Autobiographical Notes

At Cambridge

It is said that the Provost of King's College, Mr. Austen Leigh, quickly recognized Aurobindo's unusual talent and rich integrity.

[Altered to:] Aurobindo's unusual talents early attracted the admiration of Oscar Browning, then a well-known figure at Cambridge.

Austen Leigh was not the name of the Provost; his name was Prothero.¹ It was not he but Oscar Browning, a scholar and

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writer of some contemporary fame, who expressed admiration for Sri Aurobindo's scholarship,—there was nothing about integrity. He expressed the opinion that his papers, for the Scholarship examination, were the best he had ever seen and quite remarkable.

Aurobindo now turned the full fury of his attention to classical studies and in the fullness of time, graduated from King's College in 1892, with a First Class in Classical Tripos.

Sri Aurobindo did not graduate; he took and passed the Tripos in his second year; to graduate one had to take the Tripos in the third year or else pass a second part of the Tripos in the fourth year. Sri Aurobindo was not engrossed in classical studies; he was more busy reading general literature and writing poetry.

[Another version:] He did not graduate at Cambridge. He passed high in the First Part of the Tripos (first class); it is on passing this First Part that the degree of B.A. is usually given; but as he had only two years at his disposal, he had to pass it in his second year at Cambridge, and the First Part gives the degree only if it is taken in the third year. If one takes it in the second year, one has to appear for the second part of the Tripos in the fourth year to qualify for the degree. He might have got the degree if he had made an application for it, but he did not care to do so. A degree in England is valuable only if one wants to take up an academical career.