The Birth of Savitr

Foreword

An Apologia

Here is an attempt to present Sri Aurobindo's epic Savitri in brief stanza-like cantos each with just twelve lines. Savitri is a poem written in pentametric blank verse form, mostly with end-stopped lines, running almost to twenty-four thousand in number. Divided into twelve books, as was the tradition for a classical epic, it has forty-eight cantos plus an epilogue. Part I consisting of the first twenty-four cantos was published in September 1950, just a couple of months before Sri Aurobindo's passing away in December of that year; Part II and Part III as a single tome comprising of the remaining twenty-four cantos and the epilogue appeared in May 1951. The poet spent a number of years in completing the composition, more than thirty years though with some long gaps in between. He also took Savitri as a means of ascension towards a higher and more perfect truth experienced by him spiritually. It is an expression of the realized sovereignty itself and hence becomes most valuable. Even in its outward character it is encyclopaedic. Therefore to think of putting such a work in scarcely six hundred lines is a perilous task, fully loaded with the question if this should be done at all. The comprehensive epic possesses simultaneously several dimensions and yet moves through region after luminous region with remarkable swiftness. Also, it was planned and executed with great artistic care, with the essential “power of architectural construction.” So to compress it by a factor of forty is to tell stories, if not desecrate the magnificence of its structural design. More serious objection will be the want of spiritual authenticity when we are not in touch with the truth of inspiration behind it. It will be presumptuous on our part even to speak of fidelity to the text charged as it is with yogic experiences.

Sri Aurobindo considered Savitri as his main work in the context of his great avataric objective. It is not only the record of a seeing, but is also a supreme revelation of his evolutionary vision and its realization. In its literary aspect it is the Vedic word or the mantra itself. It is “the voice of the rhythm which has created the worlds.” Its supremacy is such that it becomes a happy chariot speeding the Rishi on the ascending slopes of heaven. It could also become a vehicle of awareness and fulfilment for the seeker-souls in their quest towards the great truth, mahadsatyam. About it Sri Aurobindo says that it is a word of power born out of the secret depths of our being and is brooded upon by a deeper consciousness. In it one has the sense of a rhythm coming from infinity and rushing to infinity, a rhythm which “has for ever been sounding in the eternal planes and began even in time ages ago and which returns into the infinite to go sounding on for ages after.” That is precisely the character of Savitri's word. That is how Savitri becomes a creation of the dynamic truth. Therefore, rendering it in any other language or in any other form is possible only if one can go to the very original source which is the creative hush of omniscience. For that to happen one has to dwell in the calm womb of eternity and grow in its summer day. Indeed, its birth is in the Tapas-Shakti and its growth in the action that can bring felicitous prosperity. To discover Savitri is to transform our mortality.

If we have to characterize Sri Aurobindo's Savitri by suitable epithets, we may very well go to Vyasa's tale in the Mahabharata and use his descriptions of Aswapati's daughter Savitri. She is a radiant daughter, kanyā tejasvīni, she is a damsel of heaven, devakanyā, she is heavenly and radiant in form, devarūpiṇi; she is Goddess Fortune and one who brings the wealth of auspicious gladness, is beautiful and charming, and is also an adept in the esoteric Yoga of Meditation, dhyānayogaparāyaṇā, thus equipped to accomplish the purpose for which she has taken this mortal birth in the world of men. Only a supreme King-Yogi can hence bring about amongst us the birth of such a flaming rapturous princess. Such too is the poem. Savitri is Sri Aurobindo's daughter. Not only that. When he left his body, he left his consciousness behind forever in it. Indeed, it becomes his spiritual autobiography. Presenting Savitri in any other form would then naturally mean writing a quick biography and writing a biography is always a hazardous business, full of shortcomings, generally carrying with it one's own prejudices and preferences, one's own deep-rooted traditions or samkāras, and for sure one's own hundred limitations.

It will be therefore wrong to compare a biography with an autobiography,—simply because one is an authentic account and the other, by and large, a derived enterprise even if it were an exceptional achievement. Yet an affable biography with sufficient insight can provide a certain peep into the original and bring yet another perspective of vision. Perhaps that could be its precious gain. After all, Savitri should not be treated as a distant unapproachable goddess, staying all of her own in a secluded world of splendour and of calm. She will be of no use then and Sri Aurobindo's undertaking would lose all the relevance for us, for whom he attempted all and achieved all. She is not there to be ritualistically worshipped with flower and fruit and leaf, waved with a burning lamp. What is necessary is that we should just contemplatively live in her gleaming ambiance.

This also means that there are as many ways of living in her glad presence as are the individuals who approach her with an urge to find the true spirit of divinity in every thing, material as well as heavenly. One could do meditative paintings, or compose new musical opuses, or present her in operatic magnificence, or sculpt her moods of love and laughter, or speak of her in participative discourses, or write hymns and poems in praise of her, or in deep choreographic gestures bring her movements to the world of men and matter. And if it is a creative effort then each composition will carry in it the soul of the particular artist himself. Each one will then have his own Savitri, each sculptor a bust of his own goddess, each doer of yogic tapasya a characteristic aura of hers. Therefore what we are having here is just one piece of art in a poetic form, suggesting that there will follow many more in the course of spiritually vibrant times. We may call these cantos as brief meditations on Savitri. Therefore they are entirely subjective in character.

