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English >> Works of Other Authors >> On Savitri |
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The English of Savitri: Volume 08 (Book Two - The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds - Cantos Seven, Eight and Nine)Comments on the language of Sri Aurobindo's epic Savitri— Shraddhavan
About The English of Savitri: Volume 08 (Book Two - The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds - Cantos Seven, Eight and Nine)Volume Eight in this series on The English of Savitri explores Cantos Seven, Eight and Nine of Book Two. Aswapati continues his search for the underlying cause and the final cure of the imperfection of our earthly life. He now enters the last three of the Life realms. In Canto Seven “The Descent into Night” and Eight “The World of Falsehood, the Mother of Evil, and the Sons of Darkness”, he descends deeper into the Night of Falsehood and Evil until he finds “the secret key of Nature’s change”. This discovery at once casts him up into “The Paradise of the Life-Gods” (Canto Nine), a world of unfettered delight where the anguish of his long journey through the realms of Life is healed and he is prepared to enter the worlds of the Mind. REVIEWThere are various ways in which we can enjoy Savitri, Sri Aurobindo’s epic poem that the Mother called “a Mantra for the transformation of the world”. We can read it silently, or aloud, to ourselves. We can read it in a group, taking turns. We can read it in short segments or we can have an extended reading of the entire poem together with others. We can read the book from cover to cover or we can open it at random and read a few lines to meditate on. In Shraddhavan’s series of books called The English of Savitri we are offered another way: to read each passage in succession along with a commentary and analysis that focuses on the meaning of the words and lines, the images and allusions, thereby illuminating the underlying depths of the text. Each method has its advantages and disadvantages. In reading The English of Savitri, we miss something of the music of Savitri, for the continuous flow of passages is broken by the commentary, but those breaks allow us to pause and dive below the surface rather than skim or bob along the top, to consider deeper or hidden meanings, and to bask in the light of a greater understanding. Fortunately, we do not have to choose among these methods; we can employ them all and each will complement and enrich the others. Volume Seven and Eight of The English of Savitri concern Book Two of Savitri, “The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds”. Volume Seven covers Cantos Five and Six, which are respectively titled “The Godheads of the Little Life” and “The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Life”. Volume Eight covers Cantos Seven, Eight and Nine, respectively titled “The Descent into Night”, “The World of Falsehood, the Mother of Evil and the Sons of Darkness”, and “The Paradise of the Life-Gods”. Together the two volumes take us on a rigorous exploration of the vital levels of existence, both in the occult, supraphysical planes of existence, but also in our world and in our individual lives, as the occult planes powerfully influence and shape our own lives. Volume Seven is concerned with the vital beings and forces that most commonly affect our everyday lives; it sheds a bright light on the instincts, desires, motivations, and higher aspirations that drive our behavior and emotions. Volume Eight, much shorter in length, is concerned with the dark foundations of our being, with its adverse and hostile forces and beings which unfortunately hold us tightly in their grip, and briefly with heavens of the Life-Gods, which shed their divine light and love upon us and subtly call us to rise to the heights of our existence and partake of their delights. As in the earlier volumes of the series, Shraddhavan’s approach, which is also used in her classes at Savitri Bhavan in Auroville on which these books are based, is to focus on elucidating the language of the poem. This is a fundamentally necessary and helpful approach for a number of reasons. One is that Savitri is widely read across the world by people for whom English is a second or tertiary language, together with the fact that the poem employs a vast vocabulary and complex syntax. A related advantage of focusing on the language is that specific words often have several different meanings, or may have subtle secondary suggestive meanings, and clarifying these gives greater accuracy and precision to our understanding. Many such clarifications were stimulated by questions from the class members, which are scattered throughout the commentary. We also find in Savitri numerous allusions to ancient myths and philosophical and spiritual traditions which may be unfamiliar to many readers, and Shraddhavan’s explanations of these enrich our understanding and appreciation of the poem. Another advantage of focusing on the language is that Savitri is the poetic expression of a vast and exceedingly complex view of existence, and each element in the poem – represented by words, phrases, individual lines, sentences, paragraphs, cantos – has a place in that vast philosophical system, so providing context is often necessary to understand the significance of the individual elements. This contextualisation comes in different forms, for example, in the Introductions to the volumes which usually provide a wide perspective on the cantos that are covered, in summaries at the beginnings of new cantos, in brief reviews at the start of some of the sections within cantos, and in specific commentaries on particular passages and words. At the same time, by closely following the text, Shraddhavan avoids going into speculations or digressions that may distract the reader from the direct meaning and story of the poem. Some examples of the author’s approach to explicating the poem will help to illustrate its style and strengths while also showing something of the substance of the cantos that are covered in these two volumes. The following sentence