Perspectives of Savitri - Part 2

Name: Perspectives of Savitri - Part 2
Author: R. Y. Deshpande

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R. Y. Deshpande

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PART VII

Representative Facsimiles of Savitri From Different Periods of its Composition

from Different Periods of its Composition

A few examples of the thousands of pages of manuscripts of Savitri are shown in these facsimiles. They have been selected to illustrate the development of the poem from 1916 to 1950. This process may be divided into three main periods: 1916-20, 1927-44, 1945-50. In the last period, Sri Aurobindo revised some of the earlier manuscripts by dictation. Further information on the facsimiles is provided in the notes below.

1.This is the fourth of some fifty versions of the opening of Savitri found among Sri Aurobindo's manuscripts. A transcript was published in "Sri Aurobindo's First Fair Copy of His Earliest Version of Savitri'', Mother India, August 1981, p. 428 (lines 1-19).

2.Unlike the opening, this passage did not change much from the earliest manuscripts to the final text, where the corresponding lines appear on pp. 396-98 in the current edition. Transcript published in Mother India, September 1981, p. 492 (lines 287-306).

3.Some lines seen in the facsimile are similar to lines in the final version of Narad's speech (1993 ed., pp. 429-31). Transcript published in Mother India, September 1981, p. 501 (lines 581-602) and October 1981, p. 553 (lines 603-4, 607-8).

4.Cf. pp. 564-65 in the current edition of Savitri, where the passage is very similar. Transcript published in Mother India, October 1981, p. 560 (lines 890-909).

5.The cantos of his early version were "Love", "Fate", "Death", "Night", "Twilight", "Day" and the Epilogue. The facsimile shows the opening of "Night" as revised in the 1940s, when it was used for Book Nine. After this was copied by Nirodbaran, Sri Aurobindo dictated further revision in two stages. In a typed copy of his final version, the first line of the second sentence ("In her vast silent spirit motionless") was accidentally omitted, with the result that this line was missing in editions of Savitri published before 1993.

6.The dictated alterations in Nirodbaran's handwriting were Sri Aurobindo's last revision of this passage, which is printed on p. 613 of the 1993 edition.

7.In the late 1940s, Sri Aurobindo dictated some revision of the first two paragraphs of the Epilogue, but did not touch the last two

sections. The facsimile shows the manuscript that has been reproduced on the concluding page of Savitri.

8."Savithri: A Tale and a Vision" was conceived as a narrative poem in two parts, "Earth" and "Beyond", with four books in the first part ("Quest", "Love", "Fate", "Death") and four books in the second part ("Night", "Twilight", "Day" and an Epilogue). No complete manuscript of the poem in this form has been discovered. But Sri Aurobindo wrote out "Quest" several times and some of the other books more than once before the early phase of his work on Savitri came to an end, around 1920.

9.The facsimile shows the final changes and additions dictated by Sri Aurobindo when he revised this passage for inclusion in Book Eleven (see pp. 701-2 in the current edition). The number "2" next to the lines at the bottom of the page indicates the shifting of these three lines so that they come after six lines written at the top of the next page in the manuscript.

10-14. These facsimiles give a glimpse of Sri Aurobindo's work on Savitri when, after putting it aside between 1920 and 1926, he took it up again in the late 1920s and began to concentrate on the first book. At first this was still called "Quest" and included passages related to what is now Book Four. Then, as the first book expanded, its title was changed to "The Book of Birth". The section that later became "The Quest" (Book Four, Canto Four) was transferred to the second book, "The Book of Love". During this period, a short passage describing Aswapati's Yoga and ascent through the worlds grew to considerable length through many successive rewritings. A new subtitle was given to the poem: "A Legend and a Symbol".

15.In the late 1930s, Book One was renamed "The Book of Beginnings" and the account of Savitri's birth was shifted to the second book. A 110-page manuscript of the first book in this form was completed on 6 September 1942. It was divided into eight sections. The fourth section, "The Ascent through the Worlds", had twelve subsections. The next version is shown in the facsimile. When Sri Aurobindo reached the beginning of the fourth section, he changed its title to "Book II: The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds". When he came to the last four sections of the former Book of Beginnings, he grouped them into "Book III: The Book of the Divine Mother".

16.Sri Aurobindo's last complete manuscript of the first three books of Savitri, dated 1944, was written in two columns on large loose sheets. But later he rewrote many passages in small chit-pads,

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from which sheets were torn out and pinned to the larger manuscript. His last handwritten version of the opening of Savitri, written on chit-pad sheets, is seen in the facsimile. After it was copied by Nirodbaran, Sri Aurobindo dictated his final changes. Lines 12-15 ("Almost one felt...") were moved up after the fifth line. Line 17 was altered from "The mute semblance of a featureless Unknown" to "A mute featureless semblance of the Unknown".

17.The first canto of Book Seven is the revised form of a passage that was originally part of "Death", the third canto in early six-canto versions of Savitri. But the rest of the seventh book, describing Savitri's Yoga, was drafted only in 1947. "Canto II" originally extended to Savitri's finding of her soul, which is now the subject of Canto Five. Therefore the present Cantos Six and Seven were at first numbered "Canto III" and "Canto IV". The beginning of Sri Aurobindo's first draft of the concluding canto of Book Seven can be seen in the facsimile. He wrote the tide of the canto, "The Discovery of the Cosmic Spirit and the Cosmic Consciousness", at the top and in the left margin of the page. When he began a new draft after taming the page, he did not repeat the title. As a result, the canto appeared without a title when the second volume of the first edition of Savitri was printed in 1951, after Sri Aurobindo's passing. The tide he had given was later discovered and included in the 1993 edition.

18.After 1944, due to the condition of his eyes, Sri Aurobindo resorted to dictation for revising the manuscripts, copies and typescripts of Savitri. However, he continued to make drafts in his own hand up to 1947. After that year, all his work on the poem was done by dictation. The last facsimile shows a page in Book Eleven (1993 ed., p. 710). This is part of the longest passage that was dictated continuously without any previous draft. The dictated passage begins on p. 702 with "Descend to life..." and ends on p. 710 with "This earthly life become the life divine."

— RICHARD HARTZ

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