Note on the Texts

EARLY CULTURAL WRITINGS consists of essays on literature, education and art, as well as dialogues, biographical and historical sketches, and other short prose pieces. Most were written between 1890 and 1910, a few between 1910 and 1920. A little more than half the pieces (comprising about three-fifths of the bulk) were published during Sri Aurobindo's lifetime; the rest of the pieces have been transcribed from his manuscripts.

The contents of the volume are arranged by topic in nine parts. Two appendixes, consisting mostly of material not written for publication, come at the end.

PART ONE: THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

(CAMBRIDGE 1890 ­ 1892)

Sri Aurobindo wrote all these pieces while an undergraduate at King's College, Cambridge, between 1890 and 1892. He did not publish any of them during his lifetime.

The Sole Motive of Man's Existence. 1891. Editorial title. The piece obviously is incomplete. Sri Aurobindo left alternatives to several passages. These are reproduced in the Reference Volume.

The Harmony of Virtue. Dated "May 1892" towards the middle of the manuscript. The entire piece was probably written during 1892, Sri Aurobindo's second and last year at Cambridge. He was referring to The Harmony of Virtue when he wrote late in his life: "It is true that under his [Plato's] impress I rashly started writing at the age of 18 [more likely 19] an explanation of the cosmos on the foundation of the principle of Beauty and Harmony, but I never got beyond the first three or four chapters." The name of the principal character, "Keshav Ganesh Desai", recalls that of Keshav Ganesh Deshpande, one of Sri Aurobindo's friends at Cambridge and subsequently in India. Sri

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Aurobindo left alternatives to several passages in Book One. These are reproduced in the Reference Volume.

Beauty in the Real. 1892. Written after The Harmony of Virtue, in narrative rather than dialogue form.

Stray Thoughts. 1892. Editorial title. These "thoughts" are jottings from the notebook that Sri Aurobindo used at Cambridge for writing The Harmony of Virtue and other pieces.

PART TWO: ON LITERATURE (BARODA 1893 ­ 1906)

Bankim Chandra Chatterji

This series of essays was published in seven instalments in as many issues of the Indu Prakash, a weekly Marathi ­ English newspaper of Bombay: 16 July 1894, 23 July 1894, 30 July 1894, 6 August 1894, 13 August 1894, 20 August 1894, 27 August 1894. The pieces were not signed: the phrase "By a Bengali" was printed above the texts and the word "Zero" at the end in place of a signature.

In 1950, when the series was rediscovered and shown to Sri Aurobindo, he wrote:

I have not intended to republish these articles as they were written when I had just recently come from England and they contain some very raw matter such as the remarks about Indian art which I no longer hold.

He added that it might be necessary for him "to revise and possibly to omit or alter some passages" before publication. He did not find time for this revision, and when the essays were published as a book in 1954, the Indu Prakash text was reproduced as it stood. The same text is reproduced here.

On Poetry and Literature

Sri Aurobindo wrote these pieces on literary subjects between 1898 and 1906 (or somewhat later). He did not publish any of them during his lifetime.

Poetry. Circa 1898 ­ 1901. Editorial title. This piece was written in the  

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same notebook as the lecture on Augustan poetry (see the next note).

Characteristics of Augustan Poetry. In the manuscript, "First Lecture" is written above the title. This piece and the following one were written by Sri Aurobindo while he was working as a professor of English literature at Baroda College between 1898 and 1901. The authors and periods covered by the two lectures were those assigned by the Bombay University for the "voluntary" section of the English B. A. examination in 1898 and 1899. Sri Aurobindo wrote additional passages for this lecture on blank pages of the manuscript. These passages have been printed as footnotes. A long passage that seems to expand ideas presented in the third paragraph of the lecture is published separately under the title "Poetry" (see above).

Sketch of the Progress of Poetry from Thomson to Wordsworth. See the note to the previous piece for dating information. Additional passages are treated as in that piece.

Appendix: Test Questions. Sri Aurobindo evidently wrote these questions to prepare his students for the university examination.

