On Translating Kalidasa SINCE the different tribes of the human Babel began to study each other's literature, the problem of poetical translation has constantly defied the earnest experimenter. There have been brilliant versions, successful falsifications, honest renderings, but some few lyrics apart, a successful translation there has not been. Yet it cannot be that a form of effort so earnestly and persistently pursued and so necessary to the perfection of culture and advance of civilisation is the vain pursuit of a chimera. Nothing which mankind earnestly attempts is impossible, not even the conversion of copper into gold or the discovery of the elixir of life or

SUPPLEMENT TO VOLUME 29 SAVITRI The following note on the story of Savitri and its significance was found in one of Sri Aurobindo's note-books. It may profitably be read before starting on his epic. And it is for this reason that it has been reproduced here although it is included in Volume 26, On Himself, page 265. The Tale of Satyavan and Savitri THE tale of Satyavan and Savitri is recited in the Mahabharata as a story of conjugal love conquering death. But this legend is, as shown by many features of the human tale, one of the many symbolic myths of the Vedic cycle. Satyavan is the soul carrying the divine truth of being within itse

Letter to his Sister Baroda Camp 25th August, 1894 My dear Saro, I got your letter the day before yesterday. I have been trying hard to write to you for the last three weeks, but have hitherto failed. Today I am making a huge effort and hope to put the letter in the post before nightfall. As I am now invigorated by three days' leave, I almost think I shall succeed. It will be, I fear, quite impossible to come to you again so early as the Puja, though if I only could, I should start tomorrow. Neither my affairs, nor my finances will admit of it. Indeed it was a great mistake for me to go at all; for it has made Baroda quite intolerable to me. There is a

Aikya O Swadhinata Page- 120 Page - 121

SUPPLEMENT TO VOLUME 12 THE UPANISHADS Sri Aurobindo wrote a number of commentaries on Isha Upanishad from different points of view at different times. Of the three included here the last two were left incomplete and the first begins only with Part II which itself is unfinished. The first and second commentaries seem to belong to Sri Aurobindo's Baroda Period and the third to the early Pondicherry Period. This supplement is additional to the one already included in Volume 12. Page-197 THE KARMAYOGIN A COMMENTARY ON THE ISHA UPANISHAD PART II KARMAYOGIN THE IDEAL CHAPTER IV The Eterna

SUPPLEMENT TO VOLUME 26 ON HIMSELF Letter to his Father. The passage reproduced here is part of a letter written by Sri Aurobindo to his father K.D. Ghose (evidently from Cambridge before December 1890). It was quoted by K. D. Ghose in a letter to his brother-in-law on December 2, 1890. This entire letter was published in The Orient, an illustrated weekly of Calcutta, on 27th February 1949, in facsimile. Letter to his Father-in-law. Sri Aurobindo wrote this letter on February 19, 1919 after the death of his wife Mrinalini Devi on December 17, 1918. Letters to Anandrao and "M" (Motilal Roy). These letters, except one which was recently found, have

Poona Speech Babu Aurobindo Ghose, Editor of Bande Mataram, arrived privately in Poona on Saturday evening. On Monday afternoon, he was entertained at Pan Supari Parties, at Prof. S. M. Paranjape's (Kal) at Swadeshi Vakhar, then Godse's Swadeshi Stationery Shop and at Narayandas Chhabildas Shop. Babu Aurobindo addressed a Meeting on Monday (January 13, 1908) evening at Gayakawad Wada (Tilak's premises) where people thronged from 4 o'clock. Mr. S. K. Damle, Pleader proposed Dr. Anna Saheb Patwardhan, the Maharshi of Poona, to the Chair. Dr. Patwardhan, introducing the Lecturer observed that Aurobindo Babu was the fourth Bengali leader to address the Poona public. The first t

-45_A Hymn to Agni (Mandala-4, Sukta-6).htm A HYMN TO AGNI MANDALA IV, SUKTA 6 1.SAYANA: High, very high for us stand, O summoner (or, performer of offering), O Agni, a great sacrificer in the sacrifice (in which the gods are extended). SRI AUROBINDO: High, yea, very high, stand, O Flame, O offering priest of the journeying sacrifice, be very mighty for sacrifice in the forming of the gods. For thou comest over every thought and thou carriest on its way the thinking mind of the orderer of the work. 2.SAY ANA: The intelligent offering priest, the enrapturing Agni of great knowledge is settled among the peoples (the priests) in (for) the sacrifices; he resorts upward to his

A Treacherous Stab WE HAVE seldom read anything more disgraceful, more unpatriotic, more opposed to all ideas of decency, than the sneering and ill-natured attack on Lala Lajpatrai which the Tribune has chosen this particular moment to deliver. It is a time when all over India men of all shades of opinion, except the worshippers of the bureaucracy, are putting aside their differences with this modest and self-sacrificing patriot in order to express their unanimous fellow-feeling with him in his hour of trial. It is precisely this moment that the Tribune chooses for its stab at Lala Lajpatrai who is no longer there to speak for himself. If this unseemly conduct is dict

SUPPLEMENT TO VOLUME 7 COLLECTED PLAYS The beginning of a play from Sri Aurobindo's manuscripts Act One S C E N E I Mathura A Street in Mathura: Ocroor House OCROOR - SUDAMAN SUDAMAN Who art thou? OCROOR One that walks the night. SUDAMAN No Ogre, But Ocroor by thy voice. OCROOR Sudaman? The children Of Surasegn, hadst thou made such reply Would otherwise have answered. SUDAMAN So they would. An Ogre, I ? Yes, one to eat all up. Ocroor, I have a belly to digest Much more than Mathura. OCROOR So Ravan had And yet he perished. Walk not thus alone When the black night has draped the c