About SAVITRI
Savitri is Sri Aurobindo’s major poetic work, an epic in blank-verse of about 24,000 lines in which a tale from the Mahabharata becomes a symbol of the human soul’s spiritual quest and destiny.
“The tale of Satyavan and Savitri”, Sri Aurobindo noted, “is recited in the Mahabharata as a story of conjugal love conquering death”. Sri Aurobindo has widened the original legend and turned it into a symbol in which the soul of man, represented by Satyavan, is delivered from the grip of death and ignorance through the love and power of the Divine Mother, incarnated upon earth as Savitri.
Sri Aurobindo worked on this poem for more than thirty years. When a disciple asked why he kept rewriting it, he replied: “That is very simple. I used Savitri as a means of ascension. I began it on a certain mental level, each time I could reach a higher level I rewrote it from that level. . . In fact Savitri has not been regarded by me as a poem to be written and finished, but as a field of experimentation to see how far poetry could be written from one’s own yogic consciousnes and how that could be made creative.”
The Mother considered Savitri to be “the supreme revelation of Sri Aurobindo’s vision” and called it “that marvellous prophetic poem which ill be humanity’s guide towards its future realisation.”
003 It was the hour before the Gods awake……………………..And carries our lives in its somnambulist whirl. 1
004 A mute featureless semblance of the Unknown…………….Reviving in another frustrate world. 1-2
005 An unshaped consciousness desired light………………Compelled renewed consent to see and feel. 2-3
006 A thought was sown in the unsounded Void………………….And beauty and wonder disturbed the fields of God. 3
007 A wandering hand of pale enchanted light……………………A brilliant code penned with the sky for page. 3-4
008 Almost that day the epiphany was disclosed………………All grew a consecration and a rite. 4
009 Air was a vibrant link between earth and heaven………………..The prescience of a marvellous birth to come. 4-5
010 Here where our half-lit ignorance skirts the gulfs………………………Man lifted up the burden of his fate. 5-6
011 And Savitri too awoke among these tribes………………….That heaven might native grow on mortal soil. 6-7
012 Hard is it to persuade earth-nature’s change;…………………..It meets the sons of God with death and pain. 7
013 A glory of lightnings traversing the earth-scene,………………Unhelped she must foresee and dread and dare. 7-8
014 As one who watching over men left blind……………………..Her nature felt all Nature as its own. 8
015 Apart, living within, all lives she bore;………………Across the ebbing of the seas of sleep. 8-9
016 At the summons of her body’s voiceless call…………………This was the day when Satyavan must die. 9-10
019. A colloquy of the original Gods…………………….And with her nude spirit measure the Infinite’s night. 12-13
020. The great and dolorous moment now was close…………………Were the spectators of that mighty strife. 13
021. Around her were the austere sky-pointing hills,…………………Love came to her hiding the shadow, Death. 13-14
022. There was her drama’s radiant prologue lived…………………..A lightning from the heights on our abyss. 14
023. All in her pointed to a nobler kind.,……………..Or golden temple-door to things beyond. 14-15
024. As in a mystic and dynamic dance………………..Her high passion a blue heaven’s equipoise. 15
025. A wide self-giving was her native act;…………………Spiritual that can make all things divine. 15-16
026. For even her gulfs were secrecies of light………………..It still reflected heaven’s spiritual joy. 16
027. Earth’s breath had failed to stain that brilliant glass:……………Was her soul’s issue thrown with Destiny’s dice. 16-17
028. An image fluttering on the screen of Fate,……………..Too high the fire spiritual dare not blaze. 17-18
029. In this enigma of the dusk of God,……………………Guard the Wheel’s circling immobility. 18
030. A bond is put on the high-climbing mind,…………….Admitting without appeal the nether gods. 18-19
032. A force in her that toiled since earth was made,…………………..Its stark conventions met the flame of a soul. 19-20
033. A magic leverage suddenly is caught……………….An insentient energy fabricates a soul. 20
034. He too is a machine amid machines;………………..His soul steps back and sees the Light supreme. 20
037. A strength of the original Permanence……………………………Hid deep in man celestial powers can dwell. 22-23
038. His fragile ship conveys through the sea of years……………………..And in the worm foresees the coming god. 23
039. At last the traveller in the paths of Time…………………………His soul and body take that splendid stamp. 23-24