Marginalia on Madhusudan Dutt's Virangana Kavya. Circa 1894 ­ 1900. Editorial title. These two pieces were written by Sri Aurobindo in his copy of the Bengali poet Michael Madhusudan Dutt's Virangana Kavya (Calcutta: Vidyaratan Press, 1885). The first was written above the text of Epistle One, the second above the title of Epistle Two. The line of Sanskrit is from the Bhagavad Gita (2.16) and may be translated as follows: "that which is not, cannot come into existence; that which is, cannot go out of existence".

Originality in National Literatures. Circa 1906 ­ 8. Editorial title. This piece, unlike the others in this section, may have been written by Sri Aurobindo after his departure from Baroda in March 1906.

The Poetry of Kalidasa

Sri Aurobindo wrote the material published in this section between 1898 and 1903. All but one of the pieces were meant for inclusion in a planned book-length study, the contents of which he sketched out in "A Proposed Work on Kalidasa" (see below). He used four notebooks for writing the material that was to make up this book, apparently working on two or more pieces concurrently. On the first page of  

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one of the notebooks he wrote the title "The Poetry of Kalidasa"; the editors have used this as the title of the section. Sri Aurobindo brought only two of the pieces to a satisfactory conclusion. One of them, "The Age of Kalidasa", was revised and published in The Indian Review (Madras) in 1902. The other, "The Seasons", was revised and published in Sri Aurobindo's own weekly review, the Karmayogin, in 1909. The other pieces were left in varying states of completeness in the manuscript notebooks. In reproducing them here, the editors have followed the order of "A Proposed Work". Certain passages that could not be included in the final texts have been published in an appendix at the end of the section.

A Proposed Work on Kalidasa. Circa 1898 ­ 1903. Editorial title.

The Malavas. Circa 1900 ­ 1903. Title taken from Chapter II of "A Proposed Work".

The Age of Kalidasa. Circa 1898 ­ 1902. See Chapter II of "A Proposed Work". This piece was published in The Indian Review of Madras in July 1902, and reprinted as a booklet by Tagore & Co., Madras, around 1921. Sri Aurobindo revised the text and republished it along with Kalidasa's Seasons in a booklet entitled Kalidasa in 1929.

The Historical Method. Circa 1900 ­ 1903. Manuscript title: "Kalidasa -the historical method"; corresponds to a phrase in Chapter II of "A Proposed Work". Sri Aurobindo broke off work on this piece abruptly; he did not put a full stop after the last word written.

The Seasons. Circa 1900 ­ 1903. Manuscript title: "The Seasons"; corresponds to Chapter III of "A Proposed Work". Sri Aurobindo published this essay in his weekly journal, the Karmayogin, in three instalments in July and August 1909. It was reprinted as a booklet entitled Kalidasa's Seasons by Tagore & Co., Madras, around 1921. The text was revised by Sri Aurobindo and published along with "The Age of Kalidasa" in Kalidasa in 1929.

Hindu Drama. Circa 1901 ­ 3; manuscript revised, probably after 1910. Title taken from Chapter VI of "A Proposed Work". There are two separately written drafts dealing with this subject among Sri Aurobindo's manuscripts. The one printed first here seems to have been intended to be the opening of the piece. Sri Aurobindo broke off work on this draft abruptly.

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Vikramorvasie: The Play. Circa 1900 ­ 1903. Editorial title, suggested by the title of Chapter VIII of "A Proposed Work".

Vikramorvasie: The Characters. Circa 1898 ­ 99 (note the phrase "till late in the present century"). Editorial title, suggested by the title of Chapter IX of "A Proposed Work": "The Characters". Sri Aurobindo wrote separate passages (some of them incomplete) on the characters of the play without indicating exactly how he intended to put the passages together. The editors have followed manuscript evidence, the flow of the argument and common sense in assembling the present text. White spaces indicate that the passages above and below are not physically continuous in the manuscript.

The Spirit of the Times. Circa 1898 ­ 1901. Editorial title. It is possible that this piece was intended for use in "Hindu civilisation in the time of Kalidasa", Chapters XVI ­ XVII of "A Proposed Work". This essay was written by Sri Aurobindo on a sheet of letter paper headed "THE COLLEGE./BARODA.". He served as professor of English of Baroda College between 1898 and 1901. The essay was one of many documents seized by the police when Sri Aurobindo was arrested in May 1908. It was not rediscovered and recognised as his until 1997.

