Chapter – II

Sri Aurobindo: A Poet and a Critic

Section A: Poetic Career of Sri Aurobindo

Section B: Savitri- An Introduction

Section C: Sri Aurobindo- A Critic

Section D: Theory of Overhead Poetry and Savitri

 Section - A

Poetic Career of Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo’s poetry stands apart in Indo-Anglian poetry. and

offers scope for critical assessment. Sri Aurobindo was not merely a

writer who happened to write in English, but really an English writer.

English was close and natural language to him more than his mother-

tongue and his belief that “Many Indians write better English than many

educated Englishmen”1 is proved by his own writings.

Sri Aurobindo himself has once declared that he had been first and

foremost a poet, that the poet was the earliest-side of his personality, the

primal aspect. None of the other aspects of his personality coming later

clouded the poet. “The poet grew along with them (other aspects of his

personality). Possibly they grew out of him and it was the poet who

exceeded himself with their coming. Sri Aurobindo the poet chose to

transcend his art. The wielder of the poetic art was basic to

Sri Aurobindo's grand whole.”2

His poetic career spreads over a period of sixty years from 1890 to

1950 during which he has enriched the poetical literature of English

language. In this long and versatile poetic career, we have on one hand

poetry inspired by the Romantic poets and the Victorians and on the other

hand poetry distinctly futurist in aim and influenced by achievement

flowing spontaneously from his yogic experiences.

Sri Aurobindo's poetic career began in England, developed in

Baroda, Calcutta and reached its height at Pondicherry. Along with his

yogic life, his poetic career also went through a process of gradual

evolution. His poetic development followed the evolution of

consciousness in his life and thus his poetry reveals ‘the Adventure of

consciousness’.

While his earlier poetry is sensuous and romantic, his later poetry

reveals him as a prophet and seer - poet. It is delightful to observe and

analyse the evolution of his poetry from the sensuous poetry to the

inwardly growing prophetic, spiritual and mystic poetry. The poetic

genius began as the spontaneous lyrical impulse, grew and matured in

narrative and dramatic poetry and reached to perfection in epic.

Throughout his long career in different fields like teaching, journalism,

politics, Yoga and philosophy he never abandoned his first love, poetry.

He has written - lyrical, narrative, dramatic, epic, which, in volume and in

variety, in quantity and in quality can be compared with the work of the
greatest poets who have enriched the poetic field of the world. He tried to

use the English tongue for the highest spiritual expression. It was his

confirmed view that English language has flexibility and adaptability, and

thus a greater potentiality of development for the expression of the

spiritual truth of the New Age. In his writing he constantly tried to realize

this potentiality. Undoubtedly, the worth of his poetry, which in its

outbursts of spiritual inspiration and vision achieves the utterance of the

Mantra. The Muse had touched his lips in his teens and drawn from them

some fine lyrics. He was writing poetry since his stay in England but he

could not get due recognition among the critics. He was well known as a

philosopher, Yogi, Prophet of nationalism, journalist but very few knew

him as a poet before his publication of Collected Poems on his 70 th

birthday. It is partly because his aim was not success and personal fame,

but to express spiritual truth and experience of all kinds in poetry. It was

in 1942 that Sri Aurobindo appeared prominently as a poet with the

publication of his ‘Collected poems and plays’. The publisher’s note

states:

The work presented here is only a small portion of what

he has actually written, but bulk of which has not yet seen the
light of day. Yet it is hoped that even this fragment will serve to
give an idea of the poetic genius that seeks expression in it. Sri
Aurobindo, once said that he had been first and foremost a poet
and politician, only later he became a Yogi. We can safely
amend the statement by saying that even before he became a
 politician he had been a poet, indeed he was born as a poet and
3
he is a born poet.

After the Collected Poems and Plays his poems were published in

book form -Poems, Past and Present (1946), Last Poems (1952), More

Poems (1950), Savitri, including the author's letters on the poem, (1954)

and now all his poems, excluding Savitri are published in one volume

Collected Poems (1972). With the publication of these works the large

number of readers had an opportunity to know Sri Aurobindo, the poet.

K.D. Sethna’s The poetic genius of Sri Aurobindo (1947) was the first

book exclusively devoted to the critical evaluation of Sri Aurobindo's

poetry. K.D. Sethna, a poet and a critic had the unique privilege of having

an intimate correspondence with Sri Aurobindo about his poetry. He has

done great work by raising so many questions due to which

Sri Aurobindo could express his views on many angles of poetry and

criticism. There are works of Nolini Kanta Gupta, A.B. Purani, V.K.

Gokak , K.R.S. Iyengar, M.P. Pandit, Nirodbaran, Dilip Kumar Roy on

the life of Sri Aurobindo and they had the privilege of being the

associates of Sri Aurobindo. Later on many scholars attracted to the study

of his poetry and literary genius. Some prominent scholars who explored

commented upon his writings are - Sisirkumar Ghose, Ravindra Khanna,

Romen, Rajanikant Mody, Rakhaldas Bosu, V.Madhusudan Reddy, T.V.

Kapali sastry, R.Y.Deshpande, V. Anand Reddy, Jugal Kishore

Mukharjee, Prema Nandkumar , Georges Van Vrekhem, Mangesh

Nadkarni, Ashok Ganguli and Goutam Ghosal.

There are three main sources of study of Sri Aurobindo’s poetic

theory- The Future Poetry, Letters and his Talks with his disciples. His

essays in criticism were provoked by the books of others or written in

reply to the request of literary minded seekers at his Ashram or recorded

as an illustration of his own method of study and translation of the Indian

Classics. The Future Poetry, his principal book of literary criticism,

originally a long serially- written essays published in the Arya from 1917

to 1920, was published in book form in 1953. Except The Future Poetry

all his critical opinions and views are to be found mostly in his letters.

The third series is exclusively devoted to his views on poetry and

literature; there are Letters on Savitri and Letters on Life, Literature,

Yoga. These letters carry their unique wisdom and vast knowledge. They

are addition to his aesthetic pronouncements. His talks, recorded by two

disciples A.B. Purani and Nirodbaran, bring forth many of his

illuminating comments on his own poetry and poetry in general. His

critical writings show him to be a literary critic of great power and range.

As a critic, moving with case among the literatures of the East and the
West, he has given us a theory of poetry which combines the insights on

the past, the self questioning of the present and the vision of the future.

The poetry of Sri Aurobindo has been responded in three ways; one

that shows absolute ignorance about Sri Aurobindo as a poet, as George

Sampson has referred to Sri Aurobindo as “ more famous as an exponent

of Indian nationalism than as a poet.” The concise Cambridge History of

English Literature in an article on Indian Literature in Cassell’s

Encyclopaedia of Literature,Vol.I (1953) refers to Toru Dutt, Aru Dutt

and Sarojini Naidu but fails to mention Sri Aurobindo at all. Second,

there is a group which shows the appreciation of his poetry in

superlatives. Critics and writers like Nolini Kant Gupta, M.P.Pandit,

Nirodbaran, K.D.Sethna and most of the scholars belonged to this group.

And finally, there is the denouncing criticism condemning

Sri Aurobindo’s poetry as ‘blurred and rubbery sentiment’ which is the

‘most dangerous thing that infects our poetry today.’P. Lal, Nissim

Ezekiel and K.N. Daruwalla fall in this group. K.R.S. Iyengar has tried to

make a balance between these extreme views. He thinks that a new kind

of poetry like Sri Aurobindo’s demands a new mentality in readers as

well as in critics. He firmly states, “Without question, Sri Aurobindo is

the one incontestably outstanding figure in Indo- Anglian literature.”

According to K.D.Sethna, Sri Aurobindo has done three exceedingly rare

things. Firstly, he has to his credit a bulk of excellent blank verse. At least

five thousand lines in the collected poems and plays are charged with

beauty, power and superb frenzy. The huge epic Savitri, which contains

another twenty four thousand lines, places him in the company of top-

rankers of first-rate quality. Secondly, he was a fine practitioner of

quantitative hexameter. Thirdly, he stands as the creator of new Vedic

and Upanishadic age of spiritual and mystic poetry.

Though Sri Aurobindo himself was the best judge of his poetry, he

was deeply aware of the estimation of his work by others. He understood

the fact that the present age with its limitations cannot respond adequately

to the spiritual inspiration and vision his poetry brings. In his remark on

the criticism of his poetry he says:

It is a misfortune of my poetry from the point of view of

recognition that the earlier work forming the bulk of the
'Collected poems' belongs to the past and has little chance of
recognition. Now that the aesthetic atmosphere has so violently
changed, while the later mystical work and Savitri belong to the
future and will possibly have to wait for recognition of any
4
merit they have for another strong change.

Sri Aurobindo’s poetry cannot be properly judged by the traditional

canons of criticism. He has created his own aesthetics, the ‘Overmind’

aesthetics as he calls it. A proper estimate of his poetry, ‘overhead

poetry’, is possible only on the basis of his poetic theory. There is an

unparalleled harmony between his poetic aim and poetic achievements.

Both his theory and poetry extend our sensibilities to new areas of

thought and feeling.

