'Isha Upanishads' by Sri Aurobindo - Page 1 of 50 The Karmayogin   A Commentary on the Isha Upanishad       NOTE   Sri Aurobindo modified the structure of The Karmayogin: A Commentary on the Isha Upanishad while he was working on it He began with a two-tier division: "Chapters" and sections Later he introduced a superior division, the "Part", and began calling the lowest-level divisions "Chapters" The intermediate divisions, earlier called "Chapters", became known as "Books" The numbering of these divisions is neither consistent nor complete The table on the opposite page shows the structure as marked by Sri Aurobindo in the manuscript and prin

'Isha Upanishads' by Sri Aurobindo - Page 1 of 50 The Life Divine   A Commentary on the Isha Upanishad   [Draft A]   Foreword   Veda & Vedanta are the inexhaustible fountains of Indian spirituality With knowledge or without knowledge, every creed in India, sect, school of philosophy, outburst of religious life, great or petty, brilliant or obscure, draws its springs of life from these ancient and ever flowing waters Conscious or unwitting each Indian religionist stirs to a vibration that reaches him from those far off ages Darshana and Tantra and Purana, Shaivism & Vaishnavism, orthodoxy & heresy are merely so many imperfect understandings of Ved

'Isha Upanishads' by Sri Aurobindo - Page 1 of 50 Chapters for a Work on the Isha Upanishad   [1] The Isha Upanishad   The Puranic account supposes us to have left behind the last Satya period, the age of harmony, and to be now in a period of enormous breakdown, disintegration and increasing confusion in which man is labouring forward towards a new harmony which will appear when the spirit of God descends again upon mankind in the form of the Avatara called Kalki, destroys all that is lawless, dark and confused and establishes the reign of the saints, the Sadhus, those, that is to say,—if we take the literal meaning of the word Sadhu, who are strivers after

Book Nine (A FRAGMENT) "NOR could the Trojan fighters break through the walls of their foemen, Nor could the mighty Pelides slay in his war-rage the Trojans. Ever he fought surrounded or drew back compelled to his legions; For to each spear of his strength full twenty hissed round his helmet, Cried1 on his shield, attempted his cuirass or leaped at his coursers Or at Automedon ran like living things in their blood-thirst. Galled the deathless steeds high-neighing pawed in their anger; Wrathful Achilles wheeled and threatened seeking a victim. So might a fire on the high-piled altar of sacrifice blazing Seek for its tong

  AN ANSWER TO A CRITICISM* Milford accepts the rule that two consonants after a short vowel make the short vowel long, even if they are outside the word and come in another word following it. To my mind that is an absurdity. I shall go on pronouncing the y of frosty as short whether it has two consonants after it or only one or none; it remains frosty whether it is a frosty scalp or forsly top or a frosty anything. In no case have I pronounced it or could I consent to pronounce it as frostee. My hexameters are intended to be read naturally as one would read any English sentence. But if you admit a short syllable to be long whenever there are two consonants after it,

Book Seven THE BOOK OF THE WOMAN SO to the voice of their best they were bowed and obeyed un debating; Men whose hearts were burning yet with implacable passion Felt Odysseus' strength and rose up clay to his counsels. King Agamemnon rose at his word, the wide-ruling monarch, Rose at his word the Cretan and Locrian, Thebes and Epirus, Nestor rose, the time-tired hoary chief of the Pylians. Round Agamemnon the Atreid Europe surged in her chieftains Forth from their tent on the shores of the Troad, splendid in armour, Into the golden blaze of the sun and the race of the sea-winds. Fierce and clear like a fl

Book Eight THE BOOK OF THE GODS SO on the earth the seed that was sown of the centuries ripened; Europe and Asia, met on their borders, clashed in the Troad. All over earth men wept and bled and laboured, world-wide Sowing Fate with their deeds and had other fruit than they hoped for, Out of desires and their passionate griefs and fleeting enjoyments Weaving a tapestry fit for the gods to admire, who in silence Joy, by the cloud and the sunbeam veiled, and men know not their movers. They in the glens of Olympus, they by the waters of Ida Or in their temples worshipped in vain or with heart-strings of mortals

    ILION AN EPIC IN QUANTITATIVE HEXAMETERS         ILION   AN EPIC IN QUANTITATIVE HEXAMETERS   SRI AUROBINDO         SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM PONDICHERRY 1957  

Book Five THE BOOK OF ACHILLES MEANWHILE grey from the Trojan gates Talthybius journeyed, Spurred by the secret thought of the Fates who change not nor falter Simois sighed round his wheels and Xanthus roared at his passing, Troas' god like a lion wroth and afraid; to meet him Whistling the ocean breezes came and Ida regarded. So with his haste in his wheels the herald ocean ward driving Came through the gold of the morn o'er the trampled green of the pastures Back to the ships and the roar of the sea and the iron hopped leaguer. Wide to the left his circle he wrote where the tents of Achilles Trooped lik

Book Three THE BOOK OF THE ASSEMBLY BUT as the nation beset betwixt doom and a shameful surrender Waited mute for a voice that could lead and a heart to encourage, Up in the silence deep Laocoön rose up, far-heard,— Heard by the gods in their calm and heard by men in their passion— Cloud-haired, clad in mystic red, flamboyant, sombre, Priam's son Laocoön, fate-darkened seer of Apollo. As when the soul of the Ocean arises rapt in the dawning And mid the rocks and the foam uplifting the voice of its musings Opens the chant of its turbulent harmonies, so rose the far-borne Voice of Laocoön soaring mid