from the Introduction to Volume Eight is an example of the broad context the author provides and serves as a general guide to the content of both volumes: In this volume, covering Cantos Seven, Eight and Nine of Book Two, we continue to follow Sri Aurobindo’s protagonist, the rishi-king Aswapati, in his exploration of the subtle realms and worlds in search of a Power that he has glimpsed in the course of his sadhana which would have the capacity to transform the present state of life on earth from its current subjection to death and ignorance into a Divine Life of spiritual freedom and eventual Immortality. One would be hard-pressed to find a more concise and penetrating summary of Book Two of Savitri. In the first part of Volume Seven there is a short summary of the cantos covered in the previous Volume Six, and then the author begins to analyse Canto Five passage by passage. We get an idea of her approach to the passage-wise commentaries from her analysis of the first passage of Canto Five: A fixed and narrow power with rigid forms, He saw the empire of the little life, An unhappy corner in eternity. It lived upon the margin of the Idea Protected by Ignorance as in a shell. Aswapati sees ‘the empire of the little life’, the realm of lower life-forms and movements, as ‘An unhappy corner in eternity’, far removed from the blissful higher levels of Life which were revealed to him in Canto Three. The ‘little life’ appears to be ‘A fixed and narrow power with rigid forms’, narrow in scope and lacking in flexibility, situated on ‘the margin of the Idea’, as if on the outermost edge of the creative conception which has given rise to the manifestation. That realm exists ‘Protected by Ignorance’, like a soft-bodied creature which needs to hide inside a hard ‘shell’ to feel safe. ‘Ignorance’ is the state into which Life emerges as it begins to escape from the total domination by the inconscience of Matter. That state is limited, restricted, subject to error and falsehood, because it cannot see the whole of which it is a tiny part. ‘Idea’ with a capital ‘I’ refers to the original creative conception which has brought the Universe into existence. Here there are no obscure words to elucidate, but the author expands on the words and phrases to bring out their suggestions and amplify their meaning. We can see how it leads us into a richer, more sumptuous experience of the compact and concise language of the poem. The following passage about the influence that the godheads of the little life have upon us has several unusual words and ideas which the author explains in her commentary: For none can see the masked ironic troupe To whom our figure-selves are marionettes, Our deeds unwitting movements in their grasp, Our passionate strife an entertainment’s scene. The poet refers to the elemental puppeteers who manipulate us on the lower mind levels as a ‘troupe’. This is a word which is used for a group of travelling performers, a circus troupe or a troupe of acrobats. This troupe of puppeteers wear masks so that they cannot be recognised; and they are ‘ironic’: They are making fun of us in a rather unpleasant way. They want to make fools of us and pull our strings to make us dance like marionettes, so that ‘our deeds’, the things that we do, are ‘unwitting movements’ that we do unconsciously, without realising what we are doing or why. Our ‘passionate strife’, the struggles that cost us so much anguish and difficulty, are just ‘an entertainment’s scene’ for them: they laugh at our troubles and enjoy them. Towards the end of a lengthy discussion of another passage, the author relates an ancient tale which the passage very subtly suggests, a suggestion most readers would otherwise overlook. It concerns the way the world sometimes seems to us so strange as to be even unreal: At times all looks unreal and remote: We seem to live in a fiction of our thoughts Pieced from sensation’s fanciful traveller’s tale, Or caught on the film of the recording brain, A figment or circumstance in cosmic sleep. ...The consciousness which is supporting the world is sleeping; it is dreaming us – our thoughts, our dreams, our experiences, our sensations. Some people have experienced things very vividly like this and concluded that this whole universe is just a dream. And who is dreaming it? There is an Indian tale which tells about a rishi who very, very much wanted to experience the true reality. It happened that as Lord Vishnu was sleeping on the infinite serpent Ananta and dreaming the universe into existence, the rishi fell out of his mouth and awoke to find himself in the midst of the cosmic ocean; he sees Vishnu sleeping there, cradled on the coils of Ananta, the snake of infinity. After a while Vishnu woke up a little bit and seeing the rishi floundering in the cosmic waters, picked him up and popped him back into his mouth, so that he finds himself back in his forest abode. Then the rishi did not know which of his experiences was real and which was the dream. Shraddhavan’s discussion of Book Two, Canto Five of Savitri which concerns the “Godheads of the Little Life” hits the reader strongly because it is the realm of life with which we are most familiar and which in some ways we may feel is blocking us from our higher hopes and aspirations most poignantly. Canto Six, “The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Life”, covered in the second half of Volume Seven, concerns the part of our nature that is turning to higher things, that feels their call and strives to seek and to find some true and lasting peace and delight. Aswapati, the rishi-traveller of the inner worlds, successively encounters several dif-ferent regions in this greater life plane, but none give the satisfaction for which he yearns. The following passage and its commentary beautifully describe the character of this realm: A child of heaven who never saw his home, Its impetus meets the eternal at a point: It can only near and touch, it cannot hold; It can only strain towards some brightextreme: Its greatness is to seek and to create. We have to remember that these worlds that King Aswapati is travelling