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TRANSLATIONS
SRI AUROBINDO
Contents
I. FROM SANSKRIT
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ON VIRTUE Description of the Virtuous Homage to him who keeps his heart a book For stainless matters, prone great talk to prize And nearness of the good; whose faithful look Rejoices in his own dear wife, whose eyes Are humble to the Master good and wise; A passion high for learning, noble fear Of public shame who feels; treasures the still Sweet love of God; to self no minister, But schools that ravener to his lordlier will, Far from the evil herd on virtue’s hill.
The Noble Nature
Eloquence in the assembly; in the field The puissant arm, the lion’s heart; proud looks Unshaken in defeat; but modest-kind Mercy when victory crowns; passionate for books High love of learning, thoughts to fame inclined; — These things are natural to the noble mind.
The High and Difficult Road
To give in secret as beneath a shroud; To honour all who to thy threshold come; Do good by stealth and of thy deeds be dumb, But of another’s noble acts be proud And vaunt them in the senate and the crowd; To keep low minds in fortune’s arrogant day; To speak of foemen without scorn or rage; What finger appointed first this roughest way Of virtue narrower than the falchion’s edge ? Page– 187 Adornment
The hand needs not a bracelet for its pride, High liberality its greatness is; The head no crown wants to show deified; Fallen at the Master’s feet it best doth please. Truth-speaking makes the face more bright to shine, Deep study girds the brow with diamond rays; Strength and not gold in conquering arms divine Triumphs; calm purity the heart arrays. Nature’s great men have these for wealth and gem; Riches they need not, nor a diadem.
The Softness and Hardness of the Noble
Being fortunate, how the noble heart grows soft As lilies! but in calamity’s rude shocks Rugged and high like a wild mountain’s rocks It fronts the thunders, granite piled aloft.
The Power of Company
Behold the water’s way, — on iron red When it falls hissing, not a trace remains, Yet ‘tis the same that on the lotus shines, A dewy thing like pearls, — yea, pearl indeed Turns when the oyster-shell receives and heaven To those rain-bringing stars their hour has given. High virtue, vice or inconspicuous mean ‘Tis company that moulds in things or men. Page– 188 The Three Blessings
He is a son whose noble deeds and high His loving father’s heart rejoice; She is a wife whose only jewellery Is her dear husband’s joy and bliss; He the true friend whose actions are the same In peaceful days or hours of bale and shame; These three who wins, finds earth his Paradise.
The Ways of the Good
Who would not honour good men and revere Whose loftiness by modesty is shown, Whose merits not by their own vaunts appear, Best in their constant praise of others known, And for another’s good each power to brace To passionate effort is their selfishness.
Hark to their garrulous slanderer’s gurge of blame Foaming with censure violent and rude! Yet they revile not back, but put to shame By their sweet patience and calm fortitude. Such are their marvellous moods, their noble ways, Whom men delight to honour and to praise.
Wealth of Kindness
Tis more than earrings when the ear inclines To wisdom; giving bracelets rich exceeds. So the beneficent heart’s deep-stored mines Are worked for ore of sweet compassionate deeds, And with that gold the very body shines. Page– 189 The Good Friend
Thus is the good friend pictured by the pens Of good men: — still with gentle hand he turns From sin and shame his friend, to noble gains Still spurs him on; deep in his heart inurns His secret errors, blares his parts abroad, Gives at his need, nor takes the traitor’s road Leaving with facile wings when fortune spurns.
The Nature of Beneficence
Freely the sun gives all his beams to wake The lotus slumbering in the darkened lake; The moon unasked expends her gentle light, Wooing to bloom her lily of the night; Unasked the cloud its watery burden gives. The noble nature in beneficence lives; Unsought, unsued, not asking kindness back Does good in secret for that good’s sole sake.
The Abomination of Wickedness
Rare are the hearts that for another’s joy Fling from them self and hope of their own bliss; Himself unhurt for other’s good to try Man’s impulse and his common nature is: But they who for their poor and selfish aims Hurt others, are but fiends with human names. Who hurt their brother-men, themselves unhelped, What they are we know not, nor what horror whelped, Page– 190 Water and Milk
By water and sweet milk example Love. Milk all its sweetness to the water gives, For in one wedded self their friendship lives; And when hot pangs the one to anguish move, The other immolates itself to fire. To steal his friend’s grief is a friend’s desire. He seeing his friend’s hard state is minded too To seek the flame; but happily again Wedded to him is eased of all his pain. This friendship is, one heart that’s shared by two.
Altruism Oceanic
Here Vishnu, sleeps, there find his foes their rest; The hills have taken refuge; serried lie Their armies in deep Ocean’s sheltering breast; The clouds of doom are of his heart possessed, He harbours nether fire whence he must die. Cherisher of all in vast equality, Lo, the wide strong sublime and patient sea! Page– 191 The Aryan Ethic
Hear the whole Gospel and the Law thereto: — Speak truth, and in wise company abide; Slay lust, thine enemy; abandon pride; Patience and sweet forgiveness to thee woo; Set not in sin thy pleasure, but in God;
Follow the path high feet before thee trod; Give honour to the honourable; conceal Thy virtues with a pudent veil of shame, Yet cherish to the end a stainless fame; Speak sweetness to thy haters and their weal Pursue; show pity to unhappy men, Lift up the fallen, heal the sufferer’s pain.
The Altruist
How rare is he who for his fellows cares! His mind, speech, body all are as pure jars Full of his soul’s sweet nectar; so he goes Filling the world with rows on shining rows Of selfless actions ranked like the great stars.
He loves man so that he in others’ hearts Finding an atom even of noble parts Builds it into a mountain and thereon His soul grows radiant like a flower full-blown; Others are praised, his mind with pleasure starts. Page– 192 Mountain Moloy
Legends of golden hills the fancy please, But though they were real silver and solid gold, Yet are the trees they foster only trees. Moloy shall have my vote with whom, ‘tis told, Harbouring the linden, pine and basest thorn Ennobled turn to scent and earth adorn.
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