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Readings in the New Edition
Most differences between the new edition of Savitri and previous editions are easily explained by describing how the work on the new edition was done. Sri Aurobindo’s manuscripts were compared line by line with the copies of those manuscripts. It was found that accidental changes had occurred sometimes when his lines were copied, typed and typeset. The divergences from what Sri Aurobindo wrote or dictated have now been corrected, restoring his original text where it was inadvertently altered. We have seen that the procedure followed in preparing this edition was approved in principle by the Mother, long before it was applied systematically to the whole text of Savitri. We have also seen that she entrusted the responsibility for editorial decisions regarding Savitri to certain individuals, who have duly authorised the publication of the Revised Edition. Typical examples of differences between editions of Savitri have been given in the previous booklet "On the New Edition of Savitri" (Part One). As an introduction, readers should refer to the last article in that booklet, "Editions of Savitri: How and Why Do They Differ?" The Table of Emendations in the "Supplement to the Revised Edition of Savitri” lists the differences between all editions. The items discussed in the following pages have been chosen by critics of the new edition as examples of what, according to them, are mistakes in this edition. The explanations offered below will provide readers with the information they need to judge for themselves. Page – 23 Editorial Decisions and the Table of Alternative Readings
Some of these items are not typical, straightforward examples, but special cases involving unusual problems and requiring detailed explanations. The number of such problems in the text of Savitri is limited. The attention of the readers has been drawn to them by the Table of Alternative Readings in the Supplement. The nature of each case is indicated briefly in the notes at the end of that table. A few examples have been discussed at some length in the Introduction to the Supplement. Alternative readings are given where the manuscripts do not provide an unambiguous indication of Sri Aurobindo’s intention. In dictated lines, for instance, the scribe may have misunderstood what Sri Aurobindo meant; but objective evidence to support corrections may be lacking, since the lines were not written by Sri Aurobindo with his own hand. Editorial judgment has had to be exercised in such cases in every edition of Savitri. For examples of editorial decisions of this kind in previous editions, see the discussion of items 13, 14, 18 and 19. When the Revised Edition was being prepared, it was found that Sri Aurobindo had drafted by hand many passages which he later dictated for his scribe to write out more neatly. The discovery of these drafts has reduced the need for emending without manuscript support, as in the correction of "sole" to "soul" discussed above. But some exercise of editorial judgment in determining the readings that best represent Sri Aurobindo’s intention has remained unavoidable. A particular edition cannot be legitimately criticised for this, since it is a feature of all editions. The question to be asked is only whether the right decisions have been made. Page – 24 1.1950, 1954 and 1970 editions To feel the eternal’s touch in time-made things, 1993 edition (page 108, line 20) To fix the eternal’s touch in time-made things, Sri Aurobindo dictated the following lines when he revised his last manuscript of Book Two, Canto Two: To seize the absolute in shapes that pass, To fix the eternal’s touch in time- made things, This is the law of all perfection here. In the facsimile on page 28, these lines can be seen in the margin of the manuscript, written by Sri Aurobindo’s scribe at right angles to the rest of the text. When he copied the lines into the ledger used for the fair copy of Part One, the scribe wrote "feel" instead of "fix". His copy is reproduced on page 29, where "feel" appears in the sixth line. Apart from the discrepancy between "fix" and "feel", the fair copy corresponds very closely to the revised manuscript page. The word "gloss" at the end of the fifth line in the manuscript was copied as "glass", but the error was corrected by writing an "o" over the "a" in the fair copy itself. When he copied the word he had taken down as "timemade" or "time made", the scribe rightly added a hyphen. Evidently Sri Aurobindo did not always specify such details when he dictated. "Time-made" is hyphenated in its four other occurrences in Savitri. All changes dictated by Sri Aurobindo when he revised the manuscripts of Savitri were marked on the manuscripts themselves by the scribe, who was then expected to copy the words written there. If Sri Aurobindo, after dictating "fix", had altered it himself to "feel", "fix" would have been cancelled and "feel" written as the word replacing it.*
* Typical examples of the marking of dictated changes can be seen in the facsimile on page 66. The facsimile of the manuscript for the present item illustrates the insertion of dictated lines, but not the cancellation and replacement of words Page – 25 Heavily revised passages were sometimes copied on small sheers which were pinned to the manuscript after cancelling the original version. These intermediate fair copies might be revised by Sri Aurobindo before the final copy was made. Only in such a case could Sri Aurobindo have made a change at a stage between the revised manuscript and the copy in the ledger. But in the present passage there is no heavy revision and no cancellation. The passage was certainly copied directly from the manuscript shown in the first facsimile into the ledger shown on the next page. A word with such a distinctive sound as "fix" cannot be a mishearing of Sri Aurobindo’s dictation. It is clear that its replacement by "feel" was not due to Sri Aurobindo’s revision, but to the copyist’s inadvertence. Therefore, the original word has been restored in the new edition. What is unusual is that the scribe miscopied his own handwriting. Most discrepancies between the manuscripts and the copies are due to misreading of Sri Aurobindo’s difficult handwriting of his later years. But a mistake like this one is also found in the scribe’s transcript of the preceding page of the Manuscript. There, in copying a dictated line, instead of "cancels" he wrote "conceals" in the fair copy. Yet "cancels" was as clear as "fix" on the next page.* Such slips must have been due to a momentary relaxation of concentration when there was no apparent difficulty in reading the manuscript.
________________________________________ and phrases. In the first line, the "se" added to "the" to make "these" is in the bribe’s handwriting and must have been dictated. The underlined word in the fifteenth line was not changed; the scribe rewrote all but the first letter of "presses" because it was difficult to read in Sri Aurobindo’s handwriting. The revision marked on another page of the scribe’s copy and on a typed copy accounts for the replacement of "bonds" at the top of the page in the manuscript by "knots" in the printed text and explains how "An enthusiasm of divine surprise" in the middle of the page became "The enthusiasm of a divine surprise". * A similar instance can be seen in the facsimile on page 67. This shows the fair copy of the dictated passage reproduced on page 66. In the fifth line from the bottom of the fair copy, "thirst" is a misreading of "thought" in the third line from the bottom of the page from which it was copied; "thirst" was corrected to "thought" on the typescript. Page – 26 The correction of "feel" to "fix" in the new edition was a question of restoring the authentic reading in place of a word that was accidentally substituted for it. But at first sight, "feel" is an appealing word in this line. It is necessary to point out how the word dictated by Sri Aurobindo is superior to the one that happened to replace it. For his lines were never actually improved by being miscopied. This passage speaks of the creative process in relation to the higher reality it tries to capture. It defines the law of perfection in "all we attempt" here. To "feel" subjectively the eternal’s touch is not enough for perfection. For that, the artist or other creator has to "fix" concretely in the spirit and form of his work what Sri Aurobindo elsewhere calls "the touch of immortality and perfection, even a little of which is enough to carry it safe through the ages".21 Page – 27
A column of the manuscript of Book Two, Canto Two The sentence in the margin, with "fix" in the second line, was dictated by Sri Aurobindo when he revised the manuscript. It is shown enlarged at the top of the next page. Page – 28
Dictated lines in the margin of the manuscript
Lines copied from the manuscript by the scribe
The sixth line is the copy of the line in which Sri Aurobindo had dictated "fix". The scribe substituted "feel". Page – 29 2.1951, 1954 and 1970 editions Always she drives the souls to new attempt; 1993 edition (page 354, line 11) Always she drives the soul to new attempt; Sri Aurobindo first wrote: Always she drives the soul to new attempt; then he cancelled "the", wrote "our" above it, and put an "s" slightly below and to the right of the "1" of "soul". Since "soul" was run together with the following "to", the "s" could not be attached directly to the "I". Thus the line became: Always she drives our souls to new attempt; but having tried this second version, Sri Aurobindo evidently decided to restore the line to its original form. He crossed out "our" and put a wavy line under "the". It is not clear whether he touched the "s" that had been added to make "our souls"; the diagonal line through it could be the upstroke of a cursive "s" or the cancellation of a printed "s". If the "s" is not taken to be cancelled, the final version would appear to read: Always she drives the souls to new attempt; and in fact it was so typed and printed. But "the souls" used in this way is awkward English, not consistent with Sri Aurobindo’s style or with his mastery of the language. It can be concluded that he intended to revert to his original version, with "the soul", when he changed the "our" of "our souls" back to "the". This conclusion is supported by a study of the occurrences of "the soul", "the souls" and "our souls" in Savitri and other writings of Sri Aurobindo. In Savitri, "the soul" occurs 236 times and "our souls" 24 times. On the other hand, "the souls" Page – 30 occurs only 7 times and is always followed by an expression beginning with "of" or "that": The souls came there that vainly strive for birth, Her meaningful outlines of the souls of things Its priests the souls of dedicated gods, To the souls of men their deep identity. Meant for the souls that can obey my law, The souls of men have wandered from the Light Pointing to the souls of men the routes to God.22
Sri Aurobindo’s other writings confirm that he never wrote "the souls" without a qualifying phrase to indicate which souls are meant. In the present line there is no such qualifying phrase. "Always she drives the souls" would therefore be an anomaly. The anomaly would have to be accepted if it was indisputably intended by Sri Aurobindo. But the evidence for this is weak; the "s" may even be cancelled. We know only that Sri Aurobindo wrote "the soul", changed it to "our souls", then cancelled "our". The natural conclusion is that he wanted to revert to "the soul", as he had originally written. Page – 31 3. 1951,1954 and 1970 editions Or stretched to find Truth-mind’s divining rod; 1993 edition (page 361, line 32) Or stretched to find truth mind’s divining rod; The present reading agrees with Sri Aurobindo’s last revision of a line he had first written as Feeling for truth with mind’s divining rod and later changed to It stretched towards Truth the mind’s divining rod before he altered it to its final form. All these versions speak of a search for truth using "mind’s divining rod", not of a search for "Truth-mind’s divining rod". The line should be read in its context. It occurs after a description of the arts and sciences of ancient India, in the following sentence in Book Four, Canto Two:
These things she took in as her nature’s food, But these alone could fill not her wide Self: A human seeking limited by its gains, To her they seemed the great and early steps Hazardous of a young discovering spirit Which saw not yet by its own native light; It tapped the universe with testing knocks Or stretched to find truth mind’s divining rod….
