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The Mother and the Editorial Process
Amal Kiran’s reminiscences in Our Light and Delight are the main source of information about the Mother’s connection with work on the early editions of Savitri. Her interaction with the disciples who prepared the second volume of the first edition is mentioned there in a brief but important passage. The longer account of her involvement with the 1954 edition is concerned for the most part with a proposed Publisher’s Note, the inclusion of the letters on Savitri, and other matters not directly affecting the text of the poem itself. We learn from Our Light and Delight that the Mother approved of the methods used from 1951 to 1993 for arriving at a text of Savitri as free from errors as possible. It is true that the preparation of earlier editions was less systematic than the recent work. Each of those editions was completed in a much shorter time than the many years spent on the Revised Edition. The manuscripts were consulted only if a mistake was suspected, and there were typographical errors in each edition up to the Centenary. But the principles adhered to have been the same in all editions. The method of verification and correction proposed to the Mother and sanctioned by her from the outset has been applied more thoroughly in the latest edition. This method consists of comparing the manuscripts with the copies of those manuscripts and, if discrepancies are found, correcting the printed text to agree with the manuscripts. For this purpose, Sri Aurobindo’s dictated revision is regarded as part of the manuscript. Any changes made accidentally by those who copied, typed and typeset the text are subject to correction. Page – 8 The Mother’s Approval of Corrections
Amal notes in Our Light and Delight that he was in Bombay when the second volume of the first edition of Savitri, which came out in 1951, was being prepared for publication. Nirod and Prithwisingh wanted the proofs to be sent to Amal. They reportedly told the Mother that it would be a mistake not to have Amal read them, for he had previously made suggestions "which had been found correct when the typed copy had been compared with the original manuscript"/’ Acknowledging that the text must be made as accurate as possible, the Mother approved of sending the proofs for Amal to read and make suggestions. Evidently, the new suggestions were to be evaluated in the same way as the previous ones, by comparing the copies with the manuscripts. The same arrangement was kept when work on the second edition was begun in 1954. Amal was then in the Ashram, but his role was still only to make suggestions. Decisions were made by Nolini and Nirod after looking at the manuscripts. We see that the Mother recognised the possibility of errors in the printed text of Savitri, and accepted the necessity of a procedure for finding and removing them. When she was told that the corrections would be based on Sri Aurobindo’s manuscripts, she did not hesitate to accept the procedure that was proposed.
An Apparent Contradiction Reconciled
According to Our Light and Delight, the Mother once told Amal he was not to "change even a comma in Savitriˮ. This was when the 1954 edition was being prepared. Yet in 1954, more than eighty commas were added, removed or changed
_____________________________________ " Our Light and Delight (1980), p. 23. Even before the publication of the first edition of Savitri was completed, many cantos had appeared in fascicles and in instalments in journals, including Mother India. Page – 9 to other punctuation, not to mention more significant differences from the first edition. How can this apparent contradiction be reconciled? The Mother’s remark about not changing commas in Savitri was addressed to Amal, not to Nolini or Nirod, who were the ones responsible for what would be printed in the edition then being prepared. The conversation which Amal tried to recapture years later in Our Light and Delight was personal. It was concerned with his attitude at that time, more than with the work on an edition. When the Mother made the statement remembered by Amal as "I won’t allow you to change even a comma in Savitri”, she was addressing a specific individual in a particular context .The word "you" referred to Amal as he was at that moment in 1954. Amal published what he recollected of this conversation under the heading "Some Ways of the Mother’s Working", not in the chapter "Apropos of Savitri”, because its importance was primarily for his inner life. The Mother was working to bring about the change in his consciousness described on page 26 of Our Light and Delight:
The whole poise of physical being experienced a change. A new life began, and I knew then that a fundamental obstacle—intellectual self-esteem—had essentially disappeared
The Mother was not laying down a general and absolute rule with her oft-quoted and much-misinterpreted words. This is proved by the fact that she actually permitted numerous corrections to be made in the 1954 edition. If it had been her intention to prohibit any departure from the first edition, she would have informed Nolini. Her orders would certainly have been followed. Nevertheless, the fact that so many changes were made in the Second edition of Savitri, when the Mother had supposedly expressed disapproval of even the slightest change, may seem surprising. Page – 10 The explanation is simple. Amal has already clarified the Mother’s meaning by reporting another conversation where she approved of correcting the text "according to Sri Aurobindo’s latest version".7 She had obviously meant only that nothing of Sri Aurobindoʼs was to be changed. Correcting mistakes made by others was another matter. The recent clarification is entirely consistent with the account in Our Light and Delight. But some further observations may be added. The Mother sanctioned legitimate corrections for the sake of an accurate and authentic text of Savitri. She objected only to a type of change which, at that time, Amal was suspected of being capable of making. To the extent that what was printed was what Sri Aurobindo had written and intended, the Mother did not want someone with a critical mind trying to improve upon it. Another paragraph in the report of the same conversation makes it clear that this was her concern. The Mother mentions that Sri Aurobindo had once told her, apropos of some criticism of his writing: "But I had a purpose in putting the thing in this way. I wanted it like this."8 But where there are discrepancies between printed versions of Savitri and the manuscripts, it is the manuscripts that show what Sri Aurobindo wanted. When a line had been miscopied, Sri Aurobindo would not have said about the miscopied version, "I wanted it like this." To ensure that Savitri would be published as Sri Aurobindo intended, the Mother authorised the correction of errors found in the printed text. It was the responsibility of Nolini and Nirod, Sri Aurobindo’s assistants in the last years of his work on the epic, to make corrections based as far as possible on the manuscripts.
