Aswapati Aswapathy : Lord of the Horse, i.e. Tapasyā.
... 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:... 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 ...
... of Agni the Seer being born in Aswapathy as - to quote a phrase from Sri Aurobindo's Rose of God - "Guest of the marvellous Hour". 4 And well indeed might Aswapathy be linked with Agni. He may be considered as Agni himself putting, forth a human vehicle out of his being for world-action. Not only is he called, like Agni, "Son of Force" but his very name "Aswapathy" means "Lord of the Horse", reminding... great Advent into Aswapathy's being. Both the aptness of the phrase about the Seer-Guest to Agni and the aptness of the phrase about the "forefront" to the same god may be considered amply supported. As a result, "For him" should belong to the same universe of discourse as the initial "In him": that is, it should denote Aswapathy. Of course, the Seer-Guest too is part of Aswapathy, his own freshly... the Seer-Guest. Can you ever render conceivable a syntactic reference to Aswapathy in that 'him'?" I believe that an answer can quite convincingly be given. We may commence with the simple remark that there is a full-stop after the line on the Seer-Guest. After this closure by the punctuation, a reference to Aswapathy, directly continuing the lengthy narration of his development, which precedes ...
... had not yet taken shape. Aswapathy resolved to detect and exile from his nature all these imperfections. Yet, as he went on working he found that "...the Inconscient too is infinite; The more its abysses we insist to sound, The more it stretches, stretches endlessly". In order to make himself fit for the reception of this great Power, Aswapathy "tore desire up from its bleeding... boundless for the play in space." Aswapathy by identification became the unborn Self that never dies. He waited in silence in this state of infinity for the ultimate voice of the Transcendent. Then, suddenly, a downward look came to him "as if a sea exploring its own depths". The infinity which he was became "A living Oneness" and it went on widening till Aswapathy found that he had become one with... The Eternal's wonders join the dance of Time." Aswapathy also participated in the vision of the world's fulfilment and "he saw a world that is from a world to be." He looked at the actual from the potential and the inevitable. Even his body from that consciousness appeared like some foreign shape. Page 238 Now, to Aswapathy, the Self and Eternity alone became real and everything ...
... But Aswapati's heart replied to her — the special comment is made: "Even here, we notice that it is not Aswapathy that is talking but his heart". Is there any sense in such a distinction? Surely Aswapati's heart did not convey its message directly to Savitri's heart: words did the work of communication, words in which the heart-element found voice. Merely because Aswapati is not pictured... naming. But in Aswapati's case there may be a reason too: he is a certain type — "A thinker and toiler in the ideal's air" — whose being and doing are of importance rather than his human particularity. As soon as he figures in a clear human context he gets his identity-card. Before that, he is summed up at the end of Book Three as "The Lord of Life", preparatory to his human role as "Aswapati" in the next... es ("Fontarabbia" and the rest), slow down if not submerge the tale? I find one or two little touches of pedantry elsewhere also. What is the pertinence of the point made by saying that "Aswapati", the name of Savitri's father, first occurs only on page 368? Does a narrative or epic become simple merely by each character getting his proper name from the start? Does Page 240 ...
... But Aswapati's heart replied to her - [p. 341] the special comment is made: "Even here, we notice that it is not Aswapathy that is talking but his heart'. Is there any sense in such a distinction? Surely Aswapati's heart did not convey its message directly to Savitri's heart: words did the work of communication, words in which the heart-element found voice. Merely because Aswapati is not... But in Aswapati's case there may be a reason too: he is a certain type - "A thinker and toiler in the ideal's air" - whose being and doing are of importance rather than his human particularity. As soon as he figures in a clear human context he gets his identity-card. Before that, he is summed up at the end of Book Three as "The Lord of Life", preparatory to his human role as "Aswapati" in the... s ("Fontarabbia" and the rest), slow down if not submerge the tale? I find one or two little touches of pedantry elsewhere also. What is the pertinence of the point made by saying that "Aswapati", the name of Savitri's father, first occurs only on page 368 [p. 341]? Does a narrative or epic become simple merely by each character getting his proper name from the start? Does Milton name ...
... which is seen and felt by the poet. We saw Aswapathy's history yesterday, and found that Aswapathy is not the childless king that he is in the legend of the Mahabharata , the Indian epic, but he is here a representative of the human race, engaged in the cultural activity of humanity trying to evolve higher and higher values of life. That is Aswapathy. He is a representative, he is a symbol of... change Aswapathy's nature so that it should begin to achieve divinity; that is why the Divine began to turn the human mud engine to heaven's use. Aswapathy found that this engine is indeed made of mud, but the Divine was taking it for heavenly use. And then he saw, in the light of this experience, that existence is a divine experiment and cosmos is the soul's opportunity. This is what Aswapathy found:... through which mankind is passing. Indirectly, Aswapathy, the king, the character who is father of Savitri, shows that man's present constitution is only a constitution which is in movement. Is man only a sum total of mind, life and body? Is man only mind plus life plus vital force plus body, physical being? That is the question, and Aswapathy says, no, these are man's instruments, the ones that ...
... and the soul's sovereign gaze To the blank horror a calm Light replied". The godhead in Aswapathy was awake "And faced the pain and danger of the world". Page 201 CANTOVIII WORLD OF FALSEHOOD, THE MOTHER OF EVIL AND THE SONS OF DARKNESS When Aswapathy saw the heart of the Night he found that there was a spiritless blank eternity where the eternal... come to be enacted on the earth's stage. All who would Page 203 raise fallen mankind come under their dangerous attacks. Aswapathy also had to pass through this realm, for, "None can reach heaven who has not passed through hell". So Aswapathy made his way through this realm "Peopled by souls who never had tasted bliss, Ignorant like men born blind who know not light... s Savitri - An Approach And A Study CANTO VI THE KINGDOMS AND GODHEADS OF THE GREATER LIFE From the region of the lower vital plane where Aswapathy found the denial of the highest possibilities of man he came up to the kingdoms of the higher vital where he found at least "a dubious hope". There was in this plane of consciousness a possibility ...
... the world of Matter. Moving on, I had to show Aswapathy receiving the Light from above: that is to say, from the blue stars and the blue square. I did the painting—I painted two straight white lines of the Light on Aswapathy's palms, coming from above. I showed the painting to the Mother. And how she laughed! She said: You have painted Aswapathy as if he was balancing two sticks on his palms.... centres of Consciousness with golden dots, in painting—one in the heart, one in the throat, the forehead and above the head.... I did not know where exactly I had to put the dots in the figure of Aswapathy. The Mother did not explain to me in detail. Once again she had left me to my own devices. So I took refuge in Sri Aurobindo's books and found out exactly all about the centres, colours, their meaning... two heads on her sketch. So, I painted two heads and she said: Why, but they are absolutely symbolic. Now we took up Canto 4 of Book One of Savitri . For picture two, she said: I saw Aswapathy in my vision with bright red dhoti, over and over again. So, you must paint a red dhoti, For picture three, she said: It is nice and pretty, but for the sake of the reproduction (Block-making) ...
... represented by Aswapathy. He gets self-knowledge from within, world-knowledge from around and God-knowledge from above. These three positions are the positions of one omnipresent Reality. It is one Reality which is present in all the statuses. Aswapathy realizes this and gets a boon for mankind - the supreme Mother sends an emanation of herself in the form of Savitri, the daughter of King Aswapathy, to save... are very important in the sense that they are the height of inspiration: first, when Aswapathy stands before the supreme Mother and later when he prays to her for a boon. These passages are preceded by a long argument by the supreme Mother persuading Aswapathy not to bother about solving man's problem. When Aswapathy is praying to the supreme Mother; she appears to him and says: "What you have attained... which he has received for some progress for mankind, for some service to knowledge. Aswapathy replies to her: How shall I rest content with mortal days And the dull measure of terrestrial things, I who have seen behind the cosmic mask The glory and the beauty of thy face? Aswapathy is telling the divine Mother: How long shall we have to bear this yoke of night and death ...
... origin of the world -and his conception of Aswapathy's character. The life of the childless king Aswapathy performing tapasyā in order to have a child has been entirely changed by the poet into a symbol of human soul descended on earth from divine heights trying to acquire knowledge of the Self and the world. The entire second Book is, in fact, Aswapathy' s travel over worlds heaped upon worlds in... —the Truth", or "one who has the Truth". Aswapathy, the father of Savitri, has been significantly called by the poet "the Lord of Life". (Book II. Canto XV). The name suggests an affinity to Vedic symbolism. In the Veda, Aswa, the horse, is the symbol of life-energy or vital power. Aswa+ paty, Lord, would mean the "Lord of Life". In the poem King Aswapathy is the symbol of the aspiring soul of man... Savitri, Aswapathy gave her the name of "Savitri". She was beautiful like Laxmi, the Goddess of Beauty and of golden colour, more like a daughter of a god than of man. In course of time, she grew to age and the parents Page 3 found it dufficult to get her married because no prince came forward to ask for her hand as her personality was known to be too strong and brilliant. Aswapathy was pained ...
... Page 85 reading of a very sublime passage of Sri Aurobindo's Savitri which describes the austere and heroic attempt of the Mahayogi Aswapathy to have a vision of the Ultimate Form, and its spiritual aftermath. Aswapathy's soul was passing on "towards the end which ever begins again" (295); it was approaching "to the source of all things human and divine". Far beyond the... the world is the inscrutable mask; The ages are the footfalls of her tread, Their happenings the figure of her thoughts, And all creation is her endless act." (295) What did Aswapathy do then and what followed? - "Mute in the fathomless passion of his will He outstretched to her his folded hands of prayer. Then in a sovereign answer to his heart Page... imperishable. Attracted to the large and luminous depths Of the ravishing enigma of her eyes, He saw the mystic outline of a face." (295-96) And what was the effect of this vision on Aswapathy? - "Overwhelmed by her implacable light and bliss, An atom of her illimitable self Mastered by the honey and lightning of her power, Tossed towards the shores of ocean ecstasy ...
... MIND Going beyond the kingdoms of the ideal world, Aswapathy came to a region "Where Silence listened to the cosmic Voice". But he did not answer the million calls, the endless questions, nor did he answer the eager hopes that were directed towards it. It appeared as if the hierarchy of the worlds paused here. And, there Aswapathy "...stood on a wide arc of summit Space Alone with... Goddess ever-veiled Of whom the world is the inscrutable mask". His own spirit was made a vessel of Her force and Aswapathy felt a passionate will and "outstretched to her his folded hands of prayer". Then the supreme Mother, in her grace, uncovered to him half of her face. Aswapathy was overwhelmed by the light and bliss, by the sweetness and power and "Drunk with a deep golden spiritual... Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study CANTO X THE KINGDOMS AND GODHEADS OF THE LITTLE MIND Aswapathy had to overpass the higher vital world as he had to reach the very Highest "In whom the world arid self grow true and one". The human journey upward cannot cease till that is reached. So long as the human being remains satisfied within ...