Any representation of a revelatory creation such as Savitri has to face problems of several kind—literary as well as mystic-spiritual. What I have done here is to allot for myself only just a dozen lines for each canto of the magnum opus. Sometimes it amounts to speaking of hundreds of lines in merely a few! How atrocious! But the idea is only to indicate, in a suggestive and compressed phrase, the thematic nature of the text which has the canvas of the whole blue firmament to paint the glories of the Sublime. This approach may appear to be a sort of forced or artificial way of doing things, but perhaps it has also an advantage in stating the premise in a brief manner. This must mean that, for a reader steeped in Savitri, these pieces would appear too sketchy without the Rasa of the sweet and melodious expansive mood of the original. On the other hand, for a beginner not acquainted with the Master's epic things will come with incoherent painful jolts and the smooth essay-like continuity that readily carries him along may be missing.

These contemplations on each canto of Savitri under the present title the Birth of Savitṛ —the Sun-God could have as well been collected in a volume bearing the name the Book of Savitri. This would have maintained a direct connection with the original, implying that the composition was an attempt to provide in a poetic form a compacted argument of each canto of the epic. We have precedence available to us, albeit in prose, in Milton's Paradise Lost where the books have at the beginning the thematic substance of what is going to follow in the respective text. The advantage is that the reader is at once provided with a certain desirable conceptual support making his movements aesthetically steady and definite. This certainly helps him grasp the sequence that runs invisibly through the literary stateliness of the narrative. In fact, when the main line of reasoning is thus established the story so formed that itself becomes an artistic creation. Can a similar undertaking, be it in prose or poetry, have any acceptability for the spiritual poem which Savitri is? Can meditations be taken as arguments?

But then this would amount to intellectualizing what must really be felt intuitively and the plain answer would be ‘No'. Howsoever genuine the effort be, whatever mystery and music the poems may possess, even if one may derive pleasure from them, or stand rather a-gape looking at these mini-wonders, or savour the new and strange preparations, or offer pleased silence in their appreciation, one ought to immediately experience some unfaltering quality of inspiration behind them. In their thematic presentation they may seem pretty well digested and the heavenly Muse might have even pressed her sparkly or miraculous feet on several lines and made a concrete impression; yet the streaming joy in its tranquil enthusiasm, in its enchanting rush that creates the original would be missing. Sri Aurobindo himself says that Savitri renders into poetry a symbol of things occult and spiritual. In fact it has the essence of a universal consciousness which brings with it wide and luminous knowledge, power, charm, beauty in possession of the truth and truth in the lure of beauty, and the obligation is that these must at least in some degree be present in any other creation of it. Will it be then legitimate to redo the Great Ashwattha Tree in any other form? This redoing may belong to music or painting or poetry or gardening such as the Japanese bonsai. But whatever be the mode it is to be well understood that this kingly Tree has its glowing roots in the soil of the upper sky and its luxurious branches spread down below. Naturally, therefore, howsoever perfectly it be crafted and with whatever care tended, the bonsai can never hold the kingly distinction and all that one can expect to happen is the appearance of a greenish shade of its celestial verdure in our scheduled life. An indistinct or faint note of its existence's delight is all that we may at times be able to hear in the hassle and scurry of our daily rounds.

Yet I suppose this composition has its own worth and its own appeal, its own good point, perhaps holding a keenness of another aesthetic denomination, another possibility of perceptive enjoyment. Firstly, we cannot have the epic style for short compositions as are presented here. The technique I have adopted is mostly that of a short even narrative, though at times it may be lyric-sensitive or occult-symbolical. In the process there is likelihood of moving far away from the original's wholesome Hellenistic beauty and of falling into the trimmed expressive form that is profiled and geometric in character. The visual and tactile creativity may then seem to recede, leaving behind only the sharp cyberic. Which means that the snippety nature with its tendency to become inner mental, though perhaps at times touched by the overhead, will dominate. Yet possibly it could secure in its deep hushful seed-state everything.

But if due care is not taken the result could be disastrous also. Growing bonsai is always a delicate affair. In the objectionable act of poetic thematization one may end up with something that will be far removed from the author's actual intent. The whole exercise of expressing Savitri in brief cantos may finally just arrive at some vague and dubious turn of phrases with “mystic sense, cryptic quintessence, or gnomic gist”, if not fuddled compression taking the place of what should be vivid and spontaneous and gracefully fluent. “Oh, this brave attempt at verse's forge to shape a form both new and strange!” That would be the bewailing of a puzzled critic. Might be, then, one has yet to play a great deal with what has come and tease more truth and beauty from the reluctant giver of beauty and truth, that it becomes felicitously chaste and comprehendible. Might very well be that something is trying to come through, that it is still groping, and having not yet found itself is standing helplessly away from us. Might be it needs more time, more latitude, more love and fondling. Might be in a bespelled mood we have our own quick little ideas and there is the easy self-acclaim—“Arrah, sweet myself!”

