-30_Note on the Texts and Photographs.htm

Note on the Texts and Photographs

Background information on the texts and photographs is given below, along with references to the texts of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

Photographs of Flowers

Most of the 630 flower-photographs in this book were taken in the gardens and courtyards of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry and in the nurseries, gardens, fields and forests of Auroville. Some photographs, especially those of flowers that grow well only in cooler climates, were photographed in Bangalore and Ootacamund, India, and in Germany.

In some of the photographs, the colour of the flower differs in hue or intensity from the colour mentioned in the text of Part 1 and the description of the flower in Part 2. The difference in colour may be due to several reasons: type of film used, lighting conditions, limitations of printing, etc. Flowers photographed in strong sunlight appear lighter in hue than those photographed in subdued or indirect sunlight. While printing, it is often difficult to duplicate the exact colour of a flower, particularly when flowers of various colours appear on the same page.

Photographs of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

The photograph of the Mother on the back flap of the jacket of Part 1 was taken in Tokyo in 1916. The photograph other in the preliminary pages of Part 1 was taken in Pondicherry in July 1967. The photograph of Sri Aurobindo in the same preliminary pages was taken in Pondicherry in April 1950 by the French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. The photograph of the Mother in the preliminary pages of Part 2 was also taken by Cartier-Bresson in April 1950.

The Mother’s Flower-Significances and Her Comments on Them

From the start of the Ashram in 1927, the Mother used flowers in her interactions with the sadhaks who came to see her. From an early period, she gave "names" or "significances" to certain flowers. In this way there evolved a language of flowers by which the Mother communicated with the sadhaks. Within a few years,

she had given names to hundreds of flowers. A list compiled by an Ashram gardener in 1930 contained 410 entries. In 1953, a French sadhak edited the Ashram’s first book on flowers, Le role des fleurs. This contained 636 significances. In the early 1970s, the Mother reviewed these significances, changing some of them, and added more than 240 new ones. At the same time she gave a brief comment on almost all the flowers. The result of this revision was Flowers and Their Messages, issued in 1973, which contained 879 significances. The present book includes 19 new significances discovered in the notebooks of early Ashram gardeners.

The early flower-significances were given in English. Later, in Le role des fleurs, the significances were published both in English and French. In Flowers and Their Messages, many of the significances, especially the new ones, and almost all the comments were given in French and then translated into English for the book. In the present book, some of those translations have been revised.

Page-457

Sources of the Quotations from the Works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

Most of the quotations in this book have been selected from the thirty-volume Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library (SABCL) and the seventeen-volume Collected Works of the Mother (CWM), both published by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. Some quotations have been taken from various other books and journals, all published by the Ashram unless otherwise indicated. A small number of quotations are from writings and talks that have not been published by the Ashram. The titles of the works are listed below, along with the abbreviations used in this book and the years of publication.

References to the Quotations from the Works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

The references that follow are given in an abbreviated form. In most cases the abbreviation is a CWM or SABCL volume. In some cases the abbreviation is the shortened title of a book or journal. In a few cases, when the quotation is from a writing or talk not otherwise published by the Ashram, the abbreviation is "Writing" or "Talk", followed by the date. All these abbreviations are listed in the section above. When two or more quotations occur on a page, the references are listed sequentially: (1), (2), etc. When the quotations occur in both columns of a page, the references to those in the left column are given first.

In the list of references, on the following pages, the page numbers of this book are given in the left column, then the references. An example of an abbreviated reference:

15: CWM7:378 = On page 15 of this book,

the quotation is taken from CWM volume 7, page 378.

Page-458

PART 1. TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHS

Preliminary pages

Publisher’s Note ("Flowers speak"): Messages:

 197 The Origin of the Significances:  (l) CWM 5:232; (2)Messages:xi; (3)CWM 4:167. Flowers and Their Significances

Chapter 1

 Aditi and Avatar

Chapter 2

The Divine

Chapter 3

The New Creation

Chapter 4

Living for the Divine

Chapter 5

Road to the Divine

Page-459

Chapter 6

Bases of Spiritual Life

Chapter 7

Spiritual Attainments

Chapter 8

Power

Page-460

Chapter 9

Planes of Consciousness and Parts of the Being

Chapter 10

Collaboration of Nature  

Chapter 11

Awakening in Matter

Chapter 12

Radha and Krishna

Back cover Messages: 197.

PART 2. INDEXES, GLOSSARIES AND DESCRIPTIONS

Preliminary pages (opposite photograph): CWM1:358.

Back cover SavitrL-139.

Page-461

Note on the Texts of Part 2:

Indexes, Glossaries and Descriptions

Glossary of Botanical Terms The definitions of these botanical terms are based upon those found in several books, especially The New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening, published in 1992 by the Macmillan Press, Limited, London, and Hortus Third: A Concise Dictionary of Plants Cultivated in the United States and Canada, published in 1976 by the Macmillan Publishing Company, New York City.

Glossary of Philosophical and Psychological Terms The definitions of the terms in this glossary are taken almost entirely from the works of Sri Aurobindo. A few are from the works of the Mother.

The Symbolism of Colours

The significances of colours appearing in this section are based almost entirely on the works of Sri Aurobindo. One significance is based on a work of the Mother.

Descriptions of the Flowers

The descriptions and other botanical information on the flowers are based primarily upon The New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening and Hortus Third: A Concise Dictionary of Plants Cultivated in the United States and Canada. The botanical names of some flowers in this book differ from those in Flowers and Their Messages. The present names are based upon a more thorough study of the flowers than was possible before.

Original Language of the Texts of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

All the texts of Sri Aurobindo quoted in this book were written in English. About one-third of the texts of the Mother were written or spoken in English, about two-thirds in French. The English translations of the French texts, taken from the Collected Works of the Mother and other sources, have sometimes been revised.

Acknowledgments

Almost all the flower-photographs in this book were taken by members of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. The remaining photographs were taken by persons living in Auroville, in other parts of India and abroad. Special acknowledgement is due to Perry D. Slocum of Winter Haven, Florida, and for permission to reproduce his photograph of the white lotus (page 3), and to the Self-Realisation Fellowship, Los Angeles, California, for permission to reproduce the photograph of the red lotus (page 5), by a unidentified photographer.

Page-462