Passing Thoughts   RELIGION IN EUROPE         There is no word so plastic and uncertain in its meaning as the word religion. The word is European and, therefore, it is as well to know first what the Europeans mean by it. In this matter we find them, — when they can be got to think clearly on the matter at all, which is itself unusual, — divided in opinion. Sometimes they use it as equivalent to a set of beliefs, sometimes as equivalent to morality coupled with a belief in God, sometimes as equivalent to a set of pietistic actions and emotions. Faith, works and pious observances these are the three recognised elements of European religion. From works, however, the ordin

The Veda         AT THE root of all that we Hindus have done, thought and said through these many thousands of years, behind all we are and seek to be, there lies concealed, the fount of our philosophies, the bedrock of our religions, the kernel of our thought, the explanation of our ethics and society, the summary of our civilisation, the rivet of our nationality, a small body of speech, Veda. From this one seed developing into many forms the multitudinous and magnificent birth called Hinduism draws its inexhaustible existence. Buddhism too with its offshoot, Christianity, flows from the same original source. It has left its stamp on Persia, through Persia on Judaism, through Judaism,

      Nasik Speech On his way home from the Surat Congress, Sri Aurobindo spoke at several places in Maharashtra at the instance of local leaders. Two reports are given here of a speech he delivered in Nasik on 24 January 1908. In the first, which is from a secret police intelligence report, the words of the speech have been translated from the original English into Marathi and back again into English. They thus should evidently not be taken as the exact words used by Sri Aurobindo. The second report was published as a letter to the editor of the Mahratta, an English-language newspaper of Poona, on 2 February 1908. The date given, "Saturday night", seems to be in error, as Saturday

Prefatory Note on Bhartrihari   This essay was written as a preface to the translation of Bhartrihari's Nitishataka which Sri Aurobindo first called "The Century of Morals", but later The Century of Life (see note to the translation on page 157 of Centenary Volume 8). The rendering was done in Baroda around the turn of the century and later revised before being brought out as a book in 1924. At this time Sri Aurobindo deliberately suppressed this elaborate prefatory note, substituting for it the brief note referred to above.         BHARTRIHARI'S Century of Morals (Nitishataka) a series of poetical epigrams or rather sentences upon human life and conduct group

Characteristics of Augustan Poetry   The first of a series of lectures on English poetry prepared by Sri Aurobindo for his classes at Baroda College during the early part of his career there (1898-1901). The four passages given as footnotes were found on pages of the manuscript facing the text pages.         Relation of Gray to the poetry of his times         The poetry of Gray marks the transition from the eighteenth-century or Augustan style of poetry to the nineteenth-century style; that is to say almost all the tendencies of poetry between the death of Pope and the production of the Lyrical Ballads in 1798 are to be found in Gray's writings.

Archival Notes MORE ON SRI AUROBINDO'S COMING TO PONDICHERRY This article does not necessarily reflect the views of the publishers of Sri Aurobindo: Archives and Research. The writer, a member of the staff of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives and Research Library, accepts full responsibility for the contents of the article, which is the result of his own research and his own interpretation. The purpose of the biographical portions of Archival Notes is to present materials dealing with the period of Sri Aurobindo's life covered by the current instalment of Documents in the Life of Sri Aurobindo. The form of presentation selected is a variety of the classic biographical narrati

Notes on the Texts       Record of the Yoga/1913/February. This heading was written by Sri Aurobindo inside the front cover of the exercise book used to keep the Record of 1-14 February 1913. Record entries occupy only the first seventeen pages of the notebook. No record was kept for the last part of February and the whole of March 1913.       Record of Yoga — April. This heading was written by Sri Aurobindo inside the front cover of the exercise book used to keep the Record for much of 1913. During this year entries were kept in a rather irregular fashion. The exercise book contains entries for the following dates:       1 and 12 April, 19 and 21 May 1-11 Jul

GLOSSARY       This glossary includes all Sanskrit words occurring in the selections from Record of Yoga published in the present issue, except for a few terms which are common in Sri Aurobindo's writings and do not have a special sense in the Record. (For these terms, see the Glossary to the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library.) Sanskrit words are spelled here according to the standard international system of transliteration.       Words are defined in this glossary only in the senses in which they are used in the present selections from the Record. For a fuller discussion of some terms, reference is made to the Sapta-Chatushtaya (designated SC). Familiarity with the Sapta-Chatus