... And so we are winged back to the days of Aswapathy's first awakening - his perception of the heavy and weary weight of this unintelligible world, his soul's break-through to freedom, his crystal-gazing into the 'Secret Knowledge', his exploration of the occult stairway of the worlds. The main bulk of Savitri is made up of three hard blocks: Aswapathy's Yoga (1.3-5, II and III), Savitri's Yoga... VI, VII. 1 and VIII). The 'Epilogue' describes Savitri's "return to earth" with Satyavan. Aswapathy's Yoga is the Yoga of self-knowledge and world-knowledge, the Yoga of Aspiration, the Yoga of the Forerunner who makes Savitri's advent possible. Starting with unease and uncertainty, Aswapathy achieves his soul's release through a psychic opening and spiritual change. He is able to break through... Narad's intervention that opens Aswapathy's eyes - and Savitri's own - to the precise nature of the encounter ahead. Narad's warning is thus no warning at all, but merely the adroit opening of the drama of the Book of Fate that is to be played. The long speech that Narad Page 672 makes, while it fails to carry conviction to the Queen, lights up Aswapathy's eyes with recognition of the ...
... aspiration the world of subtle matter would only be a "brilliant courtyard". Aswapathy, therefore, "left that fine material Paradise" because he had to rise to other higher and greater worlds. Page 172 CANTO III THE GLORY AND FALL OF LIFE Having left the limits of the physical mind Aswapathy entered the world of life, the plane of vital being. To this plane belong... Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study SUMMARY OF BOOK TWO BOOK OF THE TRAVELLER OF THE WORLDS CANTO - I THE WORLD-STAIR ASWAPATHY'S vision was widened beyond the confines of human limits, he could see the whole cosmos as "A limitless movement" that "filled a limitless space". He saw it as a selfcreation of the Unknown without... this very matter which hides, behind its inertia, all the rich possibilities of life; mind and spirit. Thus, the universe is a process of mystery and "to live this Mystery out our souls came here". Aswapathy saw that he had travelled alone to this realm of the spirit's Infinity as yet unrealised by man where stillness, light and silence reign. He saw that he was moving up on this vast cosmic stair, mounting ...
... itself to Aswapati, and he grows in puissant understanding. But earth's limitations and failures still cause him intense disquiet and dissatisfaction: Here even the highest rapture Time can give Is a mimicry of ungrasped beatitudes, A mutilated statue of ecstasy... Or a simulacrum of enforced delight In the seraglios of Ignorance. 26 Aswapati is, however... which he lives." 27 A cleansing retreat is called for, and Aswapati resolutely withdraws into a void, an absolute condition of silence of the mind. Sri Aurobindo is here evidently recalling his own experience at Baroda under Yogi Lele's guidance. It is a unique cathartic or 'beyonding' experience, 28 and Aswapati leaves "earth-nature's summits", mounts "burning like a cone of fire"... fire", and quests "for God as for a splendid prey". Although his heady flight is sought to be prevented by "the black Inconscient", Aswapati sweeps on, Hearing the echo of his single steps In the eternal courts of Solitude. 29 As Aswapati rises thus above the remote horizons of our familiar consciousness: .. .to meet him bare and pure A strong Descent ...
... retreats and flies. Aswapati must seek out again—he will not accept defeat. The dim Possibility alone is not enough; it must be realised here on earth. The Power that alone can bring about this transformation must be sought out, and the way should be opened Page 119 for the descent of the Power and the change of earth nature into supernature. Aswapati will now make... appeal. 137 Aswapati sees extending before him a universe that defies every attempt at comprehension: Only a formless Form of self was left, A tenuous ghost of something that had been, The last experience of a lapsing wave Before it sinks into a bourneless sea,—... 138 But at last Something responds to Aswapati's passionate call; nor... The whole adventure of Evolution, the long weary climb of man himself up the steps of civilisation and culture, the castles of achievement and the inns of tranquillity on the way, all have made Aswapati what he is—the spearhead of the advance of the human race, humanity's worthiest representative and leader. Through yoga he has perfected himself, and it has helped him to gather in himself all the ...
... paintings we had to show the Divine Mother in Aswapathy's heart. Here I cannot possibly forget the Mother's sense of humour, for I love it. She said: Now look! If we show the Supreme Mother's face in his heart, then surely people will think that Aswapathy had fallen in love with a woman. So I think it is better we show the golden and white Light enveloping Aswapathy. I could not check my laughter. She ...
... of realisation flashes before him, Aswapati feels a whole load removed; like a house of cards crashes down Hell's "huge abrupt facade"; Night opens, and vanishes "like a gulf of dream". Verily, verily, the reign of Night would be over soon; what Aswapati has seen in a "vision splendid" must come to be. There pours "a wide intimate and blissful Dawn", and Aswapati shakes off the grim memories of... The giant sons of Darkness sit and plan The drama of the earth, their tragic stage. 91 This is the Hell Aswapati traverses on his way to Heaven. Hoping to gauge the whole malignant forces of Hell, its presiding Mother Evil, her sons, Aswapati takes a close view of them all, "challenging the darkness with his luminous soul". What deserts of joylessness, what infinitudes... VIII 'THE WORLD OF FALSEHOOD, THE MOTHER OF EVIL, AND THE SONS OF DARKNESS' The nether-most circle in Hell; the hidden heart of Night. Aswapati has gravitated to the bottom, and sees revealed there "the endless terrible Inane", the zero begetter of the worlds. All is dark, hideous, false, and vile; perverse Thought, priestess-sorceress ...
... "Savitri has grown to an enormous length...The small passage about Aswapati and the other worlds has been replaced by a new Book, the Book of the Traveller of the Worlds, in fourteen cantos with many thousand lines." 39 Actually, however, there are now fifteen cantos, and in these is described with a singular vividness Aswapati's spiritual ascent as a typical representative of the race to win the... background of long Time A glowing epitome of eternity,.. . 42 A Seer (the inner Guide) "inspires our ascent", as he now responds to the call of Aswapati too, who bears "the burden of the world's desire". And so Aswapati flies past world after world, and still mounts higher and higher, ...towards an indiscernible end On the bare summit of created things. 43... the possibility of discovery and possession of all the planes of consciousness. I 'The World Stair' As Aswapati, tearing from his last terrestrial moorings, plunges into the occult unknown universe of moods, energies, world-shapes and freedom-formulas, he experiences the throb of direct contact with the cosmic play of passion and motion and "self-creation without end ...
... Sri Aurobindo Mah ākāvya ( Epic) Canto 1. Aswapati's eighteen- year long austerities; the Goddess Savitri's promise of the birth of a daughter. Book I, Cantos 3-5; Book II, Cantos 1-15; and Book. Ill, Cantos 1-4: all these describe Aswapati's yoga, the Vision of the Divine Mother and the promise that, "One shall descend and break... Canto 2. Aswapati with Narad; Savitri's return from her quest; Narad's warning, Savitri's resolution, and Narad's acquiescence; preparations for the marriage. Book V, Cantos 1-3: The Book of Love'. Savitri meets Satyavan, and they recognise, each in the other, the destined soulmate. Book VI, Cantos 1-2: The Book of Fate. Aswapati, his queen, Narad and Savitri;... the human story remain unaltered, in spite of the successive revisions or recasts of the epic in Sri Aurobindo's hands. There are minor differences: neither Aswapati's wife nor Dyumatsena's is given speaking parts in the original poem; Aswapati in Sri Aurobindo's poem doesn't follow his daughter to her husband's place but merely sends her away, acquiescing in her decision; many of the details in cantos ...
... and conveyed to him its moan and laugh, many-murmured. At its approach the heart of the supreme Silence in which Aswapathy was abiding unlocked its doors and the heavens of trance were dissolved because the absolute stillness willingly surrendered to the breadth of mortal air and so Aswapathy collapsed to waking mind. It is not that with rare spiritual experiences only the Master gives us peaks of poetical... III, Canto 2.) It is the Divine Power that commands Aswapathy to continue his labours in the field of life, by telling him: "Help still humanity's blind and suffering life" and then, it says further on: Sāvitrī, Book III, Canto 4. "only one joy, to raise thy kind desire". Sāvitrī, Book III, Canto 4. Aswapathy standing in the presence of the Supreme Divine Power... is packed in this single line, and it is not necessary to mention that it is far more effective as an expression. If the line is considered in its context, we will see that it has reference to Aswapathy who was preparing himself for a spiritual transformation. He had already attained a poise of spiritual equality, of tranquil strength and unaltered peace. He could remain above sorrow and delight ...
... to view the vasts of the past. Savitri was born because of a "world's desire". It was her father, King Aswapati, who articulated the "world's desire"; and Aswapatiwas humanity's advance scout destined to prepare the way for the coming of Savitri. Aswapati is individual man, he is a king and therefore leader and representative of his race, and he is also the heart of humanity... symmetry of self-arranged effects... 4 Now Aswapati has a view of the Tree of Cosmos, spreading "its magic arms through a dream of space". Analogous to, but more elementally all-comprehending than the Aswatha Tree of Indian mythology and the Life Tree Ygdrasil of Scandinavia, this Tree of Cosmos is reared and supported by the Spirit. Aswapati feels intrigued by Creation its cause, its course... innermost aspiration. Thus his yoga too falls into three stages, and the first stage is the subject-matter of Book I, cantos 3,4 and 5. Page 71 As individual man, Aswapati's first dim spiritual awakening comes when he realises that the body—the material appearance— is not all. Behind the appearance—behind the many layers of appearance-—is the reality. Man is neither ...
... with the Divine Mother and therefore Aswapati must approach her. With this Siddhi attained, and with the cosmic forces now under his control, he becomes the Lord of Life, justifies his name Aswapati. Henceforth his march is towards that transcendence where is her home. III: 1 The Pursuit of the Unknowable The one whom Aswapati met standing behind the World-Soul is... comes as Savitri in answer to Aswapati's prayer. In the context of the creation's issue he carries with him the world's desire and invokes her to incarnate. For that he engages himself in the triple Yoga, the Individual, the Universal, and the Transcendental Yoga. This Yoga is done in earth-consciousness to prepare the needed base for her birth and action. Aswapati himself as the Supreme incarnate... eliminate the wrong afflicting them. Sacrificing his triple glory he accepts the mortal state, bears its anguish. Aswapati moves through it with his spirit's alert flame. II: 6 The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Life Stepping into the wider Life, Aswapati notices her attempt to seize the boundless in birth. Thus she would claim back her heavenly state she had lost long ...
