Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study

SUMMARY OF BOOK NINE

THE BOOK OF ETERNAL NIGHT

CANTO I

TOWARDS THE BLACK VOID

So Savitri was "left alone in the huge wood", "her husband's corps on her forsaken breast". She did not weep, nor did she rise to face the dreadful god of Death. She felt "as if her mind had died with Satyavan". She elapsed closely the lifeless form of Satyavan. Then suddenly a change came over her—as it happens sometimes to the human soul—the veil was torn and then "the thinker is no more, only the spirit sees" and "all is known". "Then a calm Power seated above our brows is seen". It is "immobile", "it moves Nature, looks on life". "Then all this living mortal clay"

"Is seized and in a swift and fiery flood

Of touches shaped by a Harmonist unseen".

Immortal yearnings, high will, leap down on man. All this happened to Savitri "in a moment's depth". She remembered everything of her past "where she had worked in her lone mind" and created her human self, "a power projected into cosmic space". She saw that she was "the passionate instrument of an unmoved Power". This Higher Power descended into Savitri and "she was changed". She found herself covered with "immortal wings" of the Power. It entered the lotus in her head and stood above her "omnipotent", "calm, immobile, mute".

All trace of humanity in Savitri was, as it were, slain by Death. "The young divinity in her...filled with celestial strength her mortal part". She calmly laid the body of Satyavan and "sole she rose"

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"to meet the dreadful god". It was, as it were, to resume her work begun long ago in the past that she found herself there in the presence of the god of Death, "a limitless denial of all being, that wore the terror and wonder of a shape". It "bore the deep pity" in its eyes; it was "refuge of creatures from their anguish and world-pain". It calmly watched "life", the writhing serpent. Cycles of history had passed, stars had dissolved and this God of Death had looked on with "unchanging gaze." The two—woman and universal God—opposed each other. Then "a sad and formidable voice arose". "Unclasp...thy passionate influence and relax, 0 slave of Nature,...thy elemental grasp; weep and forget. Entomb thy passion in its living grave....Pass lonely back to thy vain life on earth."

But Savitri moved not. Then it spoke again: You are "a creature, doomed like him to pass", will you then deny Satyavan's soul calm and silent rest for ever? "relax...thy grasp; thy husband suffers."

Savitri drew back her heart's force and she rose and stood gathered for action. It was not she, the human person, who acted, she left it to "her spirit above". Then Death leaned over and touched the earth and Savitri saw that "another luminous Satyavan arose", "forsaking the poor mould of that dead clay". He stood between Savitri and Death. It had no resemblance to the physical body of Satyavan but "the spirit knew the spirit still". He stood "like one who, sightless, listens for a command". The three powers stood in silence. Then "the impulse of the Path was felt",—the impulse to move came to them. Satyavan moved, "behind him Death" "with noiseless tread...and Savitri behind eternal Death" moved, "into the perilous silences beyond".

At first Savitri moved in a blind tangled wood and she seemed to move on earth but on its top, with thick obstacles of boughs of trees and leaves around her. But she felt the subtle physical body a burden. "Earth stood aloof, yet near". Then gradually the true Being in her freed itself from the earth atmosphere, and "into a deep and unfamiliar air" "they seemed to enlarge away"—away from the control of earth. It seemed as if Satyavan and Death would escape now. Then her "spirit soared at Satyavan" flaming from her body's nest—like "a fierce she-eagle." Her spirit separated itself from the body and the physical body fell into a trance. Now she

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was not human Savitri; there was no Sun or earth, "All was the violent ocean of a will" "Where lived.. .her aim, joy, origin, Satyavan alone". He was thus imprisoned in her heart, "a treasure saved from the collapse of space." Savitri surged around him nameless and in- finite. It seemed "as if Love's deathless moment had been found, —A pearl within eternity's white shell".

Then her mind arose out of that ocean and the three moved onward in the soul-scene. They were the only travellers in this new world "where souls were not," "but only living moods." Everything in this country was weired including a "road which like fear hastening towards that of which it has most terror" passed through rocks and was lost in a giant night. Then they arrived at a heavy line and Satyavan looked back with his wonderful eyes on Savitri. Then death pealed forth a cry: "0 mortal, turn back to thy transient kind, aspire not to accompany Death to his home, as if thy breath could live where Time must die". Thy mind-born passion is not heaven's strength. "Only in human limits man lives safe." "Armed vainly with the Idea's borrowed might" do not dare to outstep mortal bounds. "0 sleeper dreaming of divinity", "impermanent creatures, sorrowful foam of Time"

"Your transient loves bind not the eternal gods."

But Savitri, the Woman answered not, her nude soul stood up in its sheer will, a primal force. "Lone in the silence" "a columned shaft of fire and light she rose."

