Man-handling of Savitri

Is Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri a Fictional Creation?

How weird to call Savitri a fictional creation!

But what did the elderly Hoopoe tell? “The spiritual way is not for those who are wrapped up in supercilious life.” [The Conference of the Birds ~ Farid al-Din Attar]

The Lives of Sri Aurobindo authored by Peter Heehs and published in 2008 by the Columbia University Press dismisses Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri by calling it a “fictional creation”. In the biographer’s view it cannot be a possible source for getting any idea or material about the life of Sri Aurobindo who was essentially a Yogi, and which is what should possibly be seen. Here is what we have on p. 398 of the Lives:

Because his talks entirely ceased and his correspondence virtually so, there are no first-hand accounts of Sri Aurobindo’s sadhana after 1941. One is tempted to mine Savitri to make up for the lack. Sri Aurobindo’s accounts of Aswapathy’s voyage through the worlds of matter, life, and mind before reaching 'the kingdoms of the greater knowledge,' and Savitri’s transit through the 'inner countries' until she reaches the inmost soul certainly are based on his life and the Mother’s experiences; but the poem is a fictional creation, and Sri Aurobindo said explicitly that 'the circumstances of this life have nothing to do with' its plot. [ref: 144, Letters on Poetry and Art, p. 276]

Let us examine this conclusion in some details.

Let us first look into the phrase “fictional creation” purportedly being supported here by the reference from Letters on Poetry and Art.

This letter is dated 10 November 1936 and was addressed to Amal Kiran in response to his query at that time. The way it is printed in the Centenary Edition is as follows:

Savitri is represented in the poem as an incarnation of the Divine Mother. This incarnation is supposed to have taken place in the far past times when the whole thing had to be opened, so as to “hew the ways of Immortality”.
—1936.

When the 1954 University-edition of Savitri was prepared, Amal Kiran had made an error in reading “This incarnation” as “The narrative” and a correction was pasted before the book was released. The Mother was terribly upset with Amal Kiran and even remarked to the effect that he was too sure of himself.

From the letter as printed in the Centenary Edition one gets the impression that it is a single letter, dated 1936. But actually it has two dates:

Savitri is represented in the poem as an incarnation of the Divine Mother.
—3 November 1936.

This incarnation is supposed to have taken place in the far past times when the whole thing had to be opened, so as to “hew the ways of Immortality”.
—10 November 1936.

The full correspondence between Amal Kiran and Sri Aurobindo, as presented in the Lives’ ref 144, Letters on Poetry and Art, p. 276 can be put as follows:

Amal: What a flight!—nobody can describe so marvellously our Mother. Isn’t Savitri she and she only?

Sri Aurobindo: Savitri is represented in the poem as an incarnation of the Divine Mother.
—3 November 1936

Amal Kiran continues:

Amal: If Savitri is represented as an incarnation of the Divine Mother, Aswapati must be meant to represent Théon.

Sri Aurobindo: What has Théon to do with it?

Amal: If Aswapati is he, I’ll learn about his role from the poem—but couldn’t you say something about him in direct reference to Mother and yourself?

Sri Aurobindo: This incarnation is supposed to have taken place in the far past times when the whole thing had to be opened, so as to “hew the ways of Immortality”. Théon and the circumstances of this life have nothing to do with it.
—10 November 1936

The fallaciousness of the argument that Savitri is a “fictional creation” comes out in several respects. The first important point is, Sri Aurobindo’s statement here pertains to one of the earliest drafts of Savitri belonging to the 1930s. What validity has it to the sadhana of the 1940s about which our author is opining? In fact it has none. He is also comparing this draft of the epic with a short composition—Is this the End—written on 3 June 1945 to draw a gloomy picture of the sadhana, and that too ignoring other compositions of the same period; actually the first question is, can one say that Is this the End is a gloomy poem? Highlighting such gloom is sometimes a rhetorical literary device, a technique to tell that it is not really so, that it has got to be removed if it is there, which precisely is what the last two stanzas of the poem are doing. Also, one just fails to understand the sense of history, particularly of one who claims himself to be a historian, he mixing up two significantly different periods of time. After 1938 with the establishment of the Mind of Light in his physical, the physical’s mind, the mind of the physical opening to the supramental Light and Force, Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga took a decisive positive upward turn and things had started happening in rapid succession; it is to this period that the definitive composition of Savitri belongs.