... The stage now is his own heart, the auditorium the "listening spaces of the soul". Aswapati looks inward, he thrills at the sacred stir and approach; mind, members, life, are "merged in ecstasy" and partake beatitude. "Flame-pure, ethereal-tressed a mighty Face" appears, the lips quiver, the words come. Aswapati is the elect, the transfigured, but he is asked to leave the Inconscient alone: ... transfiguring hour. 151 Having seen what he has seen, having glimpsed the great crests of future Possibility, must Aswapati still return to this bank empty-handed, hugging only the phantom of Hope and donning only the armour of Patience? A cry is wrung from Aswapati: How shall I rest content with mortal days And the dull measure of terrestrial things, I... things to the slow process of change. The sterile plant of hope must put forth an immediate bud of promise so that the rich fruit may not be long withheld. Aswapati will not miss this golden moment and miss the promise of a hastened Dawn. Aswapati's winged words fly up to the Presence with their load of anguished memory and hope, of urgent prayer and entreaty: O Wisdom-Splendour, Mother ...
... connotation of "in-dwelling soul". From the high plane reached, Aswapati caught the concealed sense of all his embodied existence, a sense akin to or instinct with the drive of the Primal Truths of the Transcendent that have to become the Final Realities of the Individual in the life-terms of the physical universe. Henceforth Aswapati's "walk through Time outstripped Page 123 the... granted? The lines you wish me to explain in brief — Akin to the march of unaccomplished Powers Beyond life's arc in spirit's immensities 1 — occur in a passage where the soul of Aswapati (Savitri's royal father) is released from Ignorance and his mind and body undergo their "first spiritual change" by a Knowledge drawn from above and within. What pours down from the overhead planes... objective and subjective Nature that constitutes our common habitual experience, our life of Ignorance, the physical and psychological field of our works. These works are changed and surpassed by Aswapati's soul-release, as we learn from the two lines just preceding your quotation: A genius heightened in his body's cells That knew the meaning of his fate-hedged works... Now it is the ...
... life exists in its own right, autonomously. Aswapati being a Yogin has access to this region as well. Even beyond that is a region of life where it is guided by mental ideals. And there are also regions still higher than that to which even Aswapati has no access. The Glory and Fall of Life 20 The most remarkable thing noticed by Aswapati as he enters the world of life is its power... 2 Ibid., p. 34. The use of the third person is characteristic of Sri Aurobindo when speaking of himself. 3 Ref. My article entitled Aswapati in Sri Aurobindo's Savitri in Mother India, February-March 1999. Aswapati's Yoga falls into three parts. First, he is achieving his own spiritual fulfilment as the individual and this is described in the Yoga of the King. Next... only to the supra-physical senses. Aswapati has been depicted as a seeker of integral truth who seeks to colonise this earth with this integral truth and its manifestation. He obviously cannot find this truth and the means of manifesting it in the gross material reality of this world. He therefore looks for it in all the other worlds. Thus comes about Aswapati's odyssey through the various worlds ...
... barring Aswapati's way; too fatally easy it is to slip, to be lost. But Aswapati, armed by prayer and the Name, crosses the murky no-man's-land, though only to confront, "a greater darkness...a worse reign,/If worse can be where all is evil's extreme." 83 As in the circles in Dante's Inferno, beneath Horror's depths are lower circles of deepening Horror. Now Aswapati is in the... and he has his own army of slaves to carry out his behests. As Aswapati sees the handiwork of evil—the spectacle of men maimed, suffering, men pitifully helpless—he is aghast; and all the more so because he also sees that the wretched victims do not, and indeed cannot, even recognise "the authors of their fall". Moving farther yet, Aswapati arrives at, .. .a no-man's land of evil air, A crowded... Savitri VII 'The Descent into Night' Aswapati, having reached this dead end, this cactus end of final frustration in Life's efforts at self-transcendence, is anxious to locate the cause of it all, and so he dons the mantle of giant courage, peers into the "viewless Vast", and sees, ...a grey carved mask of Night Watching the ...
... about the fourth one (The Realms)—it is only symbolic. Then I painted them all. Picture ten, the portrait of Aswapathy, I painted twice. For the old one, the Mother said: You have painted his beard as if it was false and stuck... better paint it again—another portrait of Aswapathy. And I did so. For picture seventeen I had to draw the "Yantra"—symbol of the Divine Shakti (Power). The ...
... which he can come to fulfil himself. So Aswapathy follows a triple Yoga. That Yoga we will leave aside for the time being. Now, he is a representative of the human race, and as representative of the human race, he first tries to find out the true self that is in man. And then he finds that man is cosmic. Man is not merely an individual, he is cosmic. Aswapathy finds further that man is not only cosmic... the divine consciousness. But Aswapathy persists and by persistent prayer and sincere aspiration he succeeds in persuading her to extend her Grace. And she, at the end of a long discussion, grants him the boon and says, "All right, I will send down an emanation of myself on earth and that will help mankind to conquer ignorance and death." The boon is granted and Aswapathy returns to the earth. Then Savitri... describes Savitri, in the first canto, one day previous to the death of Satyavan, preparing herself to meet the God of Death - that's one place. Second, when Aswapathy sees her approaching in the palace, the description that the poet gives through Aswapathy. The third place is when Savitri is described by Narada, the divine sage, who marvels at her human beauty. It is the height of our world's literature ...
... tremendous moment for Aswapati. Terrestrial trappings fall from him, human vestiges vanish; separative identity is ended, the drop has been swallowed up by the ocean! Is this, then, the end? Not to be —the soul lost in the "boundless silence of the Self". For Aswapati himself, such is no doubt a consummation devoutly to be wished. But he is more than the individual, Aswapati. He is also a king, and... The smile that saves, the golden peak of things? 140 But Silence is not death; an absolute power sleeps therein, and when it is awakened, the Nay can turn into the Everlasting Yea. Aswapati cannot lose himself in nirvana; he must 'beyond' it, or penetrate it, till the great Yea is awakened to grant him his and the earth's and humanity's innermost heart's and soul's desire. ... clasps him and Nature and the world to her breast. She is the All-Beautiful Mother of all godheads and all strengths, she is the mediatrix between earth Page 121 and Heaven. Aswapati is lifted out of himself, cleansed of all dross, and finds new doors of perception. He sees for the first time, he hears, he feels, he knows with an utter immediacy and completeness. The knowledge ...
... In fact, Aswapati's Yoga and the promise of the Goddess Savitri, which take about ten lines in the Mahabharata, occupy almost half of Sri Aurobindo's entire epic, which means more than a thousand-fold expansion! The second key event is Narad first uttering a grave warning against Savitri's marrying Satyavan, and, later, after hearing Savitri, actively advising Aswapati to allow Savitri... profound inner quest, a prolonged inner struggle, capped by an accession of knowledge and power. As with Aswapati's Yoga, Sri Aurobindo turns the searchlight of revelation to the purposes and processes of Savitri's Yoga also; the earlier cantos describing Aswapati careering through the "worlds" are now seen to be complementary to the five cantos in Book VII ("The Book of Yoga') which... already implied or inherent in the legendary story. Aswapati asks for a child; Savitri is born; and while trying to redeem Satyavan, her husband, she brings happiness to all (sarvam) —herself, her father, her mother and all her husband's family. Re-reading the old bardic tale from a fresh angle, Sri Aurobindo invests Aswapati's tapas with a vaster significance; it is a growth in ...
... speaks of Aswapati's Yoga, the Yoga of the King ... Aswapati in the epic is the representative of the aspiring humanity who prepares and lays the path to the Divine Glory ... Aswapati stands face to face with the Creatrix of the universe, the supreme Divine Mother, and prays to her fervently to manifest her glories on Earth ... The Divine Grace takes birth as Savitri, daughter of King Aswapati, and... moving ... Aswapati has arrived at the overmental levels of existence and he embodies the consciousness of the One, which includes the many ... After describing the overwhelming experience of Aswapati with the absolute stillness at 'the gates of the transcendent, the poet observes that that is not the Ultimate." 1 In Savitri: An Approach and a Study A. B. Purani writes: "Aswapati acquired... Book describes Aswapati's entry into and experience of Supracosmic planes of consciousness and his meeting face to face with the Supreme Creatrix, the power of the omnipotent Divine." 2 And in Rohit Mehta's The Dialogue with Death we read: "In the epic of Savitri, Sri Aurobindo deals exhaustively with the Yoga of Aswapati, which indeed is the Yoga of Ascent. And Aswapati's Yoga is a series ...
... represents." 12 The Mother's words give away part of that secret. As Aswapati climbs the World Stair, he experiences successively all the planes of consciousness that influence or impinge upon our own inner and outer being. These influences, for the most part undetected by our waking mental consciousness, are explored by Aswapati through the power of his Yoga. Their essence or their vibration as... then need to be clairvoyant or gifted with supernatural powers or fall into a trance to ascend the World-Stair with Aswapati. Each step corresponds to something deep within ourselves. The fifteen steps of the World-Stair begin with the Kingdom of Subtle Matter and end with Aswapati's attainment of the Greater Knowledge. On the way he discovers the splendour of Life on its own plane and the "fall"... abolished but "transformed to potent joy." 28 Aswapati, however, turns his steps away from the wonders of this glorious creation of the gods, just as Sri Aurobindo did when he told the Mother: "This is not what we want." Between him and his goal lie the immense plains and towering peaks of Mind. We are approaching the end of our journey with Aswapati. Once again, and for the last time, we may invoke ...
... preparations as well; and this is the reason why the Books covering Aswapati's Yoga, Savitri's Yoga, and Savitri's struggle with Death seem to occupy so much space. The seeds of all these are in the original, but Sri Aurobindo has planted them on rich soil and given them what seems almost like extravagant nurture. Aswapati's Yoga is in the main cast in the form of a journey through the Worlds;... she too grows in Truth-consciousness and reaches at last the plenitudes of its power. The dynamics of the movement are the same, whether it is an ascent as with Aswapati's Yoga or an inner movement as with Savitri's. Aswapati literally means Lord of Horses. In the Veda, the horse and the cow are repeatedly referred to; as material possessions they are doubtless of considerable value... a divine puissance". 70 As tell-tale symbols, the horse and the cow stand for Force and Light, life-energy and soul-quality Aswapati is accordingly equated in Sri Aurobindo's epic with "the symbol of the aspiring soul of man as manifested in life on earth". 71 But Aswapati the "Traveller of the Worlds", the climber towards the far Himalayas of the Spirit, rather recalls the Vedic Aswins, the twin ...
... He prepares us for the leaning towards Tantra by the Yoga of Aswapati. The traveller of the worlds has an astonishing range of experiences after gaining the secret knowledge regarding the Purusha-Prakriti combine. All these experiences are reflections of the varied facets of the Nature-Soul within us which are revealed to Aswapati by his Conscious-Soul. He becomes "conscious" and lo! he is able... are four cantos which take in the final segment of Aswapati's Yoga. There is great poetry in these cantos but then, it is not for mere aesthetic enjoyment. Many of the passages are transformatory in character. This Book makes one understand the Mother's statement: "Reading Savitri is itself Yoga." When we come to this Book, Aswapati has already had an experience of Paradisal felicity... seen by Aswapati: His self s infinities began to emerge, The hidden universes cried to him; Eternities called to eternities Sending their speechless message still remote. Arisen from the marvel of the depths And burning from the superconscious heights And sweeping in great horizontal gyres A million energies joined and were the One. 17 Aswapati was now ...