But the voice of the unknown, though really not so feeble, is never harshly assertive and hence we should necessarily try to listen to it. Perhaps behind the puzzlement there is also the resolution of our difficulty when in the serene and composed mood of identification we perceive associations that are deeper and subtler and significantly meaningful. To understand and appreciate a suggestive language needs another type of sensitivity and acquiring that can be quite worthwhile.

Therefore, instead of worrying about the snippety makeup of the cantos presented here, we can view them in another manner, in the manner of an enviable bonsai. But can this cherished bonsai-image be applied to our cantos if in despair it is going to feel awfully dwarfed in the presence of the majestic Tree, if it is going to pant for breath in the atmosphere of light and delight? There could be a disparaging voice reproachful of them too. “Sorry, I don't like this bonsai,” someone possibly will make a gruffish remark on seeing Savitri reduced to tiny play-toys called cantos. This criticism could be severe yet when taken along with Raymond Franck Piper's observation about Savitri. “We know that we must resort to the art of poetry for expressing, to the fullest possible artistic limits, the yearnings and battles of mankind for eternal life. Sri Aurobindo created what is probably the greatest epic in the English language and the longest poem in any language of the modern world. I venture the judgement that it is the most comprehensive, integrated, beautiful and perfect cosmic poem ever composed. It ranges symbolically from a primordial cosmic void, through earth's darkness and struggles, to the highest realms of supramental spiritual existence, and illumines every important concern of man, through verse of unparalleled massiveness, magnificence, and metaphysical brilliance.”

Where would then in such massiveness and magnificence and metaphysical brilliance this miniature bonsai handiwork park itself off? Perhaps nowhere. Spiritual poetry and Savitri in particular belong to another world and the best is to live in that realm of marvellous reality alone. But Savitri is also the happy encourager of creativity. Its electric charge can light orange-gold flames to brighten our lives. Living in it is also expressing in it. It gives us the truth to grow more and more in the dynamics of that truth. It never stifles an ardent soul's longings towards positive and fulfilling enjoyment of the spirit's beatitudes with their precious evocative presents. On the other hand, it has the power to bring closer to these longings and urges many splendours of love and beauty and truth's widenesses.
There is therefore a pretty reasonable hope for the bonsai also. The Japanese surely know for centuries the big joy of growing bonsai. For them cultivating bonsai is a very artistic hobby and there is nothing artificial in it. It can become for them an articulation of the sense of what is charming and attractive. To grow trees and plants in containers, that they look their most beautiful, is to live with nature in another warm and caring mood of inner concord. In it there is a high degree of aristocracy; there is even a measure of worshipful devotion to the Nature-Goddess of Beauty. There is almost a kind of spiritual relationship achieved through aesthetic Yoga. Through this new friendship with the majestic Tree an artist allows that majestic Tree to express freely in another way its dharmic characteristic, its individuality, all done without driving it to fit any particular category, and to help it achieve its most beautiful, its natural attractive balanced form. “Sometimes he will bend branches with wires or cut them off altogether. The key is never to force his will on it but to appreciate the dignity of each living plant and treat it with love and respect.” And the nice thing about this bonsai art is that there is no such thing as a “finished” bonsai!

Bonsai is never a reduced photocopy of the original, just a concise representation in the carefully worked-out style of miniaturization in sculpture. It does not stem the essential features or provide a substitute for the true. In fact bonsai in the language of poetry possesses a possibility of creative selection leading to fresher interpretations. In the process when we go through choices there could enter exaggerations or distortions or aspects having their bearing on personal affect. None of these will constitute a lack of faithfulness, particularly when the spirit's liberties are assured in this creative enterprise. On the contrary, all this becomes a part of the day's happening and there is a joy in it, a joy that can also be richly meaningful and widening. At times it can even bring the radiance of an early hour or else a sudden revelation that can light up our obscurities. In the dark night of the soul where it is always three o'clock in the morning, there can break the subtler crimson or orange and brighten the sky with its mysterious glow. Perhaps it is that which will be most welcome in this language of poetry.

If we have to carry this bonsai-image farther, it could very much be said that each bonsai is a brief creation of an individual artist. The bonsai of a particular tree by different artists will be different, each carrying in it the aesthetic truth of its soul's reality as experienced by him in the deep meditative association with it. He might as well say that it is his bonsai. Its imaginative language can thus become intensely contemplative as well as personal. Each bonsai then turns into an opener of prospects which lie beyond our immediate sight. The truth that is not relative or pragmatic can step into the silence of our mind and mould our thoughts in its verities, can give pleasing and well-formed shapes to our life's questing moods. While understandably we might be somewhat skeptical about our capacity to find this truth, the chances are that an element of its expressive reality itself could yet enter in us. The Savitri-meditations will then have served the initial purpose of taking us in that truth's ambiance. These can themselves then become gateways leading us into her sun-worlds.