II         EPICS, ANCIENT AND MODERN   "The epic in general, ancient and modern", writes C. M. Gayley, "may be described as a dispassionate recital in dignified rhythmic narrative of a momentous theme or action fulfilled by heroic characters and supernatural agencies under the control of a sovereign destiny. The theme involves the political or religious interests of a people or of mankind; it commands the respect due to popular tradition or to traditional ideals. The poem awakens the sense of the mysterious, the awful, and the sublime; through perilous crises it uplifts and calms the strife of frail humanity."2 This is the greatest common measure of the epics, for whatever

   IV         SONG OF MYSELF AND SAVITRI   While it is natural to see Savitri as a sort of continuation and fulfilment of the two earlier 'cosmic' epic narratives—the Divina Commedia and Paradise Lost—there were other formative influences as well, and some of these too deserve mention and even some scrutiny. The primary inspiration flowed no doubt from the fount of his own Yogic experiences and realisations; the 'overhead aesthesis' canalised this rush of afflatus into a blank verse that was Upanishadic in its packed clarity and Kalidasian in its light-glancing unhurried movement; and his sense of structure or power of architectural construction 'contained' the cosmic drama in th

 THE STRUGGLE AND   THE VICTORY           Then came, at a predetermined moment, a moment in time and of time,  A moment not out of time, but in time, in what we call history: transecting, bisecting the world of time, a moment in time but not like a moment of time, A moment in time but time was made through that moment:  for without the meaning there is no time,  and that moment of time gave the meaning.                                                                                      T.S.ELIOT           SECTION A         'THE BOOK OF DEATH'        I         THE TWO

     VIII         'THE WORLD OF FALSEHOOD, THE MOTHER          OF EVIL, AND THE SONS OF DARKNESS'         The nether-most circle in Hell; the hidden heart of Night. Aswapati has gravitated to the bottom, and sees revealed there "the endless terrible Inane", the zero begetter of the worlds. All is dark, hideous, false, and vile; perverse Thought, priestess-sorceress,         In darkling aisles with evil eyes for lamps       And fatal voices chanting from the apse,       In strange infernal dim basilicas       Intoning the magic of the unholy Word,       The ominous profound Initiate       Performed the ritual of her Mysteries.88    Li

    IX         'A TRIPLE CHALLENGE'         Three such poems as the Cantos, The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel and Savitri are certainly a triple challenge to those who hold the view that the days of the long poem are gone. The Cantos, now numbering 109, probably make a bulk of nearly 800 pages; in the standard edition, Savitri too takes up 814 pages; and The Odyssey, with its 33,333 lines, is surely the longest and the most formidable (in mass) of the three. About thirty-five years ago a writer remarked in the course of a review, "It is possible that a long poem cannot be achieved out of the modern consciousness...but the question will continue to be mooted while poetry is a living art."

X         ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATIONS OF THE LEGEND   The Mahabharata version has, no doubt, provoked divers allegorical interpretations. There is the simple, obvious, and in its own way satisfactory view that it is an allegory of Love triumphant over Death. A more ingenious view has been offered by Narayan Aiyangar:   To say that there was but a swoon and that the fancies of a zealous and imaginative wife were portrayed as real truths, would be doing but poor justice to the ancient Vedantic poet of the Purana. I would take Satyavan, meaning 'he who has Satyam', one of the well known names of Brahman, to be the enlightened soul of a knower. He at

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY         I. BOOKS BY SRI AUROBINDO       Collected Poems and Plays, Vols. I and II (Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1942).       I/ion : An Epic in Quantitative Hexameters (Ashram, 1957).       Poems, Past and Present (Ashram, 1946).       Last Poems (Ashram, 1952).       More Poems (Ashram, 1958).       Poems from Bengali (Ashram, 1956).       Songs of Vidyapati (Ashram, 1956).       Vasavadutta (Ashram, 1957).       Rodogune (Ashram, 1958).       The Viziers of Bassora (Ashram, 1959).       Eric (Ashram, 1960).       Prince of Edur (Ashram, 1961).       Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol (Ashram, 1995)

  V         NEW DIMENSIONS   While the changes in the formal human story are few, there are, however, elaborations, psychological explorations, profound spiritual intimations, which are grafted on the original so as to give the epic impressive new dimensions quite beyond the scope of the Upakhyana. On the other hand, it will be seen, mighty though the overarching Banyan that is the epic, its seed—no bigger than an atom—is still in the old bardic poem. The bare bones of the original are Aswapati's eighteen-year long austerities followed by the birth of Savitri, the challenge of fate when Savitri marries Satyavan, Savitri's three-nights' fasting and austerities, and Savitri triumphing over Y

  VII         THE VEDIC STOREHOUSE OF MYTH   India's (and the world's) most ancient literature, the Veda luxuriates in myths and legends; there are gods, energies, primal forces, assaults, sacrifices, victories; and scholars have tried to interpret this ancient body of poetry from various angles—philological, ritualistic, naturalistic, allegorical, ethical, symbolical. In his important study, The Secret of the Veda, Sri Aurobindo has tackled the problem afresh and his main conclusions are these:   The hypothesis I propose is that the Rig-Veda is itself the one considerable document that remains to us from the early period of human thought of which the historic Eleusinian

      IV         'THE DREAM TWILIGHT OF THE EARTHLY REAL'   Death has tried, by referring to the dream twilight of the ideal, to convince Savitri that the 'real' on earth, being only derived from the shadowy twilight ideal, is of no consequence. He has been unable to convince her, for she knows in her heart of hearts that all derive from the ultimate fount of the Supreme, not from the mediate ambiguous realms. The poisoned darts of irony, the honeyed phrases of appreciation, the offers of bounty on earth, the barrage of specious logic, all have failed to shake Savitri from her resolve not to return to the earth unless Satyavan goes with her also.         Now De