... as though Aswapati has passed the last camp and has finally touched Everest: At last there came a bare indifferent sky Where Silence listened to the cosmic Voice,... He stood on a wide arc of summit Space Alone with an enormous Self of Mind. 123 There are evidently no more heights to conquer, no more worlds to traverse; Aswapati has reached... however, is no more than a temporary swoon in nirvana; "suddenly a luminous finger" falls on the great variety of terrestrial things, the earth-consciousness returns, and doubt infects everything. Aswapati cannot wholly get away from the memory of the limitations of man's life on earth. He remembers with a sting of shame the failure of man's efforts at thought and certainty: The magic... In which it shrines its image of the Real, Collapsed into the Nescience whence it rose. 125 The total Silence is no answer to the total burden of human wail and woe. Aswapati therefore feels that, A greater Spirit than the Self of Mind Must answer to the questioning of his soul. 126 Yet where is he to look for the answer? Above, ...
... KINGDOMS OF THE GREATER KNOWLEDGE' Returning to consciousness "after a measureless moment of the soul", Aswapati knows that here once and for all has "closed the finite's crawl to the Infinite". This is an experience without parallel, and Aswapati feels new-made; renewed, purified, strengthened: Absolved from the ligaments of death and sleep He rode... His finite parts approached their absolutes, His actions framed the movements of the Gods, His will took up the reins of cosmic Force. 136 And that is the end of Aswapati's ascent as a typical representative of the race. He has realised all for himself, and he has seen the Possibility open to the race. He has reached after endless trials and heroic persistence the ...
... is in its essence symbolic of the answering Grace from above and the call from below embodied in the two protagonists—Satyavan-Savitri and Aswapati. While Savitri can be called an epic of the soul's "mystic voyage" upon "uncharted routes", represented by Aswapati, it is more "a significant myth" telling of the great "wrestle with the shadow" and the conquest over Ignorance and Death, represeented by... consciousness of the body to the beginnings of worlds of life-force, the vital-consciousness. Meeting different creatures and beings appropriate to these levels, Aswapati moves to the higher vital worlds and then to the mental worlds. Aswapati discovers that just as there is an upward movement leading to more and more bright levels of consciousness, there is also a downward movement leading to great... reason of hell. 7 "He who would bring the heavens" upon earth has to "tread the dolorous way"—so did Aswapati and only then could he move on to the worlds beyond mind, and reach the Vastness which "brooded free from sense of Space." Arrested for a while by "the uncaring bliss", Aswapati apotheosises O soul, it is too early to rejoice! Thou hast reached the boundless silence of the ...
... I . Aswapati's Yoga that led to Savitri's incarnation: (i) Aswapati's spiritual fulfilment as an individual. (Book I, Cantos 3,4 and 5). (ii) Aswapati's ascent as a typical representative of the human race to win the possibility of discovery and possession of all the planes of consciousness. (Book II, Cantos 1-15). (iii) Aswapati's voicing his... the unfolding of the triumphant conclusion. If we leave aside the period covered by the retrospective narration (a period of about forty years in actual time, which includes the eighteen years of Aswapati's Yoga, the years of Savitri's birth and childhood and girlhood and the 'Quest' which follow, as also the first year of her married life with Satyavan), the drama outlined in the poem extends over... was the hour before the Gods awake." (p.1). Page 426 ALL THE YESTERDAYS The Yoga of Knowing 1. Aswapati's Yoga: as an individual, leading to self-knowledge; The Yoga of as the leader of the Knowing race, summing up its achievements, and embodying its hopes; voicing his and the race's aspiration and ...
... beyond word and thought, comprehending everything but also transcending everything, carrying a world's plea but also implying the inevitable assent, Aswapati is now actor and witness, he is the child of time admitted to "the sessions of Infinity". Aswapati's culminating ascent and patient vigil amidst the desolate solitudes of the heights coerce the descent and the response. It is as though he has received... III 'The House of the Spirit and the New Creation' Intent on achieving the conditions that will make possible world-transformation and a new creation, Aswapati retreats to the stillness of the soul and sits, ...like an incarnate hope Motionless on a pedestal of prayer. 143 He will not lose his links with the world, not... rise, A Knowledge inarticulate find speech, Beauty suppressed burst into paradise bloom, Pleasure and pain dive into absolute bliss. 147 Himself emancipated, Aswapati is nevertheless the bearer of the burden of the world's desire that climbs up to him "from the striving planes"; he is two beings now, "one wide and free above/One struggling, bound, intense, its ...
... THE YOGA OF THE SOUL'S RELEASE "A world's desire compelled her mortal birth." From the legend we know that Savitri was born to the queen of Aswapathy as the result of a boon by the Goddess Savitri. Here the poet introduces Aswapathy and while explaining the cause of Savitri's birth asserts that her birth was compelled by "a world's desire". Savitri had to take mortal birth in order to... and coarseness of earth nature and is akin to the pure Spirit. Aswapathy felt that he was "a colonist from immortality", and as such he tended to grow towards, or into, the likeness of his spiritual Self. In this intense aspiration to grow into the likeness of spiritual being "his mind was like a fire assailing heaven". Aswapathy's spiritual growth began by his realising that the external being... Eternity was thus revealed to Aswapathy. Everything that is imperfect here is found there, behind in the occult, and has its perfect correspondence. Whatever life is seeking here is found there realised. A divine unity was seen, reconciling all the discords of multiplicity. From Matter the evolving cone rose to the peaks of the Spirit, to the supernal regions of the One. Aswapathy saw and entered,— ...
... reward of bliss and peace eludes. As Aswapati moves among these shapes and feels racked by riddles all round, he grows a riddle to himself. The mystery refuses to be cleared, except through the fabrication of fresh mysteries; the question, the questioner, and the answer are riddles, riddles all. Following the track of the Life-Force's march, Aswapati presently comes to, ... Aswapati is fascinated by it all and moves freely amidst the "live symbols" of Nature's occult power; and her manifold—if as yet flawed —magnificence casts a profound spell upon him. Some 'clue' there certainly must be that can guide the seeker through her labyrinthine ways of passion and power; but the clue, the "interpreting word", is lacking still. Nature at this height strikes Aswapati as "a... Savitri VI 'THE KINGDOMS AND GODHEADS OF THE GREATER LIFE' From the "grey anarchy" of the lower vital' world, Aswapati now approaches the 'higher vital' world, a region ineffectual and purposeless still, where life see-saws between vain denial and dubious hope. It is a world of deceptive illuminations and spasmodic actions ...
... Paradise of the Life-gods' Like a man returned to life, Aswapati luxuriates in the "great felicitous Day" that now warms him up and intoxicates him with the "wine of God". Here life is in league with light and love; it beats "a jewel-rhythm of the laughter of God" and lies "on the breast of love". 93 Aswapati can now move with light dancing steps, on plain or ridge or hillside,... Dream play their truly appropriate roles. All here is under God's sway; pain changes to joy, the commonplace to the miraculous. Such is this "Paradise of perfect heart and sense". Aswapati too feels profoundly affected by the blissful climate of the place. His body acquires a new glow; earth-nature changes; he becomes a comrade of Heaven. A bliss overwhelms him, a fiery felicity possesses ...
... Adapting this legend as a symbol for a great living spiritual experience, Sri Aurobindo changes King Aswapati's sacrificial asceticism into the Tapasya or conscious spiritualisation of an aspiring soul of humanity. Savitri is not only the incarnation of a goddess but Divine Grace born in answer to Aswapati's longing for help in bringing some living form of God on earth to relieve it of its burden of... secret God within makes himself felt in our lives. But still unexplained problems made Aswapati plunge into "unplumbed infinitudes" in order to find the key to what could join Spirit and Matter, join what is now parted, "opposed and twain" and fulfil the Oneness that was the stamp of Being. So Aswapati moves 6 into the freedom and greatness of his Spirit, dares "to live when breath and ... mind. Next Aswapati ascends to the blissful heavens of the Ideal, the home of the source of our spiritual longings wherefrom we hear "the flutings of the Infinite" which rouse the soul from its depths. From this beautiful realm, where mind's radiant flower-children dwell, he enters into the Silence where the Self of Mind, the Witness Lord of Nature has his secret base. Aswapati watches the ...
... No doubt about it, Being is involved even in these lower realms and darkened vasts: Even in these formless codings he [Aswapati] could feel Matter's response to an infant stir of soul. 59 In the adjoining second Kingdom of the Little Lite, Aswapati marks "a fierier breath of waking life". Here "an insect hedonism" flutters and creeps, and there are "dragon raptures, python agonies"... unconscious steps, A foundling of the Gods she wanders here Like a child-soul left near the gates of Hell Fumbling through fog in search of Paradise. 55 Aswapati is eager to mark the steps in the arduous evolutionary spiral. This means really a return to the beginnings, and a survey of the whole track. And so, Page 88 Along swift... world", a world of automatic responses; a world of gropings, wrestlings, false starts and futile results; verily "a vain unnecessary world" marked by "meaningless suffering and a grey unease". Yet Aswapati finds a meaning even in these obscure beginnings of life. Even here the world is somehow charged with the beauty of God. The slime and the mire somehow yield a wondrous progeny. The world's ...
... Savitri XIV 'The World-soul' To the anxiously seeking eyes of Aswapati there now appears, "in a far-shimmering background of Mind-Space a glowing mouth...a luminous shaft...a recluse-gate...a veiled retreat...a tunnel of the depths of God." 128 This is a way out, this is an escape from the icy stare of immaculate Silence! ... soul-joy. Here "in voiceless internatal trance" club together the souls that have emancipated themselves from the chain of birth and death; or they await "the adventure of new life". It is clear to Aswapati Page 116 that he has penetrated to creation's centre where the wandering spirit finds, ...the silence of its starting-point In the formless force and the still... absorbed in deep creative joy;... 133 And behind them stands "the sole omnipotent Goddess ever-veiled", whose mask is the making of the world and whose footfalls are the rages of the ages. Aswapati folds his hands in prayer, and to him is vouchsafed a sudden half-glimpse of "the ravishing, enigma of her eyes". He is now finally overwhelmed by her "implacable light and bliss", and he is like ...