T.S.Eliot in his famous essay Tradition and Individual Talent says

that poet should not be judged isolated from his predecessors and

tradition that has great significance to poets. In this essay Eliot, in his

own words says, “No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning

alone.” Sri Aurobindo is no exception to this tradition. When we study

Sri Aurobindo's poetry from this point of view, we can trace such

influences in Sri Aurobindo’s poetry which must have been assimilated in

his ideas loosing their identity in his emerging genius. We cannot find in

the realm of literature anything that escapes the suspicion of ‘heard

before’. Absolute originality is rare, almost non - existent for, as Sri

Aurobindo, says, “We are all those who went before us with something

new added that is ourselves, and it is this something added that

transfigures and is the real originality.”5

Sri Aurobindo has acknowledged the influence of the poets that

inspired him. He writes in a letter:

 Some influence of most of the great English poets
and of others also, not English, can be traced in my poetry- I
can myself see that of Milton, sometimes of Wordsworth and
Arnold; but it was of the automatic kind- they came in
unnoticed. I am not aware of much influence of Shelley and
Coleridge, but since I read Shelley a great deal and took an
intense pleasure in some of Coleridge’s poetry, they may have
been there without my knowledge. The one work of Keats
that influenced me was Hyperion I dare say my blank
6
verse got something of his stamp through that.

He accepts the influence of Stephen Phillips, Meredith, Tennyson,

Swinburne, Arnold and others in his letters:

The only romantic poets of the Victorian Age who could

have had any influence on me, apart from Arnold whose
effect on me was considerable, were Tennyson perhaps,
subconsciously, and Swinbume of the earlier poems, for his later
7
work I did not at all admire.

He dedicated his Love and Death to his elder brother Manmohan

Ghose, who was a classmate of Laurence Binyon, and a friend of Oscar

Wilde, and who must have been a great inspiration for him in England.

He was also very intimate with Stephen Phillips. Manmohan's influence

stimulated Aurobindo to read the classical poets.

 Sri Aurobindo expresses his gratefulness to Manmohan Ghose in a

letter to him,

Unknown to yourself, you taught and encouraged me from my

childhood to be a poet. From your sun my farthing rush-light was
kindled, and it was in your path that I long strove to guide my
8
uncertain and faltering footsteps.

Manmohan Ghose was working as a professor of English in

Presidency College when Sri Aurobindo was busy in national Movement.

In those days, he used to rush in utter anxiety to his brother Aurobindo to

remind him that he was a born poet and should not plunge into politics.

At Baroda, He was greatly influenced by classics from Sanskrit

literature of India. Literature of Vyasa, Valmiki, Kalidasa, Bhavabhuti,

Bhratrihari, Vidyapati, Tulsidas, Chandidas introduced him to Indian way

of life, culture, philosophy, literature and spirituality. Sri Aurobindo had

not only the historical sense of Indian tradition but he had drunk the

nectar of the Vedas and the Upanishads.

In Sri Aurobindo’s relation with the poets of the Vedas and the

Upanishads we may again remember T.S. Eliot’s concept of Tradition

according to which tradition is not something hereditary, one has to

acquire it by much labour. Sri Aurobindo is a descendent of the Vedic

seers. He has hastened the Vedic poetic tradition in his own poetry,

particularly in Savitri. Like Vedic and Upanishadic seers, he rose up and

faced the Absolute light and came down to transcribe this soul experience

and God experience in poetry.

Sri Aurobindo’s poetic genius bloomed softly at an extraordinary

tender age in an alien land. At the age of nineteen he was an unmistakable

poet. In the span of nearly fourteen years in England, the most formative

time in his cultural make-up and intellectual set-up, he read with great

fondness and keen interest English poetry, literature and fiction and as he

himself says, “ spent much time too in writing poetry.” 9

His first book of verse, songs to myrtilla, contains poems written

mostly between the age of 18 and 20. These are the youthful poems,

mainly secular and rich in experiment. These are poems of love and

beauty, youthful outburst of joy and despair and of patriotic zeal. As

Rameshwar Gupta rightly observes,

His earliest poetry is a lyrical impulse.... a joyous reaction

to the beauty of nature and the grace and charm of human
feelings; the reaction of a fresh, pure poetic sensibility
when youth only half-opens itself to the world around;
reminiscent of the early lyrical Milton, Spencer, and the
sensuous Keats. The Shelley of unpremeditated strains.10
 His lyrics such as Songs to Myrtilla and Night by the Sea, for

having sensuous imagery, remind early poems of Keats. Love in Sorrow

is filled with the sense of misery and despondency. The poem has a

lyrical note close to Shelley. The Sonnet To the Cuckoo is typical,

thoroughly English, reminding one of Wordsworth's address to the bird.

The poems of this period are inspired by not only the creative

emotions like joy and melancholy, but by episodes of violence like the

Irish fight for freedom. The poems like Charles Stewart Parnell, Lines on

Ireland were inspired by his sympathy for the misfortunes of Ireland.

There are some memorial poems in which he pays tributes to

Goethe, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Madhusudan Dutta and his

grandfather Raj Narayan Bose. With classical scholarship he calls Goethe

A perfect face amid barbarian faces,

A perfect voice of sweet and serious rhyme,
Traveller with calm, inimitable, paces,
11
Critic with judgement absolute to all time.

In the poems Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Madhusudan Dutta he paid

his tributes to the literary glory of these two great writers of Bengal. He
addresses Bankim Chandra as ‘Master of delicious words’ and ‘The

Sweetest voice that ever spoke in prose.’12 And Madhusudan Dutt –

Poet, the first with skill inspired did teach

Greatness to our divine Bengali Speech 13

His More Poems (1957) reveal the poet's deep interest in the

classics. The poems have classical form and pastoral setting. These

sonnets are significant as they mark a departure from the poet’s early

romantic poetry and provide a foretaste of the future poems.

The poet himself was not satisfied with these early writings. In his

own estimate of these poems in the last poem Envoi, he calls them:

Pale poems, weak and few, who vainly use

Your wings towards the unattainable spheres
Offspring of the divined Hellenic Music,

Poor maimed children born of six disastrous years.14

As Sri Aurobindo says:

What these poems express is the education and

imaginations and ideas and feelings created by a purely
European culture and surroundings. In the same way the poems
on Indian subjects and surroundings in the same book
express the first reactions to India and Indian culture after the
return home and a first acquaintance with these things. 15
 In Songs to Myrtilla we find Sri Aurobindo in the early work-shop

reminiscent of the Elizabethans and the Romantics. Whether we find him

moved to joy or touched to melancholy by the hues and harmonies of life,

there is a quality in him which proves that there is the first utterance of an

exceptionally gifted mind.

The Baroda period reveals considerable literary activity marked by

a variety of inspiration. After a concentrated study of the great literature

of India, he started writing poems on Indian subjects and surroundings.

He revealed some of the beauties of Bengali and Sanskrit literatures.

From Sanskrit he made translations of three remarkable works Kalidasa's

Meghduta, Vikramorvasie and Niti Shataka of Bhratarhari. He translated

or rather transmuted into English many lyrical verses of Chandidas and

Vidyapati and many other Vaishnava poets. Iyengar observes, “Indeed,

some of these so called translations are so good and so feast the ear and

chasten the mind that they may more appropriately be described rather as

transfigurations in terms of colour, sound and in wrought imagery.”16

One of the early works of this period is Urvasie, a narrative poem in

four cantos, written in 1893. He recreates the eternal nymph of Rigveda,

the story of ‘Godess won to mortal arms.’ King Pururvus falls in love

with this banished Apsara from Heaven. They live together on earth for
may years but bound by the laws of Heaven, she unwillingly returns to

Heaven. Then follows the agony of Pururvus and his long wanderings in

search of her and finally their conditional union. But the intensity of the

hero's love, the strenuous penance he is ready to undergo and - Urvasie's

response compel the compassion of unwilling Gods and the lovers are

rewarded the boon of permanent natural union.

With Urvasie Sri Aurobindo started his adventure in the narrative

realms and seems to be spreading his wings for a mightier flight. It is a

rich and beautiful romantic work raised to epic heights. We have in the

poem abundance of sensuous passages and exaltation of love and passion

of beauty. There is effective use of epic similes and impressive sweep and

flow of blank verse. Urvasie is the first achievement in the field of

narrative poetry and in many ways it seems to be a presage to Savitri. It

has subtle fusion of the earthly with the celestial and suggestion of the

union of earth and heaven.

Sri Aurobindo comes forward as a mature narrative poet with Love

and Death (1899), a companion poem, somewhat shorter than Urvasie. It

is on the same theme and possesses the same intensity of emotion and

richness of music. The theme is Ruru’s visit to the nether regions to bring

back his beloved, Priyamvada, who died untimely of snakebite. The poem
ends with victory of love over Hell. “In Love and Death the Hellenic

story of Orpheus and Eurydice is transformed into a tale of love, Hindu in

setting, sentiment and expression.”17 As Sri Aurobindo remembers, the

poem is written in a heat of inspiration during fourteen days of

continuous writing in the mornings. The poem is full of youthful vitality

combined with an intense love of life. Secondly, the picture of Hell in

words is described with such vividness that it reminds Milton's

vivification of Hell in Paradise Lost. Thus, the sole theme of the poem is

that love can conquer all, not only terrestrial obstacles but the invisible

dark hell also.