040. Then came the abrupt transcendent miracle:………………Annulled the soul’s treaty with Nature’s nescience. 24-25
041. Overpassed was this world of rigid limiting forms:…………………The finite self mated with infinity. 25
042. His march now soared into an eagle’s flight………………….Mind’s soar, soul’s dive into the Infinite. 25-26
044. He made of miracle a normal act………………Deceived no more by form he saw the soul. 26
045. In beings it knew what lurked to them unknown;……………..The body’s means the spirit’s acolytes. 26-27
047. He lived in the mystic space where thought is born…………..A bed for occult sounds earth cannot hear. 28-29
048. In every hour loosed from the quiver of Time…………………There the eyes gazed no more on beauty’s shape. 30-31
049. In rare and lucent intervals of hush…………………He neared the still consciousness sustaining all. 31-32
051. Thought lay down in a mighty voicelessness;…………………He based his life upon eternity. 33-34
052. He knew the source from which his spirit came:……………To the blind driven inertia of our base. 34
053. This too the supreme Diplomat can use,………………….Till at last the frustrate universe sank undone. 34-35
054. Even his godlike strength to rise must fall:………………..Made whole the fragment-being we are here. 35-36
055. A union of the Real with the unique,………………Made whole the fragment-being we are here. 35-36
056. At last was won a firm spiritual poise,…………………His spirit’s stillness helped the toiling world. 36
057. A dense veil was rent, a mighty whisper heard;………….Or scan the apparent face of thought and life. 37-38
058. Oft inspiration with her lightning feet,…………Revealed by silence to the silent soul. 38
059. The intense creatrix in his stillness wrought;…………………….And buried remnants of forgotten space. 38-39
060. A traveller between summit and abyss,…………………Or limit swam into his spirit’s ken. 39
061. Oceans of being met his voyaging soul………………..A chaos of signs into a universe. 39-40
062. Out of the rich wonders and the intricate whorls………………….And spread its magic arms through a dream of space. 40
063. Immense realities took on a shape:……………………..And the creative eye of Eternity. 40-41
064. The inspiring goddess entered a mortal’s breast,…………………Whose priceless value could have saved the world. 41-42
065. A darkness carrying morning in its breast………………A Presence and a Greatness everywhere. 42
067. A glad communion tinged the passing hours;………………..That she might climb through him to eternal life. 43
068. His being lay down in bright immobile peace……………….His commonest doings welled from an inner Light. 43-44
069. Awakened to the lines that Nature hides,…………..Outlined their excerpts on the etheric page. 44
070. One and harmonious by the Maker’s skill,………………He drew the energies that transmute an age. 44-45
071. Immeasurable by the common look,……………..Lonely his days and splendid like the sun’s. 45
073 This world is a beginning and a base…………….Neighbours of Heaven are Nature’s altitudes. 46
074 To these high-peaked dominions sealed to our search,………………..There is a short miraculous escape. 46-47
076 In moments when the inner lamps are lit…………………..In golden privacies of immortal fire. 47-48
077 The truth mind could not know unveils its face,……………The murmuring tongue of a celestial fire. 48
078 Ourself and a high stranger whom we feel,…………………And the heart of the mystery of the journeying years. 48-49
079 But all is screened, subliminal, mystical;…………….Out of the unknown we move to the unknown. 49-50
080 Ever surround our brief existence here………………….A Fate compels whose form she cannot see. 50
081 In her unconscious orbit through the Void……………….Herself and all of which she is the sign. 50-51
082 An inarticulate whisper drives her steps………………..And stretches arms to what was never hers. 51
083 Outstretching arms to the unconscious Void,………………..The One keeps in his heart and knows alone. 51-52
084 Our outward happenings have their seed within,………………….Digging a tunnel through emergency. 52
085 But who shall pierce into the cryptic gulf……………..If we could hear the muffled daemon voice. 52
086 Too seldom is the shadow of what must come………………….He sees imagined garments, not a face. 53
087. Armed with a limited precarious strength,…………………..And leave their mark on the trampled breast of Life. 53-54
088 Above the world the world-creators stand,…………………And to meet it guide the unheedful moving world. 54-55
090. In Matter shall be lit the spirit’s glow,……………………..Like a thought persisting in a wide emptiness. 55
003 It was the hour before the Gods awake……………………. And carries our lives in its somnambulist whirl.
