If we wish to see the
autobiographical—rather speaking more appropriately, or hagiographically, the
aurobiographical—account in the ancient tale of Savitri, then there should not
be any difficulty in associating Sri Aurobindo with Aswapati and the Mother
with Savitri herself. This is true not only in the sense of its legendary
bearings but also in terms of its symbolic contents. The one-to-one
correspondence that is likely to come in the first is extended in its spiritual
context by the other aspect. Truly, it is the remarkable visionary power of the
legend itself that luminously supports the revealing possibilities of the
symbol. In a sense they actually enrich each other.
This simply means that Savitri’s is
not a story of something which happened in the deep past. Indeed, we never ask
a question as to who Savitri was; instead we always yearn to know as to who
Savitri is. Vyasa’s kanyā tejasvinī
or Sri Aurobindo’s Sun-Word is “the living goddess, the Word, and the Fire,
that still works in us when we read the Mantra… It is effective word, which
re-enacts her birth and tapasya in the hearer and the reader.” That mantric
force and vigour bring about an on-going rebirth in us. Such is precisely the
purpose for which the goddess takes the “mortal birth”, that thus alone she
might take ever-recurring birth in our consciousness. As is the identity of
Savitri and the Mother, so too is the oneness of Aswapati of the timeless past
and ageless Sri Aurobindo. The two have all along been carrying the same soul
of divinity in them. The external circumstances of life bring in them the least
difference. This is particularly so when we become aware of the fact that legendary
Aswapati that is Sri Aurobindo is not a frozen figure of some past epoch. He is
kālātīta, beyond the circumscribing
boundaries of time, yet growing in time to take time along with him.
The birth of Savitri means the
birth of a new world. This she brings about by meeting the luminous Presence
behind Death and obtaining the boon of a divine life upon earth. She always
works in us towards that change, awaking us to the sense of our true innate
spiritual entitlement. Sometimes it is feared that by laying too exclusive a
stress on the aspect of the legend alone, we might somewhat overshadow this
mantric power of Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri.
This will have the deleterious effect of distancing us away from what was intended
to be. If such is the danger then we should at once disassociate ourselves from
the apprehensive outcome which the notion of a legend may carry in it. Our
conjoining with its trenchant historicity could thus shut us off from the
future it can unfold for us. But we should appreciate the fact that the ancient
tale of Savitri in its charged symbolic contents is assuredly the auroral forehistory
of the new age that is dawning on us. It is timeless in purpose and poignant in
relevance.
The symbolic legend of Savitri
describes a twofold journey. If one is a journey that climbs greater and
greater spiritual heights into the Transcendent, the other journey is a
deepening journey which plunges into the occult depths of this material
existence. One is the Journey of the Lord of Life, and the other the Journey of
the Sun-bright Executrix. They have undertaken the journeys by assuming human
forms in full acceptance of all the thousand limitations of ours, by embracing
all the ordeals of our mortality. The exalted purpose is to open out ways of
infinity for this creation to progress in its unbounded possibilities. Behind
this purpose is of course the blazing happy samkalpa
of the Supreme himself, his Will behind this Creation. But in order to
accomplish it contingencies of the inconscient workings have to be also taken
care of. Across the path of this arduous journey there stands presently an
incorrigible power, the colossal shadow-figure of Death.
The Mother and Sri Aurobindo’s
age-old concern is to decisively deal with this Shadow-Power, Death. Their
incarnation—a double incarnation—is the sine qua non for the success. This
aspect is well focused in the traditional story. To win back the evolving soul
of Satyavan from Yama, the uncompromising Immortal, it is necessary that, from
the fire-altar of Aswapati’s tapasya, emerge Savitri as a radiant daughter. The
Vedic Rishis had this intuition when they presented to us the Myth of Savitri
in the context of the issue involved in this mŗtyuloka. That is the lasting truth behind it.
But the issue gets fully matured up
only in our own time, waiting as it were for the arrival of the twin Avatar; fate
seems to have conspired towards this. Or is it the twin Avatar who has already
prepared in an occult way our own time for the work, they working on the past
to keep the present ready to launch the future? The splendid imperative is now
to resolve it, this issue of fate. Therefore Sri Aurobindo has to step into the
domain of darkness, which is the birthplace of the antagonist Death. Thus we
see the Yogin of Savitri entering the
ashen abysses of creation to discover this wide world-failure’s cause. This
also means that presently his yoga-tapasya in terms of its consequences
approaches certain finality to get things done. In terms of specific
aurobiographical details we may say that this started happening around 1935. If
we have an early suggestive glimpse of it in Sri Aurobindo’s experiential A God’s Labour [1], its fuller account
in the nature of the journey of the Traveller of the Worlds is given in Savitri’s Cantos Seven and Eight of Book
Two.
