Savitri

a Legend and a Symbol

 

CONTENTS

 

Pre-content

 

 

PART ONE
   
 

Book One
 

The Book of Beginnings
   

Canto I
   

The Symbol Dawn
   

Canto II
   

The Issue
   

Canto III
   

The Yoga of the King: The Yoga of the Soul's Release
   

Canto IV
   

The Secret Knowledge
   

Canto V
   

The Yoga of the King: The Yoga of the Spirit's Freedom and Greatness
     
 

Book Two
 

The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds
   

Canto I
   

The World-Stair
   

Canto II
   

The Kingdom of Subtle Matter
   

Canto III
   

The Glory and the Fall of Life
   

Canto IV
   

The Kingdoms of the Little Life
   

Canto V
   

The Godheads of the Little Life
   

Canto VI
   

The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Life
   

Canto VII
   

The Descent into Night
   

Canto VIII
   

The World of Falsehood, the Mother of Evil and the Sons of Darkness
   

Canto IX
   

The Paradise of the Life-Gods
   

Canto X
   

The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Mind
   

Canto XI
   

The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind
   

Canto XII
   

The Heavens of the Ideal
   

Canto XIII
   

In the Self of Mind
   

Canto XIV
   

The World-Soul
   

Canto XV
   

The Kingdoms of the Greater Knowledge
     
 

Book Three
 

The Book of the Divine Mother
   

Canto I
   

The Pursuit of the Unknowable
   

Canto II
   

The Adoration of the Divine Mother
   

Canto III
   

The House of the Spirit and the New Creation
   

Canto IV
   

The Vision and the Boon
     
 

PART TWO
     
 

Book Four
 

The Book of Birth and Quest
   

Canto I
   

The Birth and Childhood of the Flame
   

Canto II
   

The Growth of the Flame
   

Canto III
   

The Call to the Quest
   

Canto IV
   

The Quest
     
 

Book Five
 

The Book of Love
   

Canto I
   

The Destined Meeting-Place
   

Canto II
   

Satyavan
   

Canto III
   

Satyavan and Savitri
     
 

Book Six
 

The Book of Fate
   

Canto I
   

The Word of Fate
   

Canto II
   

The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain
     
 

Book Seven
 

The Book of Yoga
   

Canto I
   

The Joy of Union; the Ordeal of the Foreknowledge of Death and the Heart's Grief and Pain
   

Canto II
   

The Parable of the Search for the Soul
   

Canto III
   

The Entry into the Inner Countries
   

Canto IV
   

The Triple Soul-Forces
   

Canto V
   

The Finding of the Soul
   

Canto VI
   

Nirvana and the Discovery of the All-Negating Absolute
   

Canto VII
   

The Discovery of the Cosmic Spirit and the Cosmic Consciousness
     
 

Book Eight
 

The Book of Death
   

"Canto III"
   

Death in the Forest
     
 

PART THREE
     
 

Book Nine
 

The Book of Eternal Night
   

Canto I
   

Towards the Black Void
   

Canto II
   

The Journey in Eternal Night and the Voice of the Darkness
     
 

Book Ten
 

The Book of the Double Twilight
   

Canto I
   

The Dream Twilight of the Ideal
   

Canto II
   

The Gospel of Death and Vanity of the Ideal
   

Canto III
   

The Debate of Love and Death
   

Canto IV
   

The Dream Twilight of the Earthly Real
     
 

Book Eleven
 

The Book of Everlasting Day
   

Canto I
   

The Eternal Day: The Soul's Choice and the Supreme Consummation
     
 

Book Twelve
   

Epilogue
   

The Return to Earth
     
 

Note on the Text

 

 

BOOK FIVE

 

The Book of Love

 

Canto One

 

The Destined Meeting-Place

 

BUT NOW the destined spot and hour were close;

Unknowing she had neared her nameless goal.

For though a dress of blind and devious chance

Is laid upon the work of all-wise Fate,

Our acts interpret an omniscient Force

That dwells in the compelling stuff of things,

And nothing happens in the cosmic play

But at its time and in its foreseen place.

To a space she came of soft and delicate air

That seemed a sanctuary of youth and joy,

A highland world of free and green delight

Where spring and summer lay together and strove

In indolent and amicable debate,

Inarmed, disputing with laughter who should rule.

There expectation beat wide sudden wings

As if a soul had looked out from earth's face,

And all that was in her felt a coming change

And forgetting obvious joys and common dreams,

Obedient to Time's call, to the spirit's fate,

Was lifted to a beauty calm and pure

That lived under the eyes of Eternity.

A crowd of mountainous heads assailed the sky

Pushing towards rival shoulders nearer heaven,

The armoured leaders of an iron line;

Earth prostrate lay beneath their feet of stone.

Below them crouched a dream of emerald woods

And gleaming borders solitary as sleep:

Pale waters ran like glimmering threads of pearl.

A sigh was straying among happy leaves;

Cool-perfumed with slow pleasure-burdened feet

Faint stumbling breezes faltered among flowers.

 

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The white crane stood, a vivid motionless streak,

Peacock and parrot jewelled soil and tree,

The dove's soft moan enriched the enamoured air

And fire-winged wild-drakes swam in silvery pools.

Earth couched alone with her great lover Heaven,

Uncovered to her consort's azure eye.

In a luxurious ecstasy of joy

She squandered the love-music of her notes,

Wasting the passionate pattern of her blooms

And festival riot of her scents and hues.

A cry and leap and hurry was around,

The stealthy footfalls of her chasing things,

The shaggy emerald of her centaur mane,

The gold and sapphire of her warmth and blaze.

Magician of her rapt felicities,

Blithe, sensuous-hearted, careless and divine,

Life ran or hid in her delightful rooms;

Behind all brooded Nature's grandiose calm.

Primaeval peace was there and in its bosom

Held undisturbed the strife of bird and beast.

Man the deep-browed artificer had not come

To lay his hand on happy inconscient things,

Thought was not there nor the measurer, strong-eyed toil,

Life had not learned its discord with its aim.

The Mighty Mother lay outstretched at ease.

All was in line with her first satisfied plan;

Moved by a universal will of joy

The trees bloomed in their green felicity

And the wild children brooded not on pain.

At the end reclined a stern and giant tract

Of tangled depths and solemn questioning hills,

Peaks like a bare austerity of the soul,

Armoured, remote and desolately grand

Like the thought-screened infinities that lie

Behind the rapt smile of the Almighty's dance.

A matted forest-head invaded heaven

 

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As if a blue-throated ascetic peered

From the stone fastness of his mountain cell

Regarding the brief gladness of the days;

His vast extended spirit couched behind.

A mighty murmur of immense retreat

Besieged the ear, a sad and limitless call

As of a soul retiring from the world.

This was the scene which the ambiguous Mother

Had chosen for her brief felicitous hour;

Here in this solitude far from the world

Her part she began in the world's joy and strife.

Here were disclosed to her the mystic courts,

The lurking doors of beauty and surprise,

The wings that murmur in the golden house,

The temple of sweetness and the fiery aisle.

A stranger on the sorrowful roads of Time,

Immortal under the yoke of death and fate,

A sacrificant of the bliss and pain of the spheres,

Love in the wilderness met Savitri.

 

END OF CANTO ONE

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