SRI AUROBINDO'S SAVITRI : A STUDY OF THE EPIC AS A TWENTIETH CENTURY INDIAN SPECIMEN OF APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE A Thesis submitted By MRS. MADHUMATI M. KULKARNI for the award of :Doctor of P1141060134 in ENGLISH Under the guidance of Dr. S. S. KULKARNI M.A.,Ph.D. DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH GOA UNIVERSITY P. 0. BAMBOLIM 403 202. August 1994 Tertificate retpaireb unbar the University Orbinunre, rertify tlfut • 117e tiltsis entilleh J ACCRONIJNEW 101113: A Icqumg off OTRE Ki133(.5 A a ENZ.:41E0N TEM:JUIN 3ND3AN tvifYiECC3SIOVEN AMLAIEDOT3.3 .13TERATUR" subraitteb hg SilabITurnati rikulkarni for the atuarb of Borlor nrf pililrfsoplm in Englislir is n reroril of restarr4 bone by the ranbibate baring - the p-eriob of stutly antler mu gnitinnre nni) it It not rirettionsty fortneh tole hnsis far 117e attinrti tax the ranbitInte of nun Degree, Elip -torrna, Assorinfinnstlift, ifellowslyip or ether s1niikr titles. Dr. A. K. Joshi Dr. S. S. Kulkarni. Professor and Head of (Research Guide) the Department of English Department of English GOA UNIVERSITY. GOA UNIVERSITY. CONTENTS PREFACE iii CHAPTER 1. ' SRI AUROBINDO AND HIS SAVITRI: 1 A LEGEND AND A SYMBOL 2. THE CONCEPT OF APOCALYPTIC 24 LITERATURE AND ITS APPLICATION , TO SAVITRI 3. THE SPIRITUAL BASIS OF SAVITRI AS 61 AN INDIAN ILLUSTRATION OF APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE 4. THE REVELATORY NATURE OF 106 HUMAN LIFE RECORDED IN SAVITRI 5. THE MYSTERY OF MAN AND THE 170 APOCALYPTIC NATURE OF HIS BEING 6. THE APOCALYPTIC ASPECTS OF 194 CONSCIOUSNESS ON THE PHYSICAL PLANE OF EXISTENCE 7. UNVEILING OF THE MYSTERY OF 218 CONSCIOUSNESS ON THE VITAL PLANE 8. THE MENTAL PLANE OF CONSCIOUSNESS 267 AND ITS APOCALYPTIC QUALITIES 9. THE HIDDEN MEANING OF CONSCIOUSNESS 284 ON LEVELS BEYOND THE SURFACE MENTAL PLANE: THE HIGHER MENTAL PLANE, THE ILLUMINED MENTAL PLANE, THE PLANE OF INTUITION, THE OVERMENTAL PLANE AND THE SUPRAMENTAL PLANE 10. CONCLUSION 341 BIBLIOGRAPHY-I• 349 BIBLIOGRAPHY-II 352 PREFACE This doctoral thesis on Sri Aurobindo's Savitri is an outcome of a long ordeal and striving. I would not have completed it without the help and encouragement of my Guiding Teacher, Dr. S.S.Kulkarni. I received valuable help, guidance, inspiration and encouragement also from the late M.P Pandit, Shri Shivabhai Amin (both from Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry), the late R.H'. Kulkarni (of Dharwad), Major S.S. Galgali (of Gogte Institute of Technology, Belgaum), Dr. M.V. Nadkarni (of Sri. Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry), Dr. B.V. Nemade, former Head of the Department of English, Goa University, Dr. A.K. Joshi, present Head of the Department of English and Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Goa University, Dr. M.K. Nail:, formerly Head of the Department of English, Karnatak University, Dharwad, Dr. G.S. Amur, retired Head of the Department of English, Marathwada University (now named Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University), Aurangabad , Dr. C.V. Venugopal, Head of the Department of English, Karnatak University, Dharwad, Principal G.B. Sajjan of Arts and Commerce ,College Babaleshwar, Professor S.C. Bagi, Lingaraj College, Belgaum, Dr. A.B. Kalkundrikar, Prof. Meera N. Kulkarni and Prof.A.K. Naik- Head of the Department of English - of Gogte College of Commerce, Belgaum. During the final stage of my research project, the University Grants Commission was kind enough to grant me one year's study leave from 15-6-1993 to 14-6-1994, under the Faculty Improvement Programme. I am extremely thankful to the U.G.C. authorities for this. Likewise, I am deeply indebted to the Deputy Director of Collegiate Education, Dharwad, the authorities of •KArnatak University, Dharwad, the members of Karnatak Law Society, Belgaum, to my Principal, Dr. G.B. Naik for relieving me in time to finalise my thesis and to the authorities of Sri Aurobindo Society, Panaji Branch, Goa for permitting me to make use of books from their library all through my stay at Panaji. Goa University, 15th August, 1994. MADHUMATI.M.KULKARNI 1. ;if El ii FIJI§ iffit iT,R:i71 : A :ir :IF E B A IS CHAPTER SRI AURO!INDO AND HIS SAVITRI: A LEGEND AND A SYMBOL (1) Life of Sri Aurobindo Sri Aurobindo is so very well-known today that no detailed account of his biography need be furnished for an understanding of the signifioanoe of his life. As stated 'in an Ashram Publication commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of Sri Aurobindo's arrival in Pondicherryl: Sri Aurobindo was born in Calcutta on 15th August 1872. In 1879, at the age of seven, he was taken with his two elder brothers to England for education and lived there for fourteen years. Brought up at first in an English family at Manchester, he joined St. Paul's School in London in 1884 and in 1890 went from it with a senior classical