How did Auroville’s communities get their names?

Sharanga

Sharanga is the bow of the Hindu god ‘Vishnu’. It is said that Bernard Borg founded the community and gave it its name in the 80s. It was then a horse farm. 

– Cecilia

Fertile Windmill/Baraka

In 1971, I was living in Fertile community and decided to develop some nearby barren land, had a windmill put up for water and began reforesting a whole area which gradually extended to what is now part of Dana, Bliss, Revelation and Darkali, up to close to Kottakarai and the Matrimandir.  When I asked Mother to give a name to it, she named it Fertile Windmill. About ten years ago I could no longer manage it for health and financial reasons, so I gave Fertile Windmill stewardship to Achilles, who eventually changed its name to Baraka.

– Truth, Vijay

I renamed the [Fertile Windmill] place because there were too many ‘Fertiles’ around (Fertile, Fertile Windmill, Fertile Field, Fertile East etc.) which created some confusion and people kept entering the place looking for all kinds of Fertiles. The windmill didn’t work anymore, as the wheel got blown off by the cyclone some ten years ago, and we now use a solar pump. I liked the name and idea of ‘Baraka’, which is an Arab word 

originally and means something like 

‘blessing’ – if something has ‘baraka’, it has some special power or force. I derived the term from the way it is used by the Sufis. There is more to the term, so people can look it up...

– Achilles

Isai Ambalam

Isai Ambalam was given its name by Ivar, an early Dutch settler in the Kottakarai area. It means ‘school of music’. Ivar was and is an avid musician and in the early eighties wanted to create a school of music at Isai Ambalam. Things changed, but we have kept the name. 

– Bobby

Kalabhumi

It was in 1993 that I was looking for a place to build my house. Being a well-known artist (painting, sculpture, music and architecture) in Auroville at that time, I requested a place in the Cultural Zone to start the development of art studios etc. Even though the Cultural Zone is not meant for residences, I proposed to build my house as a “caretaker” house for the practical purpose to be on site for the beginning of this development of, first,  establishing the beginnings of an infrastructure, and, secondly, ateliers and studios for art education and practice.

At first my application was rejected, but finally, the Auroville Chief Architect Roger Anger found my request a good idea and the obvious way to go about developing empty land, devoid of any infrastructure. So I found myself on an empty field, freshly ploughed for the next peanut-planting season, surrounded by cashew trees... but situated right in the Centre of the Cultural Zone, next to the future Crown Road, the future hub of the Auroville Arts and Culture.

Because of this situation of the empty field in front of me and what was going to be the future of this land, I christened this place “The Land of Arts” – “Kalabhumi” – in Sanskrit but also in Tamil!! Actually, the correct way to write it should be ‘bhoomi’, but the pronunciation is ok and it will be understood also as ‘bhumi’. 

Many of the other community names were inspired by the high ideals and hopes for a luminous future by the pioneers, or even given directly by The Mother.

– Rolf

Fraternity

I remember that Bryan Walton went to Mother in 1972 to get a name for the community and weaving workshops in Kuilapalayam. Mother wrote the name  “Fraternity” on two sign boards. One frame was displayed for a long time in the Fraternity Community Kitchen. After the kitchen dissolved, I took the frame to my house, and this nameboard is still with me. I don’t know what happened to the second Fraternity name board. 

– Franz

Anusuya

This community was originally called Anasurya, which could be translated as “the nourishing sun” in Sanskrit (surya = sun, ana = to feed), because the Sri Aurobindo society initially planned to run a farm here. However, when it became clear that the soil on this site was not suitable for farming, it developed into a forest community. Since the name could also be translated to “no sun”, it was changed to Anusuya, which is the name of the wife of the ancient rishi Dattatreya in the Ramayana.

– With inputs from Christoph and Govinda

Sri Ma / Far Beach

This community’s first name was Far Beach when it began in 1968. It was initially a community of artists, and was also the place where Mother wanted to establish the Hotel des Visiteurs. But some people felt that the name Far Beach gave the impression it was not really connected to Auroville, and they also felt that the location was not ‘far’ at all from other communities that comprised Auroville in those days. 