Class4 Thus has been made this real……………..A parable of Maya and her might. 155-56
Class8 The troglodytes of the subconscious Mind,…………part in the enormous whole. 161-62
Class10 Artists minute of the hues of littleness,……………..Still even in man the plot is mean and poor. 163-64
Class11 A gross content prolongs his fallen state;……………….Nature’s calm mighty hands to heal his life-pain. 164-65
Class12 He is saved by her silence from his rack of self;…………….And wonders what itself and all things are. 165-67
Class13 And yet to some interned subjective sight……………Death’s passport into immortality. 167
class15 All is not here a blinded Nature’s task:………………….Awaits the hour when we shall turn to his call. 168-69
Class16 In this investiture of fleshly life……………………..The makers of the image of deity live. 169-70
class17 Pity is there and fire-winged sacrifice…………………Our will lifts towards it slow and shaping hands. 170
Class18 Each part in us desires its absolute………………….Quiver, awake, and shudder with ecstasy. 170-71
Class19 As if reversing a deformation’s spell,……………..And cleave the darkness with the mystic Fire. 171-72
Class 20. Adventuring once more in the natal mist…………………His only sunlight was his spirit’s flame. 172
Class21 The marvels of a twilight wonderland……………..Half manifested veiled Reality. 174-76
Class22 A soul not wrapped into its cloak of mind………………In the uncertain time-field portioned here. 176-77
Class23 Almost she nears what never can be attained;………………….And thousand fashions of one Reality. 177-78
Class24 A world she made touched by truth’s fleeing hem,……………….In death, her bed, she waits the hour to rise. 178-80
Class25 Even with the Light denied that sent her forth………………That never they may part again in Time. 180-82
Class26 A sumptuous chamber of the spirit’s sleep………………..All is sought out, but missed the Infinite. 182-83
Class27 A consciousness lit by a Truth above………………………….To achieve her power in them her creatures live. 183-84
Class28 Each is a greatness growing towards the heights……………..Wherever Knowledge is Ignorance’s twin. 184-85
Class29 All powers of Life towards their godhead tend…………..On inner values hangs the outer plan. 185-86
Class30 As quivers with the thought the expressive word,………..Looked down on them, origin of all they were. 186-87
Class31 As forms they came of the formless Infinite……………..A dim large trance showed to the night her stars. 187-89
Class32. As if sitting near an open window’s gap,………………The herald blazon of Time’s secret things. 189-90
Class33. In her green wildernesses and lurking depths………. Jingling sweet anklet-bells of fantasy. 189
Class34. Amidst live symbols of her occult power………………A Sphinx whose eyes look up to a hidden Sun. 190-91
Class35. Ever he felt near a spirit in her forms:………………He dreams of the magic of her breasts of bliss. 191-193
Class36. In her illumined script, her fanciful………………….Hunting for pleasure in the heart of pain. 193-94
Class37. A fateful hand has touched the cosmic chords……………….Recalls the strength and sweetness heard no more. 194-95
Class38. Here is the gap, here stops or sinks life’s force;………………..Astray is its significance and lost. 195-96
Class39. Although she carries in her secret breast…………………Each final scheme leads to a sequel plan. 196-98
Class40. Yet every new departure seems the last,…………………That shall appear upon the roads of Time. 198-200
Class41. Yet still to ourselves we say rekindling faith…………………….Or indifferent the Eternal watches Time. 200-201
Class43. A MIND absolved from life, made calm to know…………………….The soul’s native will for truth and joy and light. 202-203
Class44 A deformation coiled that claimed to be……………….Imposed a law of sin and adverse fate. 203-04
Class45. Life looked at him with changed and sombre eyes:…………………….All knowledge was left a questioning Ignorance. 204-05
Class46. As from a womb obscure he saw emerge…………………………..Mocked at the sinister comedy of life. 205-07
Class47. Announcing the advent of a perilous Form……………….And an embrace could be Doom’s iron cage. 207-08
Class48. Agony and danger stalked their trembling prey………………….The settled anarchy of established things. 208
Class49. Then the scene changed, but kept its dreadful core:…………………..Moblike they stoned a neighbour caught in sin. 208-09
Class50 A pragmatist judge within passed false decrees,…………………And founded unity upon fraud and force. 209-10
Class51 Only what seemed was prized as real there:…………..….The pride of its abysmal absolute. 210-216