The history of the last line shows that Sri Aurobindo intended it to mean "Or stretched mind’s divining rod to find truth". A hyphen before "mind’s" was deleted on three typescripts marked with his dictated revision. In the final version Sri Aurobindo also changed the "T" in "Truth", which had been capitalised in the previous version, to a small "t". Though Sri Aurobindo tried to remove the hyphen from Page – 32 the typed copies, the phrase "Truth-mind’s divining rod" appeared in the printed text. An artificial construction was forced on the words of the line, making the rod the object of the search rather than the means. Sri Aurobindo had found in the divining rod an exact image of the mental truth-seeking faculty. It was turned instead into the inappropriate symbol of a higher "Truth-mind" he had never meant to introduce into this description of a limited "human seeking". The divining rod, traditionally a forked rod of hazel wood, is supposed to dip when it is held by the dowser over a place where water or metals are hidden below the ground. Whatever its value, such a method cannot lead directly to the object of the search. After wandering about until the rod dips, one has to dig to ascertain if what one is seeking is really there. This practice, like the tapping with "testing knocks" in the previous line, provided Sri Aurobindo with an apt symbol of the indirect knowledge of the surface mind. The Mother’s comments on the use of the divining rod to find water show her scepticism about the procedure. She considered the rod itself to be only a "pretext": It is like a rod which bends, you know; try as you may to be as passive as possible, you will always make a slight movement when you have the feeling that something is there. I have tried this experiment many times: you give the rod to someone, you ask him to walk; you are silent, the man is silent, quite concentrated; then, suddenly, you think powerfully: "Here there is water" and hop! the rod makes a little movement—it is quite evident that it is your suggestion. I had thought thus, without having the least idea that there was water there, simply to make an experiment; and in the hand of the dowser the rod came down; he had received the suggestion in his subconscient.23 The method, if it works, would seem to rely on promptings from a subliminal consciousness of which the dowser is not directly aware. The word "divining" should not mislead us Page – 33 into taking it as a means of divine knowledge. Elsewhere in Savitri, indeed, Sri Aurobindo couples "divining" with "ignorant", Here is man’s ignorant divining mind,24 which reminds us that he introduced "mind’s divining rod" into a passage describing the "human seeking" of a young discovering spirit Which saw not yet by its own native light…. All this has little resemblance to the nature of the Truth-mind of which Sri Aurobindo writes: Buddhi is really an intermediary between a much higher Truth-mind not now in our active possession, which is the direct instrument of Spirit, and the physical life of the human mind evolved in body. Its powers of intelligence and will are drawn from this greater direct Truth-mind or supermind.25 The "Truth-mind" is evidently a faculty that brings us face to face with Truth; Sri Aurobindo repeats the word "direct" in speaking of it. In Savitri there is no authentic occurrence of "Truth-mind". "Truth" and "mind" come together in only one other line, The truth mind could not know unveils its face,26 where "which" is understood after "truth". A hyphen would make the line meaningless. The groping nature of the mind’s search for truth, figured in the use of the divining rod, comes out strongly in the first version found in Sri Aurobindo’s manuscripts: Feeling for truth with mind’s divining rod…. Page – 34 In the next version, the image of the rod held by the dowser is made more vivid by the verb "stretched", which also carries a psychological suggestion: It stretched towards Truth the mind’s divining rod…. Finally, Sri Aurobindo has replaced "towards Truth" by "to find Truth". In his last revision, he changed "Truth" back to "truth" in view of the nature of what the mind can actually find by its limited means: Or stretched to find truth mind’s divining rod…. Thus Sri Aurobindo perfected this line through several stages. Each word has a precise function in relation both to the symbol and to what is symbolised. Coming after the related image of tapping the universe with "testing knocks", the line says exactly what needs to be said in this context regarding the limitations of a mental seeking for truth. The intrusion of a hyphen made the rod itself the thing the "young discovering spirit" stretches to find. The coherence of the image was thus destroyed. The dowser does not stretch to find his rod; he holds the rod in his hands and stretches it in front of him to find water. The hyphen had the still more unfortunate effect of making the divining rod the spurious symbol of a "Truth-mind" whose knowledge, according to Sri Aurobindo’s writings, has little in common with dowsing. The hyphen was deleted on three typed copies corrected by Sri Aurobindo. Nevertheless, it was printed in the first three editions of Savitri and has been removed only in the new edition. Page – 35 4.1951 and 1954 editions THE JOY OF UNION; THE ORDEAL OF THE FOREKNOWLEDGE OF DEATH AND THE HEART’S GRIEF 1970 edition The Joy of Union; The Ordeal of the Foreknowledge of Death and the Heart’s Grief 1993 edition (page 465) The Joy of Union; the Ordeal of the Foreknowledge of Death and the Heart’s Grief and Pain Sri Aurobindo originally gave the following title and subtitle to Book Seven, Canto One: Life in the Forest The Joy of Union and the Ordeal of the Foreknowledge of Death and the Heart’s Grief and Pain When he dictated the revision of the typed copy, Sri Aurobindo deleted "Life in the Forest". He replaced the first "and" by a semicolon, so the title became: The Joy of Union; the Ordeal of the Foreknowledge of Death and the Heart’s Grief and Pain The words "and Pain" were omitted in the second volume of the first edition, which was prepared for publication after Sri Aurobindo’s passing. The omitted words have been restored in the Revised Edition. In 1951 and 1954, the title was printed in capitals. The Centenary edition inconsistently has "The" capitalised after the semicolon in the heading at the beginning of the canto, but "the" (in small capitals) in the table of contents. The new edition has "the" in both places. Page – 36 5.1951, 1954 and 1970 editions * * * 1993 edition (page 551) The Discovery of the Cosmic Spirit and the Cosmic Consciousness Book Seven was added to the scheme of Savitri only in 1947. The manuscript version of its final canto includes some of the last passages to be drafted by Sri Aurobindo in his own hand. In his first draft of the opening, he inserted the following heading at the top of the page: Canto IV. The Discovery of the Cosmic Spirit and the Cosmic Consciousness It was "Canto IV" because the Book of Yoga originally had only four cantos. The second canto, entitled at first "The Parable of the Finding of the Soul", grew to an enormous length. Sri Aurobindo divided it into the present Cantos II-V when he revised the typescript. After writing a page and a few lines of the first draft of the last canto under the heading quoted above, Sri Aurobindo wrote "Canto IV" at the top of a new page and began again. He did not repeat the title in the second draft. The dictated version follows the second draft of the opening with a few lines added. A typed copy of this is marked lightly with some further dictated revision. The typescript has the heading:
BOOK THE BOOK OF YOGA Canto 4
In the first line of the heading, someone has written "VII" lightly in pencil after "BOOK". The incorrect canto number, "4", is also circled in pencil (but not cancelled) and "7" is Page – 37 written, next to it. These markings on the typed copy do not resemble those made at Sri Aurobindo’s dictation by his scribe, who always marked changes in ink, cancelling the previous version. These pencil markings may have been made when the first edition was prepared for press in 1951. Since Sri Aurobindo did not correct the wrong canto number when he dictated the revision of the typescript, he cannot have paid attention to the heading at that time. Perhaps the question of the canto number and title did not arise in this case because the canto was not yet being prepared for publication. The absence of a title in the typescript does not mean that Sri Aurobindo wanted the canto to be published without a title, any more than his leaving "Canto 4" uncorrected means that he wanted Canto Six to be followed by Canto Four. Sri Aurobindo gave this canto a title, so the footnote in previous editions, "No title given by the Author", was incorrect. Now that Sri Aurobindo’s title has been found in the manuscript, it is naturally printed at the head of the canto. Page – 38 6.1951, 1954 and 1970 editions Gloom led to worse gloom, death to an emptier death, 1993 edition (page 599, line 6) Gloom led to worse gloom, depth to an emptier depth, There are two drafts of this passage in Sri Aurobindo’s hand. In both drafts, the word repeated in the second half of the line is not "death", but "depth". Sri Aurobindo had written "depth to an emptier depth"; but when the scribe took the line down at Sri Aurobindo’s dictation, he wrote "death to an emptier death". A "p" before "th", unless it is pronounced with deliberate emphasis, may not be distinctly audible. The scribe evidently heard "depth" as "death". This is related to the emendations of "sole" to "soul" and "curbed" to "curved", discussed earlier in connection with the Mother’s translation, where drafts by Sri Aurobindo support the corrections. These cases and others belong to a stage in the work on Savitri when the scribe was not copying Sri Aurobindo’s drafts, but writing at his dictation. Words that sound similar could be confused while taking dictation. Sri Aurobindo’s handwritten versions show his intention most reliably in such cases. Therefore "death", found in the scribe’s handwriting, has been corrected to "depth", which was written more than once by Sri Aurobindo himself. Page – 39 7. 1951,1954 and 1970 editions Chastise thy heart with knowledge, unhood and see, 1993 edition (page 612, line 4) Chastise thy heart with knowledge, unhood to see, 8. 1951, 1954 and 1970 editions Of a happy Nothingness and wordless Calm, 1993 edition (page 612, line 15) Of a happy Nothingness and worldless Calm, The phrase "unhood to see" is found in four manuscripts in Sri Aurobindo’s handwriting. The final dictated version has the same phrase. But in writing it, the scribe ran together the words "to" and "see". The "t" of his "to" resembles his way of forming an ampersand ("&:"). When he made a copy of this version, the scribe apparently took the "t" as "&" and overlooked the "o" which was run together with "see". He wrote "and" instead of "to", so that the phrase became "unhood and see". The second line occurs a little later in the same passage. It was dictated by Sri Aurobindo and written by the scribe with the word "worldless", Of a happy Nothingness and worldless Calm, but in his fair copy of this, the scribe substituted the more common "wordless". "Worldless" also occurs in two other lines in Savitri: Seeking heaven’s rest or the spirit’s worldless peace, For not for thee the nameless worldless Nought….27 Page – 40 9. 1951, 1954 and 1970 editions In earth’s anomalous and tragic field 1993 edition (page 627, line 32) In earth’s anomalous and magic field Sri Aurobindo wrote this line first with the word "mystic": In earth’s anomalous and mystic field…. Then he changed "mystic" to "magic". The line appears twice in this form in Sri Aurobindo’s manuscripts: In earth’s anomalous and magic field…. The dictated version of the passage has the same word, "magic". But when the scribe made a copy of this version, he substituted "tragic". Sri Aurobindo’s assistants, when they copied or typed, were expected to reproduce the text exactly as it was. The replacement of "magic" by "tragic" was unintentional. Since the change to "tragic" was not made by Sri Aurobindo, "magic" has been restored. Page – 41 10.1951, 1954 and 1970 editions And taught1 the entries of a heavenlier state Footnote: ¹Alternative: "Vistaed" 1993 edition (page 683, line 24) And taught the entries of a heavenlier state Alternative reading in the Supplement:
When Sri Aurobindo dictated the revision of the typed copy of Book Eleven, he changed the line Opening the vision of a heavenly state to And taught the entries of a heavenlier state….
He considered using "vistaed" instead of "taught", but did not make a final choice between the two words. In the left margin, the scribe wrote both words, putting "vistaed" above "taught", with a line between them. The footnote in the first three editions, giving "Vistaed" as an alternative, is misleading. The capital "V" in "Vistaed" makes it look like an alternative to "And taught". This was probably not the editors’ intention, but the readers had no way of knowing this.* The Supplement to the Revised Edition, on the other hand, lists "vistaed" clearly as an alternative to "taught", agreeing with what was marked on the typescript. ________________________________ * On the first page of Book Eleven, "Were there" was given in previous editions as an alternative, evidently to "appeared", not to "Domains appeared", in spite of the capital "W". But in footnotes added after the first edition, alternatives were not capitalised, e.g. "groan" on p. 224 and "a mortal" on p. 523 of the Centenary edition. These, incidentally, are no longer listed as alternatives since it is now Page – 42 This alternative, like the one on the first page of Book Eleven, was evidently left by Sri Aurobindo to be reconsidered later, but he did not return to it.
Footnotes in Editions of Savitri
It has been objected that in the Revised Edition the alternative reading is not given in a footnote but in the Supplement, where it is less accessible. Sri Aurobindo himself, however, never published alternatives in footnotes to his poetry. There is no reason to believe he would have wanted a footnote here. This raises the general question of footnotes in Savitri. There were no footnotes in the 1950 edition of Part One or in any of the cantos of Parts Two and Three that were published in 1948-50. The second volume of the first edition, prepared for press after Sri Aurobindo’s passing, had seven footnotes (pages 94, 140, 187,190,197, 297, 308). Two were dropped in the next edition and a new one was added, making six footnotes in 1954 (pages 565-66, 593, 625, 635, 753, 767). The number of footnotes increased to nine in the Centenary edition (pages 224, 437-38, 467, 498, 523, 551, 561, 671, 683). All but two of these gave alternatives, ranging from a single word to several lines. The Revised Edition is accompanied by a Supplement in which 186 alternative readings are listed. The extensive study of Sri Aurobindo’s manuscripts carried out in preparing this edition resulted in a much longer list of alternatives than before. To avoid cluttering the text, footnotes have now been removed from the book itself, except for the footnote necessary for explaining why the single canto of Book Eight is called "Canto Three".