through are typal worlds. They represent planes of manifestation, planes of consciousness. This particular plane, he tells us, is ‘A child of heaven’. There is something heavenly about it, something divine. But it has never seen where it has come from, its origin. So it has this drive, this ‘strange enthusiasm’, this longing, this hunger to meet the eternal, but it can do so only ‘at a point’: a point in time, a point in space, something that is limited. ‘It can only’ draw ‘near and touch’, ‘it cannot’ get ‘hold’ of it, it cannot possess that which it is longing for. ‘It can only strain towards some bright extreme’. There is a constant sense of effort and longing. What is ‘extreme’ is at the far end, the Ultimate. The consciousness of that realm can ‘strain’ or make an effort ‘towards’ such an extreme, but without being able to hold on to it. So the ‘greatness’ of this world ‘is to seek and to create’, in its attempt to realise the impossible. Whereas Canto Six is an exploration of the higher levels of the life plane, Cantos Seven and Eight, covered in Volume Eight of The English of Savitri, are an exploration of the lowest and darkest levels of the life plane. These worlds also have inroads into our world, and they inspire the most horrible scenes, events and atrocities that we witness and suffer here on earth, and which were on full display during the period of the Second World War when Sri Aurobindo wrote this part of the poem. Shraddhavan explains the character of these worlds and their significance in her commentary on the first section of Canto Seven: In order to find out how to bring about the great change he has glimpsed, the possibility of a divine life here in our own world, Aswapati has to go right to the very root of the problem. That is what is described in these two cantos: this and the next, and it is really not a pleasant journey at all. We have to go through this journey, as King Aswapati does, with courage and endurance and the determination to understand what is being shown and said in order that we might have some possibility of contributing to changing it. The recipe for the change is given in the course of these cantos, but as I said earlier, it becomes really terrifying in some places, like a nightmare. But we must remember that Sri Aurobindo has passed through all these dreadful experiences, and that he has his good reasons for choosing to share them with us. The following passage from Canto Seven gives a taste of the terror of these realms: A peril haunted now the common air; The world grew full of menacing Energies, And wherever turned for help or hope his eyes, In field and house, in street and camp and mart He met the prowl and stealthy come and go Of armed disquieting bodied Influences. A march of goddess figures dark and nude Alarmed the air with grandiose unease; Appalling footsteps drew invisibly near, Shapes that were threats invaded the dream-light, And ominous beings passed him on the road Whose very gaze was a calamity: In her commentary on this passage, in which she elaborates on the meanings of the words and images, Shraddhavan notes the following: There have been times and places in human history that were like this. Perhaps in previous lives we have experienced those times and places and so we recognise this description that the poet gives here, of the sense of danger everywhere, all around, wherever you go. The final part of Volume Eight covers the very short Canto Nine, “The Paradise of the Life-Gods”. Shraddhavan explains in her commentary that Aswapati had found in his exploration of the depths of the world of falsehood, ‘the secret key of Nature’s change’, and as a result was projected up from those depths to the paradise of the life-gods. The canto itself is less than three pages, and together with Shraddhavan’s commentary it extends to just eighteen pages. It is a beautiful ending to the volume because it carries us out of the horrors described throughout the earlier part into a world of felicity and delight. The closing lines of the canto, which Shraddhavan unpacks in her commentary, give us a taste of that nectar: A giant drop of the Bliss unknowable Overwhelmed his limbs and round his soul became A fiery ocean of felicity; He foundered drowned in sweet and burning vasts: The dire delight that could shatter mortal flesh, The rapture that the gods sustain he bore. Immortal pleasure cleansed him in its waves And turned his strength into undying power. Immortality captured Time and carried Life. In her final comments, Shraddhavan explains: Aswapati has not yet found what he was looking for when he took up his great quest at the beginning of Book One, Canto Five: the Power which can bring about a transformation of humanity and establish a Divine Life upon Earth. But he has discovered the ‘secret key of Nature’s change’ which was hidden deep in the lowest level of subconscience, and that discovery has brought him to the Paradise of the Life-Gods and this experience of transformative Ananda. In the cantos ahead we shall follow him as he moves on, armed with all this unique knowledge and experience, through a series of lower, higher and greater Mind worlds until at last he reaches the feet of the Supreme Divine Mother and realises that She alone has the Power to fulfil his aspiration. We look forward to the next volumes of The English of Savitri to follow Aswapati’s continuing journey, armed with Shraddhavan’s revealing explanations and insights. —Larry Seidlitz Larry Seidlitz, Ph.D., is a psychologist and scholar focusing on the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. He is presently associated with the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Advanced Research (SACAR) where he is an editor of books and a participant in seminars on Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s spiritual teachings. For many years he edited Collaboration, a USA-based journal on the Integral Yoga, and he has authored the books Transforming Lives, Integral Yoga at Work, and The Spiritual Evolution of the Soul.
Reviewed in August 2021 |
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