Class52 A lone discoverer in these menacing realms………………..Embodied the dark Ideas of the Abyss. 216-222
Class53 A shadow substance into emptiness came,…………..Outstretched, she pierced all creatures with one fate. 220-222
Class54 When nothing was save Matter without soul…………………With a grey distorted silhouette in the Night. 222-223
Class55 Arresting the passion of the climbing soul,…………….And only a mind and body live to die. 223-225
Class56 For terrible agencies the Spirit allows…………….Assuming names divine they guide and rule. 225-226
Class57 Opponents of the Highest they have come………………Glad of one’s own and others’ calamity. 226-27
Class58 There thought and life were a long punishment,…………..And bore the fierce inner wounds that are slow to heal. 227-230
Class59 A prisoner of a hooded magic Force,…………………….And hell as a short cut to heaven’s gates. 230-31
Class60 Then in Illusion’s occult factory……………………Matter and spirit mingled and were one. 231-32
Class64 A musing spirit looked out on the worlds……………..Our mortal frailty an immortal force. 239-40
Class65 At the glow-worm top of these pale glimmer-realms………………Its symbol picture of the universe. 240-41
Class 66 Out of its rays our mind’s full orb was born………………….All glorified the flittering substitute. 241-42
Class 67 Then from the secret heights a wave swept down,………………Arousing knowledge from its sleepy lair. 242-44
Class 69 In her own domain a pontiff and a seer…………………It licked at knowledge with a smoky tongue. 244-48
Class 70 A whirlpool sucking in an empty air,…………….Ignorance was its field, the unknown its prize. 248-49
Class 71 Of all these Powers the greatest was the last………Nothing she knew but all things hoped to know. 249-50
Class 72 Nothing she knew but all things hoped to know.,…………….Her sciences precise and absolute. 250-51
Class 73 On the huge bare walls of human nescience…………………Then wonders why all was and whence it came. 251-53
Class 74 Our thoughts are parts of the immense machine,…………Our finite thoughts commune with the Infinite. 253-256
Class 75 In the bright kingdoms of the rising ………………………..Our ignorance is Wisdom’s chrysalis, 256-257
Class 76 Our error weds new knowledge on its way,………………….Its aim to life, to Ignorance its close. 258
Class 77 Above in a high breathless stratosphere,………………..But mind too falls back from a nameless peak. 258-260
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Class 78 His being stretched beyond the sight of Thought……………..Its lights that combat Ignorance and Death. 260-61
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Class 79 In its vast ambit of ideal Space…………………Born of its amour with eternity. 261-262
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Class 80 Our spirits break free from their environment;…………………Hide from our lives their greatness, beauty, power. 262-63
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Class 81 Our present feels sometimes their regal touch,………….But, nearer, Gods and living Presences. 263-65
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Class 82 A march of friezes marked the lowest steps;……………And search for the secret meaning of the whole. 265-66
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Class 83 To all that Spirit conceives they give a mould;……………………The mystery of the Formless cast into form. 266-67
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Class 84 Invincibly their craft devised for use………………..And join the unknown to the apparent worlds. 267-68
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Class 85 Above stood ranked a subtle archangel race,…………….And the Transcendent kept its secrecy. 268-71
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Class 86 In a sublimer and more daring soar……………….Forced to become what in themselves they hide. 271-72
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Class 87-1 For He who Is grows manifest in the years………………………..But she remains herself and infinite. 272-76
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Class 88 A bliss is felt that never can wholly cease,……………………..And bid us rise incessantly above. 278-80
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Class 89 Far from our eager reach those summits live,……………..On the wide spirit height where all are one. 280-82
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Class 90 AT LAST there came a bare indifferent sky……………………And cobweb-wrapped beliefs alive no more. 283-85
Class 91 The magic hut of built-up certitudes…………………………An idol, not the living body of God. 285-86