On Translating Kalidasa. Circa 1903. Editorial title. This piece does not form part of "A Proposed Work". It apparently was intended to accompany Sri Aurobindo's translation of Kalidasa's Cloud Messenger  (Meghaduta), which has been lost. The bulk of the text consists of passages written in a single notebook. The editors have arranged these passages according to the flow of the argument. White spaces indicate that the passages above and below are not physically continuous in the manuscript. The passage published at the end containing examples from Shakespeare was written separately in another notebook. For the most part the editors have followed Sri Aurobindo's idiosyncratic transliterations of Sanskrit words in this as in other pieces. When, however, Sri Aurobindo quotes entire lines or passages of Kalidasa's poetry or comments on words from such lines, the editors have made use of the standard international system of transliteration.

Appendix: Alternative and Unused Passages and Fragments. Sri Aurobindo wrote the first of these passages in isolation around 1900. He wrote the others as parts of three of the chapters described above. The editors have not incorporated these passages in the final texts of

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the chapters in question either because Sri Aurobindo himself excluded them from the revised version of the piece, or because he wrote another passage that covers the same ground and the editors have chosen to use that passage in the text.

On the Mahabharata

Sri Aurobindo wrote these essays and notes on the Mahabharata around 1902. He did not publish any of them during his lifetime.

Notes on the Mahabharata. Circa 1902. Sri Aurobindo wrote this essay shortly after September 1901, when the "recent article" mentioned in the first paragraph, Velandai Gopala Aiyer's "The Date of the Mahabharata War", was published in The Indian Review of Madras. The text of Sri Aurobindo's essay consists of: (1) an elaborate title page with "proposita"; (2) an introductory passage headed "Vyasa; some Characteristics"; (3) a longer passage mostly on the same subject beginning "Vyasa is the most masculine of writers"; (4) a long passage beginning "It was hinted in a recent article in the Indian Review", dealing, among other things, with the political story of the Mahabharata; and (5) a short incomplete passage headed "Mahabharata", concerned mainly with linguistic matters. Passages (1) to (4) were written in that order in one notebook; passage (5) was written independently in another notebook around the same time. (Note that in passage (5) Sri Aurobindo wrote that the date given by Aiyer in the The Indian Review was "known beyond reasonable doubt", indicating that this passage, like passages (1) to (4), was written after September 1901.) It is clear from indications in the manuscript that (4) was intended to replace (2) as the opening of the essay. Most of (2) was to be incorporated in (4), which was to be followed by (3). The present text of the essay has been printed in accordance with these guidelines. Since some interesting paragraphs of (2) were not marked for inclusion in the recast essay, all of (2) has been reproduced after the main text (4 and 3). The independent piece (5) has been placed at the end, while the title page (1) remains at the beginning.

Sri Aurobindo never prepared this material for publication; this explains its unfinished appearance. There are signs that he looked at

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it again around 1909, but he never gave it a thorough revision. In 1932 the manuscript was uncovered by his secretary Nolini Kanta Gupta, who wrote to Sri Aurobindo of his intention to copy it out. Sri Aurobindo replied on 23 April 1932: "Is this essay still in existence; if so, you can rescue it and I will see what can be done with it." Nolini made a transcript, but Sri Aurobindo did not work on it then or later.

Notes on the Mahabharata [Detailed]. Circa 1902. Around the time that Sri Aurobindo worked on the above essay he made a set of detailed  but not altogether systematic notes on the first adhyāya and one verse  adhyaya of the Udyoga Parva, as well as some stray of the second notes on the Adi Parva. He gave the notes on the Udyoga Parva the same title that he used for the above essay: "Notes on the Mahabharata". Some years later he wrote some isolated notes on the Drona Parva.

PART THREE: ON EDUCATION (1899 ­ 1920)

Sri Aurobindo wrote these pieces during three different periods: 1899 ­ 1904, in Baroda; 1909 ­ 10, in Calcutta; circa 1916 ­ 20, in Pondicherry. All but two of the pieces were published shortly after they were written.

