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Publisher's Note
Sri Aurobindo launched the Karmayogin, "A Weekly Review of National Religion, Literature, Science, Philosophy, &c.," on 19 June 1909, six weeks after his release from jail on conclusion of the Alipore Bomb Trial. Between then and February 1910, when he left Calcutta, he edited this journal, writing most of its contents himself. In addition to articles on political and related matters, the Karmayogin contained essays on philosophy, yoga, education, art and literature, as well as translations and poetry. The political articles are published in this volume, the other items are listed at the end of the Karmayogin issue they appeared in. A table at the end of the volume shows where these other items are published in THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO. Sri Aurobindo delivered a number of speeches between May and October 1909. Texts of some of them were published in the Karmayogin and other journals. Others were preserved only in notes jotted down by police agents. The speeches are published in this volume according to date of delivery and not of publication. Some of the articles included in this volume were published in booklets brought out between 1918 and 1923 and later reprinted. When a revised edition of one of these booklets was published in 1937, a disciple of Sri Aurobindo’s wrote a review of it that he sent to Sri Aurobindo for approval. Sri Aurobindo’s response gives some idea of his attitude at that time towards his earlier writings:
Yes, I have seen it [the disciple's review], but I don’t think it can be published in its present form as it prolongs the political Aurobindo of that time into the Sri Aurobindo of the present time. You even assert that I have “thoroughly” revised the book and these articles are an index of my latest views on the burning problems of the day and there has been no change in my views in 27 years (which would surely be proof [of] a rather unprogressive mind). How do you get all that? My spiritual consciousness and knowledge at that time was as nothing to what it is now –how would the change leave my view of politics and life unmodified altogether? There has been no such thorough revision; I have left the book as it was, because it would be useless to modify what was written so long ago –the same as with Yoga and its objects [The Yoga and Its Objects]. Anyway the review would almost amount to a proclamation of my present political views –while on the contrary I have been careful to pronounce nothing –no views whatever on political questions for the last I don’t know how many years. The bulk of the contents of the present volume was first published in book-form in 1972 as Karmayogin: Early Political Writings -II, volume 2 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library. The text of the present edition, the first with the title Karmayogin: Political Writings and Speeches 1909 1910, has been checked against the Karmayogin journal and the sources of the speeches and revised articles. |