CANTO TWO

THE JOURNEY IN ETERNAL NIGHT AND THE VOICE

OF THE DARKNESS

They stood on the dreadful edge of Night. In front of them "were glooms like shadowy wings". Beyond them was the hungry Night. In that sombre darkness Savitri's "flame-bright Spirit...burned like a torch-fire from a windowed room" "against the darkness' sombre breast". Savitri led the way. They moved in the "inky ground" of Night with "swimming action and a drifting march"; they went

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"slipping, gliding on". Time—past, present and future—dissolved. "They seemed to move" and yet were still, they felt they were "not conscious forms". "A mystery of terrors' boundlessness" surrounded her, and "a shapeless throat devoured her" into its shadowy mass. In impenetrable dread hung round the cage of sense,—dread of something unknown in the Night. The mind renounced the effort to live and its dream of action. "In the smothering stress of this stupendous Nought mind could not think, breath could not breathe, the soul could not remember or feel itself". To all that claims to be here Truth, and God, self, rapture. Love, Knowledge there came in that Nought the eternal "No". Savitri disappeared in it like a golden lamp in gloom, "there was no course, no path, no end or goal". The region was only "black unknowing Waste" or eddy of winds assembled by Chance. Death was not there, nor Satyavan. There was a silent gulf between her and Satyavan. She felt "even from herself cast out, from love remote". She travelled long hours "on the corpse of life"—"lost in a blindness of extinguished souls".

But Savitri lived in spite of death. She got tired of monotonous self-torture of pain. Then a faint gleam of memory flickered—"a memory that wished to live again". The whole darkness shrank back from this gleam as though it "felt all light a cruel pain", "and suffered from the pale approach of hope". In spite of the resistance of the Night "the light prevailed and still it grew". Savitri awoke to her lost self and she saw Satyavan grow "into a luminous shade".

Then death missioned to the Night his call: "This is the home of everlasting Night... Entombing the vanity of life's desires". In this nude emptiness can you hope to last and love?

But Savitri did not answer. She refused the very voice of Night that claimed to know and of "Death that thought." She knew that she was eternal without birth. Death looked at her and said: as you have survived the void you have won the "sorrowful victory" to live for a little while without Satyavan. After all, what are you going to gain from the eternal Goddess? Nothing but the prolongation of this dream of existence. Man is "a fragile miracle of thinking clay" and "armed with illusions" he "walks, the child of Time". "God" "heavens" etc., are only his imaginations. It is the mind of man that creates all these unreal images, and "the incurable unrest"

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Man is subject to Ignorance and yet he has die courage which is met by death. So, you should return to earth and live normally. Do not hope to win back Satyavan. I can give gifts to thee "to soothe thy wounded life". '

Savitri spoke: "I bow not to thee; 0 huge mask of Death!...Conscious of immortality I walk". I come to thy gates "a victor spirit" "not as a suppliant." I do not seek minor concessions like the weak. "Mine is the labour of the battling gods". I therefore demand whatever Satyavan "desired" and did not have during his life.

"Death bowed...in scornful cold assent" and said: "I yield" to his father "Kingdom and power and friends and greatness lost". And "The sensuous solace of the light" I give to his eyes. Go back "to thy small permitted sphere."

Savitri answered: I was thy equal spirit born. I am immortal in my mortality. My soul can meet the stone eyes of Law and Fate with its living fire. Give me back Satyavan to do with him my spirit's burning will. "I will bear with him the ancient Mother's load", "I will follow with him earth's path that leads to God." "Wherever thou leadst his soul I shall pursue".

Universal death cried out: You forget that you are mortal. I have created all things, I destroy them. I have stamped ,life with my impress, the life that devours. I compel man to sin that I may punish him, I goad him to desire and then I scourge him with grief and despair. Depart in peace without taking the risk of awakening the Furies.

But Savitri answered meeting scorn with scorn:—"who is this God imagined by thy Night.. .Who made for vanity the brilliant stars ? My God is Will" and he triumphs, "My God is Love and sweetly suffers all." "Love's golden wings have power to fan thy void" I "shall remake thy universe, 0 Death".

Then Death made answer to the human soul: You are attracted by the body's lure of bliss, and a sense of "vain oneness seeking to embrace the brilliant idol of a fugitive hour". And what are you? a dream of brief emotions, glittering thoughts, a sparkling ferment in life's sunlit mire. Against the eternal witnesses would you claim immortality? Death only is eternal. "I, Death, am He; there is no Other God". Everything is born from me, lives by me and returns

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to me. The world is created by me with the inconscient Force. I am the refuge of thy soul. Gods are only "my imaginations and my moods" reflected in man. Your soul is also myself. I am nobody—"Only thy thought gave a figure to my void" "because,... Thou calledst me to wrestle with thy soul,

"I have assumed a face, a form, a voice."

Even if one grants that there is a being witnessing all, how will it help thy passionate desire? It is the One that lives for ever. There is no Satyavan and there is no Savitri.

There is no love in the One, nor Time, nor space. It has no name, no form. If you desire immortality, live in thyself alone, forget the man thou lovest.

Savitri replied: "0 Death, who reasonest, I reason not" "Reason that scans and breaks but cannot build" "or builds in vain because she doubts her work".

"I am, I love, I see, I act, I will."

Death replied: You should also "know". "Knowing, thou shall cease to love," and "cease to will" "consenting to the impermanence of things".

Savitri replied "When I have loved for ever, I shall know." "I know that knowledge is a vast embrace." It is the "calm Transcendent" who "bears the world". He is "the veiled Inhabitant, the silent Lord." "My coming to life was a wave from God." "Man was born...with a mind and heart to conquer thee".

Then "Gliding half-seen on their unearthly path" "in the dimness moved the three".

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