Writings in Bengali and Sanskrit

Notes on the Texts

Although born in Calcutta of Bengali parents, Sri Aurobindo grew up fluent in English, but unable to speak his mother tongue. Taken to England when he was seven, he received there a European education and had almost no contact with Indian culture. While studying at Cambridge in his last two years in England, however, he began to learn Bengali and Sanskrit as a candidate for the Indian Civil Service. After his return to India, he continued his study of these languages on his own until he could not only read, but write in them. In the present volume, his writings in Bengali and those in Sanskrit are being published together for the first time. Both are reproduced in the original languages.

Writings in Bengali and Sanskrit is divided into two parts according to language: Bānglā Racanā (Bengali Writings) and Saṁskṛtaracanāḥ (Sanskrit Writings).

Bānglā Racanā

Sri Aurobindo wrote poems, essays, translations and letters in Bengali from his years as an administrative officer and professor in Baroda (1893-1906), through the period of his political activism in Calcutta, where he edited the Bengali weekly Dharma in 1909-10, to the 1930s when he corresponded in Bengali with a few members of his Ashram in Pondicherry. Many of these writings, especially those belonging to the middle period, were published during his lifetime. Others have been transcribed from his manuscripts and published subsequently. They are arranged here in several sections according to subject, form and publication history. Details about the items in these sections are provided in the Tathyapañjī at the end of Bānglā Racanā (pages 665-82).

Saṁskṛtaracanāḥ

Sri Aurobindo's writings in Sanskrit are much less extensive than those in Bengali, but likewise include poetry and prose on a significant range of topics. They have been arranged here in chronological order as far as possible. They show in a brief compass Sri Aurobindo's development from the period when he was assimilating India's cultural heritage after his return from England, through his days as a nationalist leader, to his flowering as a Yogi, scholar and thinker contributing to the recovery of the ancient wisdom of the Veda and Upanishads. These writings were not published during his lifetime, but were discovered in his manuscripts after his passing. Several of them are appearing here for the first time.

Vividhāḥ ślokāḥ. These verses are found on three pages of a notebook used by Sri Aurobindo at various times between 1900 and 1903 for writing in English, Bengali and Sanskrit. The first two Shlokas are reminiscent of the style of Bhartrihari and may have been written around the time when he translated Bhartrihari's Nīti Śataka into English (seeTranslations, volume 5 of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO).The last two verses, mentioning Bana and a cuckoo, seem related to his Bengali poem Ushaharan Kavya (published on pages 595-643 of this volume).

Prāņa idaṁ sarvam. This prose passage, untitled in the manuscript, was apparently intended to form part of a philosophical dialogue of which only one speech was written. It claims to be a restatement of ideas found in the Yogavāsiṣṭha, but also alludes to Western philosophers. It is found in the same notebook as the preceding Shlokas and evidently belongs to the same period (1900-1903).

Bhavānī Bhāratī. Sri Aurobindo wrote this Sanskrit poem sometime between 1904 and 1908, quite possibly around the time when he wrote in English the text of the pamphlet Bhawani Mandir, issued in 1905. He did not give the poem a title, nor did he get a chance to revise and polish it; the notebook in which it was written was confiscated by the Calcutta police in May 1908 and he never saw it again. It was first published with an English translation in Sri Aurobindo: Archives and Research in December 1985 under the title Bhavānī Bhāratī. This title was suggested by references in the poem to Bhavānī (verses 22,70, 78, 84), Bhāratī (verse 73), Bhāratamātaram (verse 30) and MātāBhāratānām (verses 12, 33). Sri Aurobindo used the name “Bhawani Bharati” in Bhawani Mandir, where the following “message of the Mother” sums up the central idea developed in the Sanskrit poem:

When, therefore, you ask who is Bhawani the mother, She herself answers you, “I am the Infinite Energy which streams forth from the Eternal in the world and Eternal in yourselves. I am the Mother of the Universe, the Mother of the Worlds, and for you who are children of the Sacred land, aryabhumi, made of her clay and reared by her sun and winds, I am Bhawani Bharati, Mother of India.”

Bande Mataram: Political Writings 1890-1908, volume 6 of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO, p. 89.