__________________________________ certain that "groan" and "a mortal" were merely mistakes. When they were first emended to "grown" and "immortal", the old readings were printed as alternatives because the correct words had not yet been found in Sri Aurobindo’s manuscripts, confirming his intention beyond doubt. Page – 43 Footnotes are essentially a scholarly device. An edition confronting the reader with a footnote at almost every turn of the page might appeal to the intellectually minded, but would be likely to distract the non-academic. So in the new edition of Savitri, lists of alternative readings and differences between editions are published separately in the Supplement. Readers are thus provided with much more information than in the past, but it is presented in a less obtrusive form. Page – 44 The Length of Savitri: A Clarification
The question of footnotes is related to a recent quibble about the exact length of Savitri as published in different editions. Correct figures have already appeared in the booklet "On the New Edition of Savitri” (Part One):
1. Lines in the first edition (1950-51) 23,811 2. Lines in the second ("University") edition (1954) 23,812 3. Lines in the third ("Centenary") edition (1970) 23,803 4. Lines in the fourth ("Revised") edition (1993) 23,837 As stated in the booklet where these figures appeared, lines printed in footnotes as alternative versions were not included in the totals. This is the normal and natural method of counting. Alternative versions are words or lines that could be substituted for those in the text, not additional words or lines to be added to them. Figures given in the past for the length of Savitri, e.g. in the Note before the "Letters on Savitri" at the end of the 1954 edition (page 818), did not include footnotes in the total. Some have criticised the omission of footnotes from the totals and have proposed the figures of 23,812 lines for the length of the first edition and 23,813 for the 1954 and 1970 editions, counting footnotes. The totals have been counted in this way in an attempt to minimise the differences between these editions. But these figures are erroneous. Page – 44 If lines in footnotes are counted, they must all be counted. This would include the nine lines in the footnote on page 140 of the 1951 edition, pages 565-66 of the 1954 edition and page 498 of the 1970 edition. The 1951 edition also had a line in a footnote on page 94 which was not included in later editions. Counting the footnotes, the 1950-51,1954 and 1970 editions of Savitri had the same length of 23,821 lines. But this figure is misleading, for it conceals significant differences between these editions, such as the fact that in 1954 a line was added to the printed text of Book Four, Canto Two. If the irregular method of counting alternative versions in the total is admitted, the length of the Revised Edition would increase considerably from 23,837 lines. For then the lines printed in the Supplement as alternatives should be included, even if one does not count the 465 lines of "Unused Versions and Omitted Passages". Page – 45 11. 1951, 1954 and 1970 editions I will pursue thee across the century: 1993 edition (page 699, line 19) I will pursue thee across the centuries; Sri Aurobindo dictated this line which is spoken by the Godhead to Savitri. The scribe heard the last word as "century". But this would limit to a mere hundred years the "long romance of Thee and Me" described in the preceding line. Since the restriction to a single century impoverishes the sense of these lines, it is assumed that Sri Aurobindo actually dictated "across the centuries". The scribe must not have heard the "s". Sri Aurobindo speaks frequently of "centuries" in Savitri, never of only one "century". These occurrences are found in the first six books: A traveller through the magic centuries Great, patient, calm it sees the centuries pass, A sovereign worker through the centuries It lit the thoughts that glow through the centuries Ever the centuries and millenniums pass. Heir to the centuries of the lonely wise, The centuries pile man’s follies and man’s crimes An idiot hour destroys what centuries made, The centuries end, the ages vainly pass The weeping of the centuries visits his eyes: It pushes its spearhead through the centuries.28 Page – 46 12.1951,1954 and 1970 editions Thou shalt meet all with my transmuting soul. 1993 edition (page 699, line 36) Thou shalt meet all with thy transmuting soul. This line occurs in the same dictated passage as the preceding item. Here there is no reason to doubt that the scribe heard correctly when he wrote: Thou shalt meet all with thy transmuting soul. In the typed copy, "my" was typed instead of "thy". The typist’s mistake must have been due to the "my" s in the preceding line. But in the present line, Sri Aurobindo’s "thy" is consistent with the rest of the passage. For in this paragraph, "my soul" does not otherwise occur, while "thy" occurs before "soul" in six other lines:
Annihilation of thy living soul I lay my hands upon thy soul of flame, And lay my splendid yoke upon thy soul. I will enact the drama of thy soul, Summing in thy single soul my mystic world They shall embrace my body in thy soul…. Page – 47 13. 1951, 1954 and 1970 editions It is the originer of all truth here, 1993 edition (page 705, line 14) It is the origin of all truth here, This line, again, was not written by Sri Aurobindo in his own hand, but is found in a dictated passage. This sentence describing the supramental consciousness forms part of the longest dictated passage in Savitri, a 307-line paragraph which was the last passage of comparable length to be added to the epic. When the scribe took this line down, he wrote "originer". No such word exists or can be formed according to the rules of standard English, so a doubt arises. Did Sri Aurobindo coin it? Or was the word coined, not consciously by Sri Aurobindo, but unconsciously by his scribe who sometimes misheard what Sri Aurobindo dictated? Sri Aurobindo coined new words if he needed them to say what could not be said equally well in any other way. His authentic coinages reveal his mastery of language and a judicious restraint in his innovations. He did not practise or encourage indiscriminate invention of words, but insisted on the fulfilment of certain conditions: After all when one coins a new word, one has to take the chance [of its not being accepted]. If the word is properly formed and not ugly or unintelligible, it seems to me all right to venture.29 The first condition, "if the word is properly formed", would seem to rule out the possibility of Sri Aurobindo’s coining a word like "originer". For here the agent-noun suffix (-er/-or) is added to the noun "origin" instead of to the verb "originate", from which "originator" is correctly formed. To evade the laws of the language it is not enough, in Sri Aurobindo’s view, to invoke "poetic licence". Commenting on an expression in a disciple’s poem, he observed: Page – 48 "For our valleyed sake" is a locution that offers fascinating possibilities but fails to sound English. One might risk, "Let fall some tears for my unhappy sake" in defiance of grammar or humorously, "Oh shed some sweat-drops for my corpulent sake"; but "valleyed sake" carries the principle of the ārsa prayoga beyond the boundaries of the possible.30 "Arsha prayoga" or "Rishi’s usage" is the Sanskrit term for the archaic forms of Vedic Sanskrit that are not in accordance with the rules of the classical language. It may be extended to mean the liberties permitted to any Rishi or Kavi, inspired seer or poet. Here Sri Aurobindo uses it almost interchangeably with "poetic licence". No doubt, Sri Aurobindo exercised this liberty, but within limits. His reaction to "valleyed sake" suggests these limits. Yet this expression is more defensible than "originer". Sri Aurobindo himself has suggested similar possible uses of "sake" on the analogy of more common phrases like "dear sake". The adding of "-ed" to a noun to form "valleyed" is a recognised option in English, to which he resorted not infrequently in Savitri and other poems; "aeoned", "enigmaed" and "miracled" are some instances. If "valleyed sake" goes "beyond the boundaries of the possible", "originer" goes much further and certainly "fails to sound English". It is doubtful that Sri Aurobindo would have accepted, much less committed, such a violence to the language. The straightforward word "origin" fits the sense and metre of the line perfectly. The "er" of "originer" would add a metrically permissible but unnecessary syllable. Sri Aurobindo emphasised the importance of economy of sound in the kind of poetry he was writing in Savitri: Poetic rhythm begins to reach its highest levels, the greater poetic movements become possible … when the poet becomes, in Keats’ phrase, a miser of sound and syllable…. Page – 49 In these highest, intensest rhythms every sound is made the most of….³¹ Nor does "originer" seem to contribute anything to the meaning to justify the irregularity of the coinage and the wastage of a syllable. After "source" and "fount" in the preceding two lines, "origin" is the natural and inevitable word here, as much as it is where the effects of the opposite principle of existence are described with similar words elsewhere in Savitri: It is the origin of our suffering here….* Sri Aurobindo criticised overuse of neologisms, remarking that one could invent hundreds of beautiful words but the liberty to do so would end in a language like Joyce’s which is not desirable.³² He went further in distancing himself from the innovations of such modern writers: If the English language is to go to the dogs, let it go, but the Joyce cut by the way of Bedlam does not recommend itself to me.³³ Sri Aurobindo imposed a strict discipline on himself as well as on his poet-disciples in the matter of word-coinage. Several genuine coinages are found in Savitri. They are formed on valid analogies with existing words. They show an insight into word-formation and a respect for the genius of the English language that seem to be lacking in "originer". Generally, Sri Aurobindo coined a new word to convey a sense that could not be expressed equally well with any existing _______________________________ * Savitri, p. 448. A number of such similarly worded pairs of lines occur in Savitri, with two or three words that differ and give a contrast in meaning. To give examples would go beyond the scope of the present study. Page – 50 word. Some of the principal terms of his Yoga and philosophy, such as "overmind" and "supermind", had to be coined because the concepts were new to the English language. Besides these major terms, a few other words such as "cosmicity", "internatal" and "seried", which are not found even in the multi-volume Oxford English Dictionary, occur in The Life Divine as well as Savitri. This indicates that Sri Aurobindo had adopted them in his vocabulary. A handful of coined words, including "panergy" and "pactise", occur only once in Savitri and not elsewhere. But these are etymologically justifiable formations and each is used for a purpose that could not be served equally well by any other word. On the other hand, Sri Aurobindo coined "immensitude" for the sake of the sound rather than the sense. Questioned about it, he justified its formation from "immensity" by pointing out: "Immensitudes" is not any more fantastic than "infinitudes" to pair "infinity".34 "Immensitude" occurs three times in Savitri, illustrating the fact that when Sri Aurobindo found a word to be worth coining, he often considered it worth using more than once. The case of "originer" is quite different, resembling that of "unshaked", another word in early editions of Savitri that would not have enhanced Sri Aurobindo’s reputation as a master of English. The two words have in common the fact that they both occur in dictated lines. "Unshaked" was emended to "unshaped" in the Centenary edition on the assumption that the scribe had misheard the "p" as a "k".*
* See "On the New Edition of Savitri" (Part One), p. 18. "Unshaked" differs from "originer" in that "unshaked" as a variant of "unshaken" is not totally unknown in the history of English. It occurs a few times in Elizabethan literature, but has been obsolete for more than three centuries and is not part of the living language. Sri Aurobindo remarked with regard to an obsolete word, "If it is obsolete, it must remain obsolete." (On Himself, p. 314) On the other hand, he sometimes used archaic words; but archaic is not the same as obsolete. The Chambers Dictionary (1993) defines "archaic" as "not absolutely obsolete but no longer in Page – 51 Mishearing of Dictation: Syllables Added
If the scribe had never made a mistake in taking dictation, we would have had to accept whatever words he wrote as being Sri Aurobindo’s words and no further questions could have arisen. But the scribe’s ear was not infallible. His mishearing would be less surprising and unusual than Sri Aurobindo’s use of an improperly formed word would be. The scribe’s mishearings of dictation have been corrected at various stages, beginning before the publication of Savitri* and continuing through all editions up to 1993. Most relevant to the present question are the cases where a syllable was added by the scribe to the word Sri Aurobindo must have dictated. Three lines were taken down by the scribe as follows (words later emended are underlined): As if sunbeings made living and divine, We gaze through our world’s glass at half-seeing vasts, Time’s unforeseeing event, God’s secret plan. The word "sunbeings" was printed when Book Eleven first appeared in the 1951 issue of Sri Aurobindo Circle. Later the same year, before the second volume of the first edition of Savitri came out, the oddity of "sunbeings" was noticed; it
_______________________________________ general use". "Unshaked" is not only obsolete, it is also much inferior in the context to "unshaped", which is connected with "give it form" in the next line. * Sri Aurobindo himself corrected a number of these mistakes when the lines were read to him later. For example, "His signs" near the top of the dictated passage reproduced in the facsimile on page 66 makes little sense; it was evidently a mishearing of "He signs", to which Sri Aurobindo corrected it when he revised the typescript. But he did not always get a chance to correct mistakes of this kind. Several of them occurred when his last dictated revision was taken down. Even if the lines were read back to him, the similarity in sound seems to have made it possible in some cases for him to hear the word he had intended instead of the word the scribe had written down. Page – 52 was emended to "sun-beams".* Likewise, "half-seeing" and "unforeseeing" were emended to "half-seen" and "unforeseen" in 1954 and 1970."In these cases, not only did the scribe introduce an extra vowel with a distinct sound in each of the words presumably dictated by Sri Aurobindo, but he also misheard "m" and "n" as "ng". It is easier to explain how "origin of" could have been misheard as "originer of". It must be remembered that in Sri Aurobindo’s British pronunciation, "er" at the end of a word would not have had a distinct "r" sound and could have been indistinguishable from the vowel of the following "of". When Sri Aurobindo was asked about the "r"s in his line,
Never a rarer creature bore his shaft,
he referred in his reply to "three sonant r’s, the others being inaudible".36 By "sonant r’s" he would have meant the first two "r"s of "rarer" and the first "r" of "creature". The other four "r"s, occurring at the ends of words, were inaudible in his pure British accent. This explains how the scribe could mishear "mire" as "maya" when Sri Aurobindo dictated:
This mire must harbour the orchid and the rose….