Then he wrote the patriotic poem Baji Prabhu . The poem deals

with one of the most memorial patriotic incident happened in the history

of Marathas. It is the story of heroic self-sacrifice of Baji Prabhu

Deshpande, who to cover Shivaji's retreat, bravely stopped twelve

thousand Moghuls at the narrow pass with a small company of dedicated

soldiers. The poem was written when he himself had taken part in

national activity. Thus no wonder that he was inspired by the glories of

Maratha History. According to Prof. Nirmalya Ghatak, “This long

historical poem symbolizes his own spirit of revolution against the British

Government.”18 Baji Prabhu, written in blank verse is Sri Aurobindo's

important contribution to patriotic literature. K.R.S.Iyengar has ranked it

“among the best heroic poems in English language.”19

Vidula is another poem having national significance in which

Sri Aurobindo connects this idea to Mother India and her disheartened

children. Sunjoy is a dethroned king by enemy. He becomes so

disheartened and dejected that he looses his heart to regain his lost

Kingdom. Vidula, his mother, in a flaming spirit, rouses the unmanly son

to action.

Then comes phase of his lyrical poems. In these days he was

experiencing various stages of Yoga, and his best lyrics are expressions

ns of spiritual states, truths or experiences.

These later lyrics may be divided into two groups- the

philosophical poems and the lyrics of spiritual realizations.

Some of the early philosophical poems are inspired by his growing

familiarity with Vedantic ideas and ideals. They are rhythmic and poetic

expressions of the ponderings over God, man and Nature, providence and

fate and other philosophical generalizations. They occupy a roughly

middle place in the evolution of Sri Aurobindo's poetic art. The poem
Rishi presents the Upanishadic philosophy. There are number of short

poems which are poetic and condensed expressions of philosophical

truths. He has rendered his mystical experiences into these poems.

The Nine poems ending with Ahana carry us a step further in the

poetic development of Sri Aurobindo. Here imagination and inspired

thoughts are deepened into vision and realization .These poems express

his ideas of evolution, creation and Mahatmahood. In Ahana, the long

poem in rhymed hexameter, all the attempts of man to know the

unknowable are presented and discussed. There is the idealist Vedanta

philosophy. Materialistic philosophy, idea of conscious Shakti and

unconscious Prakriti.

The lyrics of spiritual realization published in poems : past and

present and Last poem . It was a step further in Sri Aurobindo's poetic

evolution. Unlike the poetry of problem, debate and criticism, here is a

new world of insight and subjective experiences, Yogic and mystical

experiences are presented in rhythm and music . Descent, A God's labour,

A Bird of fire, Thought the paraclete, The Rose of God are excellent

poems of this kind of poetry. They reveal Sri Aurobindo's mystic

experiences. These poems aim to achieve the status of Vedic Mantra.

These poems translate Sri Aurobindo's theory of Overhead poetry into

practical achievement. Most of his later lyrics are sonnets. They express

substance of his philosophical concepts. Ideas like ‘The Kingdom

within’, ‘The inconscient’, ‘Liberation’, ‘Cosmic consciousness’,

‘Immortality’, ‘Evolution’, ‘Transformation', ‘Nirvana’ are the contents

of his sonnets. They are the examples of Sri Aurobindo's opinion that “

there is also a poetry which expresses things with an absolute truth but

without effort, simply and easily, without a word in excess or any laying

on of colour, only just the necessary.”20

 Section- B

Savitri- An Introduction

Sri Aurobindo considered Savitri as his “main work.”21 This poem

is a many-hued thousand petalled lotus in the history of poetry. As greatly

influenced by Greek and Roman literature at the impressionable time of

his life in England, no wonder that he wrote the poem out of myth and

legend. It contains symbolic and epic qualities and the inner drama of a

growing soul through various stages of human life to the supramental

world of light, love and immortality of all divine forces. Love has been

placed on the highest level by which Savitri conquers even Death, the

oldest Dark Force.

Sri Aurobindo was engaged with the composition of Savitri for fifty

years though with some long gaps in between .The epic poetry written in

blank verse form running almost to twenty -four thousand lines. Divided

into twelve Books as is the tradition for an epic, it has forty- eight Cantos

and an Epilogue. Part I consisting of the first twenty- four Cantos was

published in September 1950; Part II and Part III as a single volume

appeared in May 1951. Savitri with its 23,813 lines is the longest poem in

the English language. In Savitri Sri Aurobindo has symbolized a

legendary episode from the Mahabharata. By his spiritual attainments

and realization precisely he has shown the ‘quest for perfection’ and the

descent of supramental force and consciousness on this earth through

Savitri and Satyavan. In one of the letters on Savitri Sri Aurobindo writes

that, “What I am trying everywhere in the poem is to express exactly

something seen, something felt or experienced.” 22

He worked upon it again and again until the kind of Yogic as well

as literary perfection he wanted was achieved in it. Thus Savitri is also a

Yogi's spiritual autobiography, the mirror of his quest for Perfection.

Sri Aurobindo called Savitri- ‘a legend and a symbol.’ The original

legend of Savitri narrated in three hundred verses, appears in the Vana

Parva- The book of the forest, of the Mahabharata The Legend goes as

follows : Savitri , daughter of King Aswapati, understates in her

magnificent ‘Carved Car’ a journey to choose for herself a husband, as

was the custom of the time. At the edge of a forest, she meets Satyavan

and they fell in love. Satyavan is the son of the blind King Dyumatsena

who has lost his throne to a usurper and been banished to the forest.

Savitri returns home to tell her parents that she has found the man of her

choice and that she wants to marry him. However, she hears from the

heavenly singer and seer Narad that a curse rests on Satyavan: He must
die in exactly a year's time. In her love for Satyavan, Savitri refuses to go

back on her decision. The marriage takes place and she goes to live with

her husband and his parents in their hermitage in the forest. There she

shares the hermit's way of life and performs assiduously all the duties of

an Indian wife. On the appointed day of Satyavan's death, Savitri

accompanies her unsuspecting husband who goes to cut wood in the

forest. There Yama, the God of Death, awaits him with the noose with

which he leads the souls in the realms beyond. Satyavan dies but Savitri

keeps closely following the two. She is able to do it because of her occult

and spiritual powers, acquired through severe ascetic discipline. Threats

and promises of Death fail to move Savitri or change her mind. So great

is Savitri’s strength that Yama at long last lets Satyavan return to life on

earth. When Savitri and Satyavan return to their hermitage in the forest, a

messenger arrives to inform Dyumatsena, who has miraculously regained

his eyesight, that the usurper has died and that the people want him back

as their King. In this happy ending, Savitri alone knows of the drama that

has taken place in regions inaccessible to human eyes and thought.

This legend of Satyavan and Savitri is so powerful and popular that

even in these modern days it is believed that it strengthens marriage

bonds. The legend is memorable because it ensures the human victory

over the death. The very idea to fight against death and regain life is
uncommon. In other epics, the story ends with the death of the hero. In

Savitri, the real story begins after the death of the hero. The battle is

fought after his death and Savitri, the heroine, perhaps the bravest of all

epic heroes and heroines, fights against death itself and wins the victory

for the life of her husband.

As Sri Aurobindo calls Savitri a legend and a symbol, characters,

dialogues and actions are symbolic. They symbolize something that is

beyond their mortal existence. As per Aurobindonian philosophy which is

based on his Yogic realizations, there are forces of light and forces of

darkness working in this world. They affect human life. Characters in

Savitri are incarnation of such forces. They have taken human shape to

teach something to man and to help him. They symbolically show him the

way from his present mortal stage to immortal life.

So far the legend, used by Sri Aurobindo as a symbol, Satyavan

represents the embodied soul of humanity and Savitri an incarnation of

the Great Mother, descended upon earth to save that soul from the night

of suffering and death.