A number of trivial slips or irregularities in spelling and sandhi occur in the unrevised manuscript of this poem, as in other Sanskrit writings by Sri Aurobindo. In Sri Aurobindo: Archives and Research, most of these were corrected—where this could be done without disturbing the metre—and more significant emendations were listed in a table. These corrections have been reproduced in the present edition along with a few further emendations. Some of these emendations were first made in 1987, when Bhavānī Bhāratī was published by the Sanskrit Karyalaya of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram with a verse-by-verse commentary inSanskrit. At that time the editors reworded some phrases in the poem for the sake of metrical or grammatical regularity, mentioning the original readings in footnotes. In the interest of textual authenticity, only the more minor emendations made by the Sanskrit Karyalaya have been incorporated in the present edition. Those that have not been adopted here are listed in a table in the Reference Volume, along with other textually relevant information. Two lines left incomplete in the manuscript (in verses 85 and 92) have been completed in square brackets using the words supplied in the 1987 edition.

Tāntrikasiddhiprakaraṇam. This incomplete exposition of a system of spiritual practice similar to the one outlined in the sapta catuṣṭaya (see the next item) was probably written within a year or two after Sri Aurobindo's arrival in Pondicherry in April 1910. The Sanskrit text was first published in Mother India in January 2008 with transliteration and anEnglish translation entitled “A Chapter on Tantric Perfection”.

Saptacatuṣṭayam. These formulas related to parts of the sapta catuṣṭaya—the system of seven sets of four elements which Sri Aurobindo adopted as a programme for his sadhana early in his stay in Pondicherry—evidently date to the period between 1910 and around 1912. They are also reproduced as part of the Record of Yoga (volume 11 of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO, pages 1278-80). The complete Sanskrit text of the sapta catuṣṭaya itself can be found, interspersed with explanations in English, in the Introduction to the Record of Yoga (volume 10 of THE COMPLETE WORKS, pages 3-23).

Ekamevādvitīyaṁ Brahma. This composition inspired by a well-known phrase from the Chhandogya Upanishad, with which it begins, is found in a large notebook used by Sri Aurobindo around 1912-13 for Vedic and philological studies, commentaries on the Upanishads and other writings. Untitled in the manuscript, it was first published with an English translation in Sri Aurobindo: Archives and Research in December 1978 under the title Ekamevādvitīyam Brahma (“Brahman, one without a second”, the first words of the text), with the subtitle Śrīaravindopajñā Upaniṣad. As the editorial subtitle suggests, it maybe considered a new Upanishad with Sri Aurobindo as its Rishi—upajñā indicating a text received by individual inspiration, not handed down by tradition.

Kaivalyopaniṣad. This Sanskrit commentary on the first verse of the Kaivalya Upanishad was written around 1912. In the manuscript, it follows an English translation and commentary under the heading “The Kaivalya Upanishad”. The English translation with commentary is published in Kena and Other Upanishads, volume 18 of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO, pages 288-89; it appeared previously in The Upanishads, volume 12 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library. The Sanskrit commentary is published here for the first time. In both cases the original Sanskrit text of the Upanishad, which was not quoted in the manuscript, has been supplied by the editors.

Ṛgvedaḥ. (1) Sri Aurobindo's commentary on the first verse of Rig Veda VII.1 is reproduced here as in the manuscript, including an English translation and notes on selected words followed by a commentary in Sanskrit. Only the translation and notes are reproduced in Hymns to the Mystic Fire (volume 16 of THE COMPLETE WORKS), omitting the Sanskrit commentary. This commentary was written probably around 1920. (2) Sri Aurobindo wrote out the first verse of Rig Veda X.124 (with accents) followed by a commentary in Sanskrit in a notebook he used in 1916 for various writings mainly in English and Bengali.

Sā sarvā. This short, untitled and unfinished paragraph (ending in the manuscript with a cancelled word and no punctuation) is found on the first page of a notebook used by Sri Aurobindo in or around 1927 mainly for essays and an incomplete draft of the last chapter of The Mother. The first two words of the penultimate sentence have been used as the title.

Mantrāḥ. Sri Aurobindo wrote the first three of these four mantras around 1927 and the last in 1933. They are reproduced with facsimiles of the manuscripts on pages 829-31 of Letters on Himself and the Ashram, volume 35 of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO.Only the Sanskrit texts in Devanagari are duplicated here.