If Sri Aurobindo lingered slightly at the end of "origin", that could have been enough to account for "originer". For the scribe had managed to hear "sunbeams" as "sunbeings" earlier in the revision of this canto; he could more easily have received the impression of a British "er" (with a silent "r") after the "n" of "origin", possibly merging with the following "of". Thus the coinage of "originer" would have been the scribe’s unintentional creative act. It is hardly likely that it was Sri Aurobindo’s innovation, contradicting his consistent rejection __________________________________ *In 1993 this was changed to "sunbeams", without a hyphen, to agree with the other occurrences of this word in Savitri. Page – 53 of such travesties of the English language. For Sri Aurobindo saw signs that English, which he hoped to lift into a language of the gods, was going, "to the dogs" instead. But he surely did not intend Savitri to contribute to this regrettable development. With "origin", the line is perfect in sense and rhythm and harmonises with its context. Sri Aurobindo has said that the style of expression in Savitri aims at "force, directness and spiritual clarity and reality ".37 Accordingly he used the simplest and most straightforward words in speaking of the "consciousness mind cannot touch": It has no home on earth, no centre in man, Yet is the source of all things thought and done, The fount of the creation and its works, It is the origin of all truth here, The sun-orb of mind’s fragmentary rays, Infinity’s heaven that spills the rain of God, The Immense that calls to man to expand the Spirit, The wide Aim that justifies his narrow attempts, A channel for the little he tastes of bliss. Page – 54
14.195O, 1954 and 1970 editions He has made a thick and narrowing hedge 1993 edition (page 166, line 1) He has made into a thick and narrowing hedge Like the previous item, this is a dictated line for which there is no manuscript in Sri Aurobindo’s hand. Here again, a close consideration of what Sri Aurobindo called the "language and verse technique"38 of Savitri is required. Several emendations were made in past editions of Savitri where the editors noticed metrical irregularities which they believed Sri Aurobindo wrote extensively on metre. His practice was consistent with his theory. Such questions have been judged according to his own statements and his practice in Savitri, not by any outside standard. Metrical defects or irregularities of the kind that have been corrected in different editions are not found in lines of the final version of Savitri that were written by Sri Aurobindo in his own hand.* They occur in dictated lines or came about through incorrect transcription. They usually involve the omission of a word or syllable that is obviously needed or can naturally be supplied. The metrical irregularity of the present line without "into" suggests that the line was not printed exactly as Sri Aurobindo had dictated it. With "into", the meaning is the same and the rhythm is consistent with the metre of Savitri. We will see that there is strong support for considering the previous _______________________________ * Sri Aurobindo said he had accepted in Savitri some of the freedoms of modern poetry, including "irregularities introduced into the iambic run of the metre" (Savitri, p. 749). But he added that he had done this only where he "thought it rhythmically justified: fo all freedom must have a truth in it and an order". Sri Aurobindo was a perfectionist in the matter of poetic rhythm. The expressive "irregularities" to which he refers are quite different from the stumbling rhythm of lines that were not written down or printed as he intended. Page – 55 version to be incompatible with Sri Aurobindo’s metrical technique". There is also evidence that "into" could have been omitted by accident in the processes of dictation or printing.
Metrical Emendations in Earlier Editions
Similar metrical defects have been removed at various stages in the history of Savitri. For example, the line printed in the 1950 edition (page 273) in the form
But listened for the all-seeing Thought
had only four feet and so was metrically irregular in a poem in iambic pentameter, the metre of Savitri. In fact, a word was missing; "veiled", found before "all-seeing" in the revised type- script, was omitted when Book Two was printed in two large fascicles in 1948. The omission occurred because of the way the revision was marked on the typescript. The last part of an earlier version of the line was first revised to "the hidden all-seeing Thought". Then "hidden" was crossed out and "veiled" was written above it. The compositor must not have seen that the word written above was part of this line. The missing word was restored in 1954, when Amal remembered a letter in which Sri Aurobindo had quoted this line with "veiled". On the second page of the Book of Fate, two lines in the 1951 edition were faulty in sense as well as metre: A change felt upon the singer’s mood, And death that climbs immortality. These lines were part of two pages that had been omitted accidentally when this canto was printed in Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual in August 1950. The lines in question were misread when these pages were transcribed for the first edition. Page – 56 When the 1954 edition was being prepared, Amal commented about the first line: Limping line. Perhaps it should run: A change was felt upon the singer’s mood. But I am not sure. A "change" is not usually felt "upon" but "in". Possibly the correct words are "fell upon"—but then we can’t bring "was" in and the limp remains. Consult the original. After looking at the original, this line was corrected to what the scribe had actually written at Sri Aurobindo’s dictation, A change now fell upon the singer’s mood, while the other line was similarly restored to its correct form; And death that climbs to immortality. Dictated lines originally taken down by the scribe in a metrically irregular form pose a more difficult problem. For there are no tape recordings of Sri Aurobindo’s dictation to compare with what the scribe wrote. Fortunately, most of the mistakes are obvious. A number of metrically defective lines, or which Sri Aurobindo cannot have been responsible in that form resulted from the omission of clearly necessary words or syllables in passages that were dictated or revised by dictation. If what was missing was sufficiently obvious, it could be restored by the editors with full confidence that Sri Aurobindo’s intention was being carried out. Several such defects were corrected before the first edition was printed, and others in 1954. For example, a line that now appears on page 692 was hear and written by the scribe as Page – 57 Even the charm of thy luring voice, where a syllable was lacking so that the line had only four feet. On a typed copy used for the first edition—not the typescript Sri Aurobindo revised by dictation, but a later retyped copy of it—"luring" was changed to "alluring": Even the charm of thy alluring voice, which is undoubtedly what Sri Aurobindo had dictated. The scribe could easily have failed to hear the "a" between the "y" and the "1" sounds. In this instance, the line in its uncorrected form could not be read as iambic pentameter at all. There were not enough syllables. Since Sri Aurobindo was a master of metre and unlikely to be responsible for a totally unmetrical line, we can be sure in such a case that what the scribe wrote was not what the poet intended. But when a line can be read metrically by a forced scansion, we may be faced with a more serious problem. Even in such cases, the solution is sometimes self-evident. The scribe inserted the second of the following lines at Sri Aurobindo’s dictation on the typescript of Book Six, Canto Two: A growing register of calamities Is the past’s account, future’s book of Fate: but this is awkward from the point of view of English as well as rhythm. A "the" inserted before "future’s" in 1951 is unlikely to be challenged; no one will quarrel with the assumption that the article was inadvertently dropped by the scribe. Yet the line already had ten syllables without the second "the". By an artificial scansion (pyrrhic, trochee, spondee, two iambs), it might have passed as an irregular line of iambic pentameter if the rhythm alone had been in question. Another instance illustrates further the tendency for small words like articles and prepositions to suffer in the process of Page – 58 dictation. Near the end of Book Six, Canto One, the 1951 edition has the line Each year a mile from the heavenly Way, where both meaning and rhythm are problematic, though there are ten syllables and a forced scansion as pentameter is not impossible. Both problems were solved in 1954 by emending it to Each year a mile upon the heavenly Way, as suggested by Amal. But the word written on the typescript, where the line was revised by dictation, is "from". It appears that the scribe correctly marked other changes in this line and passage, but inexplicably put the wrong preposition here. Leaving aside other cases where not only metre, but grammar and sense clearly show that a word or syllable was omitted by the scribe in taking dictation, let us look now at a line in the Epilogue where there is a problem very similar to the one we have set out to solve. The line was written by the scribe and printed in 1951 (page 342) in the form On the ignorant breast of dubious earth, but it was emended in 1954 as a result of Amal’s observation: The line does not scan well and there is no psychological justification for the unnatural scansion. "On" should be replaced by "Upon". Consult the original. By "unnatural scansion", Amal was referring to the fact that to read this line as pentameter, one has to scan it not according to the natural rhythm of the words, On the íglnorant breást ׀of dúlbious eárth, Page – 59 which would be a four-foot line, but On the ׀ ignorlant breást ׀ of dúlbious eárth, where the trochee in the second foot, after a pair of unaccented syllables, violates Sri Aurobindo’s injunction: When you want to put in a trochee support it by a strong syllable just preceding it….39 Consultation of the original by Nolini and Nirod would have shown that the first word of the line written there was indeed "On". But they would also have seen that it was a dictated line, not one written by Sri Aurobindo in his own hand. Considering the metrical factor in this light, they accepted Amal’s suggestion and emended the line to what is now printed, Upon the ignorant breast of dubious earth, where the rhythm is normal and the meaning is precisely the same as in the 1951 version. The editors were evidently convinced that this was what Sri Aurobindo must have dictated and that "On" was the scribe’s mistake.