The poet of Savitri is sufficiently communicative to reveal to us what had
transpired when he entered into this primordial darkness that prevails in the Non-being’s
Void. Much more might have happened than is indicated, but even that little
only what is told goes to show the enormity of the “terrible Inane” denying the
Spirit’s interminable Truth. We have in The Descent into Night a few action
steps as follows:
He turned to find that wide
world-failure’s cause.
He sent his gaze into the
formidable Infinity asleep.
He saw the fount of the world’s
lasting pain.
He saw the body and visage of the
dark Unseen.
He followed the dim steps returning
to the night.
He passed the no-man’s-land without
debate.
He came into an armoured fierce
domain.
He witnessed the shadow depths of
Life.
His vision discovered Hell’s
trade-mark.
He wrestled with powers that
snatched from mind its light.
He entered a gaunt spiritual blank.
He strove to shield his spirit from
despair.
His spirit became an empty
listening gulf.
His being from its own vision
disappeared.
His body was lapped by a tenebrous
tongue.
He must bear all this with hope of
heaven estranged.
He endured all, stilled the vain
terror.
He mastered the tides of Nature
with a look.
He met with his bare spirit naked
Hell. [2]
It will be rewarding to know the
chronology as to how exactly the corresponding passages through the various
drafts of Savitri developed. But as
these are spiritual experiences in the nature of a poetic record, we will have
to observe some caution also; their sequence cannot be taken strictly as that
of an event-by-event account in the historical or chronological sense. Yet an
archival approach in dating these can shed interesting light vis-à-vis the
yogic accomplishments. It seems that the prime seeds of these consequential
developments had just started appearing during the late ’20s and early ’30s. We
may briefly trace these as follows.
The present version of The Descent into Night consisting of 609
lines essentially belongs to the 1942 draft which was revised and enlarged in
the double column copy-text of 1944. But of the total number of lines of Canto
Seven and Canto Eight put together there were hardly 60-70 lines present in the
earlier draft of 1935-36 [3] and of these scarcely a couple of lines existed
prior to this. But then around this time the symbolic as against the legendary
character of the epic had just started emerging more and more prominently. It
became more experiential, and pinpointed towards the transformative objective
during the ’40s. Previous to this ‘first draft’ there was practically nothing
in Savitri to indicate the grimness
of the Night’s sway over the creation. This first draft—and A God’s Labour written in 1935—therefore
form the first recorded statement of the Yogin’s stifling Assignation with the
Night. In 1938 he had a rendezvous with her and, carrying God’s deathless light
in his breast, he had gone there to woo her dark and dangerous heart; but he
had no definite idea of how he would win her over. He, however, had the
conviction that his celestial Friend is there always with him to help him and
that his determined engagement with the Night would pave the path towards Immortality.
[4]
When the Avatar puts his foot on
the soil of the Night, it indeed marks the beginning of the Everlasting Day. In
Sri Aurobindo’s yoga-tapasya it means the first decisive step towards integral
transformation. In its sequel great things happen,—including the upsurge of
terrible forces. That this business with the jeopardous Night should have
coincided with the Second World War when the Regiments of Darkness had heavily
precipitated, therefore does not come as a great surprise. The fate of the evolutionary
creation was hanging in the balance. But the Yogi came out victorious. Savitri informs us about that aspect of
occult history. Here the symbol has certainly gone far ahead of the traditional
legend.
Yet if we perceptively go into the
deep past we have certain clues about the attempts which were made earlier. In
this respect we have a very observant comment from David Frawley alias Vamadeva Shastri: “It seems that
the urge to transform the Earth consciousness was stronger in the earlier ages
of light. It fell away during the worst of Kali Yuga, when it was enough for a
few individuals to gain liberation and the collectivity was too caught in
tamas. As we move back towards the ages of light it is arising again. The Rig
Vedic Rishis were at the dawn of this cycle of civilisation and were mainly
concerned with setting forth the seeds of the upcoming culture, particularly on
a spiritual level, but also as the social order. It is hard to say whether
physical transformation as Sri Aurobindo envisioned it was part of their yoga
but we do have the tradition that many Rishis lived for long periods of time
(which could have been done by various methods occult, tantric, yogic,
ayurvedic). They seem to have included the idea of transforming physical matter
as part of their long-term aspiration for humanity, but they were also aware of
Asuric forces in the material world that are very difficult to overcome.”
