Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study

SUMMARY OF BOOK FIVE

CANTO I

THE DESTINED MEETING PLACE

"But now the destined spot and hour were dose." Unknowingly man's "acts interpret an omniscient Force"; and so, even when a man acts blindly something behind arranges the necessary circumstance The place and time for each event are thus pre-determined in knowledge, though they seem to be brought about by blind choice.

The place had a "soft and delicate air", it was a "world of free and green delight". The time was when spring and summer seemed to be lying together "disputing with laughter who should rule".

Savitri felt within her the "coming change". It was a place where in the landscape "a crowd of mountainous heads assailed the sky" and "earth prostrate lay beneath their feet of stone". In the valley "below there crouched a dream of emarald woods", streams of water ran, and cool and perfumed breeze "faltered among flowers". White cranes, peacocks and parrots "jewelled soil and tree." Doves moaned and drakes swam in pools. Earth was in love with Heaven there was music, blooms, riot of scents and hues. In that wonderful place

"Magician of her rapt felicities,

Blithe, sensuous-hearted careless and divine,

Life ran or hid in her delightful rooms";

All over Nature there was calm and peace. "Life had not learned its discord with its aim" at that place.

It was at such a place that

"A stranger on the sorrowful roads of Time,

under the yoke of death and fate,

A sacrificant of the bliss and pain of the spheres,

Love in the wilderness met Savitri.

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CANTO II

SATYAVAN

Savitri remembered every detail of this occasion—the road, the wilderness, the "morning like a lustrous seer" and the "titan murmur of the endless woods".

There were groves with strange flowers and boughs that sheltered a hermitage where the breeze ran over "grasses pranked with green and gold". Voices seem to call her, and as the one sign of "human and secret tread" she saw "a single path" shooting into the "bosom of vast life" of Nature. Following her gaze along the road she saw Satyavan against the "forest verge"

"Inset twixt green relief and golden ray."

He was standing "erect and lofty like a spear of God". With noble brow, "joy of life was on his open face", his "head touched with light", "his body was a lover's and a king's." He came to live in this forest retreat driven by adverse fate ''to meet the ancient Mother in her groves".

Living in this forest Satyavan had become a foster child of beauty and solitude. He was a veda-knower, he had entered into and realised the spiritual significance of Nature—the "stream and wood" had taught him many truths, "voices of the sun and star and flame" had also instructed him. Even the birds and animals had given him knowledge. His mind was open to the infinite mind of Nature.

On that particular day Satyavan had turned from his "accustomed paths" almost under the "spell of destiny". At first, Savitri saw him with the usual impersonal look with which she used to observe and keep in her delightful memory the joys of Nature—the "sky and flower and hill and star" and phenomena of Nature.

Savitri was absorbed in looking at the beauty of the colourful landscape, and even when she saw Satyavan she saw him like the other ordinary objects of Nature.

She might have passed on in her chariot, but the God in her touched her conscious soul and then "her vision settled, caught and all was changed". To her closer view he appeared as "the genius of the spot"; "a king of life outlined in delicate air." Suddenly her heart looked at Satyavan and she saw something quite different. "A mystic tumult from her depths arose;"

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"Hailed, smitten erect like one who dreamed at ease,

Life ran to gaze from every gate of sense".

She was intensely moved—"Her soul flung wide its doors to this new sun".

"An alchemy worked, the transmutation came;

The missioned face had wrought the Master's spell."

Savitri's heart cried out to Satyavan and so

"Hooves trampling fast, wheels largely stumbling ceased".

Then "Satyavan looked out from his soul's doors" while he heard her musical voice he also "endured the haunting miracle of a perfect face." He was overwhelmed by attraction, "He turned to the vision like a sea to the moon", and he soon saw that "his life was taken into another's life."

When he approached Savitri then "Gaze met dose gaze and clung in sight's embrace".

Savitri recognised in Satyavan

"Comrade and sovereign eyes that claimed her soul."

"Lids known through many lives, large frames of love."

Satyavan met in Savitri's gaze "a promise and a presence and a fire", aeonic dreams "made in material shape his very own".

Thus

"In these great spirits now incarnate here

Love brought down power out of eternity

To make of life his new undying base."

Men come together, not casually or by chance, but because of past affinity. "The soul can recognise the answering soul," even though time may intervene before the recognition becomes a fact.

"There is a power within that knows beyond our knowings;

"To live, to love are signs of infinite things,

Love is a glory from eternity's spheres."

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Even though lower elements of human nature debase and mock at it, still, love is a divine power by which "all can change".

Love is like a bud in the human being, it opens slowly; or it is like a somnambulist child wandering about seeking himself in many forms and at last it sees a sign,—often insignificant,—which is sufficient to awaken it. It "wakes blindly to a voice, a look, a touch, the meaning of a face." Love by its mystical power "in earth's alphabet finds a God-like sense", a divine significance. In the purest form of love "all strives to enforce the unity all is." Rare is such pure love, rarer one who can hold it pure in himself.

The meeting of Savitri and Satyavan was not an accidental or a haphazard event. It was the culmination of a long series of lives,— it "summed the drift of numberless births." These two

"Lovers met upon their different paths".

"Travellers across the limitless plains of Time."

And then "The mist was torn that lay between two lives." They "wove affinity in a silent gaze" and then

"An hour began, the matrix of new Time",—their union was the beginning of a new age, a new creation upon earth.

