Man-handling of Savitri

A Question of a Comma

A world unseen, unknown by outward mind
Appeared in the silent spaces of the soul.
He sat in secret chambers looking out
Into the luminous countries of the unborn
Where all things dreamed by the mind are seen and true
And all that the life longs for is drawn close.
He saw the Perfect in their starry homes
Wearing the glory of a deathless form
Lain in the arms of the Eternal’s peace,
Rapt in the heart-beats of God-ecstasy.
He lived in the mystic space where thought is born
And will is nursed by an ethereal Power
And fed on the white milk of the Eternal’s strengths
Till it grows into the likeness of a god.
In the Witness’s occult rooms with mind-built walls
On hidden interiors, lurking passages
Opened the windows of the inner sight.
He owned the house of undivided Time.

Here is Aswapati who is making tremendous progress after two early major spiritual realizations, of static Oneness and dynamic Power, of the Passive Brahman and the Active Brahman. In him now a greater being sees a greater world. To him crowding come the gifts of the spirit. Mind, life, body have wakened to their true reality. Sheath after sheath of the subtle physical experience the entry of thehigher powersin it. A world unseen unknown by outward mind appears in the silent spaces of the soul.

And what does Aswapati see in it, in that world invisible to our outward faculties? He sees the Perfect Ones wearing the glory of a deathless form. They are lain in the arms of the Eternal’s peace, they are rapt in the heart-beats of God-ecstasy. This is the plain meaning of the lines

He saw the Perfect in their starry homes
Wearing the glory of a deathless form
Lain in the arms of the Eternal’s peace,
Rapt in the heart-beats of God-ecstasy.

With or without a comma at the end of the second line, though the comma makes it perhaps explicit, sense and poetry in either case are immediately recognisable. The Revised Edition of Savitri (1993) proposes “form,” instead of “form”, but the editorial justification for it is not available anywhere, whether it is present in the manuscript but got dropped in the sequence later on, whether the original passage has remained without any subsequent revision, whether it was a line added later in which case the comma might not have been dictated. But the insertion of a comma after “form” rules out the possibility of another suggestion, of “a deathless form” lying in the arms of the Eternal’s peace. Can that be ruled out? As long as there is no ambiguity, the best is to retain the earlier reading, of “a deathless form”.