So in the early 80s the name was changed to Sri Ma, in homage to Sri Aurobindo and Mother. The name was also inspired by one of the main houses, which was rebuilt at that time in the design of the Mother’s Symbol. 

There was a recurring idea of selling this land, which is 14 kilometres from the Matrimandir, and the Aurovilians living there thought that it will be more difficult for Auroville to sell lands named Sri Ma than lands named Far Beach.

– Daniel, Judith

Revelation, Horizon, Reve

With the help of Mother, I created three communities in Auroville which bear names that I have given. These communities contain many trees that were planted to give beauty and diversity. Why did I choose these names? Simple: I wanted to move away from the habit of giving ordinary names, and I also wanted names that can be read in French.

Revelation’s name (established in 1976) came to me as a revelation in my attempt to claim back Auroville lands that were used by the SAS. It also came as a complete change from me using dead wood as a carpenter to helping nature reclaim its lost ground.

Horizon’s name (1980) came to me because it reminded me of [the Egyptian pharaoh] Akhenaton’s first attempt to create a city that belongs to no one in particular. Rève (1983) came to me as the fact that Mother gave us the Dream.

I also tried to establish Sharanalayam in 1979, which is now Hermitage.

All these places, I gave them away as an offering to Mother without any claim.

– Paul Vincent

Certitude

In the early days of Auroville, there was just one residence in the area of what is now Certitude, namely Auroson’s Home, and for some years the name was used to identify the place where Frederick and Shyama lived, Auroson being the name of their child. 

As more buildings were constructed in the area and used this name as their address, it became clear, in the 1980s. that the name “Auroson’s” was no longer appropriate – it was specific to one residence only – and a community meeting decided that a more appropriate general name should be found. 

In Auroville at that time the community was virtually the only place where pukka houses were being constructed, as opposed to casuarina and keet constructions, and – inspired by “Seven Banyans”, which was the identifying name for a remote Green Belt area – someone jokingly came up with the name “Seven Fridges”! People laughed, but at the same time it sowed an important seed, because what they were observing was that it was the first community in Auroville where people were constructing permanent residences, as opposed to less durable ones.

Piero, who was the architect for Auroson’s home and other residences which were coming up in the immediate area, began to think of possible names. During a visit to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, he saw an exhibition there with photos of the Mother, among which there were four in which Mother was illustrating, via the expression on her face, various states of being. One was titled “Certitude”. This struck Piero as exactly the right name for the settlement, and he planned to share it with the others living in the area. Before he could do so, in an extraordinary coincidence Frederick had also seen the same photo in the Ashram, and planned to also suggest it. 

The coincidence of two Aurovilians coming up with the same name, and its obvious suitability, led to its universal acceptance and use from that time on. 

– Tim

Samasti

By the end of the 1980s, Ratna and Ajit, Suhasini and Gilles, Ila and Paula and Yoka and I came together to discuss building our houses just outside the city, in a medium density settlement. This would become the beginning of the Residential Zone. It was not the idea to start a community, because we all felt that our true community was Auroville and, unlike other communities at that time, we didn’t intend to work together in one particular field of work, or eat breakfast, lunch and dinner together.

We were aware that the names given by The Mother to communities did not necessarily express the quality they manifested; they could also express what they ought to manifest. To put it differently, it was found that the names of many communities were not (yet) corresponding to what we saw: was there aspiration in Aspiration? Was there discipline in Discipline? We felt that the opposite of the name should be as positive as the meaning of the name itself. Ajit and Ratna went for a visit to Arya, the place of Brigitte and Rolf at that time. They knew that we were looking for a name, and Rolf started flipping through the pages of Sri Aurobindo’s glossary and read out some of the words. Then he came across the word ‘Samasti’ – which is Sanskrit for ‘collectivity’ – and it stuck. Individualism is still very strong in Samasti.