Metrical Emendation in the New Edition
With this background, we may turn to the dictated, line that has been emended for similar reasons in the 1993 edition. It occurs in Book Two, Canto Five, in a sentence which in the 1948 fascicle began: He is satisfied with his common average kind And tomorrow’s hopes and the body’s animal care…. When he revised the fascicle after it was printed, Sri Aurobindo expanded this to: Page – 60 He is satisfied with his common average kind; Tomorrow’s hopes are his, the old rounds of thought; His old familiar interests and desires He has made a hedge planned to defend his life…. Sri Aurobindo further revised these lines in the proofs of the first edition. These proofs, unfortunately, were not preserved; so what was printed in that edition is the only evidence of his last revision of Part One. The passage was printed in 1950 as follows: He is satisfied with his common average kind; Tomorrow’s hopes and his old rounds of thought, His old familiar interests and desires He has made a thick and narrowing hedge Defending his small life from the Invisible…. Amal commented in 1954 on the fourth line: Limping line—one foot missing. It is impossible to scan it as a pentameter as it stands: He has ׀ máde a ׀ thíck and ׀ nárrowling hédge. Three consecutive trochees in the middle are too jerky and inadmissible. The natural scanning is: He has made I a thick I and narlrowing hedge. But this gives a four-foot line. Look up the original. We have seen Sri Aurobindo’s statement that a trochee, if it is not the first foot of a line, needs to be supported "by a strong syllable just preceding it". He added that by carelessness in this matter one could even "break the spine of the line". This consideration is as applicable here, where there is a trochee in the second foot after two light syllables, as in the line in the Epilogue that was emended for this reason in 1954. But here there is the further problem that this supposedly Page – 61 iambic line consists mainly of trochees, with only one iamb at the end. Amal’s objection to three trochees in the middle of a line was not just an idiosyncrasy of his. Sri Aurobindo himself has warned that "trochees must not be so arranged as to turn an iambic into a trochaic line" : In the iambic anapaestic line a trochee followed by an iamb can be allowed in the first foot; elsewhere it has to be admitted with caution so as not to disturb the rhythm.40 In his analysis of the metrical modulations in Webster’s line Cover her face, my eyes dazzle, she died young where the second foot is the only iamb, Sri Aurobindo pointed out: Nevertheless the basic system of the metre or at least some form of its spirit asserts itself even here by a predominant beat on the final syllable of most of the feet: all the variations are different from each other, none predominates so as to oust and supplant the iamb in its possession of the metric base.41 Both conditions-the "predominant beat on the final syllable" and the variations being "different from each other"— are lacking in the case of a so-called iambic line with three trochees in the middle and a weak pyrrhic as the first foot. In the line printed in 1950– He had made a thick and narrowing hedge…. –we have either a four-foot line or one where the dominant trochee does "oust and supplant the iamb in its possession of the metric base". Did Sri Aurobindo, in his final revision in 1950, forget momentarily the subtle laws of metrical movement which he Page – 62 had expounded so lucidly in his prose writings and embodied with a spontaneous and unfailing mastery in so many thousands of lines of Savitri? If the irregularity had created a forceful effect of some kind, it might have been justified along the lines of Sri Aurobindo’s analysis of the rhythm of This truth broke in in a triumph of fire. Sri Aurobindo observed: Obviously this is not a "natural rhythm", but there is no objection to its being forced when it is a forcible and violent lent action that has to be suggested. * But in the passage about our "common average kind", nothing out of the ordinary seems called for. There is no suggestion of a "forcible and violent action" to justify a rhythm that is more irregular than anything found elsewhere in Savitri. To avoid supposing an unaccountable lapse in Sri Aurobindo’s metrical skill, we may infer that he actually dictated: He has made into a thick and narrowing hedge…. By making explicit the implied "into", the line becomes readable as pentameter according to the natural rhythm of the words. It also harmonises with the movement of the rest of the sentence, whose first line begins and ends similarly with anapaests:
* Savitri, p. 771. Sri Aurobindo scanned this line: "iamb, reversed spondee, pyrrhic, trochee, iamb". The pyrrhic-trochee sequence is what makes the rhythm "forced". Sri Aurobindo has explained that this sequence works here because "triumph" is not an ordinary trochee; the second syllable is "slightly weighted" because "the concluding consonants exercise a certain check and delay in the voice". Otherwise "in a triumph of fire" would be a double anapaest and the line a "quadruped" according to Sri Aurobindo. This shows clearly that he would have scanned "He has made a thick and narrowing hedge" as four feet, not five. One cannot easily believe that he meant to include such a line in Savitri. Page – 63 He is satisfied with his common average kind…. It is surprising that this solution to the problem noticed by Amal in 1954 was not discovered then, when "On" was changed to "Upon" in the Epilogue for similar but less compelling reasons. Assuming that Sri Aurobindo dictated "into", how was it dropped? We have seen instances of the scribe’s omission or confusion of minor words like articles and prepositions in taking dictation. This happened most often when there were complicated changes to be marked—as here, where one line was expanded to two when the proofs were revised. It is also possible that the scribe wrote "into" on the proof, but it was missed by the compositor, like "veiled" in the first example cited above. Whatever the explanation, since Sri Aurobindo dictated this line in his last revision of Part One, he would have had no chance to correct the omission. Page – 64
RESTORATION AND OMISSION OF LINES
15. 1951, 1954 and 1970 editions A fire flaming low in Nature’s grate, A journey’s toilsome trudge with death for goal? 1993 edition (page 609, lines 32-34) A fire flaming low in Nature’s grate, A wave that breaks upon a shore in Time, A journey’s toilsome trudge with death for goal? Sri Aurobindo’s dictated revision of this sentence in a speech of Death can be seen in the lower half of the facsimile on page 66. The final version is: How shall the Ideal tread earth’s dolorous soil Where life is only a labour and a hope, A child of Matter and by Matter fed, A fire flaming low in Nature’s grate, A wave that breaks upon a shore in Time, A journey’s toilsome trudge with death for goal? A draft in Sri Aurobindo’s handwriting has all of these lines in the same order and with almost the same words as were marked by the scribe in taking down the final dictated changes. But the version Sri Aurobindo had originally dictated corresponded to an earlier draft in which the lines were in a different order. The transposition of lines to the final sequence was indicated using arrows and numbers from "1" to "4". Later, when the scribe made a fair copy of this passage, he overlooked the line marked "4" (which is above "1" and "3", with the number "4" written after the cancelled words "It is"). The fair copy is reproduced on page 67. Thus the line, A wave that breaks upon a shore in Time, came to be omitted from the first three editions of Savitri. Page – 65
A dictated passage in Book Ten, Canto Two
When the scribe copied the lines transposed with arrows and numbers in the lower half of the page, he overlooked the line marked "4". "His signs" near the top of the page was apparently a mishearing of Sri Aurobindo’s dictation; it was corrected on the typescript to "He signs". Page – 66
A page of the fair copy of Book Ten, Canto Two
Before the seventh line from the bottom, the copyist omitted "A wave that breaks upon a shore in Time," seen in the previous facsimile. The miscopying of "thought" as "thirst" in the fifth line from the bottom of the page was corrected on the typescript. Page – 67 In the fair copy of the dictated version, the last line was left out. Since the line was not deleted by Sri Aurobindo, but was omitted due to an oversight by the copyist, it is restored to the text in the new edition. This line and the one discussed in the previous item were not printed in the 1954 edition, so the Mother did not translate them when she rendered the first three cantos of Book Ten into French. Nor did she translate the following lines in these cantos: In some positive Non-being’s purposeless Vast His virtues don the Ideal’s skiey robe To solace its dull work in Matter’s jail, A glory is the gold and glimmering moon, My heart is stronger than thy bonds, O Death.42 These lines are found in all editions of Savitri, but are missing Page – 68 from the Mother’s translation. Clearly, the fact that she did not translate certain lines cannot be used, as some have inconsistently tried to use it, as an argument against including those lines in the English text. Lines Restored in the New Edition The preceding two items are examples of lines that were left out when the text of Savitri was copied, typed and printed. Thirty-two such previously omitted lines have been included in the Revised Edition: And in their body’s lives acclimatise Hardly for a moment glimpsed viewless to Mind, Across the cries of anguish and of joy, Our helpless hearts to enshrine the Omnipotent’s force. He has built a million figures of his power; In an immaterial substance linked to ours But never can we know and truly live A seed-idea is parent of our acts Apart, unbound, he looked on all things done. The Power, the Light, the Bliss no word can speak Seized, vibrant, kindling with the inspired word, Already I met her in my spirit’s dream. Page – 69 In its formidable circuit through the Void; There are dire alchemies of the human heart Into the unreadable mystery of Time Who willed to form or feign a universe In the cold and endless emptiness of Space? Against the stumblings of man’s pervert will, An inner voice could speak the unreal’s Word; What profit have I of my animal birth; Eternity upheld the minute’s acts A tree that raised its tranquil head to heaven Luxuriating in verdure, summoning The breeze with amorous wideness of its boughs, He chose and with his steel assailed the arm Brown, rough and strong hidden in its emerald dress. In her vast silent spirit motionless My will too is a law, my strength a god. Heaven’s chanting heralds waken dim-eyed Space. A wave that breaks upon a shore in Time, And evolution’s slow arrested plan. Each marshalling his company of rays.43 The inclusion of these lines constitutes the most noticeable difference between the old and new editions of Savitri. Page – 70 Five lines that were relegated to footnotes in the 1970 edition have now been reinstated: Lending her speech to the surface soul on earth She uttered the suffering in the world’s dumb heart And man’s revolt against his ignorant fate. As forced by inescapable fate we part From one whom we shall never see again….44 On the other hand, four lines that were removed from the text to a footnote in 1970 are treated likewise as an alternative version in the Revised Edition. Three other repetitive lines have been omitted from the text of this edition, where there were reasons to conclude that Sri Aurobindo did not intend the repetitions. These will be discussed in the following pages.
Lines Added and Omitted in Early Editions
A brief account of how the length of Savitri has increased and diminished from one edition to the next will place the addition and omission of lines in perspective and show the consistency of editorial decisions in this regard from 1951 to 1993. The aim throughout has been to include the lines Sri Aurobindo intended to include and to omit the lines he intended to omit. The first editorial work on Savitri was the preparation of the second volume of the first edition. Several cantos had already come out in fascicles and journal instalments before Sri Aurobindo’s passing. They included Book Six, Canto One, which was published in Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual in August 1950. Near the beginning of this canto, the scribe had turned two pages at once while copying and had left out fifty-two lines. These lines were missing in the version of the canto that received Sri Aurobindo’s final revision and was printed during his lifetime. The lengthy omitted passage was found by Page – 71 the editors and reincorporated in the text in 1951.45 After the first edition appeared, a small change in the length-k of the published poem came in 1954. It was discovered then that a revised typescript of the end of Book Four, Canto Two had been overlooked when this canto was published in The Advent in August 1950. The 1951 edition reproduced the version in The Advent, where the last section of the canto was based on an unrevised carbon copy of the typescript. Sri Aurobindo’s dictated revision, marked on the typescript included the reworking of five lines and the addition of one new line, She schooled her heavenly strain to bear its touch, which appeared in print for the first time in 1954. The editors of the second edition made extensive changes in the printed form of this passage in order to carry out Sri Aurobindo’s last alterations. They were evidently concerned, not with maintaining the immutability of the published text, but with making it correspond as closely as possible to Sri Aurobindo’s intentions. The editors in 1954 followed here a procedure that has been adopted consistently in preparing the 1993 edition. This is the comparison of the various manuscripts, typescripts and printed versions to ensure that the text is published exactly as Sri Aurobindo wrote and revised it. Such comparisons were made much less systematically in the work on the early editions. But whenever discrepancies were noticed in the spot-checking of manuscripts, fair copies and typescripts, they were corrected. In 1954 the length of the printed form of Savitri increased slightly. In 1970 it was reduced. Nine lines were removed from the text and placed in footnotes as alternatives, in order to avoid repetitions which the editors believed Sri Aurobindo did not intend. Page – 72