The second point is of a slightly different nature. While our author dismisses Savitri as a possible source to get material about Sri Aurobindo’s life of the period, Amal Kiran himself wanted to learn from the poem something about the role of Théon. This means that, it was all the time considered not as a “fictional creation” but having biographical contents, it possibly being a rich ‘mine’ for the biographical material.

Now let us look into the following from the Lives: “Sri Aurobindo said explicitly that ‘the circumstances of this life have nothing to do with’ its plot.” What does that mean? and “this life” refers to whose life? Is it Théon’s life, or Sri Aurobindo’s? Amal Kiran was talking about Théon, and Sri Aurobindo had bluntly asked him what Théon had to do with it, implying that it had no connection with Théon in that respect. A clarification was sought about Théon “in direct reference to Mother and yourself.”

Therefore the answer was vis-à-vis Théon, that Théon had nothing to do with it. This also implies derivatively the validity of the plot in the context of learning about the life of the concerned. How does it then become a “fictional creation”?

To base one’s argument to suit one’s prefixed motivations or intentions is hardly the method of any objective research; it is manipulated history. But it is precisely with such arguments and reasons that The Lives of Sri Aurobindo is plague-ridden. It is also very amazing that intelligent supporters of the biography should fall prey to these illogicalities and absurdities.

But here is a thoughtful private observation from an American friend, and she as an academician deeply studied in Philosophy. She writes:

I know how upset you are with the book, The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, but people of limitation are always trying to explain the experiences of great people—with no success because they haven't received the intuitive, overmind and supermental identity. I wonder if most people who read this book look at the details as you do. You are an Aurobindian scholar and beautiful poet. Peter is neither. Why not let the book die a natural death? Why keep it alive? I read it and having studied Sri Aurobindo since 1964, realized that the author of Lives and I didn't agree on many (most) points. In my opinion, Sri Aurobindo is one of the great masters of all time. I consider him the Plato of the East and really of the world. Peter's book, The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, will one day land in the recycle bin. Sri Aurobindo's work will last forever.

I think anyone deeply involved with Sri Aurobindo's work will take this so-called biography with a grain of salt. Of course, that's just an opinion.

We should be thankful for this very balanced and mature comment of hers. We do understand a certain necessity of taking Sri Aurobindo to people and, in the case of this biography, to the academic audience. After all, the biography has been published by an academic institution, Columbia University Press, and one of the legitimate ways of dealing with it is to see it from an academic point of view. In that respect I find this publication by the University Press very flawed, defective. The example which we have here, and there are any number of them, is quite illustrative of it. In fact that makes one wonder how they—the CUP—at all brought out something which does not come up to the truthful academic standards. Or is it that they just didn’t examine it carefully enough, that they went more by the promoters of the book instead of carrying out a peer review? Does it not cause damage to their own prestige, to their academic reputation? One of the concerns in the larger interest is to highlight this utter lack of academic objectivity. The academic façade had to be pulled down. If people who claim to be scholars and academically minded, and diehard rationalists, don’t look at these details and yet support the work, then it becomes a matter of unease and distress.

In fact it is not just the question of getting “upset with the book”, which one is not going to deny. What does one expect from a book on Sri Aurobindo, that his spiritual autobiography that is Savitri is a “fictional creation”? Isn’t that atrocious? Isn’t that striking at the very roots of his and the Mother’s yogic tree under which great things have happened and happen? Would not Blake, the moment he would hear Savitri is a “fictional creation”, ask for his bow of burning gold and chariot of fire? If these are occult images they become intensely so when dealing with the rash antagonism that is so patently occupying the dark spaces of the Lives.