... becoming. In the story Savitri the princess of Madra is of course the most important character. The other persons present are: Savitri's father Aswapati and mother Malawi; then, there is the heavenly sage Narad who pays a purposeful visit to Aswapati at a most crucial juncture in the life of Savitri. This happens when she is about to disclose to her parents her choice of marrying Satyavan; Satyavan... actions and eventualities. Aswapati has explored the hierarchy of the worlds and found the true meaning of this creation. He has now discovered the nature of the problem and the difficulty that stands in the way. He is convinced that only if the supreme divine Power shall take birth here that this issue of mortality will be resolved. In the Mahabharata story Aswapati is a follower of the dharma... sage Gautama. Yama or the God of Death is at once frightful-dark and kind-gracious in the benignity of the Upholder of the Order of the Worlds. Princess Savitri's own birth was in response to Aswapati's prayer to the goddess Savitri. It is she who incarnated herself as his daughter in fulfilment of the exceptional boon granted to him, through her, by the Creator-Father Brahma himself. A cosm ...
... Life-Heavens, whose inhabitants cherish their happiness on the mid-way peaks of ascent, nor wish to mount to the ultimate heights. Not so Aswapati. He still must respond to "a greater adventure's call" and scale the climb to Timelessness. Be the hazard what it may, Aswapati must march on, and stop not till the goal is reached. First he meets "a silver-grey expanse where Day and Night had... Thought, Intelligence and Reason; what next? Aswapati reaches now "the bright kingdoms of the rising Sun" where "all is a birth into a power of light". The mere Mind's laborious constructions are but "interim reports"; the final reports are still a-drafting, they are still to come. Mind's knowledge has to be followed by a "greater Gnosis". Aswapati marks two new powers overshadowing the "dwarfish... of uncertainties There exercised uneasy government On a ground reserved for doubt and reasoned guess, A rendezvous of Knowledge with Ignorance. 94 Next Aswapati notices a higher slope in this steep ascent "where dawn-sheen gamboled with the native dusk". The region of twilight recedes, and morning beckons the Traveller of the Worlds: He ...
... of Death. Savitri the Princess of Madra is of course the most important character in the story. The other persons present are: Savitri's parents Aswapati and Malawi; then, there is the heavenly sage Narad who pays a purposeful visit to Aswapati at a most crucial juncture in the life of Savitri. This happens when she is about to disclose to her parents her choice of marrying Satyavan; Satyavan... charge is that, apart from the names of some Gods and Goddesses, there are only five proper names in the whole epic which runs to about twenty-four thousand lines: Satyavan, Savitri, Aswapati, Dyumatsena and Narad in Aswapati's palace. The required support for thought and imagination, support in the form of characters of flesh and blood, is not available in this epic. The complaint is that the human framework... bows down to them, touches their feet, and offers worshipping respects. Narad looks at her and immediately makes several inquiries about her. He asks Aswapati on what mission his daughter had gone, and why he has not yet given her in marriage. Aswapati explains to the sage that it was precisely with this intention that he sent her abroad, to find a suitable prince to marry, as none had come seeking ...
... meets beings and creatures appropriate to those levels crawling and stirring and climbing, moved by the laws governing the respective regions. In this way Aswapati passes on into the higher vital, into the border of the mental. Aswapati now observes with a clear vividness that all these worlds and the beings and forces that inhabit them are stricken as Page 52 it were... necessary to go through this Night. For Aswapati Knew death for a cellar of the house of life, 1 Savitri, p. 221. 2 Ibid., p. 230. 3 1bid., p.210. Page 51 In destruction felt creation's hasty pace, Knew loss as the price of a celestial gain And hell as a short cut to heaven's gates. 4 Aswapati now passes into the higher luminous... servitudes on earth are greater, king, Than all the glorious liberties of heaven. 21 Once more Savitri, even like Aswapati, has to make a choice between two destinies, two soul-movements, — although the choice is already made even before it is offered to her, Aswapati had to abandon, we know, the silent immutable transcendent status of pure light in order to bathe in this lower earthly light ...
... day for Dyumatsena's ashram. After fraternal exchanges, Aswapati explains the object of his visit and requests the Page 242 hermit-king to accept Savitri as his daughter-in-law. Dyumatsena wonders whether Aswapati's daughter, used to comfort, will be able to put up with the rigours of ashram life in a forest, but Aswapati reassures him and importunes him to accept Savitri as... over time, a break in the sequence and we find Aswapati seated with Sage Narad engaged in conversation; and now Savitri, having visited all ashrams and holy bathing places, returns to her father's court with Page 241 her counsellors, and pays her respects to the sage and the king. Is she not married yet, asks Narad, and Aswapati, in answer, directs Savitri to speak. She first... Savitri II The Legend In the Mahabharata, the Savitri story is told in the course of seven cantos (291 to 297 in the Vana Parva). Aswapati, the King of the Madra, is pious, virtuous, high-souled, a good giver, the protector of his people, and therefore the well-beloved. But he is sorrow-stricken, being old and childless. For eighteen ...
... 1952. In this book I have taken the opportunity of bringing under one cover the whole of epic, Savitri. Three or four topics have been added before the story of the Second part of Savitri: Yoga of Aswapathy and the Yoga of Savitri. A short story of "Overhead planes and esthetics" has also been included so that the reader may see all poetry from another view-point. Even though readers of poetry in ...
... why we don't need an identification mark to recognise Sri Aurobindo as Aswapati and the Mother as Savitri of the story. It is the same Aswapati who evolutionarily marching through the ages comes to us as Sri Aurobindo. Aswapati is the eternal incarnation of the Supreme. In fact without identifying himself with this ageless Aswapati Sri Aurobindo would not have been able to bring himself out in Savitri... Aswapati, the king of Madra land, is issuless. He desires to have a son to perpetuate his ancestral line. In that way would the continuity of the Vedic Yajna be assured. Therefore it becomes an aspect of dharmic duty and Aswapati wishes not to fail in it. It is in the dharma alone that the order of the society can be maintained. And he is keen to uphold it. Thereupon Aswapati retires... author resorts to the plain comprehensible technique of story telling. The legendary figure of Aswapati thus turns out to be the most apt. It would have been therefore unaesthetic and incongruous to keep on harping all the while the name of Aswapati the protagonist as the Avatar. The problem of identifying Aswapati of the legendary past with Sri Aurobindo of the divine future thus reduces to the understanding ...
... of the Earth, Savitri to King Aswapati established in regular practices. Savitri said: O King sovereign, I am immensely pleased by your purity and chastity, by your abstinence and self-restraint, the observance of the rules of austerity, and all the heart with which you worshipped me in devotion. O Aswapati, Ruler of Madra, ask what you... periodical. Our thanks are also due to M/S Amravan Group for the financial support to bring out this book. ************ King Aswapati's Receiving a Boon from Goddess Savitri, the Birth of a Daughter to him, Named Savitri, and her Sojourn in Different Countries in Search of a Husband. Y... presiding over charities, skilful in work, loved by the city-dwellers and by all the people of his kingdom, one who was absorbed in the welfare of everybody, there ruled the Sovereign of the Earth, named Aswapati. Of a forgiving nature, one whose speech was truth, and who had subdued the senses, though he was so he had no issue; with the advancing of age this increased his affliction greatly. ...
... under the intense flame of inspiration, he utilises this advance of material science to concretise, to objectify a spiritual reality. While speaking about "the Godheads of Little Life", he speaks of Aswapathy having "plunged his gaze into the siege of mist" of the lower vital and then: "As when a search-light stabs the Night's blind breast And dwellings and trees and figures of men appear... great Master in his supreme art can turn even the illegal process of smuggling to a divine advantage in his creation. Dealing with "The Paradise of the Life-Gods" (Book II, Canto 9) he speaks of Aswapathy's thrilling experience as follows: "His earth, dowered with celestial competence, Harboured a power that needed now no more To cross the closed customs-line of mind and flesh And... the spirit of man has to move. The whole psychological vision of man's life, its relative importance, and a whole world of suggestion connected with it is here packed in a single line. So also when Aswapathy moves in the high "stratosphere" of the superconscient, he again employs the strategy of the last war to serve his poetic vision. And so concrete and effective is the use!: Page 118 ...
... participate: King Aswapati, his queen, Sage Narad and Savitri herself. The queen is just human, and hence sees the problem of love and marriage and fate and death and widowhood in the ordinary way of the world. She would Page 148 take the line of least resistance. Avoid, if possible, the decree of fate; or raise her voice against the rank injustice of it all. Aswapati is the enlightened... space". A "heavy shadow" floats before his inner vision, but Aswapati sees also a pursuing light; all may yet be well. He tells his daughter that she has chosen well: If this is all, then all is surely well; If there is more, then all can still be well. 210 When Narad is about to warn Savitri, Aswapati stays the "dangerous word" and tells him that not to know the... When she says she has chosen Satyavan as her consort, Narad ejaculates that it is a wrong decision: not because Satyavan is not worthy in every way, but because he is fated to die in a year's time. Aswapati asks her to choose again, but Savitri says that she can but choose once. Narad now advises the king to allow the marriage to take place. This raises a number of questions. What is ...
... Savitri III 'The Glory and Fall of Life' The passage from the world of subtle matter brings Aswapati to the life-realms, where the 'vital', the principle of life, has full play. The law of life here comprises birth, growth, decay and death. With an endless but blind appetite the life-principle explores all possibilities, regardless... picture of the fallen state of life. But how to describe the 'other' state, the power and the glory? How to paint the colours of paradisal felicity? How to visualise the splendour of the 'dream-truth'? Aswapati, however, can see this glory unfolding before him: There were summit-glories inconceivable, Autonomies of Wisdom's still self-rule... There sat the oligarchies... power, life will "explore the measures of the rhythms of God", and weave, .. .her wizard wonder-dance, A Dionysian goddess of delight, A Bacchant of creative ecstasy. 53 Aswapati, even as he sees this world of bliss, knows "no way to enter into its joy". From the sleep of matter's inconscience has emerged the play of life and the attendant strife of the dualities: mind has ...
... Savitri's Birth and Quest'. The wider cosmic background includes the smaller human background, for they are both centred in Savitri. Aswapati's Yoga articulates the earth's cry for perfection, and in answer, the Power behind the cosmos promises the advent of Savitri. Aswapati's aspirations on behalf of evolving humanity are to be realised by Savitri, though only after a struggle. The struggle and the victory... fuse into patterns of delight, while cries coalesce into litanies, and all Nature is at beauty's festival. Spring always signals the "arrival of joy", but a special and unique joy is Aswapati's when, in answer to his yearning and the earth's, "a mediating ray" touches the human vessel and lights a new lamp. There is verily "a consanguinity of earth and heaven", for ever since the earth-plasm... without intermission and heaven drives the earth to new attempts at reaching infinitude. At the culmination of many such adventures in transcendence there is this new descent invoked by the pressure of Aswapati's Yoga—Savitri is conceived, Savitri is born. An immaculate event in this symbol spring of humanity's reviving year, the child is "as yet a prophecy only and a hint"; but she is more, much more, when ...
