Savitri
- Preface to the Third Edition
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Preface to the First Edition
- Introduction
- Life-Sketch
- Yoga
- Politics
- Philosophy
- Poetry
- Savitri
- 'The Symbol Dawn'
- 'The Issue'
- 'The Yoga of the King- The Yoga of the Soul's Release'
- 'The Secret Knowledge'
- 'The Yoga of the King- The Yoga of the Spirit's Freedom and Greatness'
- 'The World Stair'
- 'The Kingdom of Subtle Matter'
- 'The Glory and Fall of Life'
- 'The Kingdoms of the Little Life'
- 'The Godheads of the Little Life'
- 'The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Life'
- 'The Descent into Night'
- 'The World of Falsehood, the Mother of Evil, and the Sons of Darkness'
- 'The Paradise of the Life-gods'
- 'The Kingdoms and the Godheads of the Little Mind'
- 'The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind'
- 'The Heavens of the Ideal'
- 'In the Self of Mind'
- 'The World-soul'
- 'The Kingdoms of the Greater Knowledge'
- 'The Pursuit of the Unknowable'
- 'The Adoration of the Divine Mother'
- 'The House of the Spirit and the New Creation'
- 'The Vision and the Boon'
- 'The Birth and Childhood of the Flame'
- 'The Growth of the Flame'
- 'The Call to the Quest'
- 'The Quest'
- 'The Destined Meeting Place'
- 'Satyavan'
- 'Satyavan and Savitri'
- 'The Word of Fate'
- 'The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain'
- 'The Joy of Union - the Ordeal of the Foreknowledge of Death and the Heart's Grief'
- 'The Parable of the Search for the Soul'
- 'The Entry into the Inner Countries'
- 'The Triple Soul- Forces'
- 'The Finding of the Sou'l
- 'Nirvana and the Discovery of the All-negating Absolute'
- 'Rose of God'
- The Two Missing Cantos
- 'Death in the Forest'
- 'Towards the Black Void'
- 'The Journey in Eternal Night and the Voice of the Darkness'
- 'The Dream Twilight of the Ideal'
- 'The Gospel of Death and the Vanity of the Ideal'
- 'The Debate of Love and Death'
- 'The Dream Twilight of the Earthly Real'
- 'The Eternal Day'
- 'The Soul's Choice'
- 'The Supreme Consummation'
- 'Epilogue- The Return to Earth'
- The Legend
- 'The Wonderful Poem'
- The Tale of the Epic- A Comparative Analysis
- New Dimensions
- Legends and Myths
- The Vedic Storehouse of Myth
- 'Symbols'
- 'Savitri' in the Veda
- Allegorical Interpretations of the Legend
- Symbolism in Savitri
- The Symbolism of the 'Sacrifice'
- The Problem
- The Overhead Planes of Conciousness
- Overhead Aesthesis
- Mystic Poetry and the Mantra
- 'Overhead' Poetry
- Overhead Influence in Sri Aurobindo's Yoga
- Savitri Five-Fold Aim Behind Its Composition
- The Basis of Savitri Sri Aurobindo's Yoga
- Planes of Consiousness Stair of Worlds
- Battles of the Soul
- 'Upanishadic and Kalidasian'
- Similes in Savitri
- 'Technique' and 'Inspiration' in Savitri
- 'Dawn' in Savitri
- Savitri Her Power and Personality
- Epics, Ancient and Modern
- Paradise Lost and Savitri
- Song of Myself and Savitri
- The Cantos
- The Odysseus Theme
- Kazantzakis' 'Modern Sequel'
- Sri Aurobindo and Kazantzakis
- 'A Triple Challenge'
- Dante and Sri Aurobindo
- Savitri and the Commedia
- Savitri and Aurobindo's Early Narrative Poems
- Savitri and Faust
- Savitri Its Architectural Design
- Savitri Its Symbolic Action in a Cosmic Background
- Savitri and the 'Sonnets'
- Advocatus Diaboli and Advocatus Dei
- Conclusion Towards a Greater Dawn
- References
- Select Bibliography
- Appendix
- Index
SAVITRI: A COSMIC EPIC
The distinction of a poet—the dignity and humanity
of his thought—-can be measured by nothing, perhaps,
so well as by the diameter of the world in which he lives;
if he is supreme his vision, like Dante's,
always stretches to the stars.
George Santayana
Page 369
I
The Problem
An American Professor of Philosophy, Raymond Frank Piper, has referred to Savitri as "probably the greatest epic in the English language" and has also ventured the judgment that, "...it is the most comprehensive, integrated, beautiful, and perfect cosmic poem ever composed. It ranges symbolically from a primordial cosmic void, through earth's darkness and struggles, to the highest realms of supramental spiritual existence, and illumines every important concern of man, through verse of unparalleled massiveness, magnificence, and metaphorical brilliance...Savitri is perhaps the most powerful artistic work in the world for expanding man's mind towards the Absolute."1 Savitri is a great epic, probably the greatest in the English language; it has a cosmic range and comprehension, and a beautiful and perfect articulation; and its effect on the reader is to expand his mind "towards the Absolute".
These are large claims which deserve to be carefully weighed and considered. Are epics possible at all in the modern world? Can we really describe Savitri as an epic? How does it compare with some of the great epics or epic compositions of the ancient and the modern worlds? What exactly is meant by a 'cosmic poem' or 'cosmic epic'? Is Savitri the last word yet in presenting in poetical terms the cosmic drama of the struggle between darkness and light, falsehood and truth, death and immortality, the drama of change and chance and defeat and victory? Does Savitri hew with the inevitability of art pathways to the Absolute, projecting before us the 'Divine Comedy' of the "yearnings and battles of mankind for eternal life", culminating in the victory, the certainty of "a greater dawn"?
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