Some Perspectives of the Savitri Upakhyana The story of Savitri narrated by Rishi Markandeya to Yudhishthira appears as a minor episode or upākhyāna in seven cantos of the Book of the Forest in the Mahabharata (Pativrata Mahatmya, Chapters 293-299, Vana Parva, Gita Press, Gorakhpur). The immediate purpose of the narration seems to be the alleviation of grief of the eldest of the Pandavas, afflicted as he was by the sad helpless plight of his brothers and more so by the plight of their common wife Draupadi. This virtuous daughter of Drupada, the king of Panchala Desh, was bom in the purity of a sacrificial flame and was radiant and

-014_Aswapati^s Travels through the Worlds — An Overview.htm Aswapati's Travels through the Worlds — An Overview In the first three Books constituting Part I of Savitri we come closest to an authentic autobiography of Sri Aurobindo, in particular of his yogic life in which he was totally absorbed all the 40 years he spent in Pondicherry. The world has often speculated about this period of his life, but most of these speculations have been wide off the mark. Sri Aurobindo turned to yoga in earnest around 1907-8 when he first met Lele. But his brief contact with Lele lasted only from 30 December 1907 to February 1908. But he continued his spiritual life. He had by then experienced two of t

PART IV From Death to Deathlessness: Lucretius and Sri Aurobindo George Santayana expects every great poet to be a philopher, a prophet and a seer: "The distinction of a poet—the dignity and humanity of his thought—can be measured by nothing, perhaps so well as by the diameter of the world in which he lives; if he is supreme, his vision, like Dante's, always stretches to the stars."1 Two other poets whose vision, literally and metaphorically, stretches to the stars are Lucretius and Sri Aurobindo. In Book I of De Rerum Natura Lucretius promises to reveal the ultimate realities of heaven and the gods. Applauding this at

PART III Sri Aurobindo and Aswapati in Savitri Who are the protagonists, the principal characters in Sri Aurobindo's Savitri ? This is, apparently, one of the simplest questions that may be asked about the epic: the chief protagonist is Savitri, after whom the epic is named and who dominates its second half; then there is Satyavan, her counterpart and husband, who represents the soul of humanity; and thirdly there is Aswapati, the king who is Savitri's father and who is the main character in the first half of the epic. The authorities, experts and exegetes who have written on Savitri are unanimously of the same opinion. The fo

Savitri and the Bible A supreme epic always has a limitless vastitude for its canvas and an unreachable loftiness of its expression. Sri Aurobindo's Savitri is also the latest and the greatest of the Scriptures; it includes and transcends the essence and significance of all other Scriptures. The theme and vision, fact and experience, and word and phrase used from other Scriptures gain here a meaning and a suggestion beyond what they have in the original, sometimes even beyond recognition. The term "God's covenant", a frequent expression in the Old Testament of the Bible, for example, undergoes a sea-change when Sri Aurobindo employs it in Savitri. In t

Savitri: Assault of Ether and of Fire A Divine cornucopia, Savitri is inexhaustible, and lends itself to as many approaches as there were seekers yesterday, are today and will be, in ever growing numbers, in times to come. This writer claims only the approach of a single seeker, at one vanishing point of time. Two definitions of poetry come to mind. First, Louis Untermeyer's: "Poetry is the power of defining the indefinable in terms of the unforgettable." That may be a more or less acceptable definition for mental and vital poetry in the world's languages. But not for mantric poetry, and certainly not for Savitri. Sri Aurobindo never di

The Genesis of Savitri The opening pages of the earliest known manuscript of Savitri are dated August 8-9th 1916. In November 1950, the month before his passing, Sri Aurobindo dictated the last passages to be added to the work. Between 1916 and 1950 Savitri grew from a medium-length narrative poem, consisting of about eight hundred lines in the first draft, to an epic of thirty times that length, all-embracing in its scope and inexhaustible in its significance. The process through which such a work took shape has a unique interest. The manuscripts and typescripts of Savitri—amounting to eight thousand pages or so, with some passages evolving through as many as

Symbolism in Savitri 1: Imagery, Symbols and Poetry Images and image-making have been regarded as the mark of poetic genius. From Aristotle onward, when a systematic and organised literary criticism came into existence, critics in their opinions and poets in practice have been insisting on this aspect of poetry. "The greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor" as Herbert Read expressed, and metaphor remains "the life-principle of poetry, the poet's chief test and glory." This dictum went to such an extent that Dryden pronounced "imaging is, in itself, the very height and life of poetry." All these comments seem to suggest that a conscious and delibera

PART VII Representative Facsimiles of Savitri from Different Periods of its Composition A few examples of the thousands of pages of manuscripts of Savitri are shown in these facsimiles. They have been selected to illustrate the development of the poem from 1916 to 1950. This process may be divided into three main periods: 1916-20, 1927-44, 1945-50. In the last period, Sri Aurobindo revised some of the earlier manuscripts by dictation. Further information on the facsimiles is provided in the notes below. 1.This is the fourth of some fifty versions of the opening of Savitri found among

Savitri: The Devikāvyam In the Sadhana Shastra of the Pooma or Integral Yoga posited by Sri Aurobindo, there are very helpful guides for the aspirants. While the tattva (philosophy) of man's transformation is brought to us by works like The Life Divine and The Supramental Manifestation, the hita (way) is outlined in The Synthesis of Yoga. Here 'synthesis' is not to be an "undiscriminating combination" of existing methods of Yoga. Sri Aurobindo says in this volume what the synthesis must be: It [the synthesis] must therefore be effected by neglecting the forms and outsides of the Yogic disciplines and seizing rather on some central principle common to