scholarship to King's College, Cambridge, where he studied for two years. In 1890 he passed also the open competition for the Indian Civil Service, but at the end of two years of probation failed to present himself at the riding examination and was disqualified for the Service. At this time the Gaekwar of Baroda was in London. Sri Aurobindo saw him, obtained an appointment in the Baroda Service and left England for India in January 1893. Sri Aurobindo passed thirteen years, from 1893 to 1906 in the Baroda Service, first in the Revenue Department and in secretariate work for the Maharaja, afterwards as Professor of English and, finally, Vice-Principal in the Baroda College. These were years of self-culture, of literary activity -- for much of the poetry afterwards published from Pondicherry was written at this time - and of preparation for his future work. In England he had received, according to his father's express instructions, an entirely occidental education without any contact with the culture of India and the East. At Baroda he made up the 2 deficiency, learned Sanskrit and several modern Indian languages, assimilated the spirit of Indian civilisation and its forms past and present. A great part of the last years of this period was spent on leave in silent political activity, ... The outbreak of the agitation against the partition of Bengal in 1905 gave him the opportunity to give up the Baroda Service and join openly in the political movement. He left Baroda in 1906 and went to Calcutta as Principal of the newly-founded Bengal National College. The political action of Sri Aurobindo covered eight years, from 1902 to 1910... Sri Aurobindo was prosecuted for sedition in 1907 and acquitted... In may, 1908 he was arrested in the Alipur Conspiracy Case as implicated in the doings of the revolutionary group led by his brother Barindra, but no evidence of any value could be established against him and in this case too he was acquitted. After a detention of one year as undertrial prisoner in the Alipur Jail, he came out in May 1909,... For almost a year he strove single-handed as the sole remaining leader of the Nationalists in India to revive the movement... But at last he was compelled to recognise that the nation was not yet sufficiently trained to carry out his policy and programme.... .Moreover, since his twelve months' detention in the Alipur Jail, which had been spent entirely in practice of Yoga, his inner spiritual life was pressing upon him for an exclusive concentration. He resolved therefore to withdraw from the political field, at least for a time. In February 1910, he withdrew to a secret retirement at Chandernagore and in the beginning of April sailed for Pondicherry in French India... Sri Aurobindo had left Bengal with some intention of returning to the political field under more favourable circumstances; but very soon the magnitude of the spiritual work he had taken up appeared to him and he saw that it would need the exclusive concentration of all his energies. Eventually he cut off connection with politics, refused repeatedly to accept the Presidentship of the National Congress and went into a complete retirement. During all his stay at Pondicherry from 1910 onward he remained more and more exclusively devoted to his spiritual work and his Sadhana. In 1914 after four years of silent Yoga he began the publication of a philosophical monthly, 3 the Arya. Most of his more important works, The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita,The Isha Upanishad, appeared serially in the Arya. These works embodied much of the inner knowledge that had come to him in his practice of Yoga. Others were concerned with the spirit and significance of Indian civilisation and culture (The Foundations of Indian Culture), the true meaning of the Vedas (The Secret of the Veda), the progress of human society (The Human Cycle), the nature and evolution of poetry (The Future Poetry), the possibility of the unificationof the human race (The Ideal of Human Unity). At this time also he began to publish his poems, both those written in England and at Baroda and those, fewer in number, added during his period of political activity and in the first years of his residence at Pondicherry. The Arya ceased publication in 1921 after six years and- a half of uninterrupted appearance. ... Sri Aurobindo began his practice of Yoga in 1904. At first gathering into it the essential elements of spiritual experience that are gained by the paths of divine communion and spiritual realisation followed till now in India, he passed on in search of a more complete experience uniting and harmonising the two ends of existence, Spirit and Matter. Most ways of Yoga are paths to the Beyond leading to the Spirit and, in the end, away from life; Sri Aurobindo rises to the Spirit to redesoend with its gains bringing the light and power and bliss of the Spirit into life to transform it.