Repetitions Not Intended by Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo explained that some kinds of repetition are part of the technique of Savitri. This does not mean that he indulged in or justified indiscriminate repetition. He made this clear: Of course where the repetition amounts to a mistake, I would have no hesitation in making a change; for a mistake must always be acknowledged and corrected.46 According to Sri Aurobindo, repetition "must be rejected" if it "is clumsy or awkward, too burdensomely insistent, at once unneeded and inexpressive or amounts to a disagreeable and meaningless echo".47 Unwanted repetition could come into the printed text in various ways. Most often it was due to the scribe’s not cancelling the old version of a line when Sri Aurobindo dictated a revised version of the same line. This happened more rarely than might have been expected, considering the complexity of the dictated revision of Savitri. The next four items are the cases where the repetition of similar or identical lines has been avoided in the new edition, for reasons that will be explained. Page – 73 17, 1950, 1954 and 1970 editions It made the breath a happy mystery And brought a love sustaining pain with joy; A love that bore the cross of pain with joy…. 1993 edition (page 312, lines 33-34) It made the breath a happy mystery. A love that bore the cross of pain with joy…. When the 1954 edition was being prepared, Amal put a bar near to the second and third of the above lines in the 1950 edition, both ending with the same words, "pain with joy". He commented: The repetition seems too inartistic to be deliberate. I think there has been a misreading of the original. Perhaps a semicolon should be put after the line ending with "mystery", and the next one "And brought a love sustaining pain with joy" should be omitted or else a comma put after this very line and the next one "A love that bore…." omitted. Consult the original. The original in this case is a copy of the 1947 fascicle marked with Sri Aurobindo’s dictated revision. We do not know whether the editors in 1954 were able to locate it amid the huge mass of material relating to the various stages of the revision of savitri What the revised fascicle shows is that only two lines were printed in 1947: It made the breath a happy mystery And brought a love sustaining pain with joy; followed immediately by a line that now comes a little later with one word altered: Affirming in life a secret ecstasy…. Page – 74 At Sri Aurobindo’s dictation, the scribe put a full stop after "mystery". In the right margin, he wrote these four lines: A love that bore the cross of pain with joy, Eudaemonised the sorrow of the world, Made happy the weight of long unending Time, The secret caught of God’s felicity. The prominent full stop after "mystery" indicates that the next line printed in the fascicle was to be replaced by the lines written in the margin. This is obvious, since "And brought …" cannot be the beginning of a sentence. The scribe, however, neglected to cancel "And brought a love sustaining pain with joy" when he put the full stop at the end of the preceding line. When the first edition was printed, instead of the line after the full stop being deleted as Sri Aurobindo evidently intended, the full stop itself was omitted and both versions of the same line were printed one after the other. In the 1993 edition, Sri Aurobindo’s clearly indicated intention of replacing the first version ("And brought a love sustaining pain with joy") with the second ("A love that bore the cross of pain with joy") has been carried out. Page – 75 18. 1951 and 1954 editions Awhile she fell to the level of human mind, A field of mortal grief and Nature’s law She shared, she bore the common lot of men And felt what common hearts endure in Time. Voicing earth’s question to the inscrutable power The queen now turned to the still immobile seer: Assailed by the discontent in Nature’s depths, Partner in the agony of dumb driven things And all the misery, all the ignorant cry, Passionate like sorrow questioning heaven she spoke. Awhile she lost her spirit’s tranquil poise, Awhile she shared the lot of common souls And bore the heavy hand of Death and Time And felt the anguish in life’s stricken deeps. Lending her speech to the surface soul on earth She uttered the suffering in the world’s dumb heart And man’s revolt against his ignorant fate. 1970 edition Awhile she fell to the level of human mind, A field of mortal grief and Nature’s law She shared, she bore the common lot of men And felt what common hearts endure in Time. Voicing earth’s question to the inscrutable power The queen now turned to the still immobile seer: Assailed by the discontent in Nature’s depths, Partner in the agony of dumb driven things And all the misery, all the ignorant cry, Passionate like. sorrow questioning heaven she spoke.¹ Footnote: ¹Alternative to the passage starting with "Awhile”: Awhile she lost her spirit’s tranquil poise, Awhile she shared the lot of common souls And bore the heavy hand of Death and Time And felt the anguish in life’s stricken deeps. Lending her speech to the surface soul on earth She uttered the suffering in the world’s dumb heart Page – 76 And man’s revolt against his ignorant fate. 1993 edition (page 43 7, lines 16-28) Awhile she fell to the level of human mind, A field of mortal grief and Nature’s law; She shared, she bore the common lot of men And felt what common hearts endure in Time. Voicing earth’s question to the inscrutable power The queen now turned to the still immobile seer: Assailed by the discontent in Nature’s depths, Partner in the agony of dumb driven things And all the misery, all the ignorant cry, Passionate like sorrow questioning heaven she spoke. Lending her speech to the surface soul on earth She uttered the suffering in the world’s dumb heart And man’s revolt against his ignorant fate. Alternative to the first four lines: Awhile she lost her spirit’s tranquil poise, Awhile she shared the lot of common souls And bore the heavy hand of Death and Time And felt the anguish in life’s stricken deeps. Sri Aurobindo revised the second typed copy of Book Six, Canto Two, late in 1950. As this was his last work on Savitri, he had no chance to check how accurately the typescript was marked with the extensive alterations and additions he dictated. At the beginning of the typescript, before Sri Aurobindo started revising it, the long speech by the Queen was preceded by seven lines rather than by almost a full page as at present. Sri Aurobindo expanded one of these lines, Lost for a while the spirit’s tranquil poise, to four lines written between the typed lines: Awhile she lost her spirit’s tranquil poise, Awhile she shared the lot of common souls Page – 77 And bore the heavy hand of Death and Time And felt the anguish in life’s stricken deeps. He then dictated a longer passage, written by the scribe in the left margin. It included the following lines: Awhile she fell to the level of human mind, A field of mortal grief and Nature’s law;* She shared, she bore the common lot of men And felt what common hearts endure in Time. These lines appear to be a revised form of the four lines already dictated. Not only are there similar phrases, such as "the lot of common souls" and "the common lot of men", but there is the same sequence of verbs, "she shared", "bore", "and felt". The way the passage has been altered resembles what can be seen in hundreds of places in Sri Aurobindo’s manuscripts when revised lines are compared with the older versions they replace. The entire opening of the canto, including both sentences beginning with "Awhile", was copied by the scribe on small slips of paper and crossed out on the typed sheet. The repetitiveness of the two four-line sentences was observed when the Centenary edition was prepared. The version that had been dictated first was removed from the text to a footnote. Along with these four lines, three more lines were included in the same footnote in the 1970 edition: Lending her speech to the surface soul on earth She uttered the suffering in the world’s dumb heart And man’s revolt against his ignorant fate.
* The semicolon after "law" has been added editorially. As the discussion of the next item will show, Sri Aurobindo did not always specify the punctuation when he dictated new lines. Much punctuation had to be added in dictated passages by the editors in 1951. Here, a comparison with the other version of the same lines Page – 78 These lines have a general similarity in substance to the six lines beginning "Voicing earth’s question…." A few words ("earth", "dumb", "ignorant") occur in both sentences in the same order. But otherwise the wording is quite different. The evidence for the six-line sentence being a revised version of the three-line sentence, and intended to replace it, is inconclusive. The justification for the removal of these three lines from the text in 1970 seems insufficient.* They have therefore been restored in the Revised Edition. The first four lines of the seven-line footnote in the Centenary edition, beginning "Awhile she lost …", are printed in the Supplement to the Revised Edition as an alternative to the similar lines in the text. _________________________ shows that Sri Aurobindo intended "lot" (not "field") to be the object of "shared", as in the phrase "she shared the lot of common souls". The "field" is the "level" to which the Queen fell. * The same is true with regard to a pair of lines in Book Seven, Canto One. The two lines shifted to a footnote in 1970 were restored to the text in 1993. Page – 79 19. 1951, 1954 and 1970 editions The world itself becomes his adversary, His enemies are the beings he came to save. Those he would save are his antagonists: 1993 edition (page 448, lines 11-12) The world itself becomes his adversary, Those he would save are his antagonists: Alternative to the second line: His enemies are the beings he came to save. Here, again, one version was first inserted by the scribe between the lines of the typescript of Book Six, Canto Two. Then another version, partially duplicating the same idea and wording, was written in the margin. As in the preceding example, the editors believe that Sri Aurobindo did not intend the duplication to remain in the final text. A similar problem is found later on the same page of the typescript. It was handled in the same way even in the first edition. The page as typed, before it was read to Sri Aurobindo and revised at his dictation, began with the lines: Hard is the world-redeemer’s heavy task: He sees the long march of Time, the little won; between which were inserted, side by side, two dictated lines: The world itself becomes his adversary, His enemies are the beings he came to save. Then, in the left margin, five lines were written sideways by the scribe, unpunctuated except for the first, with an arrow indicating that they were to be inserted before "He sees the long march …": Those he would save are his antagonists: This world is in love with its own ignorance Page – 80 Its darkness turns away from the saviour light It gives the cross in payment for the crown His work is a trickle of splendour in a long night Further down on the same page, the typescript has the line: One yet may come armoured, invincible; to the right of which the scribe has written: His will immobile meets the mobile hour; and at the bottom of the page, these lines are typed: Invulnerable his soul, his heart unslain, He lives through the opposition of earth’s Powers with another line, His heart is undismayed by adverse powers, written to the right of "his heart unslain" in the same way as "His will immobile …" appears next to "armoured, invincible".
Line Omitted in Early Editions
In a later retyped copy used in preparing the 1951 edition, this passage was typed exactly as marked by the scribe, including the lines: Invulnerable his soul, his heart unslain, His heart is undismayed by adverse powers, He lives through the opposition of earth’s Powers And Nature’s ambushes and the world’s attacks. Page – 81 But in the first edition itself, the second line was removed to a footnote. An asterisk was put after "unslain," and "His heart is undismayed by adverse powers," was printed in the footnote as an alternative to "Invulnerable his soul …". In 1954 the footnote was dropped in view of Amal’s protest: Considering that the next line is "He lives through the opposition of earth’s Powers", this line with "adverse" in it and the word "powers" is clearly a rejected version and not an alternative. To give it as an alternative is an insult to Sri Aurobindo’s poetic sense. Thus the line, His heart is undismayed by adverse powers, disappeared from print. Only when the 1993 edition was prepared was it thought improper to ignore altogether a line dictated by Sri Aurobindo in his final revision and not cancelled. Therefore this line has been listed in the Supplement as an alternative to the two lines, Invulnerable his soul, his heart unslain, He lives through the opposition of earth’s Powers both of which it partly duplicates. The typescript of this canto contains the written record of Sri Aurobindo’s last revision. Yet in editions of Savitri, this revision has not been and cannot be reproduced exactly as it is marked on the typescript. There are unpunctuated lines requiring punctuation. There are lines, as we have just seen, which repeat or do not fit in with the others. Some exercise of editorial judgment was needed to deal with these problems. Otherwise this canto, one of the most important in the epic, would have appeared in a rough form not matching the perfection of the rest. Page – 82 Line Omitted in the New Edition
Near the top of the typed page described above, two lines were inserted by the scribe between the typed lines. The second of these, written to the right of the other, is: His enemies are the beings he came to save. A longer passage written in the left margin begins with a line that expresses the same idea: Those he would save are his antagonists…. In 1951, both of these lines were printed one after the other. When the 1954 edition was being prepared, Amal put a star next to "Those he would save …" and asked whether this line might have been "meant as an alternative to the preceding". In his opinion it was "advisable to put a footnote". But this was not done. The matter was reconsidered only many years later. We have seen that everything written by the scribe on this typed page cannot be taken at face value. It is possible that, as Amal suspected in 1954, the similar lines are alternatives which Sri Aurobindo left with the intention of coming back and making a choice between them—like "taught" and "vistaed" (item 10). Or else he dictated the second line with the intention, not understood by the scribe or at least not marked on the typescript, of cancelling the first line and replacing it by the revised version. Sri Aurobindo’s manner of revising his lines has to be taken into account. Certain changes, such as the transposition of words to a different order, are typical of his alteration of a line to another form of the same line. For example, Sri Aurobindo changed the opening line of Savitri from one of its early versions, Near was the hour of the transfiguring gods Page – 83 to The hour was near of the transfiguring gods and through three or four more stages to It was the hour before the gods awake. The transposition of "Near was the hour" to "The hour was near" did not affect the meaning. Even the more significant changes only resulted in a new form of the same line taking the place of older versions. Occasionally in the final manuscripts of Savitri, and more frequently in earlier drafts, we find variants of the same line with no indication of Sri Aurobindo’s choice between them. Thus, in his last handwritten version of Book Two, Canto Six, he wrote these lines side by side:* This to Life’s music gives its anthem swell. A million motives in Life’s music swell. These lines express enough variation of the same idea that they could perhaps have been turned into two distinct lines. As it is, the repetition of "Life’s music" and especially "swell" at the end of both lines makes it highly unlikely that Sri Aurobindo intended them to coexist in the finished poem. In this case, the scribe took the choice out of Sri Aurobindo’s hands, omitting the second line when he copied the manuscript. In this light, we must try to determine what Sri Aurobindo intended when he dictated the similar lines: His enemies are the beings he came to save. Those he would save are his antagonists….
