Man-handling of Savitri

Of “has left” and “had left”

In February 2004 issue of Mother India Richard Hartz writes:

Here is an

instance, "has left" was emended in 1970 to "had left" in lines in Book Three, Canto Three, which were printed in the following form in The Advent, the 1947 fascicle and the 1950 and 1954 editions:

Although the afflicted Nature he has left
Maintained beneath him her broad numberless fields, ...

When the 1954 edition was being prepared, Amal Kiran observed with regard to the first line:

The natural and correct grammatical form would be "had left" and not "has left", since everything afterwards as well as before is in the past tense.

In fact, Sri Aurobindo had written "had left" in more than a dozen manuscripts, including the final version in his own handwriting, dated "May 7, 1944" at the end of the third book. It was copied and typed in the same way, but "has" was printed instead of "had" when this canto was first published in 1947. It is rather surprising that this obvious typographical error was not corrected until 1970, though Amal had pointed it out in 1954.

Here is the full passage: (p. 322)

All-causing, all-sustaining and aloof,
The Witness looks from his unshaken poise,
An Eye immense regarding all things done.
Apart, at peace above creation’s stir,
Immersed in the eternal altitudes,
He abode defended in his shoreless self,
Companioned only by the all-seeing One.
A Mind too mighty to be bound by Thought,
A Life too boundless for the play in space,
A Soul without borders unconvinced of Time,
He felt the extinction of the world’s long pain,
He became the unborn Self that never dies,
He joined the sessions of Infinity.
On the cosmic murmur primal loneliness fell,
Annulled was the contact formed with time-born things,
Empty grew Nature’s wide community.
All things were brought back to their formless seed,
The world was silent for a cyclic hour.
Although the afflicted Nature he has left
Maintained beneath him her broad numberless fields,
Her enormous act, receding, failed remote
As if a soulless dream at last had ceased.
No voice came down from the high silences,
None answered from her desolate solitudes.
A stillness of cessation reigned, the wide
Immortal hush before the gods were born;
A universal Force awaited, mute,
The veiled Transcendent’s ultimate decree.

Apropos of “has come” and “had come” Jugal Kishore Mukherjee’s 50-page letter cites another example, from p. 337:

His passport of entry false and his personage,
He is compelled to be what he is not;
He obeys the Inconscience he has come to rule
And sinks in Matter to fulfil his soul.
Awakened from her lower driven forms
The Earth-Mother gave her forces to his hands
And painfully he guards the heavy trust;
His mind is a lost torch-bearer on her roads.
Illumining breath to think and plasm to feel,
He labours with his slow and sceptic brain
Helped by the reason’s vacillating fires,
To make his thought and will a magic door
For knowledge to enter the darkness of the world
And love to rule a realm of strife and hate.
A mind impotent to reconcile heaven and earth
And tied to Matter with a thousand bonds,
He lifts himself to be a conscious god.

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee says: “The Centenary Edition wants to correct the Present Perfect ‘has come’ of the 1950-text to the Past Perfect form ‘had come’. In this connection, I wrote to KD Sethna:

Existent version: “He obeys the Inconscience he has come to rule”

“has come” is there in all the earlier versions: Advent: p. 137, l. 18 from below; Fascicle: p. 306, l. 10 from below; 1950: p. 306, l. 29.

That means, Sri Aurobindo heard “has come” thrice and did not object to “has”. It is altogether improbable that he could not hear the word properly. After all, “has come” has greater appositeness; for, although “he” is currently obeying the Inconscience, his destiny to rule it remains even now intact. So, the existent version “has come to rule” should remain as it is.

To this KD Sethna replied: Grammatically 'has' is better.”

We do not know whether in this case the change from Present Perfect to Past Perfect is based on the manuscripts, or it is correcting Sri Aurobindo’s English. Also, it is essential to take into account if there were revisions in the passage during subsequent stages of composition, when the context could change considerably. The universality of “has” with its occult-spiritual avowal, however, is insistent.