Address at the Baroda College Social Gathering. Editorial title. Sri Aurobindo delivered this talk to those attending the annual social gathering of Baroda College on 22 July 1899. At that time he was working as professor of English at Baroda College. The talk was published in The Baroda College Miscellany, vol. 5, no. 2 (September 1899) under the title The Address Delivered by Professor Ghose at the College Social Gathering, and reprinted in The Life of Sri Aurobindo by A. B. Purani (1958 and subsequently).

Education. This piece consists of two separate fragmentary passages written in notebooks used also for Notes on the Mahabharata (see above). The passages thus were probably written around 1902. Between 1901 and 1904 Sri Aurobindo worked in a secretarial capacity for the Maharaja of Baroda, and was sometimes asked to write speeches for him (see note to Appendix One, below). As the present piece is addressed to the Maharaja ("your Highness"), it cannot have

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been intended for delivery by him. It may have been meant for delivery by an officer of the State or by Sri Aurobindo himself.

The Brain of India. This series of essays was published in the Karmayogin in four instalments between 9 October and 13 November 1909. It seems to have been, at least in part, a reply to "The Bengali Brain and its Misuse", an essay by Dr. P. C. Ray that is mentioned by Sri Aurobindo in his review of Suprabhat (see page 567). The essays were republished as a booklet in 1921, 1923, 1944, 1948 and subsequently.

A System of National Education: Some Preliminary Ideas. This series of essays was published in the Karmayogin in eight instalments between 12 February and 2 April 1910. Sri Aurobindo left Calcutta for Chandernagore in the middle of February 1910, at which time he broke off his connection with the journal (see the note to Part Six for details). He evidently left the manuscript of A System of National Education behind, and eight chapters of the work were published in the Karmayogin by his associate Sister Nivedita (Margaret Noble), whom he had asked to look after the journal in his absence. The eighth chapter was published in the journal's last issue. Other chapters, if they were written, have been lost. The eight essays were published as a booklet in 1921 by Tagore & Co., Madras. This apparently was a pirated edition; in 1924 the "only authorised edition" was published by the Arya Publishing House, Calcutta. In this edition, Sri Aurobindo added the subtitle "Some Introductory Essays" as well as the publisher's note that is reproduced here on page 381. The book was reprinted by the same publisher in 1944, 1948 and 1953, and by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1970. In 1948 the subtitle was changed to "Some Preliminary Ideas".

National Education. Circa 1916 ­ 18. Editorial title. An isolated paragraph from a notebook used by Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry.

A Preface on National Education. These two essays were published in the Arya, a philosophical journal edited by Sri Aurobindo between  

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1914 and 1921, in its last two issues, November/December 1920 and January 1921. Other instalments evidently were planned, but were never written.

PART FOUR: ON ART (1909 ­ 1910)

Sri Aurobindo wrote these pieces in 1909 and 1910 and published all but one of them in his journal, the Karmayogin.

The National Value of Art. This series of essays was published in the Karmayogin in six instalments between 20 November and 25 December 1909. The essays were republished as a booklet in 1922, 1936 (revised), 1946 and subsequently.

Two Pictures. This essay was published in the Karmayogin on 17 July 1909.

Indian Art and an Old Classic. This essay was published in the Karmayogin on 2 October 1909.

The Revival of Indian Art. This essay was published in the Karmayogin on 16 October 1909.

An Answer to a Critic. Editorial title. This incomplete essay was written shortly after August 1910, when the article it refers to, "Comment and Criticism. The Indian Fine Arts Critics", was published in The Modern Review of Calcutta (vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 207 ­ 13). The author of this article, identified by The Modern Review as "A student of Mr. Ravi Varma, the famous Indian Artist", made disparaging remarks about such critics as Ananda K. Coomaraswamy and Sister Nivedita.

PART FIVE: CONVERSATIONS DEAD OF THE (1910)

The first two of these dialogues were published in the Karmayogin, appearing in the last issues known to have been edited by Sri Aurobindo. (Two other dialogues published in later issues of the Karmayogin under the heading "Conversations of the Dead" were written by Sister Nivedita.) Drafts of the last three pieces form part of the Chandernagore Manuscript (see the note to Part Six). There are also typed versions of all five dialogues.

