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Part One
Writings and a Resolution
1890 1906
All the pieces in this part predate the launch of the Bande Mataram. Sri Aurobindo wrote the first one in Cambridge in 1890 92 and the last one in Baroda at the end of 1905 or the beginning of 1906 -a few months before he came to Calcutta to join the national movement. Only four of these pieces were published during Sri Aurobindo’s lifetime. “India and the British Parliament” and New Lamps for Old appeared in the Bombay newspaper Indu Prakash in 1893 94; Bhawani Mandir was issued as a pamphlet in 1905; the resolution of 1905 was published, in Marathi translation, in the newspaper Kesari. The other ten pieces are reproduced from Sri Aurobindo’s manuscripts. He left most of them in an unfinished state; two of them lack their opening page or pages. India Renascent
The patriot who passes judgment on a great movement in an era of change and turmoil, should be very confident that he has something worth saying before he ventures to speak; but if he can really put some new aspect on a momentous question or emphasize any side of it that has not been clearly understood, it [is] his bounden duty however obscure he may be to ventilate [it.]
The commonplace that India is in transition has of late been strongly impressed on us by certain English empiricists; they have devoted whole articles and pamphlets to marshal proofs and enumerate instances in support of this proposition
It is time that an Indian who has devoted his best thoughts and aspirations to the service of his country, should have in his turn a patient hearing
India is indeed a snake who has rejected her outworn winter weeds
Jottings from a notebook used by Sri Aurobindo at Cambridge in 1891 and 1892.
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