... Page 330 In Savitri we have a double demonstration of the dynamics of spiritual awakening: Aswapati's odyssey of the occult worlds and Savitri's exploration of the countries of the soul, and the latter is as important as the former. Aswapati's occult and spiritual itinerary is at least remotely paralleled by Dante s, but Savitri's voyage of self discovery is almost... 'unitive' stages...the carefully labelled stages of the 'mystic way' only loosely sum up and recapitulate the unfolding processes of the soul on its way to God. 112 In visualising Aswapati as the traveller of the worlds, Sri Aurobindo had not only such mystic or occult stairs or ladders or slopes in view, but he had also examples such as Dante's progress through Hell, Purgatory and... and Godheads of the Little Life and of the Greater Life, the Paradise of the Life-Gods, the Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Mind, of the Greater Mind and of the Greater Knowledge that cross Aswapati's path are no verbal abstractions but occult realities, and Sri Aurobindo has but tried to describe what he has himself seen or experienced. As Sir John Woodroffe writes, In the sensible ...
... heavenlier home. 104 Aswapati is determined to revisit his native place, and so he makes the supreme effort: On meditation's mounting edge of trance Great stairs of thought climbed up to unborn heights Where Time's last ridges touch eternity's skies And Nature speaks to the spirit's absolute. 105 Fust to meet Aswapati is "a triple realm of ordered thought"... Savitri XI 'THE KINGDOMS AND GODHEADS OF THE GREATER MIND' Racing beyond the "circles of mortal mind" Aswapati heads towards "the far spiritual light". It is actually a glorious escape into freedom, for mortal mind, albeit it lords over its petty realms, is after all a prison. It may be that man's book of origins... constructions—and nobly articulate philosophical prose becomes the sovereign poetry of the Spirit. It is not the translation of one mode into another, but a veritable transmutation. Aswapati starts the immense ascent. The first of the triple realms of ordered thought is "close and kin" to the world of man. The deities of this realm are not indifferent to human aspirations and actually ...
... expressing his wish and the purpose of approaching him, about Satyavan, he described the several details that had to be attended to in the matter. Page 23 Aswapati said: O King-sage. a beautiful and virtuous daughter I have, named Savitri; I am approaching you with a request, O established in dharma, to accept her in the just and proper way as... daughter to adopt this hermitage-life, and bear sufferings and hardships associated with it? Page 24 Aswapati said: Happiness and sorrow are born and then die both my daughter and I know of it; please speak not therefore in that way and to a person like me. I have come here with the due resolve... inviting all the learned Brahmins and the dwellers of the ashram of that forest the two Kings, in their assembly, and following the prescribed rites and ceremonies, performed the marriage. Aswapati, after giving his daughter, and having extended several presents, and extremely pleased as he was, returned to the Palace. Satyavan was happy to have such a beautiful wife, endowed with noble ...
... as a being verily divine; and so men are content to worship, and are afraid to ask her hand in marriage. Such is the simple statement in the old legendary narrative. Vyasa adds further that king Aswapati, finding that there are no suitors for Savitri, becomes sad in consequence. He accordingly asks her to look for herself and choose a husband who may be worthy of her. This essential situation is... bird and flower and tree", 170 a day dawns that is like other dawns, yet burdened with a special destiny; a trembling expectancy fills the air, a lyric coil cries "among the leaves"; and King Aswapati's awakened ear catches the accents of earth's "wordless hymn to the Ineffable" and the answering word that leaps from "some far sky of thought". The word of accusation and exhortation, heard so often... illusion has us still in thrall, and we wriggle helplessly, plan purposelessly, and fail. As the stern voice of admonition and compassion is stilled at last, there advances towards Aswapati, "like a shining answer from the gods", his darling daughter, Savitri. It is a preordained concatenation: There came the gift of a revealing hour:... A deathless meaning filled ...
... knowledge can lead to the former. Aswapati turns from the first phase of his spiritual awakening to the Book of the Secret Knowledge; and this in turn equips him for a fresh spiritual quest. Aswapati's consciousness now ranges from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, all planes of life are traversed, all possibilities are assessed. Of course, although Aswapati is the tapasvin of the story, what... SYMBOLIC ACTION IN A COSMIC BACKGROUND A comparison of the extended scheme of Savitri with that of the earlier narrative poem will make clear that the major additions are Aswapati's Yoga, Savitri's Yoga and the new accent or dimension given to the struggle between Savitri and Death in Book IX, X and XI. The intention behind these additions and changes is to impose on the simple... cosmic scale. The opening line in canto three of Book I: "A world's desire compelled her mortal birth," succinctly prepares us for this shift from the individual to the general or universal context. Aswapati sought an heir to his kingdom through tapasya, which extended over a period of eighteen years: thus the old legend. What does tapasya mean? Spiritual knowledge may be acquired from ...
... 'overhead' aesthesis. The role of Beatrice in the Commedia is played as purposefully and more dynamically by Savitri in Sri Aurobindo's poem; Virgil is distantly paralleled by Aswapati, and even as Virgil leads to Beatrice, Aswapati leads to Savitri. And Savitri herself is at once the heroine of the legend and the symbol-force of the Supreme Creatrix assuming or incarnating in a human form—like the avatars... Ramayana and of the Pandavas in the Mahabharata. Aswapati's spiritual peregrination, described at considerable length in Book II (The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds), has a similar scheme, and can almost be detached from the rest of Savitri, though of course it is also integral to the total scheme of the epic. The occult-spiritual odyssey of Aswapati ends in the fourth canto of Book III (The Book ...
... 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... 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 ...
... describes the effect on the yogin of the mantra, in the context of Savitri's response to the word from Aswapati, is a remarkable example of the 'overhead' poetry; the Word is the Spirit, it is Power, it is creative joy, it is the aftermath of calm as well. The following simile compares Aswapati the pioneer and leader of the human race to a solitary star: As shines a solitary witness... the works of Time. 175 Aswapati is the 'witness star', the solitary spark of Light, in the 'mindless Night' of Nescience. Here the symbol (a solitary star) and the thing symbolised (a single thinker, a solitary pioneer of the race) are explicitly related; likewise, in another simile, the effect of a searchlight is compared to the burst of revelation when Aswapati gazes into the misty continent... now with freer pace And feels approach a breath of wider air, So he escaped from that grey anarchy. 177 The tunnel-image is strikingly apt and memorably pictures Aswapati slowly groping his way from the Little Life to the Greater Life. Elsewhere, however, the Aurobindonian simile (or, rather metaphor) luxuriates with many a familiar detail drawn from our 'civilised' ...
... longing struck again new roots". The air seemed to drink deep some desire unfulfilled, the very trees trembled in the winds,—the Coīl struck that age-old "love-note untired". On such a day King Aswapathy listened through the morning ray to other subtle sounds that meet the inner ear. There, in the subtle, Nature's inmost movements could be known. He heard earth's wordless hymn to the Ineffable rising... "Eternity speaks, none understands its word". The screen of the mind is a little lifted but the resistance of the Inconscient blocks the way and "The gods are still too few in mortal forms". As Aswapathy listened to these words, Savitri came to him, a goddess in human form. She was "bright moved torch of incense and of flame". He saw her with the inner vision, through the depths of the being. She... works. "A godhead sculptured on a wall of thought, Mirrored in the flowing hours and dimly shrined In Matter as in a cathedral cave". "Immortal met immortal in their gaze". Aswapathy "...saw through the familiar cherished limbs The great and unknown spirit born his child." Page 276 Then he addressed Savitri as "traveller of eternity", and told her: "A ...
... Savitri XII 'The Heavens of the Ideal' The tireless traveller of the worlds, Aswapati continues the ascent, looking out for new worlds still: At each pace of the journey marvellous A new degree of wonder and of bliss, A new rung formed in Being's mighty stair, A great wide step trembling... coloured and ecstatic world towards "some far unseen epiphany", the Flame likewise guides him through "a pale-sapphire ether of God-mind/ Towards some gold Infinite's apocalypse." 120 Aswapati is rather at home in both the kingdoms of the Ideal— the worlds of the Rose and the Flame. They offered to the Traveller at their gates A quenchless flame or an unfading ...
... On what mission, O King, did your daughter go and wherefrom is she returning? and why, now that she is a good young woman, do you not give her in marriage to a suitable husband? Aswapati said: It was indeed with this intent, O God-sage, that I sent her in quest and it is after that she has just returned; let us hear from her of the one whom she must have chosen for her... and quick and sharp in intelligence like Brihaspati; and, in valiance a hero-warrior like Indra, he is forbearing in the manner of the Earth. Aswapati said: Is prince Satyavan also a giver of gifts? and is he a respecter of the Brahmins? Of excellent features, noble and generous, is he good-looking and handsome too? Page 16... say briefly about him that, he is Page 17 always straightforward, and is steadfast, and is well established in those qualities. Aswapati said: O venerable Sir, you have been proclaiming all that is noble and beautiful in him, but pray tell also if there are any blemishes too. ...
... Infinite" - is creatively bestirred into no more than forms ignorantly obscuring the soul which is born within them. Aswapati escapes from this world of living Death - "Death and his brother Sleep", as Shelley's phrase sums up. The terms in which Sri Aurobindo expresses Aswapati's breakthrough interest me very much because of the line - A ray returning to its parent sun - 1. I am using in... physical conceiving consciousness. A sort of reverse movement, not anything arising from our life but visiting it from the Higher, the Illumined, the Intuitive Mind occurs when Savitri's future father Aswapati has returned from his supra-mundane travels: Once more he moved among material scenes, Lifted by intimations from the heights And in the pauses of the building brain Touched by the... 'Amal Kiran (The Clear Ray)" - commands me to do. My destiny is to Climb through white rays to meet an unseen sun. But, to fulfil it, there must come the omnipotent Grace from beyond, such as Aswapati meets in those lines about "a strong Descent" which you feel to be from the Overmind plane: As thus it rose, to meet him bare and pure A strong Descent leaped down. A Might, A Flame, A ...
... mariner's compasses have their uses for traveller and voyager. The 'Secret Doctrine' is the spiritual adventurer's map and compass combined. Aswapati therefore turns to the mastery of the 'Secret Doctrine'. On a height Aswapati stands, and looks "towards greater heights". The dialectic of advance is a singular meeting of opposing movements: there is the climb of consciousness, from the... Savitri II 'The Secret Knowledge' But before he can dare new spiritual adventures, Aswapati should get to know the bases of the 'Secret Knowledge' that his hoary ancestors— the seers of the Veda, the rishis of the Upanishads—have bequeathed to him. The sacred books point the way. One is encouraged, one is warned. Maps and mariner's ...
