symbol colours tuned with duller reds And almost seemed a lurid mist of day. A straining taut and dire besieged her heart; H

    BOOK ELEVEN   The Book of Everlasting Day   Canto One   The Eternal Day: The Soul's Choice and the Supreme Consummation   A MARVELLOUS sun looked down from ecstasy's skies On worlds of deathless bliss, perfection's home, Magical unfoldings of the Eternal's smile Capturing his secret heart-beats of delight. God's everlasting day surrounded her, Domains appeared of sempiternal light Invading all Nature with the Absolute's joy. Her body quivered with eternity's touch, Her soul stood close to the founts of the infinite. Infinity's finite fronts she lived in, n