The English of Savitri volume 8

Savitri Bhavan has published the eighth volume of The English of Savitri series, transcribed from talks by Shraddhavan, dealing with Cantos Seven, Eight and Nine of Book Two, The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds, of Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri. Cantos One to Six of Book Two were earlier published as volume five and volume seven of the series. 

Book Two of Savitri describes King Aswapati’s spiritual journey through the ‘Worlds’, starting from the most material, and then exploring the many subtle levels of consciousness, the realm of subtle matter, the various Life worlds, the realms of Mind, and, after surrendering to the Supreme Divine Mother, the realm of the World-Soul and the Kingdoms of the Greater Knowledge. 

In Cantos Seven and Eight of the present volume, Sri Aurobindo describes Aswapati’s ever deeper descent into the Night of Falsehood and Evil, hoping to find their source and the possibility of transforming them, and finding ‘on the last locked subconscient’s floor’ ‘the secret key of Nature’s change’. Then, in Canto Nine, he experiences the Paradise of the Life Gods.

“As we read this part of Sri Aurobindo’s epic, it is worth remembering that his close disciple Dr. Nirodbaran, who acted as his scribe in the later stages of the poem’s composition, has told us that it can be regarded and read as Sri Aurobindo’s autobiography,” writes Shraddhavan in the introduction to this volume.

“It seems that the cantos covered in Book Two of the epic were most probably composed in the period between 1937 and 1948, in years where much of the world was threatened by forces hostile to the work of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother and their efforts for the establishment of a better future and a more divine life on earth for the whole of humanity. Those forces were embodied by cruel and brutal dictators and despots, whose activities culminated in the Second World War.” 

Shraddhavan recounts how Sri Aurobindo and The Mother during this time were dedicating their joint spiritual powers to countering these dark forces, as is known from their talks and correspondence and from some of Sri Aurobindo’s poems. Shraddhavan warns that for people who had actually livid in that horrifying period of human history, reading these cantos may be like reliving those terrible and painful memories; while for others these cantos are accounts of the present condition of humanity. Also, she writes, “these cantos bring us face-to-face with the horrifying reality of adverse forces and tendencies lurking in the shadows of our own consciousness, always ready to attack. All this makes us wonder why Sri Aurobindo would take great pains to describe those miserable Life Worlds in such minute detail. And Sri Aurobindo himself gives the answer: ‘None can reach heaven who has not passed through hell’; ‘This too the traveller of the worlds must dare.’ It is an invitation to observe our own chaotic inner life and understand the cause of the darker sides of our Life.”

The English of Savitri volumes are recommended reading for anyone who wishes to understand the poem in a deeper manner, for Shraddhavan’s explanations often shed new light and sometimes an entirely different understanding of a sentence or section. 

The English of Savitri Volume Eight.

Price in India Rs 400.

Available from Savitri Bhavan and SABDA.