Savitri

In this epic spiritual poem, Sri Aurobindo reveals his vision of mankind's destiny within the universal evolution. He sets forth the optimistic view that life on earth has a purpose, and he places our travail within the context of this purpose: to participate in the evolution of consciousness that represents the secret thread behind life on Earth.

Rabindranath Tagore S Drama Chitra Is Aimed At Reminding Man That The Ultimate Truth Is To Be Found Not At The Physical Level But In The Steady Evolution Of The Self. The Illumination Of A Young Princess Mind Lies In The Recognition And Realization That It Is In Truth Alone That True Happiness Resides. Similarly Aurobindo S Epic Savitri Seeks To Narrate The Story Of A Young Princess Who Saves The Life Of Her Husband From Death To Suggest The Ultimate Liberation Of Man From Universal Death. Chitra And Savitri Are Upanishadic Works In The Sense That Their Principal Theme Is The Search For Vidya (Knowledge) That Liberates Man From Avidya (Ignorance), And That Their Main Stylistic Device Is The Conversation Between The Human And Divine Characters. Evolution Thus Becomes The Watchword Of Both Aurobindo And Tagore. The Awakening Of The Self Or Raising The Life And Existence To A Higher Level Of Consciousness Is One Of The Parallel Themes Observed In Chitra And Savitri. Further, The Integral Transformation Of Chitra And Savitri And Their Inner Intuitive Development Has A Much Wider Connotation To Mankind At Large. Chitra And Savitri Are Thus Established As Works Of Self-Discovery. Although There Are Fundamental Differences In Terms Of The Nature Of Chitra And Savitri S Awareness, There Is No Denying The Fact That These Legends From The Mahabharata Are Exquisite Examples Of The Female Aspect Of The Indian Women.

Sri Aurobindo’s epic poem Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol spans more than 900 pages and covers the gamut of human life and aspiration, the meaning of existence and the evolutionary development of consciousness. Sri M.P. Pandit has systematically gone verse by verse through this epic and highlighted the sense and opened the meaning to us with his brief commentary or meditation on the themes thus revealed. Sri Pandit was secretary to the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. He wrote and lectured extensively on Sri Aurobindo’s yoga and the Mother’s transformational work. The current volume X is the final volume in the series, and covers Book X, canto IV, Book XI and Book XII. The volume also includes a line index to Savitri to aid the seeker in identifying the source of virtually any passage in the text. The index contains the first portion of all 23,803 lines in Savitri making it an invaluable tool for anyone studying the text

Almost all of the essays collected in this volume were written for and first published as monthly instalments in Next Future, the e-journal of the Sri Aurobindo Society Pondicherry. The 47 instalments ended with the passing of Dr. Nadkarni in September 2007, and cover Savitri Book by Book, Canto by Canto, from the beginning up to the climactic point in the middle of Book Eleven, where Savitri is offered four boons of merger with the Supreme, and asks instead for the Supreme Peace, Oneness, Energy and Bliss ‘for Earth and Men’. Dr. Nadkarni has written other essays on Savitri as well as giving many other talks, but this collection represents a masterly ‘Introduction’ (as he modestly called it) to the revelatory poem which he loved so much and understood so well. It has been compiled and published at the request of his family, and we feel sure that it will be welcomed by Savitri readers and students all over the world, and to a certain extent make up for the great loss that his many admirers experienced when he passed away in September 2007 at the age of 74.

Since 1980, Shraddhavan has been teaching English in Auroville through close readings of Sri Aurobindo’s revelatory epic Savitri: a legend and a symbol. In August 1998 these classes were resumed at Savitri Bhavan, with a growing number of students, including young Tamil teacher-trainees from the Arul Vazhi School located in Promesse, Auroville. These classes were given the name ‘The English of Savitri’ and they concluded in May of 2009 as this group reached the end of the poem. This book is based on the transcripts of a new series of classes given by Shraddhavan between August 2009 and October 2010, which have been edited for conciseness and clarity, while aiming to preserve some of the informal atmosphere of the course. Edited transcripts of these classes began to be published serially in the Bhavan’s journal of Study Notes on Savitri, ‘Invocation’, from issue 32 onwards, since it was felt that they may be of interest to a wider audiance. They are now being published in book form in several volumes by Yukta Prakashan publishers of Vadodara. This suggested the idea of collecting the original English articles into a book form as well. This is the first such volume, covering all the five cantos of Book One of the poem, ‘The Book of Beginnings’.

Manu said that a woman’s dharma is to be mother, daughter, sister and wife in service of men, regardless of the caste. In modern times we call this patriarchy. In the Veda, the need to control and favour hierarchy, is an expression of an anxious mind. Hindu, Buddhist and Jain lore is full of tales where women do not let men define their dharma. In modern times we call this feminism. In the Veda, the acceptance of a woman's choice is an expression of a wise and secure mind. While in Western myth, patriarchy is traditional and feminism is progressive, in Indian myth both patriarchy and feminism have always co-existed, in eternal tension, through endless cycles of rebirth. Liberation thus is not a foreign idea. It has always been here. You have heard tales of patriarchy. This book tells you the other tales—the ones they don’t tell you.