Vamadeva further adds: “The Rishis'
pursuit of physical and spiritual rejuvenation is reflected in the Vedic
knowledge of Soma. There were many types of Somas both external (prepared with
herbs) and internal (produced through yogic practices like pranayama) for
rejuvenating body and mind and for gaining immorality on various levels. The
Bhrigus were particularly known for their knowledge of rejuvenation. Even
Brihaspati of the Angirasas sent his son Kacha to gain this knowledge from
Shukra of the Bhrigus. Yet it is hard to tell whether the Rishis ever tried to,
or were in a position to, create a naturally divine body such as Sri Aurobindo
envisioned. This would require the most powerful form of Soma. It would be, as
it were, a body naturally made of pure Soma, matter with the capacity of
perpetually rejuvenating itself. Yet there is no reason to think that they were
not aware of the possibility, given their pursuit of Soma on all levels. We
could also describe this as bringing the Soma of Mahar Loka into the genetic
matrix of physical matter. Of course the Asuras would try to prevent this as
much as possible as this would mean the end of them.” [5] But with the descent
of Mahar itself in the earth-consciousness this cannot happen. Asuras are
helpless against it. That was the truth seen by Sri Aurobindo and he worked
towards it and firmly established it in the earth’s subtle-physical. Things now
will happen in the dynamism of the Truth-consciousness itself.
In one of the Vedic Riks we have the description of Agastya digging into the
darkness of the Night, khanan as it
says. But the Rishi found it difficult to deal with the physical nature. He
could not bring light to it. His body was afflicted with a triple poison and
could not bear the sunlight. It was like an unbaked clay-pot, atapta tanu. Similarly, Vamadeva could
live here in a divine body, divya tanu,
only for sixteen years. [6] These ancient Rishis certainly knew what could
bring about the physical transformation, the Mahar or Supermind, but they did
not know its full modus operandi. The attainment of immortality in the luminous
worlds or divyaloka is one thing and
its knowledge in mŗtyuloka is
another. The aspect of dynamic immortality in the physical is the work of the
executive Force and unless her incarnation takes place it cannot be
accomplished. Though the intuition of her descent to bring about materially the
transformation was there,—and that is what the significant legend of Savitri
narrates,—the field, the necessary resplendent spiritual support, ādhāra, for its universal action was not
yet ready then. The eighteen-year arduous tapasya of Aswapati, that is to say
Sri Aurobindo, was exactly for preparing the ground for her transformative
action. In that respect we see the importance of the radical step that was
taken by him. In fact what he achieved he achieved precisely because Savitri,
that is the Mother in her full energetic splendour, also accompanied him. This
was not so earlier. Cycles of evolution had to be silently worked out to arrive
at this point.
In this context we may also recall
the great Vedic revelation in which we see Yama and our illustrious forefathers
having together an ambrosial drink under Supalash Vriksha. [7] The mention of supalāśa in the Rik is extraordinarily
striking, particularly in association with Yama whom we take as the God of
Death. The reference to a cluster of palāśa
trees by Vyasa in his Savitri-narrative lifts up that narrative itself to
another level of symbolism embodying in its richness a whole world of future
possibilities, the bright future. The botanical name of this tree is Butea
Frondosa, which is popularly known as the Flame of the
That lends another meaning to the
Savitri-legend itself. Savitri’s winning back the soul of Satyavan from Yama
therefore acquires another sense that points towards this marvellous
realisation. But in order that this should happen the dark sombre veil which
has been worn by Yama must be removed. Radiant Savitri, the daughter of the
Sun-God, alone can do that. In fact Yama has put on a double veil, the veil of
the incorrigible Antagonist and the veil of the luminous Inveigler. Behind him
is indeed present the loving Supreme himself. It was the removal of this double
veil, this double transformation which was accomplished by Savitri. Thus behind
the darkness of this creation she meets her bright father to receive authentic
boons of divine life upon earth. The yoga-tapasya of Aswapati has thus borne
the fruits of godly felicity.
References
[1] Collected Poems, SABCL, Vol. 5, pp. 99-102
[2] Savitri, pp. 202-19
[3] This early version has been
published in Mother India, 1983
[4] Collected Poems, SABCL, Vol. 5, p. 132
[5] Private communication.
[6] For a detailed discussion of
some of these aspects, see Sri Aurobindo
and the New Millennium, RY Deshpande, pp. 201-27
[7] Rig Veda, X.135.1
See also Savitri: the Light of the
Supreme