In the Mother’s words Savitri is the “Supreme revelation of

Sri Aurobindo's vision.”23 Its subject is universal and its revelation is

prophetic. ‘Quest for perfection’ in this long and difficult evolutionary

process and a divine fulfillment is its theme. The words of the story of

Savitri-daughter of the Sun or light of the Supreme, can illumine us with

the truth. R.Y. Deshpande says, “Savitri is a song of joy....the mantra of

the Real in whose body of silence is enshrined the soul of Rapture, Anand

Rasa following in the ocean of Shanta Rasa.”24

Raymond F. Piper, professor of Syracuse University in the USA has

given the following appraisal of Savitri :

During a period of nearly fifty years Sri Aurobindo

created what is probably the greatest epic in the English
Language.... I venture the judgement that it is the most
comprehensive, i n t egrat ed, b eau ti ful an d p erfect
co sm i c po em ev er composed. It ranges symbolically from a
Primordial cosmic void, through earth's darkness and struggles,
to the highest realms of supramental spiritual existence,
and illumines e v e r y i m p o r t a n t c o n c e r n o f m a n ,
t h r o u g h v e r s e o f unparalleled massiveness, magnificence,
and metaphorical brilliance. Savitri is perhaps the most
powerful artistic work in th e world fo r ex p an d in g m an 's
m in d to wards t h e Absolute.25

Savitri deals with the Vedic idea of the struggle between powers of

light and powers of darkness. Focusing on this aspect as a theme of the

poem, A.B.Purani, one of the prominent scholars on Savitri says:

 In raising this basic problem of elimination of the
Inconscient, the cause of man's subjection to his
imperfection, suffering and evil, Savitri is unique, and
goes deeper than other epics towards its solution. It calls out
the Divine that is hidden at present in the human mould to deal
direct with the problem of man's emancipation and of
establishment of the divine kingdom on earth 26

Savitri is about the problem of man's imperfection and his quest for

perfection. It is about how Paradise is lost and how to regain it. Savitri

gives us the message that ‘The life Divine’ can be established not by

escaping into Heaven but by bringing it down on earth, not by retreating

from life but by confronting, mastering and transforming it. The poem

presents the essential upanishadic philosophy, the ultimate purpose of

human life. Sri Aurobindo's long poetic career finally achieved its peak in

the cosmic epic Savitri. Perhaps epic could be the only form where his

poetical consciousness found fullest expression. Sri Aurobindo's wealth

of consciousness is embodied and conveyed in this grand epic. For the

expression of his cosmic vision, he had to choose equally noble poetic

form and that was none but epic. So far he had written almost all type of

poems and was in search of such a poetic form in which he could

translate his unrevealed spiritual and mystic experiences of Yoga. To

narrate symbolic and significant legend of Savitri he chose epic form in

which he could assimilate so many things at a time. His other poems are
the flashes of time to time inspirations but Savitri is the record of his

yogic life which is inseparable from his real life and it is a record by the

poet who had achieved the fullest maturity and perfection in the poetical

art. Nature, beauty and sensuousness, music of his early lyrics, flaming,

adventurous spirit of Vidula and Baji Prabhu, intense and powerful love

of Urvasie and Love and Death, Yogic and mystic experiences of his later

poems, philosophy of his sonnets, Dramatic elements of his dramas,

thoughts of his prose writing, poetic theory of his criticism, all is finally

assimilated in the oceanic Savitri. When one reads Sri Aurobindo's Savitri

one opens oneself to the infinity of sight. It is not only an inspired mantra

but also a revelatory vision that gives luminous shape to the superamental

manifestation. S.K. Ghose writes, "Savitri proves Sri Aurobindo, to be the

laureate of poetry. It is a truly original, astounding extension of our

modes of perception, consciousness and the limited notions of poetry that

have rules so far. Here is poetry of vision of such width, breadth and

height as the world has rarely known.”27 Savitri was first drafted quite

early in his poetic career in Baroda. “I made some eight or ten recasts of

it originally under the old insufficient inspiration” he wrote in 1934. It is

the fruit of almost 25 years’ labour, revising and re-revising, making

additions and corrections, he always aspired to raise Savitri to the mantric

level, the ‘Perfect Perfection’ as he calls it. Thus writing Savitri itself is a

‘quest for perfection’ in writing poetry.

 Both in quantity and quality Savitri can be ranked with the great

epics of the world. In the period when epic tradition has become an age

old history, he wrote Savitri with equally high spirit and energy and

achieved all that is claimed by any great epic poet of the world.

The canvas of Savitri is as wide as cosmos. The poem envelopes

past, present and future in it. It talks about man, superman, demi-god and

god. Its action takes place at not only Earth, Heaven and Hell but

different planes of light, consciousness and bliss, the worlds of truth. In

this magnificent work he has represented the whole universe and the

forces which run it. Like all epics, wide comprehension is the

distinguishing mark of Savitri. We find this comprehension in its

encyclopedic grasp of the totality of human experience and knowledge,

human evolution from the lowest plane to the highest plane, external

actions and living forces working behind it. We find in it mysticism,

occultism, philosophy, history of evolution and history of man. It records

in poetic terms man's and earth's ultimate destiny. It is a record of human

quest for perfection at different levels and its achievement.

In an age of modernist poetry, composition of an epic is

unthinkable. According to critics epic poem is solely proper to primitive

ages. But Sri Aurobindo rejects the idea and shows a way to revival of

epic poetry:

The epic, a great poetic story of man or world or the

gods, need not necessarily be a vigorous presentation of
external action.... The epics of the soul most inwardly seen,
as they will be by an intuitive poetry, are its greatest
possible subject, and it is this supreme kind that we shall
expect from some profound and mighty voice of the future.28

An epic, particularly primary epic, deals with a story from the

heroic age concerning some great War or exploits of the hero. An

objective story is the dominant feature of this epic. The literary or

secondary epics do not have a strong and pure story element. Dante’s The

Divine Comedy has neither a mythological nor a historical story. It is

allegorical in nature. In Milton's Paradise Lost, too, a strong and pure

story element is missing. It seems that as the epic moves away from

expressing the outer life, the objective story element has been dwindling.

From Milton to Sri Aurobindo, a span of about three centuries, the epic

tradition has completely revolutionized. From objectivity of the past the

epic writing moves to pure subjectivism in Sri Aurobindo's Savitri.

Milton and other epic poets narrated the outer life of others in their epics

but Sri Aurobindo’s epic has symbolic meaning which is based on mystic

experiences of his deep meditations, not any outer story element.To quote

the poet himself :

 Savitri is the record of a seeing, of an experience which
is not of the common kind and is often far from what the
general human mind sees and experiences. You must not expect
appreciation or understanding from the general public or even
from many at the first touch; as I have pointed out, there must
be a new ex tension of consciousness and aesthesis to
appreciate a new kind of mystic poetry.29

If we seek for an adventure in Savitri as it is the epic tradition,

there is not traditional adventure like exploring new continents or

participating in Trojan War; the poet has shifted his epic adventure within

to explore enormous realms of consciousness.

A greater world time’s traveller must explore. 30

It is not to fight the enemy in the battle -field of Troy, but the struggle is

within:

But though to the outward eye no sign appears,

And peace is given to our torn human hearts,
The struggle is there and paid the unseen price;
The fire, the strife, the wrestle are within. 31

The epic describes the battle of the human soul against the

omnipotent powers of the Inconscient, the descent of the soul into abysses

of the Night, and finally the battle royal against mightiest Death itself.
There can’t be braver adventures than this. Besides, there can be no more

authentic epic adventures than those narrated in Savitri. For these are the

records of a seeing, of an experience which is not of the common kind.

The narrations of the epic are not based on any objective story element;

they are poet’s experience - spiritual and occult. It is this pure subjective

element which enters the epic for the first time and this is the newness of

Savitri. It has brought a new mode in epic tradition.

Speaking about the plan and design of Savitri, Sri Aurobindo writes :

It has been planned not on the scale of Lycidas or

Comus or some brief narrative poem, but of the longer epical
narrative, almost a minor, though a very minor, Ramayana; it
aims not at a minimum but at an exhaustive exposition of its
world -vision or world interpretation, one artistic method
is to select a limited subject and even on that to say only what
is indispensable, what is centrally suggestive and leave the rest
to the imagination and understanding of the reader. Another
method which I hold to be equally artistic or, if you like,
architectural is to give a large and even a vast, a complete
i n t e r p r e t a t i o n , o m i t t i n g n o t h i n g t h a t i s n e c e s s a r y,
fundamental to the completeness; that is the method I have
chosen in Savitri.32

It is this feature of the epic that holds the reader's attention with

awe and wonder. Each sentence fits in the para, the para in the canto and
the cantos in the book, as stone after stone is laid upon each other to

construct a huge superstructure.

Part I of Savitri comprises the first three Books of the poem. This

part of the epic deals almost entirely with the Yoga of King Aswapati,

Savitri’s human father. It is this aspiration that compels the Divinity to

incarnate itself in the form of Savitri: “A World’s desire compelled her

mortal birth.”33

The Yoga of Aswapati may be classified into three stages. In Book

I he strives for individual perfection and victory through Yoga. In Book II

again it is individual victory and perfection by attaining all the planes of

consciousness, though as a typical representative of the race. In Book III

he seeks for universal realization and a new creation on earth.

In part II of the poem (Books Four to Eight) the poet brings the

story of Savitri and her Yoga, whom he introduces in the opening canto,

into the mainstream of the epic. This part of the poem covers Savitri’s

birth, her quest for Satyavan and their meeting, her foreknowledge of the

death of Satyavan after one year of their marriage and finally her yoga

Sadhana to prepare herself with Divine Force to Vanquish Death.