* See page 194, line 34 in the 1993 edition. The alternative reading is discussed on page 11 of the Supplement. Page – 84 What distinguishes these lines? Do they differ enough to show that the second was meant to be an independent line and not a variant of the first? One difference is in word order. "Antagonists" corresponds in the second line to "enemies" in the first, but comes at the end instead of the beginning. But we have seen that Sri Aurobindo often transposed words when he revised a line, as when he changed "Near was the hour" to "The hour was near". Two lines with almost the same words rearranged in another order could only be versions of a single line. The difference between the equivalent phrases, "the beings he came to save" and "those he would save", is also no more than a normal variation between forms of the same line. The distinction between "enemies" and "antagonists" remains. There are pairs of lines in Savitri that are identical except for one or two contrasting words, such as: My fate is what my spirit’s strength can make, My fate is what my spirit’s strength can bear….48 Here, the repetition of eight words strongly emphasises the contrast at the end of the lines between the active sense of "make" and the passive sense of "bear". However, there is no such contrast between "enemies" and "antagonists". They are practically synonyms. Elsewhere in Savitri, Sri Aurobindo changed "enemy" in the line A stranger and enemy to hate and slay to "adversary" when he revised the typescript. The difference in nuance between the two words is comparable to that between "enemies" and "antagonists". But A stranger and adversary to hate and slay49 is a variant of the line with "enemy" and could be nothing Page – 85 else. Innumerable instances of such variants are seen when one studies Sri Aurobindo’s revision of Savitri. As we have seen, a single page of the revised typescript of Book Six, Canto Two, presents us with two pairs of lines whose redundancy goes beyond the kinds of repetition Sri Aurobindo defended in Savitri. In the order in which they have been discussed above, these pairs of lines are: His heart is undismayed by adverse powers, He lives through the opposition of earth’s Powers…. His enemies are the beings he came to save. Those he would save are his antagonists…. Of the two pairs, the repetition in the first is perhaps more glaring because the same word occurs at the end of both lines. Yet there is less duplication of ideas here than in the other pair. Moreover the first line, omitted from the text since 1951, was actually the last version dictated by Sri Aurobindo. Its omission meant the loss of "undismayed", which is different from "unslain" in the previous line. This loss is significant, for the word "dismay" is not found in any form elsewhere in Savitri. In the second case, the omission of the line with "enemies", listing it as an alternative, is a less problematic decision even if it has been made more recently. The second line duplicates everything that is significant in the first; but it says it with a more compact force, using fewer syllables and putting the strongest word at the end. The supposition that Sri Aurobindo meant both lines to remain in the text would imply that he suffered an unprecedented attack of diffuseness and artistic laxity in one of his last sessions of work on Savitri. This conclusion can be avoided by assuming that he dictated two versions of the same line, as he often did, intending to replace the first by the second. Page – 86 20. 1951, 1954 and 1970 editions Because thou hast obeyed my timeless will I lay my hands upon thy soul of flame, I lay my hands upon thy heart of love, I yoke thee to my power of work in Time. Because thou hast obeyed my timeless will…. 1993 edition (page 698, lines 19-22) I lay my hands upon thy soul of flame, I lay my hands upon thy heart of love, I yoke thee to my power of work in Time. Because thou hast obeyed my timeless will…. This case involves what is perhaps the most complicated page of dictated revision to be found in all the manuscripts of Savitri. The complexity of this revision was the reason for the mistake that occurred when the scribe made a fair copy of the page. A line that Sri Aurobindo had dictated only once was copied in two different places, a few lines apart. Originally, the page contained twenty-four lines neatly written by Sri Aurobindo, probably before 1920, some thirty years before the passage was taken up for revision in one of the last phases of the composition of Savitri. Most of these lines remain intact in the final version, but forty new lines were dictated. The scribe wrote a few of these lines in the spaces between the original lines and at the bottom of the page. Most of them he crowded into the left and right margins, turning the page clockwise to write them. The scribe’s handwriting is not difficult to read. The problem in transcribing this page lies in finding one’s way through the maze of arrows indicating the relative positions of various lines and-groups of lines. We are concerned with Sri Aurobindo’s expanded version of three lines: Because thou hast rejected my hushed calm, I lay irrevocably on thy neck The greatness and the privilege of my yoke. Page – 87 The revision of the first line to But since thou hast refused my maimless Calm was indicated by cancelling all the words except "thou hast" and writing the new words above the old. The other two lines were cancelled. Six lines in the scribe’s hand appear between and below them, ending: I bind by thy heart’s passion thy heart to mine And lay my splendid yoke upon thy soul. Between these six lines, which were evidently dictated first in the expansion of the original three-line sentence, eleven more lines were marked to be inserted at various points by means of several arrows pointing to and from lines and groups of lines written sideways in the right margin. A series of five lines forms the largest of these groups. Its second line, In the blank measureless Unknowable, has a short arrow at the end pointing to a cancelled line to the right of it, I will hold thee for my work in the ways of the world. After this line was cancelled, three lines were written in an available space above it and the short arrow was extended into a longer arrow pointing to these lines in the upper right corner of the page: I lay my hands upon thy soul of flame, I lay my hands upon thy heart of love, I yoke thee to my power of work in Time. The text then continues, Page – 88 Because thou hast obeyed my timeless will with a small arrow after this line also, pointing to And clung to thy choice to share earth’s struggle and fate which was revised to Because thou hast chosen to share earth’s struggle and fate…. When the scribe made a fair copy of this extraordinarily complicated page, he at first missed the arrow pointing from "In the blank measureless Unknowable" to the lines beginning "I lay my hands…." As a result, he went on to the next line in the five-line series and copied Because thou hast obeyed my timeless will a few lines before Sri Aurobindo had intended it to come. From this line, if he had correctly followed the arrow at the end of it, the scribe should have gone on to "Because thou hast chosen", written below the cancelled words "And clung to thy choice". He might then have omitted the three lines beginning "I lay my hands…." But, perhaps because "And clung to thy choice" was cancelled, the scribe did not immediately notice that this was the line indicated by the small arrow after "timeless will". Instead, his eye was caught by the arrow pointing to the three lines he had inadvertently skipped. Following that arrow, he now copied I lay my hands upon thy soul of flame, and the other two lines written in the corner of the page. After copying those lines, he returned to Page – 89 Because thou hast obeyed my timeless will and copied it again, in its proper place. This time he rightly interpreted the arrow at the end of the line and made his way without mishap through the rest of the labyrinth. Thus, due to momentary inattentiveness on the part of the scribe in his otherwise faultless navigation through his intricate markings, a line dictated only once by Sri Aurobindo was copied and printed twice. Page – 90 COMPLEX ALTERNATIVES
21.1950, 1954 and 1970 editions She reposes motionless in its dust of sleep. 1993 edition (page 180, line 28) She refuses motionless in the dust to sleep. Alternative reading: She reposes motionless in its dust of sleep. In his last handwritten version of Book Two, Canto Six, Sri Aurobindo wrote a line which is also found in the same form in earlier manuscripts: She refuses motionless in the dust to sleep. "She" here is Life. The line describes the irresistible push of the life-principle towards emergence from its involution in Matter. But when the scribe made his copy, he read "refuses" as "reposes" and substituted "of" for "to". So the line became: She reposes motionless in the dust of sleep. Thus the indomitable spirit of Life evoked by Sri Aurobindo in his line was reduced to inert passivity due to a misreading of the manuscript. Surprisingly, the miscopied version was not obviously out of place. It still described the involution of Life in Matter, though the idea of a push towards emergence was lost. When Sri Aurobindo revised the typed copy, a year or two later, he only altered "the dust" to "its dust" ("its" referring to Matter in the preceding line). So the line became what was printed in the first edition: She reposes motionless in its dust of sleep. By the mid-1940s, Savitri had expanded to many thou Page – 91 sands of lines. Sri Aurobindo came to depend on assistants to transcribe each stage of revision before he proceeded to the next stage, and the accuracy of their transcripts became essential to his method of working. Since he relied on these transcripts more than on his memory, a misreading by the scribe or typist might inflict damage that could not easily be repaired. The question of memory will be discussed further in connection with the next item. The word "reposes", which robbed Sri Aurobindo’s line of its original force and turned it into the opposite of what he had written, was inadvertently introduced into Savitri by the scribe. Likewise, the image of "dust of sleep" was the scribe’s contribution. But after these mistakes occurred, Sri Aurobindo changed "the" to "its" before "dust of sleep". His minor revision of a seriously miscopied line creates a situation that could be approached in three ways: (1) Sri Aurobindo’s alteration of "the" to "its" could be accepted, correcting the miscopied words at the same time. The line would then read: She refuses motionless in its dust to sleep. This reads well, is consistent with Sri Aurobindo’s original intention and incorporates his last revision. But the line as a whole was neither written nor revised by him in this form. He might not have changed "the" to "its" if his line had been copied correctly. (2) The version with Sri Aurobindo’s last revision could be considered his final choice, in spite of the copying mistakes it contains and notwithstanding the slightness of the revision after it was mistranscribed. In that case, the line could remain as it was first printed. But it would contain words that were neither written nor dictated by Sri Aurobindo and it would express an idea contrary to what he intended when he wrote this line. In an edition whose principal purpose is to publish Savitri in Sri Aurobindo’s own words, this solution has not been adopted. Page – 92 (3) The line could be printed as Sri Aurobindo wrote it before it was miscopied. This is what has been done in the new edition, restoring "refuses" and reverting to "the" in the original phrase "in the dust to sleep"; "its", which went with "dust of sleep", is considered to belong to a version that was not purely Sri Aurobindo’s. But Sri Aurobindo’s slight revision of the miscopied line has been recognised by listing that version as an alternative in the Supplement. Page – 93 22. 1950, 1954 and 1970 editions Birth, death appear as its vibrating points; 1993 edition (page 201, line 7) Birth, death are a ceaseless iteration’s points; Alternative reading: Birth, death appear as its vibrating points; When Sri Aurobindo revised the first typescript of Book Two, Canto Six, he dictated more than twenty new lines at the end of the canto. They included two lines in which he made use of a mathematical idea to express life’s interminable repetition of the same seemingly futile cycle: In its recurrent decimal of events Birth, death are a ceaseless iteration’s points…. After "ceaseless", the scribe began the next word with "ir" as if he was going to write "irritation’s"; but he stopped, put a "t" over the right stroke of the "r", and wrote "iteration’s". At a glance this could be read as "vibration’s" due to the false start. For the scribe’s "ir" looks somewhat like "vi" (except that the dot of the "i" is too far to the left; it also cannot be "vi" because the second letter is overwritten by a "t"). In addition, the "te" somewhat resembles a "b" if one overlooks the crossing of the "t" (a short stroke above the following "r"). In fact, the typist did read "iteration’s" as "vibration’s". The following line appears in the second typescript of the canto: Birth, death are a ceaseless vibration’s points…. When the retyped copy was read to Sri Aurobindo, he noticed that this line was metrically defective. Accordingly, he revised it to remove this defect. But he did not restore the word "iteration’s" or find another word to bring out the idea of endless repetition which was the sense of the image of the recurring decimal. As if he was unaware that "vibration’s" was nothing Page – 94 but a misreading of his original word, he modified it to "vibrating" and reworded the line to make it metrically correct: Birth, death appear as its vibrating points…. This is another case where Sri Aurobindo’s revision seems inexplicable unless it is assumed that he revised the version presented to him without necessarily remembering his original words. For if he had recalled his previous version, he would surely have reverted to it or based any further revision on it, rather than accepting words and ideas substituted accidentally by others. Sri Aurobindo himself freely admitted that he did not always remember what he had written. For example, in a letter on Savitri to Amal Kiran, dated 16 January 1937, he wrote a word ("gather") which Amal could not decipher. Amal left a blank in the typed copy and said, "I can’t read one word". The next day, Sri Aurobindo filled in the blank in the typed copy with another word ("combine") and wrote, "I don’t remember the word I used, but it may be combine." Here it was a question of remembering what he had written on the previous day. But the revision of Savitri was spread out over several years from the time when Sri Aurobindo completed his last manuscript of Part One. There were long gaps between one stage of revision and the next. A prodigious memory would have been needed to recall the latest version of each of the thousands