Dinshah, Perizade. Published in the Karmayogin on 12 February 1910.

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Turiu, Uriu. Published in the Karmayogin on 19 February 1910.

Mazzini, Cavour, Garibaldi. Chandernagore Manuscript, gathering I, pp. 5 ­ 6. The typed copy, which is subsequent to the manuscript, has been used as the text. A defective version of this piece was published in The Standard Bearer on 7 November 1920, and subsequently in The Harmony of Virtue (1972).

Shivaji, Jaysingh. Chandernagore Manuscript, II: 6 ­ 7. The typed copy, which is subsequent to the manuscript, has been used as the text. A defective version of this piece was published in The Standard Bearer on 26 December 1920, and subsequently in The Harmony of Virtue (1972).

Littleton, Percival. Chandernagore Manuscript, III: 6 ­ 7. The typed copy, which is subsequent to the manuscript, has been used as the text. A defective version of this piece (Sri Aurobindo once referred to it as "much mangled by mistakes") was published in The Standard Bearer on 29 May 1923, and subsequently in The Harmony of Virtue (1972).

PART SIX: THE CHANDERNAGORE MANUSCRIPT (1910)

The pieces that make up this section form the bulk of a 51-page handwritten manuscript originally consisting of three gatherings of foolscap paper numbered by Sri Aurobindo I: 1 ­ 16, II: 1 ­ 17 and III: 1 ­ 18. Each of the gatherings appears to be matter for one issue of a journal. Each begins with an essay entitled "Passing Thoughts" and contains an instalment of "Conversations of the Dead", an instalment of "Epistles from Abroad", one or more essays, including those entitled "Historical Impressions", one or more other pieces, including those entitled "In /At the Society's Chambers", and a blank-verse poem. Several facts suggest that the journal these pieces were intended for was the Karmayogin. "Passing Thoughts" was the heading of the Karmayogin's opening column of opinion in the issues of 12 and 19 February 1910. After being warned that he was about to be arrested for sedition, Sri Aurobindo departed from Calcutta for Chandernagore sometime towards the end of February 1910, and remained there incognito for about six weeks before voyaging to Pondicherry. Several sheets of the 51page manuscript bear notations in another hand indicating that it was sent from somewhere to Calcutta and then returned. In addition,  

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all of Sri Aurobindo's signatures on the manuscript were cut out or obliterated, a necessary precaution if it was in transit at a time when Sri Aurobindo was wanted by the police. Finally, a number of pieces that had been copied out from the manuscript were published in The Standard Bearer, a journal brought out from Chandernagore, in the 1920s. On the basis of this evidence, it would be natural to assume that Sri Aurobindo wrote the manuscript while in Chandernagore in February and March 1910 with the intention of having the pieces published in the Karmayogin, that the manuscript was sent from Chandernagore to Calcutta but returned without being published, and that some pieces were copied out from it in Chandernagore at that time and later published in The Standard Bearer. Against all this, however, stands a statement made by Sri Aurobindo in 1944 that his "active connection with the two newspapers [the Karmayogin and the Dharma] ceased" from the moment of his departure for Chandernagore (On Himself [1972], p. 57). Taken by itself, this statement would seem to rule out the possibility that Sri Aurobindo wrote the manuscript in Chandernagore for use in the Karmayogin. It is possible that he wrote the manuscript in Calcutta before his departure for Chandernagore, took it with him and sent it back from there to Calcutta. But it is also possible, and perhaps more likely, that he wrote the manuscript during his stay in Chandernagore and subsequently forgot about it, as he forgot about several other of his early writings.

To enable the reader to visualise the original structure of the 51page Chandernagore Manuscript [CMS], the gathering and pages of the pieces are given.

Passing Thoughts [1]: Religion in Europe; Religion in India; The Real Minimum; The Maximum. 1910. CMS I: 1 ­ 2. A defective version of parts of this piece was published in The Standard Bearer on 13 March 1922 under the title "Hints and Clues".

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