 Part III of the epic (Books Nine to Twelve) describes the battle

royal between Savitri and the God of Death after Satyavan dies, and how

Death is Vanquished. Both Savitri and Satyavan, ‘return to earth after the

Triumph of love over Death’. With the return to earth of Satyavan and

Savitri, “the united two began a greater age.”34

Savitri begins with the primordial symbol Dawn and ends with ‘a

greater dawn’ for the future:

She brooded through her stillness on a thought

Deep-guarded by her mystic folds of light,
And in her bosom nursed a greater dawn.35

Mystic poetry is like unmasking the Divine, unveiling the great

Mystery or part of it, either in clear transparency or in a translucency or

in a vague and hazy manner. To be a mystic poet, it is not necessary to be

religious, even atheist poets may in their inspired moments leap up to

express a sense of the mysterious Unknown. But higher the plane of

consciousness from where the inspiration comes, the more transparent

becomes the unveiling of the face of the mysterious Unknown In the

mystical poetry from the spiritual plane, the inspiration, according to Sri

Aurobindo, comes from the Overhead planes of consciousness. Here the

poetic speech is the direct and naked experience of the seer poet, a thing

actually seen and felt and even experienced:

Across a void returning sky he glimpsed

Through a last glimmer and drift of vanishing stars.
The superconscient realms of motionless peace
Where judgement ceases and the word is mute

And the unconceived lies pathless and alone.36

Savitri is mystical poetry and “it expresses or tries to express a

total and many- sided vision and experience of all the planes of being and

their action upon each other”.37 The visions may appear as ‘Technical

Jargon’ or ‘Intellectual abstractions or metaphysical speculations’

because they are foreign to the ordinary mentality but they are realities,

concrete powers and living experiences for Sri Aurobindo. All visions

and vibrations of the consciousness pervading those worlds are

transmitted by the poet with utmost poetic power.

Great epics in English literature like Milton’s Paradaise Lost,

Paradise Regained are written in blank verse. Sri Aurobindo adopts blank

verse as the medium of expression for his epic. He finds blank verse the

most pliant and plastic medium to express subtle variations of his poetic

vision from different planes of inspiration.

 Savitri employs “ blank verse without enjambment (except rarely) -

each line a thing by itself and arranged in paragraphs of one, two, three,

four, five lines (rarely a longer series), in an attempt to catch something

of Upanishadic and Kalidasian movement, so far as that is a possibility in

38
English....” It expresses the mystic truth in direct rhythmic movement.

Take for example, the opening line of Savitri:

It was the hour before the Gods awake.

Sri Aurobindo is of the view that in Savitri, “...each line must be

strong enough to stand by itself, while at the same time it fits

harmoniously into the sentence or paragraph like stone added to stone.”39

Thus Sri Aurobindo has attempted the Mantric poetry out of his

perfect use of blank verse.

No one else is a greater authority on Savitri than the Mother. In her

talk she says, “He has crammed the whole universe in a single book. It is

a marvelous work, magnificent and of an incomparable perfection....

Savitri is a revelation, it is a meditation, and it is a quest of the infinite,

the Eternal.”40
 Section –C

Sri Aurobindo- A Critic

As a literary critic - Sri Aurobindo reveals his astonishing power

and range. He is a critic who moves with ease among the literature of the

East and the West. We can say that he not only fulfils Arnold’s

requirement of an ideal critic knowing ‘the best that is known and thought

in the world’ and creating ‘a current of true and fresh ideas’, but he has

also achieved a fusion between creation and criticism. He has made the

art of literary criticism as fully creative literary activity as poetry itself

and like other arts, an instrument of illuminating and uplifting human

consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo has discussed basic terms of poetry like inspiration,

creation, beauty, truth, vision, symbol, language, rhythm, style, technique

with a new and original interpretation. In course of our discussion, we

will see them one by one. He has also reinterpreted Indian as well as

English literature based on his own critical theory.

The influence of his Yogic consciousness and higher planes is all

pervasive on his views on art and poetry. Particularly, the discovery and
description of the higher planes of consciousness from which our

inspiration generally comes is a unique contribution of Sri Aurobindo to

the history of aesthetics.

The word ‘poet’ originates from a Greek word, ‘Poiein’ which

means ‘to make’. The poet feels ineffable ecstasy to make something

unterrestrial from the terrestrial, subliminal from the universe,

supramental from the mental, the divine from the actual and the eternal

from the ephemeral by pleasing forms in expression.

Sidney supports the ancient word, ‘vates’ for poets which means a

sort of prophet. Sri Aurobindo compares poetry with the Ganga flowing

down from the head of God ‘Shiva’, the Hindu God. As a successful

modern descendent of the Indian Vedic culture and tradition, Sri

Aurobindo places the poet on the eternal throne of God. According to him

the true poet is the soul and the true reader or listener is also the soul. The

more the poetic word sinks into the soul, the greater is the poetry. He

Says:

The Kavi was in the idea of the ancients, the seer and the
revealer of truth, and though we have wandered far enough from that
ideal to demand from him only the pleasure of ear and the amusement
of aesthetic faculty, still all great poetry preserves something of that
higher truth of its own aim and significance. 41
 In this sense the poet himself may be called as medium of

expression of truth and delight. Sri Aurobindo says that the poet is not a

logical thinker or a so called philosopher or a metaphysical reasoner : his

knowledge is with his being and, by virtue of his power he feels oneness

with all amidst which he lives. He follows the logic of the Infinite and

intuitive judgment, not the logic of mind or intellect.

While commenting on ‘reason’, ‘Spiritual experience’ and its

‘expression’, Sri Aurobindo says that spiritual thought of India admits

reason but that reason is based on spiritual experience and the Indian

philosophers ascend beyond intellectual speculations. In this way they

have preserved mystic and spiritual experience and allowed reasoning

intellect to come after that. They have placed it as a judge of the

generalized metaphysical statement emerged from a spiritual experience,

but not the experience itself.

Indian philosophers also do not think that the ultimate truth is

untold, unthinkable or unknowable as thought by the intellectuals. They

believe that truth can be known by some special ways and it can also be

expressed by some special ways. They call truth something

superconscious. It can be understood and expressed directly by

supermind.
 Sri Aurobindo does not brush aside the influence of national

freedom struggle on poets. The work of a poet is influenced by his age,

mentality of nation or the spiritual, intellectual, aesthetic tradition and

environment. Nevertheless the poet is expected to be a free spirit and the

follower of the law of poetic truth and beauty; the age and nation can give

him only some material for the free play of his free spirit. Between the

eternal and time elements, the eternal element is the soul of poetry. For

high poetry Sri Aurobindo emphasizes two main things-visions and

beauty apart from power of expression, In respect of beauty

Sri Aurobindo's view is that beauty may not be in the object but the

artist's vision captures beauty and conveys it through art.

Many English critics and poets, especially the Romantics have

emphasized imagination in poetic creation directly or indirectly. But to

this poet, imagination emerges from mental level, it does not exceed

mental span .towards other planes of consciousness or to spiritual

kingdom of light and bliss. Art is visible expression of inner life or soul.

Sri Aurobindo believes that the divine spark in man is the highest bliss.

Spirituality is the conscious contact with the divine. It is the highest art,

the art of life. Then poetry, as expression of such soul, is a life of pure

beauty, light vibrant with delight, a dance of speech.

 Sri Aurobindo speaks about the role of poet’s inner being in the

process of creation. In his view, true poetry springs from subtle plane

through the creative vital and uses the outer mind and other outer

instrument for transmission only. He finds three elements in the poetic

affair- the original source of inspiration, the vital force 'of creative

beauty, and the transmitting outer consciousness of the poet. But the most

perfect poetry comes when the original source pours its inspiration pure

into the vital and there takes its true form and power of speech exactly

reproducing the inspiration and the outer consciousness, transmits only

what it receives from the inner or the superior spaces. In other words, it

comes ready made from the original source; substance, rhythm, form,

words come together from the plane of poetic creation. It is the perfect

type of inspiration in which the human being is only a medium though he

feels the joy of production and joy of enthusiasm which is essential for

poetry.

There is a certain Yogic consciousness in which all things become

beautiful to the eye of the seer. He can see beauty in things which are

common to the common people. He can perceive unrevealed beauty of

this universe through his gifted vision. In this sense the poet’s function is

the revelation of beauty to bring pure delight and beauty in human life.
This pure delight and beauty is one with the highest truth, the perfection

of life. It is also one with the joy of the self revealing spirit.

Sri Aurobindo has distinguished between a literary man and a Yogi

who writes. The former is one who loves literature and literary activities

for their own separate sake, he says “ A Yogi who writes is not a literary

man for he writes only what the inner will and word wants him to

express. He is a channel and instrument of something greater than his

own literary personality.”42 In him we find a literary man developing in

later life into a ‘Yogi who writes’. He finds a close relationship between

Yoga and poetic development. He says in a letter, “Certainly if you want

to achieve a greater poetry, more unique, you will yourself have to

43
change, to alter the poise of your consciousness” further he says, "The

expression in poetry and other forms must be, for the Yogi, a flowing out

from a growing self within and not merely a mental creation or an

aesthetic pleasure. Like that the inner self grows and the poetic power

will gross with it.” 44

It does not mean that the poet should sit idle waiting for the arrival

of inspiration from above. He should keep himself ready and alert and

active to give the response to the call of inspiration.

 ‘Vision’ has a significant place in Sri Aurobindo's poetic theory.

