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VOLUME 12

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO

© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1997

Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department

Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry

PRINTED IN INDIA  

Essays Divine and Human

 

Writings from Manuscripts

 

1910 ­ 1950    

Publisher's Note

 

Essays Divine and Human consists of short prose pieces written by Sri Aurobindo after his arrival in Pondicherry in 1910 but not published before his passing in 1950. Short prose works written during the same period and published during his lifetime appear in Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, volume 13 of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO.

There are indications in Sri Aurobindo's Pondicherry note books that he intended to bring out a collection of essays on yoga and other subjects. The headings written above two pieces, "Essays Divine and Human" and "Essays—Human and Divine", seem to have been intended as possible titles for this proposed book. The editors have chosen the first of these to be the title of the present volume.

 

The material has been arranged in four parts:

I. Essays Divine and Human—complete essays on yoga and related subjects, arranged in five chronological sections.

II. From Man to Superman: Notes and Fragments on Philosophy, Psychology and Yoga, arranged in three thematic sections.

III. Notes and Fragments on Various Subjects, arranged in five thematic sections.

IV. Thoughts and Aphorisms, as arranged by the author in three sections, with a section of additional aphorisms.

 

All the writings in this book have been reproduced from Sri Aurobindo's manuscripts. He did not prepare any of them for publication and left many in an unfinished state. Simple editorial problems arising from illegibility, incomplete revision, etc. are indicated by means of the system explained in the Guide to Editorial Notation on the next page. More complex problems are discussed in the reference volume.  

 

Guide to Editorial Notation

 

The contents of this volume were never prepared by Sri Aurobindo for publication. They have been transcribed from manuscripts that present a variety of textual difficulties. As far as possible the editors have indicated these problems by means of the notation shown below.

 

Notation

Textual Problem

[?word]

Doubtful reading

[...]

Illegible word(s), one group of three spaced dots for each presumed word

[.......]

Word(s) lost by mutilation of the manuscript (at the beginning of a piece, indicates that a page or pages of the manuscript have been lost)

[word]

Word(s) omitted by the author or lost through damage to the manuscript that are required by grammar or sense, and that could be supplied by the editors

[? ]

Word(s) omitted by the author that could not be supplied by the editors

[ ]

Blank left by the author to be filled in later but left unfilled, which the editors were not able to fill

[note]

Situations requiring textual explication; all such information is printed in italics

 

Some textual situations requiring editorial intervention could not be handled by the above system. Such cases are discussed or tabulated in the reference volume (volume 35).