... Savitri V 'The Godheads of the Little Life' Aswapati has seen clearly enough that all the Kingdoms in the Empire of the Little Life—even the most advanced in appearance —are encased in a giant ignorance. But as he peers closer into this empire, he is able to glimpse the godheads behind it: As when a search-light stabs... same, the same as ever. Only religion is a sort of cure, though it is really a self-deception rather than a cure; what use religion's "unprovisioned cheques on the Beyond?" However, Aswapati can also see that this spectacle of Mind-moulded, mind-directed life is no more than "a provisional scheme". There is a "deeper seeing from within", and the promise of a rich response from above.... possibility is awaiting to be enacted, and "our hearts must inform with heavenly strength...and cleave the darkness with the mystic fire". 71 Cheered by the promise of this possibility, Aswapati races yet further, from the Kingdoms of the Little Life to the Kingdoms of the Greater Life; the passage is through seas of darkness, and only his own spirit's inextinguishable flame guides him through ...
... II 'The Kingdom of Subtle Matter' From the kingdom of gross matter or the material cosmos of order and harmony, though lacking "the sole timeless word", Aswapati crosses to the world of subtle material existence where "dwell earth-nature's shining origins". This is the world of physical mind, or, in other words, the world of matter shot through by the mind:... all is order and completeness and contentment: In their narrow and exclusive absolutes The finite's ranked supremacies throned abide;... 50 This is a stage on Aswapati's journey, not the final destination; and so he looks "beyond for greater light" and resolutely leaves behind "that fine material paradise". Page 85 ...
... And so we are winged back to the days of Aswapati's first awakening — his perception of the heavy and weary weight of this unintelligible world, his soul's breakthrough to freedom, his crystal-gazing into the "Secret Knowledge", his exploration of the occult stairway of the worlds. The main bulk of Savitri is made up of three hard blocks: Aswapati's Yoga (I: 3-5, II and III), Savitri's Yoga... describes Savitri's return to earth with Satyavan. Aswapati's Yoga is the Yoga of self-knowledge and world- 24 Ibid., pp. 14-15. 25 Ibid.,p.22. Page 289 knowledge, the Yoga of Aspiration, the Yoga of the Forerunner who makes Savitri's advent possible. Starting with unease and uncertainty, Aswapati achieves his soul's release through a psychic opening and... of her promised incarnation in a human form. According to the Mahabharata story, the childless king, Aswapati, did tapsaya for eighteen years till the Goddess Savitri appeared and promised a daughter to him. It is on this that Sri Aurobindo has built the whole many-chambered edifice of Aswapati's Yoga, very largely drawing upon his own experiences and realisations at Baroda, Alipur, Chandemagore ...
... sequentially it should come third or fourth. The very first prophetic description is given on the occasion of the boon to Aswapathy by the Divine Mother. It is her description before the birth. The appendix begins with that description. Then in order of time comes the vision which Aswapathy sees when Savitri approaches him in the palace. It is one which shows how the subtle sight can work independently... herself to meet Death—on the last day. It is the one with which the book opens. .The last occasion is when Savitri actually faces Death and unveils her Divinity. The reader will see that Aswapathy sees her as some unknown divine soul full of immense spiritual possibilities. He awakens in her the sense of those vast possibilities. She goes in search of her partner. When Narad sees her on her... branch of heaven transplant to human soil; Nature shall over leap her mortal step; Fate shall be changed by an unchanging will!" (P. 314 Vol. I) Page 373 II ASWAPATHY SEES SAVITRI "Approached through sun-bright spaces Savitri. Advancing amid tall heaven-pillaring trees, Apparelled in her flickering-coloured robe, She seemed burning towards ...
... cadence or dance of joy or haunting moan on account of the emotional nuances involved. When an Aswapati addresses the Divine Mother, how does he talk? How does the Divine Mother respond? Sri Aurobindo doesn't avoid the situation; he is willing to dare the impossible and find words to fit the situation. Thus Aswapati says: O radiant fountain of the world's delight... Let thy infinity... it 'incomplete'. Not only is the poem unconscionably long, it has also a lop-sided structure. Retrospective narration takes up about three-fourths of the entire bulk of the poem; and even there, Aswapati's Yoga is given a disproportionate importance, and extends over nearly 400 (out of the total of 814) pages. For so voluminous an epic poem, there is insufficient matter, the fable is too thin, the... theme of the poem, and life, while it is forward-looking has to take frequent backward-glances as well. The past determines the present, and together they will determine the shape of things to come. Aswapati reviews the aeons of human endeavour in the past, the zig-zag course of human history, the many failures and the few significant advances; and he penetrates the mystery of the cosmos to seek the clue ...
... his barge. 19 April 2002 Nest of Pain: Keats Page 6 Canto Five In the murky cave awoke the god of sleep Who builds in trance the starry worlds of dream, And Aswapati understood their meaning And the spiritual sense in material things, Grasped the will that works behind halting fate. A Ganges of knowledge poured down from above Flooding his mortality... dancer. Angels, demons, gods of the great spirit Took their stations up the viewless ladder And poured their bounties on this little soul. But haunted was she by a grisly shade And Aswapati to redeem her woe Sought a power beyond the afflicter's reach. The seer within set him on the upward route. 23 April 2002 Page 8 Canto Seven First he entered the... Pacific's floor, Is her spirit hazardously valiant. No wonder, in her amaranthine craze She hailed death and took him for her husband. Out of that wedlock were born grim children, But Aswapati discerned there another will. 28 April 2002 Page 10 Canto Nine Earth's thick shadow swallowed the bold angel And in that occult mystery began The quizzical march; ...
... harmonies of consciousness to which Savitri's father Aswapathy climbed: There was no gulf between the thought and fact; Ever they replied like bird to calling bird... [p. 327] The felicity and the novelty that are prominent features of Sri Aurobindo's style in Savitri come at times in weirdly surprising figurations, as when Aswapathy passes through an occult infernal region: ... judgment ceases and the word is mute And the Unconceived lies pathless and alone [pp. 33-34] or the mid-worlds, obscure or luminous, fearsome or marvellous, of which Savitri's father, King Aswapathy, carries out a long exploration which is one of the finest and most fascinating parts of the poem. They extend to the earth-drama too and set living amongst us the mysteries Page 64 ... Transcendent's sunlike hands". Man's earth-born heart is never forsaken by it. And perhaps the intensest throb of that heart is heard in those four long colloquies - first, the dialogue between King Aswapathy and the Divine Mother who grants him the boon he so passionately craves: O radiant fountain of the world's delight World-free and unattainable above, O Bliss who ever dwellst deep ...
... and "of the glory and marvel still to be born". Narad, who had conquered the immortal's seat "came down to men on earth, the Man divine". He came down like lightning "where arose King Aswapathy's palace to the winds." He was welcomed by the King and Queen. For one hour they talked while Narad spoke of "the toils of men and what the gods strive for", "the marvel and mystery of pain". "He... asleep" and thou couldst have a very happy earthly life "if for all time doom could be left to sleep". Narad "spoke but held his knowledge back from words". But in the non-committal words of Narad Aswapathy had "marked the dubious close" and "an ominous shadow felt behind his words". So he answered him with guarded speech: from what you say I am led to believe that Savitri would have a god-like life... let unwounded pass a mortal life." "But Narad answered not; silent he sat". He evaded answering and diverted the topic by asking: On what high mission did Savitri Page 292 go? Aswapathy replied: She had gone to "find her lord". Then he turned to Savitri and asked: "Virgin who comes and perfected by joy "Whom hast thou chosen kingliest among men?" Savitri calmly replied: ...
... river of brightness leaping from a vast and eternal Knowledge; it exceeds reason more perfectly than reason exceeds the knowledge of the senses. I did one of the paintings of Book Four, showing Aswapathy in his garden one morning, contemplating. He saw a strange Light. It reminded him of Savitri's great mission upon earth. It was obvious that he had forgotten all about it. When the Mother read the ...
... named Aswapati; he had no issue to inherit his throne and kingdom. With the purpose of getting sons bom to him, he propitiated goddess Savitri — the wedded partner of Brahma — and performed tapasya observing brahmacharya, regulated his dietary and took the curtailed food at regular intervals — once in the sixth period of Sometime after, a daughter was indeed born to Aswapati's Malavya... after the name of the Goddess. The daughter Savitri grew in age — her attainments and prowess were so extraordinary that no king or prince dared to accept her as his spouse. The father, King Aswapati, became anxious for the marriage of the daughter, who had already passed marriageable age and, finding no other way, told Savitri to go out herself throughout the length and breadth of the country... matter of her choice, it so happened that Narad, the Sage Page 406 of Paradise, was present there along with the king and queen. Savitri related her choice on being asked. Aswapati then enquired of Narad, who was expected to know everything in heaven and on earth, the antecedents and particulars about the chosen groom. Narad described the virtues and qualities of Satyavan ...
... The main additions, then, relate to Aswapati's Yoga in Part I (Books I-III) and Savitri's Yoga (Book VII). The piece d'resistance in the whole poem is Book II, with its fifteen cantos, in which Aswapati's 'odyssey' through the 'worlds' is described. In 1938 Sri Aurobindo took up the 'Worlds' seriously, and by 1946 "the small passage about Aswapati and the other worlds" became an enormous ...
... development: nothing except a number of relevant details can be brought in within the organic form, giving it its length. Sri Aurobindo's theme is: how, on hearing some words from her father Aswapathy, Savitri wakes up to the sense of her true mission: Page 119 As when the mantra sinks in Yoga's ear, Its message enters stirring the blind brain And keeps in the dim ...
... divine truth of being within itself but descended into the grip of death and ignorance; Savitri is the Divine Word, daughter of the Sun, goddess of the supreme Truth who comes down and is born to save; Aswapati, the Lord of the Horse, her human father, is the Lord of Tapasya, the concentrated energy of spiritual endeavour that helps us to rise from the mortal to the immortal planes; Dyumatsena, Lord of the... human bodies in order to help man and show him the way from his mortal state to a divine consciousness and immortal life." The birth of Savitri is a boon of the Supreme Goddess given to King Aswapati, the yogi who seeks the means to deliver the world out of Ignorance. The poem opens with the Dawn. Savitri, 'that strong silent heart,' awakes on the day of destiny, the day when Satyavan has to die... the Reader's appetite by quoting extensively, but I do hope to whet it! Of outward action there is not much, so to say; it is all inner movement. Through the Page 201 Yoga of King Aswapati, through the inner lands where Savitri adventures, Sri Aurobindo has expressed his own experiences of the uncharted inner worlds; over the years he cast and recast this poetic creation twelve times ...