Though “Vision”, in his words “is the characteristic power of the poet, as

is discriminative thought the essential gift of the philosopher and the

analytic observation the natural genius of the scientist.”45

In his view, ‘poetry must attempt to make us see’ because it is a

great formative power and the psychological instrument of this power is

‘inner seeing and sense.’ So “sight is the essential poetic gift.”46 The poet

is fundamentally occupied with the activity of the eye. Vision is actually

the inner sight which the poet opens in us and this “inner sight must have

been intense in him before he can awaken it in us.”47 The perceiving,

feeling, understanding conscious of the poet comes to an active point

through the seeing; his concentration and merging of all sense in vision.

This vision and inner sight may be of Nature and life and man. The poets

who had large and powerful interpretative and intuitive vision reached the

supreme and fundamental greatness in poetry.

Viewing inside or vision is different from outward sight, even the

most objective presentation starts from an inner view and subjective

process of creation “ For the poet really creates out of himself and not out

of what he sees outwardly : that outward seeing only serves to excite the

inner vision to its work.”48

 The poetic vision follows necessarily the evolution of the human

mind and according to the age and environment, it has its levels with the

evolving intellect and aesthetic sense, a vital poetry appealing to the

imagination through the senses, mind and emotions emerged. A higher

level comes when the mind of man begins to see more intimately the

forces behind the life. And a yet higher level is attained when the soul in

things comes nearer to man or other worlds than physical open

themselves to him. “At the highest he himself disappears into sight: the

personality of the seer is lost in the eternity of the vision, and the spirit of

all seems alone to be there speaking out sovereignly its own secrets.” 49 It

is this eternal eye which is at the back of all poetic perfection and this eye

views the Divine presence taking different shapes in the world.

Intensity of vision is a must for poetry and according to

Sri Aurobindo it depends on age and environment, level of thought and

experience and the depth of spiritual attainment. Mantric poetry is not

possible without the intensity of the soul’s vision.

Sri Aurobindo’s mystical inspirations has introduced a new age in

poetry. Encyclopedia Britannica defines mysticism as “the immediate

experience of oneness with ultimate Reality.”50 According to Chamber’s

Dictionary, mystic means “sacredly obscure or secret, involving a sacred

or a secret meaning hidden from the eyes of the ordinary person, only

revealed to a spiritually enlightened mind.”51

Sri Aurobindo has explained at many places the mystic’s approach

to life and distinguished it from other terms. He uses the word ‘mystic’ in

the sense of a certain kind of inner seeing and feeling of things, a way

which to the intellect may seem occult and visionary. For being it is not

necessary to have spiritual experiences. One may be mystic without being

spiritual, one may have spiritual experiences but not mystic sense; or one

may be both spiritual and mystic in one. He says, “The mystic feels...

truths which to the ordinary reader are intellectual abstractions or

52
metaphysical speculations” The mystic poet uses words and images to

convey the world what he has felt, seen or experienced and leave it to the

general reader to understand or misunderstand according to his capacity.

For him, poets are the greatest revealers of knowledge and poetry-

the best medium to carry to the larger humanity the message of a realized

soul. Therefore he chose poetry to be the vehicle of transmitting his

visions and realizations.

Spirituality for Sri Aurobindo is not an escape from life but it is to

transform life through transformation of consciousness. He considers

human life as a field of possible transformation in which its divine sense

will be found. Its potentialities will be highly evolved, and the now

imperfect forms will be changed into an image of the divine perfection.

The meaning of spirituality is found in new and greater inner life of man

founded in the consciousness of his true, his inmost, highest and largest

self and spirit by which he receives the whole of existence as a

progressive manifestation of the self in the universe. Sri Aurobindo

emphasizes the role of deeper intuitive poetry which will help in probing

of inmost things, Divinity of man. He says:

The voice of the poet will reveal to us by the

inspired rhythmic word the God who is the self of all
things and beings, the life of the universe, the Divinity in
man, and he will express all the emotion and delight of the
endeavor of the human soul to discover the touch and joy of
that Divinity within him in whom he feels the mighty founts of
his own being and life and effort and his fullness and unity with
all cosmic experience and with Nature and with all creatures.53

In the ‘Kingdom of spirit’ which may be established not only in a

man’s inner being but in his life and works, “poetry also may have its

share in that revolution and become part of the spiritual empire” 54Poetry

and literature “like anything else can be made an instrumentation of the

Divine Life.” 55
 According to Sri Aurobindo, the highest power, the highest

achievement of poetry is Mantra. By the word Mantra, Sri Aurobindo

connotes poetic expression of the deepest spiritual reality, the union of

the highest intensity of rhythmic movement, the highest intensity of

verbal form and thought and the highest intensity of the soul’s vision of

the truth. Thus Mantra is “the highest intense revealing form of poetic

thought and expression.” 56

Sri Aurobindo's idea of Aesthetics is based on his own philosophy.

He believed that all forms of art, literature (Poetry) music, painting,

sculpture, architecture are manifestation of beauty created by the soul’s

Delight. The artist in the fit of delight receives words and rhythm and

creates a work of art. Through this work of art the reader recaptures his

delight and art becomes a medium. So all the arts, according to him, are

parts of the ascent of man, towards the bliss of pure Being, the higher

intense clarity of consciousness. They are meant to civilize, to refine, to

purify, to ennoble, to divinise the creator, spectator and listeners.

According to Sri Aurobindo, “Aesthetics is concerned mainly with

beauty, but more generally with Rasa, the response of the mind, the vital

feeling and... taste.”57 This relation of the consciousness which receives

taste, Rasa, Bhoga, can awake even soul in us and go deeper than mere
pleasure or enjoyment and give us spirit's delight of existence or Ananda.

According to Sri Aurobindo, Aesthesis is the very essence of poetry and

of all arts since all arts deal with Rasa, Bhoga, Ananda. Its dullest

reaction is indifference, its highest is ecstasy. These are the two sides of

the same coin, a reaction of our consciousness.

He speaks of the ascent and descent of consciousness. The general

sign of descent from the supreme levels towards inconscience or

insensibility or Negation is always diminishing intensity of ecstasy,

intensity of force, intensity of the delight in things and the delight of

existence. And so as we ascend towards the supreme level these

intensities increase. As we ascend beyond the regions of mind, everything

alters. “As we climb beyond mind, higher and wider values replace the

values of our limited mind, life and bodily consciousness. Aesthesis

shares in this intensification of capacity.”58

His theory of aesthetic is not merely concerned with beauty but with

truth - the higher truth of spiritual thought, spiritual feeling and spiritual

sense. For in the overmind ultimately “truth and beauty come together

and coincide.”59 This reminds us Keats’ philosophy of poetry ‘Beauty

truth, truth beauty’ in his famous poem Ode on Grecian Urn. In

Sri Aurobindo’s integral vision, beauty is not divorced from Truth. The
poetic truth of which he speaks is not like a dry statement of philosophy

or science.

Poetry and life are intimately connected as he points out, “Poetry is

the rhythmic voice of life, but it is one of the inner and not one of the

surface voices”.60And that the “Poet’s first concern and his concern

always is with living beauty and reality of life.”61Poetry in its course has

reflected the life as it has evolved from one stage to another- physical,

vital, mental, intellectual, and now the spiritual. Art is not divorced from

life; it is all inclusive and integral. He always insisted on the need of life-

experience for literary creation. Art gives something more than what

already is in real life. For art is not simply reproduction or imitation of

life. It enriches life by attributing to it something which it lacks in reality,

something more inwardly true and beautiful than the external life. He

states, “The poet's greatest work is to open to us new realms of vision,

new realms of being, our own and the World’s and he does it even when

he is dealing with actual things.” 62

He strongly refutes the tendency to ignore art and poetry as mere

refinements, luxuries of the rich rather than things that are necessary to

the mass or useful to life. The aesthetic faculties entering into the

enjoyment of the world and its good things have “done more than
anything else to raise man from the beast, to refine and purge his passion,

to ennoble his emotions and to lead him up through the heart and the

imagination to the state of the intellectual man”63 In his essay, The

National value of Art Sri Aurobindo speaks of three uses of art. The first

and lowest is the purely aesthetic, the second is intellectual or educative,

and the third and highest is the spiritual.

Sri Aurobindo considers technique to be inseperable. “Certainly in

all art good technique is the first step towards perfection”.64 But poetry is

not merely a matter of correct technique, for “technique is a means of

expression; one does not write merely to use beautiful words or paint for

the sole sake of line and colour; there is something that one is trying

through these means to express or to discover.”65 The best or highest

technique, he believes to be descending from above, from the Yogic

consciousness. But the human instruments of verbal expression have to

be perfected through knowledge, understanding and practice. And it is

here that the technique enters. Sri Aurobindo stresses on a proper balance

between technique and substance of poetry. He says, “The search for

technique is simply the search for the best and the most appropriate form

for expressing what has to be said and once it is found, the inspiration can

flow quite naturally and fluently into it.”66 He warns that attention to
technique harms only when a writer is so busy with it and he becomes

indifferent to substance.

