Savitri

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Battles of the Soul

The third major ingredient of the epic, Savitri, is the prolonged trial of strength between Savitri and Death. In the original legend, Death (Yama) is no villain, no principle of primordial Evil, but a bright God, Dharma himself. In Sri Aurobindo's poem, he is referred to neither as Yama nor as Dharma, but only as Death. Savitri and Death meet by the side of prone Satyavan as antagonistic powers and personalities, and once the issue is joined, they struggle to the bitter end. A battle, whether symbolic or real, whether fought with material or other weapons, between the forces of Good and Evil can be as exciting as, perhaps even more exciting than, a voyage, a quest, a climb, in search of the lost Grail or the veiled God. The traditional stories of Siddharta the Buddha mention a prolonged battle that the Enlightened One gave to the forces of Evil (Mara) under the Bodhi Tree. Mara tempts Gautama Siddharta in various ways, including the offer of a world-wide Kingdom; failing in these attempts, Mara tries force, and fails again and flees with his hosts in disorder. There is a vivid description in Sir Edwin Arnold's The Light of Asia, culminating in a nobly articulate passage:

      Stars shot from heaven,

      The solid earth shuddered as if one laid

      Flame to her gaping wounds; the torn black air

      Was full of whistling wings, of screams and yells,

      Of evil faces peering, of vast fronts

      Terrible and majestic, Lords of Hell

      Who from a thousand Limbos led their troops

      To tempt the Master.

      But Buddha heeded not,

      Sitting serene, with perfect virtue walled

      As is a stronghold by its gates and ramps...¹²⁹

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Jesus too is likewise tempted in the wilderness after his forty days of fasting; the story of the temptation is detailed both by Matthew and Luke,¹³⁰ and elaborated into epic proportions by Milton in Paradise Regained. Following in the main Luke's version, Milton gives each temptation its particular stress, and it is not surprising that the second and main temptation—in which Satan offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world—sprawls across more than one half of the whole poem. Frustrated and exasperated, Satan asks:

      Since neither wealth nor honour, arms nor arts,

      Kingdom nor empire, please thee, nor aught

      By me proposed in life contemplative

      Or active, tended on by glory or fame,

      What dost thou in this world? ¹³¹

 Back to the wilderness Jesus is therefore brought, though presently Satan begins "another method", bears Jesus through the air to Jerusalem and sets him on the "highest pinnacle" and challenges him either to stand or cast himself down. Jesus resists even this subtle temptation, and,

      So, strook with dread and anguish, fell the Fiend.¹³²

Gautama Siddharta's and Jesus Christ's successful resistance of Mara's and Satan's offensives is rather prototypical of similar struggles presented in ancient and modern literature. For example, there is the description in the Ramayana of Rishi Vasishta and King Vishvamitra struggling for the possession of the divine cow, Kamadhenu. An early Latin poem, Psycho-machia by the Christian poet, Prudentius Clemens, describes a battle of Virtues and Vices for the soul, and this would appear to have proved somewhat of an archetype for many a later poem or 'morality', including John Bunyan's The Holy War, which is of course in prose. The situation is best described in Brutus'words:

      The Genius and the mortal instruments

      Are then in council; and the state of man,

      Like to a little kingdom, suffers then

      The nature of an insurrection.¹³³

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Christopher Marlowe introduces in Dr. Faustus the good and the bad angel, who strive for Faustus' soul. This theme is capable of endless variation and extension. But C.S. Lewis thinks that, "Seneca, with his imagery of life as a journey, was nearer to the mark than Prudentius... The journey has its ups and downs, its pleasant resting-places enjoyed for a night and abandoned, its unexpected meetings...and, above all, the sense of its goal... this represents more truly than any combat in a champclos the perennial strangeness, the adventurousness, and the sinuous forward movement of the inner life."¹³⁴

      It is not true in all cases that an Odyssey is better than an Iliad, a Pilgrim's Progress better than a Holy War. Besides, as Dr E.M.W. Tillyard points out, by way of retort, "the pilgrimage subject encourages diffuseness and endless episodes, whereas the martial subject encourages concentration."¹³⁵ In Sri Aurobindo's Savitri, the whole of Part III (omitting only the 'Epilogue'), comprising the Book of Eternal Night, the Book of the Double Twilight and the Book of Everlasting Day, is devoted to the 'struggle' between Savitri and Death. It is a symbolic struggle, but there is implied both a movement in space and a movement in time; and it is the struggle between Light and Darkness for "the soul of the world called Satyavan".

      In the Buddha story and the Jesus story, there is a struggle, but the Buddha and Jesus are alike passive, and aim only at preserving the purity and calm of their inner paradise against the onslaughts of Mara and Satan respectively. In Savitri, the inner paradise, the realisation of her true Self, is the necessary preliminary to her active pursuit and worsting of Death; and this she does to rescue Satyavan "the soul of the world". In the Aurobindonian version though not in the original legend, Death plays a role not very different from that of Mara or Satan, and tries to act the sophist, beguiler, briber and perverter of truth, to make Savitri trip once, but all in vain.

      Aswapati's Yoga (described in Part I of Savitri) prepares the way for Savitri's advent; Savitri's Yoga (described in Part II), which helps her to rear the impregnable fortress of the inner paradise of her true Self, becomes the essential preliminary for the 'struggle' with Death and her ultimate victory (described in Part III); and the 'Epilogue' describes the return of Savitri and Satyavan to the earth, where they are now to build a new world, and live the Life Divine. Aswapati, on behalf of mankind and the earth, yearns for Light, Truth, Freedom, Immortality; Savitri first prepares and arms herself for the coming struggle with Darkness, Falsehood, Bondage, Death, and, when the struggle is actually joined, stands her ground resolutely and presses advantage upon advantage till complete victory is hers and the battle for mankind and the earth is finally won. Such is the rounded scheme of aspiration, preparation, struggle and fulfilment that is unfolded on the epic canvas of Savitri.

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