... harmonies of consciousness to which Savitri's father Aswapathy climbed: There was no gulf between the thought and fact, Ever they replied like bird to calling bird. Page 158 The felicity and the novelty that are prominent features of Sri Aurobindo's style in Savitri come at times in weirdly surprising figurations, as when Aswapathy passes through an occult infernal region: ... Where judgment ceases and the word is mute And the Unconceived lies pathless and alone or the mid-worlds, obscure or luminous, fearsome or marvellous, of which Savitri's father, King Aswapathy, carries out a long exploration which is one of the finest and most fascinating parts of the poem. They extend to the earth-drama too and set living amongst us the mysteries and travails of cosmic... Transcendent's sunlike hands". Man's earth-born heart is never forsaken by it. And perhaps the intensest throb of that heart is heard in those four long colloquies—first, the dialogue between King Aswapathy and the Divine Mother who grants him the boon he so passionately craves: O radiant fountain of the world's delight World-free and unattainable above, O Bliss who ever dwellst deep ...
... The Princess of Madra King Aswapati's daughter, had suffered greatly for her husband's sake and had won noble satisfying boons, including the exceptional boon of Satyavan's life, from Yama the King-Father Lord himself. Occult-symbolically, the God became the sun-bright giver of immortality to the Soul of Man on the Earth. The Rishi begins the narration with Aswapati's worship of Goddess Savitri... marriage. Aswapati suggests to his daughter to go on another quest, but she is firm in her resolve. She asserts that she has chosen him as her husband and that she would not choose again. Narad sees in it a fine luminous understanding and discernment, in conformity with the dharma, and recommends the marriage. In fact, he blesses it and wishes it to pass off without any ill-happening. Then Aswapati, ... front of us. The swiftness of flow is of the nature of a streamline, without whirlpools or turbulent patterns. The story begins by introducing Aswapati just in a couple of shlokas and proceeds rapidly from event to event. The manner of introducing Aswapati makes it subtly clear that there is some issue involved about which we should be deeply concerned. From the very word "go!" the tone is set: ...
... was Aswapati, then he certainly was a very different Aswapati from the character in the Mahabharata story, whoever the latter may have been. ‘His name was Aswapati. Performer of Yajnas [ceremonial offerings], presiding over charities, skilful in work, one who had conquered the senses, he was loved by the people of his kingdom and he himself loved them.’ 6 Thus read the verses about Aswapati in... written from one’s own Yogic consciousness and how that could be made creative.’ 3 Sri Aurobindo called Savitri ‘a legend and a symbol’. The legend goes as follows: Savitri, daughter of King Aswapati, undertakes in her magnificent ‘carved car’ a journey through the neighbouring kingdoms to choose for herself a husband from among the princes, as was the custom of the time. At the edge of a forest... has transposed the popular story from the Mahabharata into a symbol of the Work of the Mother and himself. By which character in the poem is he then represented? The commentators are unanimous: by Aswapati, Savitri’s father and Lord of the Horse Sacrifice. This is only partially true, and it is at this point that their interpretations go off the rails. Like all poetry from Sri Aurobindo’s maturity ...
... Savitri Appendix A KEY TO ASWAPATI'S TRAVELS IN THE WORLD-STAIR GROSS MATTER (Canto II) SUBTLE MATTER (Canto II) Material Paradise LITTLE LIFE (Cantos III, IV, V) Insect, Animal, Early Man GREATER LIFE (Canto VI) Kingdom ...
... promise of a daughter to Aswapati: A music of griefless things shall weave her charm; The harps of the Perfect shall attune her voice, The streams of Heaven shall murmur in her laugh, Her lips shall be the honeycombs of God, Her limbs his golden jars of ecstasy, Her breasts the rapture-flowers of Paradise... 229 There is, then, Aswapati's vision of full-grown ...
... the words addressed by Aswapati to the Divine Mother when she is ready to offer him her boon reveals the link. The expression Wisdom-Splendour brings out the experience of Wisdom as light, as is seen in the Biblical passages referred to by Raymond Brown. More than once Sri Aurobindo brings together the terms Wisdom and the Word with reference to the Mother. When Aswapati, as the Traveller of the... "being with God". In an earlier situation when Aswapati was in the Empire of the Little Life he saw that Unknown, unfelt, the mighty Witness lives And nothing shows the Glory that is here. A Wisdom governing the mystic world, 16 observes the stream of movements. While in the Empire of the Little Life, Aswapati saw (as we are told in the canto preceding the one... " 12 The Mother's words give away part of that secret. As Aswapati climbs the World Stair, he experiences successively all the planes of consciousness that influence or impinge upon our own inner and outer being. These influences, for the most part undetected by our waking mental consciousness, are explored by Aswapati through the power of his Yoga. Their essence or their vibration ...
... Princess of Madra, King Aswapati's daughter, had suffered greatly for her husband's sake and had won noble satisfying boons, including the exceptional boon of Satyavan's life, from Yama the King-Father Lord himself. Occult-symbolically, the God became the sun-bright giver of immortality to the Soul of Man on the Earth. The Rishi begins the narration with Aswapati's worship of Goddess Savitri... flow is of the nature of a streamline, without whirlpools or turbulent patterns. The story Page 563 begins by introducing Aswapati just in a couple of shlokas and proceeds rapidly from event to event. The manner of introducing Aswapati makes it subtly clear that there is some issue involved about which we should be deeply concerned. From the very word "go!" the tone is set in... offers her prayers to the deities in pilgrim-centers and gives away great charities to the learned and worthy ones as she moves in her quest from place to place. In the meanwhile sage Narad visits Aswapati and, as they are engaged in conversation, returns Savitri to the palace. She pays her respects to the elders and, on being asked by her father, discloses that in the forest of the Shalwa country ...
... given rise to very grave doubt. It is in a passage on p. 347 of the Birth Centenary Edition and may be called the biggest puzzle in the text. King Aswapaty (corrected form of the old spelling "Aswapathy") has returned from his exploration of the supra-terrestrial "planes", which had culminated in his vision of the Divine Mother and his securing a boon from her for the world. Though back on earth... round-aboutness a very Page 352 unusual result. Complex in structure but metrically so well-poised, the third line in the above passage depicts exactly the whole process by which Aswapati the Yogi is presently seen engrossed in affairs of public life, a typical Aurobindonian integration of the secular and the esoteric." 1 In view of this emphatic printed pronouncement with ...
... divine truth of being within itself but descended into the grip of death and ignorance; Savitri is the Divine Word, daughter of the Sun, goddess of the supreme Truth who comes down and is born to save; Aswapati, the Lord of the Horse, her human father, is the Lord of Tapasya, the concentrated energy of spiritual endeavour that helps us to rise from the mortal to the immortal planes; Dyumatsena, Lord of the ...
... Death plays a role not very different from that of Mara or Satan, and tries to act the sophist, beguiler, briber and perverter of truth, to make Savitri trip once, but all in vain. Aswapati's Yoga (described in Part I of Savitri) prepares the way for Savitri's advent; Savitri's Yoga (described in Part II), which helps her to rear the impregnable fortress of the inner paradise of her... and her ultimate victory (described in Part III); and the 'Epilogue' describes the return of Savitri and Satyavan to the earth, where they are now to build a new world, and live the Life Divine. Aswapati, on behalf of mankind and the earth, yearns for Light, Truth, Freedom, Immortality; Savitri first prepares and arms herself for the coming struggle with Darkness, Falsehood, Bondage, Death, and ...
... Aurobindo with Aswapati and in places, with Satyavan, is also addressed in several of these essays, but as Srinivasa Iyengar points out, these "parallels should not be taken all the way." Sri Aurobindo takes an ancient story as the motif of a recurrent symbol, its temporal and spatial specificity always present, yet always hazed with echoes from other spaces and times. Aswapati, Savitri, Satyavan... esoteric knowledge for the inner processes in any individual's yogic journey, is seen as metaphysically far more than this, the rare inner record of an avatar's process of self-revelation. Indeed, Aswapati's Yoga can be seen in a similar light, and a specific discussion of this would have been a most valuable addition to Perspectives of Savitri . But perhaps, such a revelation waits in Perspectives ...
... does she ever beg or play the pathetic suppliant. When Narad's terrible warning is uttered and Aswapati asks her to choose again, she doesn't plead with them to be permitted to marry Satyavan; she merely says that once only can her heart be given away. It is Narad who changes his mind and persuades Aswapati to give her in marriage to Satyavan. Neither divine sage nor terrestrial king is able to resist... engaged in the self-absorbed concentration of tapas invoking the blessings of the Goddess Savitri; the poet waves his wand, and the scene where Savitri's resolution gets the better of Narad and Aswapati leaps before our eyes; again the poet waves his wand, and the forest, its groves, its pools, its rivers, the agnihotra sacrifices, the elected silences are upon us, and we are a part of them; or ...
... He comes here as eternal Aswapati, as the king of Madra in the Land of Tapasya. He does intense Yoga-Sadhana in the Earth-consciousness. He discerns the "wide world-failure's cause" and offers his prayer to the supreme Goddess to mission down a living form of hers. It is here that things have to happen and these can happen only through her. The Yoga-Sadhana of Aswapati is therefore to prepare the... herself completely to the Will of the Supreme. Indeed in it she attempted all and achieved all. In it she received the most wondrous boon of divine life on earth. The Divine Savitri had assured Aswapati that she shall take birth as his daughter and accept the burden of the world: She shall bear Wisdom in her voiceless bosom, Strength shall be with her like a conqueror's sword And from her ...
... On Savitri Notes on "Savitri" Narad's Visit to King Aswapathy 1 Devarshi Narad, as usual, was sailing through the spaces, with his Vina, singing songs of innocence and joy. He was in the higher luminous heavens, the world of happiness, of light and delight, his heart full of divine felicity and his music echoing the music of his heart. Now he ...
... The seer tells us that it is Life that "has lured the Eternal into the arms of Time." (p. 178) The symbol of Dawn gives us "spiritual beauty" which "squanders eternity on a beat of Time." Aswapati, the human king, was conscious, in his inner being, of his origin in 2 Savitri, p. 72. Page 487 the Eternal. He could see the relation between Eternity and Time... cosmic vision contained in Savitri . One may mark in this respect the utterance of Arjuna in his exultation of the vision, and of Vishwarupa as the Destroyer of the world, with the colloquy of Aswapati and the Divine Mother in the third Book of Savitri . Savitri is a big work containing the intense directness, vastness and comprehensiveness of the Vedas and the Upanishads. The... to know how she is going to meet Yama, the God of Death. Speaking of Savitri's birth, the seer tells us that "a world's desire compelled her mortal birth." 7 This brings us to the character of Aswapati, her father, who is no ordinary king but a "colonist from immortality." His attempt of self-perfection and his grand spiritual attainments form a very natural background for the birth of so noble ...
... truth of being within itself but descended into the grip of death and ignorance; Savitri is the Divine Word, daughter of the Sun, goddess of the supreme Truth who comes down and is born to save; Aswapati, the Lord of the Horse, her human father, is the Lord of Tapasya, the concentrated energy of spiritual endeavour that helps us to rise from the mortal to the immortal planes; Dyumatsena, Lord of ...
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