Savitri

  XIV

      SAVITRI: ITS ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

      On a first view it cannot be denied that the original scheme of Savitri in two parts had a neat simplicity, even as the scheme of the Divina Commedia (Hell: Purgatory: Paradise) has an obvious rounded completeness. However, a closer view will show that the revised Savitri too is not lacking in a firm architectural design. The poem begins, as Western epics often do, at a critical point; it plunges into the middle of things—in medias res. Retrospective narration follows (as in Paradise Lost): the thread of the story is taken up again, and now we follow it without any further interruption, till the unfolding of the triumphant conclusion. If we leave aside the period covered by the retrospective narration (a period of about forty years in actual time, which includes the eighteen years of Aswapati's Yoga, the years of Savitri's birth and childhood and girlhood and the 'Quest' which follow, as also the first year of her married life with Satyavan), the drama outlined in the poem extends over a single day (as, for example, in a modern 'prose epic' like James Joyce's Ulysses). The scheme of the poem may be indicated accordingly as follows:

      DAWN

      (The 'dawn' of the fateful day in Savitri's life, and in the life of evolving humanity: Book I, Cantos 1 and 2.)

         Backgrounds and Antecedents:

         (Retrospective Narration)

       I. Aswapati's Yoga that led to Savitri's incarnation: 

      (i) Aswapati's spiritual fulfilment as an individual. (Book I, Cantos 3,4 and 5).

      (ii) Aswapati's ascent as a typical representative of the human race to win the possibility of discovery and possession of all the planes of consciousness. (Book II, Cantos 1-15).

      (iii) Aswapati's voicing his (and humanity's) aspiration for a universal realisation and a new creation, and the promise of the Incarnation. (Book III, Cantos 1-4).

      II. Savitri's earlier story (including her Yoga):

      (i) Childhood and Girlhood. (Book IV, Cantos 1-2).

      (ii) The seeking and the finding of Love (Satyavan) in the Forest. (Book IV, Cantos 3-4 and Book V, Cantos 1-3).

      (iii) The warning of the challenge of Fate given by Narad, and Savitri's acceptance of the challenge. (Book VI, Cantos 1-2).

      (iv) Marriage of Savitri and Satyavan; her bitter-sweet ordeal. (Book VII, Canto 1).

      (v) Savitri's Yoga and preparation to meet the threatened challenge of Fate. (Book VII, Cantos 2-7).

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           DAY

      (Savitri, with her knowledge of what is to happen on this fateful day, persuades her parents-in-law to allow her to accompany Satyavan on his usual fruit-and-fuel gathering mission to the forest. There, at the destined hour, Satyavan is racked by headache, lies on the ground with his head on Savitri's lap, and presendy life is extinct in him: Book VIII, entitled 'The Book of Death'.)

      The Struggle Between Savitri and Death

      (The Divine Manifestation vs. the Old Dispensation; Supra-mental Light vs. the Night, the Falsehood and the Ignorance)

      I. Eternal Night (Book IX)

      II. The Double Twilight (Book X)

      III. Everlasting Day (Book XI)

      NIGHT

      (Savitri and Satyavan start returning to the hermitage, and on the way are met by his father, who has recovered his eyesight and his kingdom. All is well now, and as they retire for the night's rest at long last, they know that a great new Dawn awaits them: Book XII, the Epilogue.)

      Since the poem is both a Legend and a Symbol, the above simple scheme may now be presented in a somewhat different way also so as to bring out the dual aspects side by side:

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ALL THE YESTERDAYS

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 Any attempt to picture the cosmos should take note of its three inherent laws: the Law of Variety, the Law of Change, and the Law of Order and Purpose that gives meaning to the Variety and the Change. Dante's universe is carefully localised: Earth at the centre, and Hell, with its circles burrowing and penetrating, and Purgatory, with its rising slopes, on either side of the Earth; then the nine heavenly spheres, and, beyond them, the Empyrean, the Rose of the Blessed, the nine Angelic Circles, and so on to the Ultimate Vision. Order and hierarchy are purposively related, and from the Lowest to the Highest, from prime matter to pure intelligence, is a continuous chain, a logical sequence and pattern. Sri Aurobindo's Cosmos, on the other hand, takes a modern rather than a mediaeval view; the picture presented by science is not denied, and the insights of psychology are fully pressed into service. Dante himself is now seen to be more modern than he appeared to be during the last five or six centuries, but Sri Aurobindo is modern, and his picture of the cosmos has a poetical and philosophical as well as a scientific and psychological validity and sufficiency.

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