of lines of the evolving epic. Sri Aurobindo did not claim to have such a memory. Nor did he consider a display of superhuman powers to be necessary or desirable for his work. He tried repeatedly to correct the popular misconception that one who comes to do the Divine’s work on earth must make a show of omniscience and omnipotence at every step: My own idea of the matter is that the Avatar’s life and actions are not miracles. If they were, his existence would be perfectly useless, a mere superfluous freak of Nature.50 Page – 95 There are two sides of the phenomenon of Avatarhood, the Divine Consciousness and the instrumental personality. The Divine Consciousness is omnipotent but it has put forth the instrumental personality in Nature under the conditions of Nature and it uses it according to the rules of the game—though also sometimes to change the rules of the game.51 Men’s way of doing things well is through a clear mental connection; they see things and do things with the mind and what they want is a mental and human perfection. When they think of a manifestation of Divinity, they think it must be an extraordinary perfection in doing ordinary human things—… an accurate memory, not making mistakes, not undergoing any defeat or failure…. All that has nothing to do with manifesting the Divine…. These human ideas are false.52 Here Sri Aurobindo mentions memory among the faculties whose extraordinary perfection is not essential for manifesting the Divine under the conditions of human life. His words on this point are clear and categorical. They must be kept in mind in considering lines in Savitri which, after they were miscopied, were partially revised by him without recovering their original sense. The mistyping of "iteration’s" as "vibration’s", and Sri Aurobindo’s revision using the word "vibrating", is a notable example. Here there is no sign that he remembered the word he had dictated in an earlier session. "Iteration" was the exact word needed for the development of the image of the recurring decimal introduced in the preceding line. That image was given precision in this line, which speaks of birth and death as the terminal points of a series of events repeated like the figures of a circulating decimal. The idea of vibration, which intruded by accident because of the scribe’s peculiar formation of "iteration’s" and the typist’s consequent misreading, is clearly less relevant to this context Page – 96 than the idea of repetition or iteration. It could hardly be otherwise. It would be strange indeed if the lines of Savitri were improved by unconscious slips on the part of Sri Aurobindo’s assistants. In the absence of evidence that Sri Aurobindo consciously changed "Birth, death are a ceaseless iteration’s points" to "Birth, death appear as its vibrating points", the original version has been adopted in the 1993 edition. This version of the line consists purely of Sri Aurobindo’s own words, untainted by any suspicion that accidental factors contributed to it. The other version is listed as an alternative in the Supplement. Page – 97 23. 1950, 1954 and 1970 editions Its signs have stamped their patterns on our lives: 1993 edition (page 176, line 21) Its signs have traced their pattern in our lives: Alternative reading: Its signs have stamped their patterns on our lives: The first appearance of this line is in the margin of a notebook used by Sri Aurobindo in 1943. The wording is somewhat different there. "Its" refers to the realm of the greater Life: Its symbols trace their patterns in earth-stuff…. In the next version, Sri Aurobindo replaced "symbols trace" by "signs have traced". In his last complete manuscript of Part One, early in 1944, he changed the end of the line so that it became: Its signs have traced their pattern in our lives…. Later this was copied by the scribe, who substituted "made" for "traced" and "patterns" for "pattern". When the typed copy of the scribe’s version was read to Sri Aurobindo, probably in 1946, he dictated the changing of "made" in the miscopied line to "stamped". A last change, of "in" to "on", occurred in 1947, when the canto appeared in a fascicle whose proofs Sri Aurobindo revised. Thus the line came to be printed: Its signs have stamped their patterns on our lives…. The history of this line had two phases with two or three stages in each. First Sri Aurobindo wrote and revised his own original line. Then he corrected an accidentally altered form of that line. This history has to be seen in the light of the conclusions that can be drawn from the preceding two items. We have seen that Sri Aurobindo’s revision of a defective copy Page – 98 may not have the value that his revision of the original line itself would have had. Normally, his last version of a line is taken to supersede earlier ones. But this is because it is the final result of an unbroken process leading step by step from a lesser to a greater perfection. A transcription error can disrupt this progression. It may weaken or invalidate the claim of the last version to be the definitive outcome of a conscious series of connected stages. In the development of this line from its initial form to the point at which it was miscopied, the verb "trace" was a constant element. When "made" took its place, this continuity was broken. Sri Aurobindo changed "made" to "stamped". But he never directly changed "traced" to "stamped". It is doubtful that he would have done so, since he had already raised the line to a high degree of perfection through the series of versions with "trace" and "traced". "Stamped" is a forceful word and certainly much better here than "made". But compared with "traced" it has the disadvantage, in this context, of a certain externality. It implies a strong and sudden, even violent pressure from outside. We see this in other lines in Savitri, such as: It stamps stain and defect on all things done….53 The subtler word, "traced", had permitted the use of "in", both in the early versions, where it was "in earth-stuff", and in the final phrase "in our lives". This was appropriate to suggest the invisible influence of the greater life-forces which act from the subliminal depths. But with "stamped", "in" did not work and had to be changed to "on", as Sri Aurobindo discovered when he came back to the line. Thus a certain inwardness was lost. Besides miscopying "traced", the scribe reversed Sri Aurobindo’s conscious alteration of "patterns" to "pattern". For Sri Aurobindo had dropped the "s" of "patterns" when he changed "earth-stuff" to "our lives". The avoidance of three plurals in one line, ending with the same "z" sound, may have Page – 99 been a factor. But also, Sri Aurobindo must have seen that a single ”pattern" gave a deeper sense than separate "patterns". "Pattern" occurs similarly with "trace" in his lines on the mind’s inability to "glimpse the Wonder-worker’s hidden hand" And trace the pattern of his magic plans.54 Considering these factors, Sri Aurobindo’s last version of this line before it was miscopied is printed in the new edition of Savitri. The revised form of the miscopied line, printed in previous editions, is listed as an alternative. Page – 100 24. 1951, 1954 and 1970 editions The eternal Consciousness became the home Of some unsouled almighty Inconscient; One breathed no more the spirit’s native air. A stranger in the insentient universe, Bliss was the incident of a mortal hour. 1993 edition (page 455, lines 9-13) Eternal Consciousness became a freak Of an unsouled almighty Inconscient And, breathed no more as spirit’s native air, Bliss was an incident of a mortal hour, A stranger in the insentient universe. Alternative reading: [As in previous editions] This is the passage in Savitri where Sri Aurobindo formulated most forcefully the paradox of a world in which the eternal principles of Sachchidananda appear as if minor phenomena overshadowed by their opposites. His handwritten draft of these and the preceding lines described concisely in these terms how the world looked to a mind that arose in the void: Non-Being seemed to it Being’s sealed cause, Its end and its surrounding circumstance, And consciousness a freak of Inconscience And Bliss an occurrence in the Insentient. After this was copied, Sri Aurobindo expanded it by dictation. He turned the last two lines into a five-line sentence, heightening the paradox by contrasting the present condition of the world with what consciousness and bliss were to the soul before it "turned away from immortality". Sri Aurobindo’s dictated alterations of the previous version were marked by the scribe between the lines and in the margin of his copy. As marked, the revised lines on consciousness and bliss read: Page – 101 Eternal Consciousness became a freak Of an unsouled almighty Inconscient And, breathed no more as spirit’s native air Bliss was an incident of a mortal hour, A stranger in the insentient universe. The third line was written sideways in the left margin, with an arrow indicating its position in the sentence. As often happened in the dictation of complex revision, there was a small omission in the punctuation marked by the scribe. For, with a comma after "And", another comma is evidently needed after "air". The typed copy of this intricately revised passage contains two errors which significantly affected the subsequent revision. The typist misread "freak" as "peak" and typed a full stop after "air". Thus the lines became what was read to Sri Aurobindo some time later: Eternal Consciousness became a peak Of an unsouled almighty Inconscient And, breathed no more as spirit’s native air. Bliss was an incident of a mortal hour, A stranger in the insentient universe. The scribe’s handwriting is generally easier to read than Sri Aurobindo’s, But the scribe’s way of forming some letters could be ambiguous. Whereas "freak" is perfectly clear in Sri Aurobindo’s manuscript, the scribe’s "fr" here resembles some of his "p"s. This explains the typist’s misreading of "freak" as "peak". The typist’s initiative in supplying punctuation after "air" was not without justification. But a comma was needed, not a full stop. A full stop could have been correct only if there had not been a comma after "And". Then, "breathed no more as spirit’s native air" could have gone with what preceded and referred to Consciousness. Even so, the wording would have been awkward without "was" before "breathed". Page – 102 But the scribe marked a comma prominently after "And" It is unlikely that he would have done this if Sri Aurobindo had not dictated it; irregularities of punctuation in dictated lines are almost always omissions. This means that "breathed no more as spirit’s native air" was intended to go with the next line and referred, not to Consciousness, but to Bliss. This connection was lost in the typed version. Sri Aurobindo dictated a number of alterations in the typed copy. He changed "peak" to "home", and revised the third tine as if the full stop typed after "air" had been correct.* The changes resulted in the following: The eternal Consciousness became the home Of an unsouled almighty Inconscient; It lived no more as spirit’s native air. A stranger in the insentient universe, Bliss was the incident of a mortal hour. The lines were printed in this form when an extract from Book Six, Canto Two, appeared in the 1948 issue of Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual. Sri Aurobindo revised an offprint of this publication. He changed "an" to "some" in the second line and revised the third line to One breathed no more the spirit’s native air. Thus the passage reached the form in which it was printed in the first edition. Here again, we have a passage that Sri Aurobindo revised in two phases, with a break between them in which the results of the first phase were inaccurately transmitted. Due to this break in continuity, the rule that later versions supersede earlier ones loses some of its force. We have seen other instances
* It could be doubted whether Sri Aurobindo was aware of all the punctuation in the typed copy, since the typescript was read to him and revised at his dictation. But even if the scribe did not read the punctuation aloud, he would have paused at the full stop, giving the impression that it was the end of the sentence. Page – 103 where Sri Aurobindo revised accidentally corrupted versions of his lines, without eliminating what was introduced by the corruptions or fully compensating for what was lost. In such cases, the last version that preceded the incorrect transmission may offer the most authentic text, free from extraneous influences mixed with Sri Aurobindo’s inspiration. A perfect consistency is observable in Sri Aurobindo’s first phase of work on this passage. In a manner that is typical of the revision of Savitri, he expanded two lines into five by bringing out latent aspects of what was seen and expressed in its essence in the original version. Starting from a bare statement of the idea of consciousness as "a freak of Inconscience" and bliss as "an occurrence in the Insentient", Sri Aurobindo heightened the terms of the paradox in an ampler formulation. He kept his original words or close equivalents, such as "incident", which replaced "occurrence". Words and phrases were added to bring home the enormity of the seemingly all-powerful negations and, on the other hand, to recall what consciousness and bliss are in their own right. The passage reached this point by an organic development from the original conception. Abrupt departures from that conception were initiated in the next phase, not by Sri Aurobindo himself, but by the typist. The word "freak", which expressed as strongly as possible the paradoxical position of the divine consciousness in a world of unconsciousness, disappeared when it was misread as "peak". Alteration of "peak" to "home" resulted in the milder paradox of the eternal Consciousness housing the Inconscient within itself. However true this may be, it introduced a shift of standpoint in relation to the lines above and below, which portray Being as a transient phenomenon in a huge Nought and refer to Bliss, the third term of the trinity, as only a "stranger in the insentient universe". The full stop typed after "air" disconnected this line from what follows and associated it with what precedes. Thus consciousness became the spirit’s "native air". Yet the original Page – 104 version, where it was bliss that was the air breathed by the unfallen spirit, was more consistent with other lines in Savitri, such as: A secret air of pure felicity Deep like a sapphire heaven our spirits breathe….55 In this instance, once more, imperfect transcription of Sri Aurobindo’s lines appears to have contributed significantly to the principal differences between what he originally wrote and revised and what was eventually printed. This being the case, his last version unaffected by any inaccuracies that could have disturbed the continuity of his revision has been restored in the new edition. The version printed in previous editions is listed as an alternative. Page – 105 |
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