“Without style”, he mentions in a letter, “there is no literature”.67

Style is the fusion of all those constituents of a work of art- language,

thought, rhythm, imagery, mood and attitude, which express the poet's

vision. Style, Sri Aurobindo believes, is a living organism which is 'born

and grows like any other thing.' Therefore style can not be manufactured.

He remarks:

I never manufactured my style... of course, it was fed on

my reading ...for the rest it is yoga that has developed
my style by the development of consciousness, fineness and
accuracy of thought and vision, increasing inspiration and
an increasing intuitive discrimination (self-critical) of
right thought, word- form, just image and figure.68
 Section –D

Theory of Overhead Poetry and Savitri

It is ‘inspiration’ which moves a poet and rouses the creator in him.

Poets have used the term while attempting to describe their creativity.

Encyclopedia Britannica defines inspiration as “the experience of a

possession by the divine that enables the inspired person, to see and

communicate supernatural truth.”69

Plato seems be sure, that the poet is not poet until he receives

inspiration from the outside which hardly has to do anything with his

senses. He says:

For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and
there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is
out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him. When he
has not attained to this state, he is powerless and unable to utter
his oracles.70

It has become a point of controversy in modern times whether

inspiration is the force of unconscious mind. Modern psychoanalytical

theory suggests the source of inspiration in the unconscious, which is the

spring of repressed emotions craving expression. John Press points out

the doubtful nature of the modern mind about the reality of inspiration:
 It is possible to mention that inspiration comes from
God, from Heavenly wisdom, from seraphim, or from any
member of the angelic hierarchy who chances to strike a
responsive chord in the myth-making faculty of the poet.
Possible but not essential. It is equally plausible to hold that
inspiration is the product of mental disequilibrium, dreams, or
of the unconscious activity of the mind.71

Sri Aurobindo reveals his implicit faith in the power of inspiration.

He declares, “Where there is no inspiration, there can be no poetry.”72His

most original contribution to the theory and psychology of art is his clear

perception of the deeper or higher plane of consciousness which is the

originating source of inspiration. He has analyzed the characteristics of

this creative force in The Future Poetry and in his Letters. He is aware of

the thing that “all that has to be felt is not analyzable.”73 Hence while

trying his best to expose the subject he says, “These are exactly the

subjects on which it is difficult to write with any precision or satisfy the

intellect's demand for clear and positive statement.”74 he believed that

experience and knowledge mingled with inspiration create poetry. He

also talks about the feature of inspiration, he has experienced,

“Inspiration is always a very uncertain thing; it comes when it chooses,

stops suddenly before it has finished its work, refuses to descend when it
75
is called” In this process, the mind of the poet does not work, it only

receives the inspiration and in that flow, the poems come as a stream.
Changes and corrections are also received without any initiation of the

poet or labour of the brain. If the first inspiration was an inferior one,

there may be recasts.

In Overhead poetry, the poet is sure of the one thing that he is

working merely as a medium of the divine power and whatever he is

writing is not the creation of his own intellect. Though the work is carried

out by the person, the role of impersonal power in the process of creation

is so strong that he has to confess so. In the poetry of Marathi saints, there

are many expressions conveying this message, though they haven’t put it

in the terminological terms as Sri Aurobindo. Some examples can be

cited as follows.

In the last part of his Marathi epic poem Dnyaneshwai, Saint

Dnyaneshwara says:

This is your work, carried out by me,

And whatever remains behind is merely my service.76

In the similar way, Saint Tukaram in his Gatha, feels it necessary to say:

This is somebody else’ treasure,

And I am working only as a porter. 77
 In another poem he says:

What an ordinary man like me can say,

It is the almighty that made me to do so.78

These expressions should be taken as honest confessions though

they seem like humble submissions.

Sri Aurobindo might have experienced the same thing but, being a

critic, he tries to analyze it. He not only experienced all levels of human

consciousness, overmental and supramental consciousness but also

expressed it to show how poetic inspiration comes works.

In his view poetic fount may be - physical consciousness, vital

level, mental level, the higher mind, poetic intelligence, inner mind,

dynamic vision, psychic being, illumined mind, intuition and finally

overmind. In accordance with these levels of source poetry differs in

content and form. It is difficult to comment on these subtle distinctions of

psychology for it is the matter ‘to be felt’.

According to him, the levels of consciousness from which the poet

draws his inspiration may be classified in brief as follows: subtle physical

mind in which the imaginative response is mainly to external movement,

action etc. We find this in Homer and Chaucer. Vital mind where the play

of sensation, passion and emotion is expressed directly. Kalidasa and

Shakespeare are examples of this level. Intellectual mind, which contains

poetic vision and it brings out thought and values, as found in Vyasa,

Sophocles, Virgil, Dante and Milton.

There are other levels which, according to him are, above our brain

capacity or ordinary mental levels. He calls them Higher mind, Illumined

mind, Intuition and Overmind. Some rare lines of poetry of the past have

emerged from these levels, but in future, poetry would be written from

these levels. Above these levels he has expressed the supermind or

supramental force and consciousness which only the perfect yogi can

reach. Poetry written out of the above inspiration is called as ‘Overhead

Poetry.’

The imagination seems to act as a subordinate to the poet's

unfathomable vision, the unknown; intellect also acts for the supply of

mental terms or language as vessel of vision.

Sri Aurobindo's greatest contribution in the world of poetry is his

experience of ‘overmind’ - consciousness and its expression as theory and

practice. In his Letters on Savitri he has expressed this as easily as

possible.

In his view ordinary aesthetics mainly deals with beauty and rasa or

a sense of certain taste and it needs no spiritual feeling because it cannot

surpass mental range. It may be concerned with “Art for Art's sake”, but

“The overmind is essentially a spiritual power.”79 It has aesthetics beyond

traditional rules and canons. It sees a universal and an eternal beauty,

truth and knowledge beyond thought. It concerns with spiritual thought,

spiritual feeling, spiritual sense and it can have oneness with spiritual

touch. So there come together truth and beauty and coincide, but

Overmind places truth first, truth emerging from the inconscient as well

as from the superconscient and all that lies between. The discovery of the

truth is the first essential quality of overmind when it is explicit in poetry.

But overhead poetry has something of overmental character, not all the

time it comes from overmind. Overmind poetry may come from intuition,

illumined mind or high-level thought. However, poetry manifesting

overmind must have some kind of aesthetics, greater than common

aesthetics between the writer and the recipient. The same condition is

there for the appreciation of overhead element in poetry.

 In a word, Sri Aurobindo says, “The kingdom of the spirit may be

established not only in man's inner being but in his life and works. Poetry

also may have its share in that revolution and become part of spiritual

empire.”80

Overmind has mainly two actions. One, it can form separate

kingdom with all its possibilities. Two, it sees and thinks and creates in

masses which reunites separate things and reconciles the opposites. In Sri

Aurobindo's view the highest reconciliation of fusion takes place in the

supermind. Overmind in its highest height draws supramental light in

lower levels. In a lower level overmind may use the language of the

intellect but on its height it uses language of its own kingdom of beauty

and light beyond the intellect of mind; naturally the traditional aesthetic

judgement fails here. Some greater aesthetics is needed , some deeper

experience is required for its appreciation.

Yet Sri Aurobindo says that poetry depends upon levels of

inspiration and each kind of poetry has its own perfection, not overhead

poetry only.

His poetic theory of ‘Overmind aesthesis’ was so far much

discussed and to satisfy his curious disciples of poetry, he had to give

practical example of ‘Overmind poetry’ or ‘Mantric poetry’ or ‘The

Future Poetry.’ Savitri is the answer to all those questions. We may quote

an excerpt from Savitri which manifests both overmental plane and

overhead poetry born of overmind.

Thought there has revelation's sun-bright eyes

The word; a mighty and inspiring voice,
Enters Truth's inmost cabin of privacy
And tears away the veil from God and life.81

The perfect expression of the overhead poetry is ‘Mantra’. Ancient

Indian culture has a rich tradition of ‘Mantra’. Vedic Rishis used to

transform their life long spiritual findings and truth into ‘Mantra’.

Rhythm, verbal form, thought substance, thought's radiant soul-quality,

all fuse in the Mantra to produce the effect of an incantation. The true

Mantra comes out of the depths of soul and sinks into the depths of the

hearer’s soul. It penetrates through analytical intellect, the sensory

faculties, and the bodily limitations of the receptive ear. Sri Aurobindo

describes this process as:

As when the mantra sinks in Yoga's ear,

Its message enters stirring the blind brain
And Keeps in the dim ignorant cells its sound
The hearer understands a form of words.82
 Thus the Mantra is a creative force which comes from the highest

overhead level, charged with extraordinary power which makes words

revelatory, inspired, vibrant and packed with ecstasy. Mantra is a

compact structure of gifted words, which can give us experience of great

powers. Mantra can carry us into the realms of mystical experience.