The Mother’s Delegation of Authority
It is stated in Our Light and Delight that the Mother permitted the proofs of the second volume of the first edition to be Page – 11 sent to Amal, "but left, of course, the final decision in the hands of Nolini and Nirod".9 In other words, she delegated to Nolini and Nirod authority to make decisions about the printed text of Savitri on the basis of Sri Aurobindo’s manuscripts. She did not reserve this authority as a prerogative that could be exercised only by herself. This was in 1951. The same distribution of responsibility continued in the next edition. The Mother supervised work on the 1954 edition of Savitri, but there is no evidence that she made textual decisions herself. It is necessary to correct an impression that the Mother read the proofs of the entire 1954 edition. This impression is based on the misunderstanding of a passage in Our Light and Delight, where Amal has written: The Press sent to the Mother the proof of the contents of the Savitri-volume. When I came as usual to meet her, she showed me the pages and said: "Nolini and I have gone through everything. It’s all right. There is no need for you to look at the proof."10 Here, "contents" means the table of contents at the beginning of the book. What follows makes this quite clear. When Amal glanced at the proof, he says, I immediately saw that a certain title differed from the form in which it stood in the body of the book. According to what the Mother said on 13 March 1963, she first read Savitri in or around 1961: So I didn’t concern myself with Savitri. I read Savitri two years ago, I had never read it before.* __________________________________ * "Alors Savitri, je ne m’en occupais pas. J’ai lu Savitri il y a deux ans, je ne l’avais jamais lu." On 18 September 1962, the Mother had also spoken of reading Savitri "two years ago, I believe". Page – 12 In that case, the Mother could not have read the proofs of the poem in 1954. The 1954 edition was the one in which she was most actively involved. But her role did not go much beyond one of overall supervision. Sri Aurobindo has written about the Mother’s way of supervising work in the Ashram: What I meant in my letter was that the Mother does not usually think about these things herself, take the initiative and direct each one in each instance what they shall do or how, unless there is some special occasion for doing so. This she does not do, in fact, in any department of work. She keeps her eye generally on the work, sanctions or corrects or refuses sanction, intervenes when she thinks necessary.¹¹
No doubt, some questions about Savitri may have been referred to the Mother at times. But in general, no account of work on editions up to the Centenary indicates that the Mother felt it necessary to make textual decisions herself. These were made by Nolini and Nirod and, in the case of the Centenary edition, by Amal Kiran.
The Mother and the Revised Edition
Beginning in the late 1970s, Nirodbaran supervised the first systematic comparison of the manuscripts of Savitri with all the copies, typescripts and printed versions. Many previously unsuspected discrepancies between the printed texts and Sri Aurobindo’s manuscripts were discovered. Nolini was asked by Jayantilal Parekh, the head of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives, about correcting these discrepancies in a new edition. Nolini replied that corrections could be made "if Nirod approves of them".*
_____________________________________ * Nolini’s statement was often mentioned by Jayantilal in conversation and was reported by him in writing in his article published in the booklet "On Page – 13 Thus the Revised Edition was prepared under the authority delegated by the Mother to Nolini Kanta Gupta and Nirodbaran This was according to an arrangement that had been been in force since 1951. Eventually, age compelled Nolini to withdraw and he assigned full authority to Nirod. Nirod spent four years closely examining the manuscripts with Amal before giving final permission for the publication of the edition that came out in 1993.¹² The Mother is ever-present. The long and meticulous work to establish an authentic, error-free text of Savitri has been dedicated to her as Mahasaraswati. Whatever may be the individual shortcomings of the editors, the spirit in which the work has been done has been such as to invite the influence and blessings of Mahasaraswati. Sri Aurobindo has written about this aspect of the Mother: Always she holds in her nature and can give to those whom she has chosen the intimate and precise knowledge, the subtlety and patience, the accuracy of intuitive mind and conscious hand and discerning eye of the perfect worker.. Nothing is too small or apparently trivial for her attention…. Carelessness and negligence and indolence she abhors; all scamped and hasty and shuffling work … is offensive and foreign to her temper. When her work is finisher nothing has been forgotten, no part has been misplaced or omitted or left in a faulty condition; all is solid, accurate, complete, admirable. Nothing short of a perfect perfection satisfies her and she is ready to face an eternity of toil if that is needed for the fullness of her creation.¹³ ___________________________________ the New Edition of Savitriˮ (Part One). Readers may refer to that article more details about the work on the new edition. Page – 14 |