CANTO III

SATYAVAN AND SAVITRI

Even though they seemed to meet casually their inmost souls grew conscious of their past affinity and intimate relation,—"so utter the recognition in the deeps". Satyavan spoke first to Savitri inquiring about her name and inviting her to descend from the car. "O Sunlight moulded like a golden maid"! "How art thou named among the sons of men?" I feel you are not entirely of this earth, "for more than earth speaks to me from thy soul". I have known divine powers behind the veil of earth-forms,—powers behind dawns, the sun-light, the moon, the stars, marching "on their long sentinel routes pointing their spears through the infinitudes". I have heard strange voices, seen the Apsaras bathing in the pools, wood-nymphs peering through leaves, powers rushing with the winds. You can be one such heavenly being:: but

"Much rather would my thoughts rejoice to know".

"That mortal sweetness smiles between thy lips"

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If you can feel our human affections, if you can love to look upon our earth, feel fatigue like us, and taste earthly food then "Descend, let thy journey cease,

"Come down to us". Inviting her to the sylvan hermitage surrounded by silence and full of soft music he said

"Bare, simple is the sylvan hermit-life";

"Yet is it clad with the jewelry of earth."

"Apparelled are the moms in gold and green,

Sunlight and shadow tapestry the walls

To make a testing chamber fit for thee."

Savitri paused for some time and then in reply told her name and asked his name and the reason why he was in a hermitage rather than in a royal city.

In reply Satyavan told her the story of his father's loss of kingdom due to his blindness and added how "he sojourns in two solitudes, within and in the solemn rustle of the woods". I have lived contented in this forest because "not yet of thee aware". I have here my kingdom of Nature which is "of a nobler kind." Frankness of earth, intimacy of "infant God" I have enjoyed. Earth and sky are our "close belongings" and I have fully enjoyed and possessed them. Besides, I have seen another subtler world behind this external one —the animals running wildly gave me glimpses of beings moving swiftly, the herds of deer running "became a song of evening", the king-fisher I perceived as some eternal eye, "mountains and trees stood there like thoughts from God". Butterflies, birds etc., made quite another impression than the ordinary creatures on my consciousness,

"The peacock scattering on the breeze his moons,"

"Painted my memory like a frescoed wall." Thus, in all Nature

"I felt a covert touch, I heard a call,

But could not clasp the body of my God",

"Or hold between my hands the World-Mother's feet".

I met many men but I found them so limited! "Each lived in himself and for himself alone". I sat with the sages and in meditation "I

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glimpsed the presence of the One in all". But Matter remained unfulfilled, its end was Death. So far as the physical being is concerned man's life is based on the Inconscient, which gives rise to Ignorance and its only fate is to return to the Void.

"But thou hast come and all will surely change:"

"My Matter shall evade the Inconscient's trance

My body like my spirit shall be free

It shall escape from Death and Ignorance:"

Thus Satyavan unconsciously denned Savitri's mission. Savitri was so happy to hear him speak that she asked him to continue his sweet speech till ,

"My moved mortal mind shall understand

What all the deathless being in me feels."

Satyavan like a replying harp spoke to her: "the lightning flash of love reveals" so many things about which I would like to tell you. Even the brief contact with you has "reshaped my life". I lived like other men uptill now: "to think and act was all, to enjoy and breathe". And yet I had always a vague feeling that man was capable of attaining something great, "something that life is not and yet must be". I tried to find the solution of life's problem with the light of "thought". I could make a philosophy of the Reality but it was always something I could not live up to. It limited the. infinite Truth in narrow forms; it only made "a mental scheme of a mechanic Power". Even a plunge into the occult only deepened the mystery, I tried to follow "Beauty and Art",

"But form cannot unveil the indwelling Power",

"Only it throws its symbols at our hearts". Thus

"...when I found the Self, I lost the world,

My other selves I lost and the body of God,

The link of the finite with the Infinite.

But now the goldlink comes to me with thy feet

"For now another realm draws near with thee"

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"A strange new world swims to me in thy gaze

Approaching like a star from unknown heavens".

Everything is changed now—even "air, soil and stream", a "sun- light grows a shadow of thy hue".

Satyavan then invited Savitri to come nearer to him:

"0 my bright beauty's princess, Savitri,

By my delight and thy own joy compelled

Enter my life, thy chamber and thy shrine".

Savitri's "fathomless soul" came to her sight and "looked at him from her eyes". Savitri made a very brief but effective reply:

"O Satyavan, I have heard thee and I know,

I know that thou and only thou art he."

Then she descended from the car "with a soft and faltering haste" and she gathered flowers which she deftly wove into a "candid garland set with simple forms

"Profound in perfume and immersed in hue", they made "The bloom of their purity and passion one". Thus "She brought, flower-symbol of her offered life," and laid the garland on "the bosom coveted by her love". She bowed and touched his feet with worshipping hands

"She made her life his world for him to tread

And made her body room for his delight".

Satyavan accepted her offering, "he gathered all Savitri into his clasp." This intense delight was "a first sweet summary of delight to come".

"As when a soul is merging into God

To live in Him for ever and know His joy,

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Her consciousness was a wave of him alone

And all her separate self was lost in his."

Thus they were both "lost awhile" in each other, "then drawing back from their long ecstasy's trance", they

"Came into a new self and a new world"

"The world" henceforth, "was but their twin self-finding's scene", "Or their own wedded being's vaster frame". Satyavan and Savitri "The united Two began a greater age". Then "one human moment was eternal made".

Afterwards Satyavan led her to the hermitage, "her future world". There she saw "the thatch that covered the life of Satyavan", "her heart's future home".

Then Savitri told Satyavan that she would go to her father and come back to him; "my heart will stay here" she said. She then mounted her chariot and sped back towards Madra. All along the way the memory of her "soul's temple and home" remained with her, as "her heart's constant scene".

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