To appreciate and enjoy this poetry, a new method of reading

approach is to be adopted. For overhead poetry can never be appreciated

or enjoyed by the normal mind consciousness; there is need ‘to develop

our aesthetic sense to a pitch subtler than in our normal response to

poetry.’ Secondly a still receptivity of the reader’s mind, ‘a sort of

receptive self-opening and calling down condition’ is required to receive

the truth of the poet's vision. Thirdly, as the overhead poetry has its own

rhythm of poetic expression, so in ‘the indrawn stillness’ the reader has to

listen to the new rhythm. Savitri is also suggested to be read aloud as one

chants mantras to feel and experience how the word sound enter the

reader's inner being and create a true mantric effect.

Thus the discovery and description of the higher planes of

consciousness from which our inspiration generally comes is a unique

contribution of Sri Aurobindo to the aesthetics. The distinctions

enunciated by him are based on his own experience and on ancient Indian
thought and have a revelatory importance, not only for aesthetics, but also

for yogic psychology and metaphysics. Sri Aurobindo’s overhead

creation of Savitri and his overmind aesthesis has opened a new age of

poetry and poetics. This is the future poetry, the poetry of perfection.
 References

1. Aurobindo, Sri. Letters on Poetry, Literature and Art,

Sri Aurobindo Ashram , Pondicherry, 1972. P.455

2. Sethna K.D. Sri Aurobindo- The Poet, Sri Aurobindo

International Centre for Education, Pondicherry,

1970,P.iii.

3. Publisher's note to Collected Poems and Plays Vol.I,

Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1942, P.IV

4. Aurobindo, Sri. Life Literature and Yoga,

Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1952 P. 57

5. Aurobindo, Sri. Sri Aurobindo Birth Century Library,

Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry 1972; Vol. 9 P.409

6. Aurobindo, Sri. Life, Literature and Yoga

Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry 1952 PP. 69-70

7. lbid P.57

8. Aurobindo, Sri Sri Aurobindo Birth Century Library.

Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, Vol. 27, 1972,

P. 160

9. Aurobindo, Sri. On Himself, Sri Aurobindo Ashram,

Pondicherry. Seventh Impression, 2000 P.1

10. Gupta, Rameshwar . Eternity in words, Chetna

Prakashan Bombay 1969, P. 50

11. Aurobindo, Sri. Collected Poems, Sri Aurobindo

Ashram, Pondicherry, 1972, P. 9

12. Ibid, P.32

13. Ibid, P.33

14. Ibid .P. 36

15. Aurobindo, Sri. On Himself, Sri Aurobindo Ashram,

Pondicherry. Seventh Impression, 2000 P.6

16. Iyengar, K.R. Srinivasa. Sri Aurobindo, Arya Publishing

House, Calcutta, Second Edition, 1950, P. 61

17. Langley, G.M. Sri Aurobindo - Indian Poet, Philosopher

and Mystic, David Marlowe, London 1949, P. 117

18. Ghatak ,Nirmalya, Sri Aurobindo: The Poet and

Thinker, Bhattacharya Publication, Howrah, 1988, P. 98

19. Iyengar,K.R.Srinivasa. Sri Aurobindo - An Introduction,

Rao and Raghvan, Mysore, 1961, P. 27

20. Aurobindo, Sri. Letters of Sri Aurobindo - On Poetry

and Literature Third Series, Sri Aurobindo Circle,

Bombay, 1949, P. 25
21. Nirodbaran. Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo,

Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1972 P. 188

22. Aurobindo. Sri. Savitri, Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

Pondicherry, Sixth Impression, 1999, P. 800

23. Mother, The. Words of The Mother, Sri Aurobindo

Ashram, Pondicherry, 1972 P. 24

24. Deshpande, R-Y. Sri Aurobindo and the New

Millennium Aurobharti Trust Pondicherry, 2000,P. 178

25. Sethna K.D. ed. Mother India , Hungry Eye : An

Introduction to Cosmic Art by Piper, Raymond Frank,

Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry.Nov. 1958,P.48

26. Purani, A.B. Savitri –An Approach and a Study,

Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, Forth

Impression,2002, P. 39

27. Board of editors Sri Aurobindo Circle, Sri Aurobindo

Circle Bombay, Seventh Number, 1961, PP. 71-2.

28. Aurobindo, Sri. The Future Poetry, Sri Aurobindo

Ashram, Pondicherry, 1953, P. 254.

29. Aurobindo, Sri. Savitri, Sri Aurobindo Ashram,

Pondicherry, Sixth Impression, 1999, P. 794

30. Ibid, P.71

31. Aurobindo, Sri. Savitri, Sri Aurobindo Ashram,

Pondicherry, Sixth Impression, 1999, P. 446

32. Ibid, P.792

33. Ibid, P. 22

34. Ibid, P.411

35. Ibid. P.724

36. Ibid, P.33-4

37. Ibid, P.738

38. Ibid. P.727

39. Ibid, PP.793-4

40. Deshpande, R-Y. ed. Perspectives of Savitri,

Aurobharati Trust, Pondicherry. 2000,PP. 44-5

41. Aurobindo,Sri. The Future Poetry, Sri Aurobind

Ashram, Pondichcrry, 1953, PP.39-40

42. Aurobindo, Sri. Letters of Sri Aurobindo - On Poetry

and Literature Third Series, Sri Aurobindo Circle,

Bombay. 1949, P. 285

43. Aurobindo, Sri. Life, Literature and Yoga

Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry- 1952 P.28

44. lbid PP 30-31

45. Aurobindo, Sri. The Future Poetry, Sri Aurobindo

Ashram, Pondicherry, 1953,P.39

46. Ibid P.41

47. Ibid P.40

48. Ibid P.47

49. Ibid,P.48

50. Beckson, Karl and Ganz, Arthur. Encyclopedia

Britannica, A Readers Guide to Literary Terms, Thames

and Hudson, London, 1966, Vol. 15, P. 1129

51. Drever, James Chamber's Dictionary, A Dictionary of

Psychology, Penguin Books, 1964, P.708

52. Aurobindo, Sri Letters of Sri Aurobindo - On Poetry

and Literature, Third Series, Sri Aurobindo Circle

Bombay,1949,P.39

53. Aurobindo, Sri. The Future Poetry, Sri Aurobindo

Ashram, Pondicherry, 1953, P.355

54. Aurobindo, Sri. Letters of Sri Aurobindo - On Poetry

and Literature Third Series, Sri Aurobindo Circle,

Bombay, 1949, P. 275

55. lbid, P. 293

56. Aurobindo, Sri The Future Poetry, Sri Aurobindo

Ashram, Pondicherry, 1953, P.280

57. Aurobindo. Sri , Letters of Sri Aurobindo - On Poetry

and Literature Third Series, Sri Aurobindo Circle,

Bombay, 1949, PP. 98-9

58. Ibid, P. 124

59. Ibid, P. 99

60. Aurobindo, Sri. The Future Poetry, Sri Aurobindo

Ashram, Pondicherry, 1953, P.316

61. Ibid, P.315

62. Ibid, P.324

63. Aurobindo Sri, Sri Aurobindo Birth Century Library,

VoL 17, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry,

1972,P.237

64. Aurobindo, Sri. The Future Poetry, Sri Aurobindo

Ashram, Pondicherry, 1953, P. 14

65. Aurobindo, Sri.Letters on Poetry, Literature and Art,

Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherrv, 1972,P.330

66. Aurobindo, Sri. Letters of Sri Aurobindo - On Poetry

and Literature Third Series. Sri Aurobindo Circle.

Bombay. 1949, P.163

67. Nirodbaran,Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo,

Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherrv,1969 P.9

68. Ibid, PP. 9-10

69. Beckson, Karl and Ganz, Arthur. Encyclopedia

Britannica, A Reader’s Guide to Literary Terms,

Thames and Hudson, London, 1966, Vol. 12,P. 319

70. Shankar, D.A., A Note on Poetics: Indigenous and

Global, The Journal of Indian Writing in English, Vol.

36, Jan. 2008 – No.1, P.12

71. Press, Jhon. The Fire and the Fountain, Oxford

University Press, 1955,PP.3-4

72. Aurobindo, Sri. Letters of Sri Aurobindo - On Poetry

and Literature ,Third Series. Sri Aurobindo Circle.

Bombay. 1949, P.77

73. Ibid, P.92

74. Ibid, P.107

75. Aurobindo, Sri. Life, Literature and Yoga

Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry 1952 P.77

76. Translated from, Sakhare Nanasaheb, Sarth

Dnyaneshwary, Sarathy Prakashan, Pune 1996, P. 1096

77. Translated from, Tukaram, Sri Tukarambuanchya

Abhangachi Gatha, edi. by Purushottam Lad,

Government Photozinko Press, Pune, Reprinted 1991,

P.134

78. Translated from, Tukaram, Sri Tukarambuanchya

Abhangachi Gatha, edi. by Purushottam Lad,

Government Photozinko Press, Pune, Reprinted 1991,

P. 492

79. Aurobindo, Sri. Savitri, Sri Aurobindo Ashram,

Pondicherry, Sixth Impression, 1999, P. 743

80. Ibid, P.801

81. Aurobindo, Sri. Savitri, Sri Aurobindo Ashram,

Pondicherry, Sixth Impression, 1999, P. 660

82. Ibid, P.375