And remember the author of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo and the countless number of aspirants needed not a biography to come to Sri Aurobindo—one’s soul takes one there; the seeking soul has its own way of discovering that for which it had taken the birth, that it had already decided prior to it being born in this world of ours. Isn’t that wonderful? precious? It is that we cherish in our life when turned towards spiritual pursuit in which we may succeed or we may not, but the satisfaction is always there of doing it or trying it. The sad thing about the biography is, it is portraying a spiritual giant with a dismissive attitude, dismissing all his spirituality. It is this want of spiritual perception which must be the cause of all opposition to The Lives of Sri Aurobindo.

Another friend asks: “What is Savitri? Is it just a book, just a good book, just a masterpiece? No. For me it embodies the veritable consciousness of Sri Aurobindo. The Mother has referred to it as ‘the supreme revelation of Sri Aurobindo's vision’. This revelation of vision is an output of Sri Aurobindo's tapas, fruits of his supremely developed consciousness. What Sri Aurobindo remarks about Savitri, the Person, I have felt to be equally valid for Savitri the book as well—‘Savitri is the Divine Word, daughter of the Sun, goddess of the supreme Truth who comes down and is born to save’ and that Savitri is ‘incarnations or emanations of living and conscious Forces with whom we can enter into concrete touch’. Many of us who have had the privilege of entering into concrete touch with Savitri the Power through Savitri the book and growing by its grace have found by experience the validity of the fact that Savitri cannot be approached by just mind or by even the sharpest of intellectual pursuit.”

As Sri Aurobindo writes about understanding Savitri—"If one has faith and openness that is enough. Besides, there are two kinds of understanding—understanding by the intellect and understanding in the consciousness. It is good to have the former if it is accurate, but it is not indispensable. Understanding by the consciousness comes if there is faith and openness, though it may come only gradually and through steps of experience.” For those who have approached Savitri in some measure with faith and openness the benefits are measureless. It is "The Word that ushers divine experience". Negating Savitri amounts to seriously negating one's possibilities. There is a reason why the book was named Savitri and not Satyavan or The Divine Event or The Conquest of Death. It is named Savitri because it embodies the consciousness that triumphs over Death. And Savitri offers the unique opportunity to make the most of this Power to work within us towards sculpturing our immortal self on earth. This is a deep insight given to us by this friend of mine and we do profit by it.

The adjective “fictional” has the following synonyms: imaginary, imagined, story bound, illusory (with the shades of deceptive, false, illusive, misleading, not real, erroneous,” unreal (dreamlike, weird, out of this world, incredible), fantastic (grotesque, whimsical, fanciful), made-up, invented, feigning invention, fiction conventionally accepted as falsehood, story-telling as a branch of literature. Webster: Fiction is a creation of imagination, and does not necessarily imply an intent to deceive, fiction is the opposite of fact, a term strictly applied to, in literature, to any form of story, whether in prose or verse, of which the characters and purely imaginary, or one in which historical events and persons are treated in an original and imaginative manner. In practice the term is used only for prose fiction.

One thing one must remember and it is this: Savitri is a symbol based on a legendary story. The poet himself says so, with legend describing a body of tradition and symbol which is not just semiotic but representing a complex of associations with deeper psycho-spiritual verities in their flaming solidity. We have a letter from Sri Aurobindo himself explaining its character, that it belongs to symbolic myths of the Vedic cycle. Yet in it “the characters are not personified qualities, but incarnations or emanations of living and conscious Forces with whom we can enter into concrete touch and they take human bodies…” It is this character of Savitri that lends itself for a possible mode of presentation as an aeonic autobiographical account. In the case of a Yogi every symbol is a reality, a diamond-lustrous reality, an experienced fact, and a realized verity. When this is missed in a biography, then one starts having misgivings about it. Which means, we must simply dismiss such biographies and go straight to Savitri itself, Savitri which alone can be the authentic biography possible. If it—Savitri—is too much for one’s soul, let the soul get ready for it—get ready if there is a call. Otherwise just forget about the whole obsession, about this whole business. But never call Savitri a fictional creation.