Class 92 Even the still spirit that looks upon its works…………To be was a prison, extinction the escape.286-88
Class 94-1 All there was soul or made of sheer soul-stuff;………….He fell down at her feet unconscious, prone.291-96
Class95 AFTER a measureless moment of the soul………………Eternal and unique they lived the One.297-298
Class96 There forces are great outbursts of God………s truth……….He served the sessions of the triple Fire.298-99
Class97 On the rim of two continents of slumber and trance………..At will he lived in the unoblivious Ray.299-300
Class98 In that high realm where no untruth can come,………………His will took up the reins of cosmic Force.301-02
Class100 All he had been and all towards which he grew……….Infinite, eternal, unthinkable, alone.307-309
Class102 Incarnating inexpressibly in her limbs……………….His soul was freed and given to her alone.314-16
class104 In this tremendous universality………………..A new and marvellous creation rose.318-323
class105 Incalculable outflowing infinitudes………..A knowledge in the fathomless heart of Time.323-25
class106 All turned to all without reserve………s recoil:………………..Living and real as the truths they house.325-26
class107 The Spirit………s white neutrality became………………The bright adventure of God………s game of chance.326-28
class108 In her ingenious ardour of caprice, ……… That comes through the still self from the Supreme.328-333
class110 His failure is not failure whom God leads;……….And one great act unlock the doors of Fate……….339-345
class111 His prayer sank down in the resisting Night……….In the scant field of the ambiguous globe.345-48
class112 A MAENAD of the cycles of desire………………There Wisdom sits on her eternal throne.349-360
class114 A boundless knowledge greater than man………s thought,…………Apart in herself until her hour of fate.362-68
class116 The Voice withdrew into its hidden skies……………….And showed the work for which her strength was born.372-75
class117 As when the mantra sinks in Yoga………………A way proposed by an unerring Guide.375-78
class119 As floats a sunbeam through a shady place,………..The gold and sapphire of her warmth and blaze.384-90
class120 Magician of her rapt felicities,………..All strives to enforce the unity all is.390-98
class121 Heart feels for heart, limb cries for answering limb;………………I know that thou and only thou art he398-409
class121 Heart feels for heart, limb cries for answering limb;………………I know that thou and only thou art he398-409
class122 Then down she came from her high carven car………..Bringst thou this glory of enchanted eyes?409-418
class123 Earth has gold-hued expanses, shadowy hills………..To know is best, however hard to bear……….418-29
class124 Then cried the sage piercing the mother………s heart,…………………They sat and looked into the eyes of Fate.429-36
class125 A SILENCE sealed the irrevocable decree,…………In ignorance and nescience are our roots.437-40
class126 A growing register of calamities……………..Eternal self a fiction sensed in trance.” 440-42
class127 Then after a silence Narad made reply:……………And shape the life divine in mortal forms. 442-44
class128 His will must be worked out in human breasts…………….And feels a joy in every titan pang. p.444
class 129 He who would save himself lives bare and calm;……………….All agony in all the worlds his own.
class 130 He meets an ancient adversary Force,……………..This is the inner war without escape.
class 131 “Hard is the world-redeemer’s heavy task;……………………..A greater power must come, a larger light.
class 132 Although Light grows on earth and Night recedes,……..And Nature’s ambushes and the world’s attacks.
class 133 His spirit’s stature transcending pain and bliss,……………And all earth look into the eyes of God.
class134 All things obscure his knowledge must relume,……For through small joys and griefs thou mov’st towards God. pages 450-51
class135 Haste not towards Godhead on a dangerous road…………..A vast disguise conceals the Eternal’s bliss.” pages 451-56
class136 Then Aswapati answered to the seer:…………The writing waits illegible and mute. pages 456-458
class137 Fate is Truth working out in Ignorance…………….And made thee one with the indwelling God. pages 458
class138 O soul, intruder in Nature’s ignorance,………………Chanted the anthem of eternal love. pages 458-462
class139 FATE followed her foreseen immutable road…………………..Her human heart spoke to the body’s fate. pages 462-473
class139-2 AS INthe vigilance of the sleepless night…………………She looked into herself and sought for her soul. pages 473-77
class 140 A dream disclosed to her the cosmic past,……………………Aroused from sleep, they can be bound no more. pages 477-81