{"id":3316,"date":"2013-07-13T01:47:33","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3316"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:47:33","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:47:33","slug":"06-unused-versions-and-omitted-passages-vol-09-supplement-to-the-revised-edition-of-savitri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/01-savitri\/09-supplement-to-the-revised-edition-of-savitri\/06-unused-versions-and-omitted-passages-vol-09-supplement-to-the-revised-edition-of-savitri","title":{"rendered":"-06_Unused Versions and Omitted Passages.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nUnused Versions and Omitted Passages
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

A. BOOK TWO, CANTO SIX<\/p>\n

\nThe passages below have been transcribed from Sri Aurobindo’s last handwritten version of the end of Book Two, Canto Six. An earlier manuscript was revised by dictation and used as the basis for the published text. Sri Aurobindo worked extensively on the first section of the version reproduced below, up to <\/i>"A Sphinx whose eyes looked up to an unseen Sun."1<\/sup> The manuscript continues to the middle of Canto Seven, but since the remainder of it contains only minor verbal alterations and few lines not found in the text of the poem, only selected passages are presented here. Some punctuation missing in the manuscript has been supplied by the editors.<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nImmortal secrecies, seer-wisdoms lost2<\/sup>\n<\/p>\n

\nIn the descent towards our mortal fate\n<\/p>\n

\nSpoke from the figures of her masquerade\n<\/p>\n

\nIn a familiar and forgotten tongue,\n<\/p>\n

\nOr peered from the recondite magnificence\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd subtle splendour of her draperies.\n<\/p>\n

\nIn sudden scintillations of the Unknown,\n<\/p>\n

\nGlints from the opaque and strange translucencies,\n<\/p>\n

\nAppearances and objects changed their powers;\n<\/p>\n

\nThings without value heavenly values took,\n<\/p>\n

\nInexpressive sounds became veridical,\n<\/p>\n

\nIdeas without meaning flashed apocalypse:\n<\/p>\n

\nWise tokens spelled out gibberish to the untaught,\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd phrases which meant nothing and meant all\n<\/p>\n

\nWrapped in defensive armoured visored sight,\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd oracles and sibylline prophecies\n<\/p>\n

\nOffered themselves by the roadside for a price\n<\/p>\n

\nIncreased at each rejection by the mind;\n<\/p>\n

\nVoices that seemed to come from unseen worlds\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n1 It was probably because of this reworking that the manuscript became separated from the final manuscript of the preceding portion of Book Two. Consequently it must have been overlooked at the time of the final dictated revision, with the result that an earlier version was taken up for this purpose.<\/font><\/i>
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n2 This line was intended to follow <\/font> <\/i>
\n"And wordless mouths unrecognisable." (cf. 189.33). There was a full stop after <\/i>"unrecognisable" in this version.<\/i>
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Page-112<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n

\nUttered the syllables of the Unmanifest\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd clothed the body of the mystic Word;\n<\/p>\n

\nThe wizard diagrams of an occult Force\n<\/p>\n

\nFixed for the world’s magic processes the law\n<\/p>\n

\nOf their precise unaccountable miracle,\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd hue and figure brought their unsounded deeps\n<\/p>\n

\nOf mindless context to reconstitute\n<\/p>\n

\nIn the brooding hush of intuitive stillnesses\n<\/p>\n

\nThe herald blazon of Time’s secret things.\n<\/p>\n

\nAmid her symbols of reality\n<\/p>\n

\n(For such they seemed to a vision too remote\n<\/p>\n

\nAs we to a greater being symbols are,)\n<\/p>\n

\nHis life-walk was and new spiritual home:\n<\/p>\n

\nHe moved and lived with them as real forms,\n<\/p>\n

\nTheir lives were as concrete as the lives of men,\n<\/p>\n

\nTheir touch as vivid as our fellows’ touch;\n<\/p>\n

\nTheir divine bodies make our fancies true\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd bring to us breathing and animate\n<\/p>\n

\nWhat in ourselves we only think and feel.\n<\/p>\n

\nA grace of scenes quivered around him there\n<\/p>\n

\nThat were almost embodied sympathies;3<\/sup>\n<\/p>\n

\nTheir breath of dreams and language without speech\n<\/p>\n

\nAnswered to the thought and passion of the soul.\n<\/p>\n

\nThere form and feeling were identical,\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd shape and thought a single harmony;\n<\/p>\n

\nNothing was there brute and inanimate.\n<\/p>\n

\nThese scenes were signs in life’s long miracle-play.\n<\/p>\n

\nIn her green wildernesses and lurking depths,\n<\/p>\n

\nIn her thickets of joy where danger clasps delight,\n<\/p>\n

\nHe glimpsed the hidden wings of her songster hopes,\n<\/p>\n

\nA glimmer of blue and gold and scarlet fire.\n<\/p>\n

\nAlong her wandering lanes and chance by-paths\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd by her galloping rivulets and calm lakes\n<\/p>\n

\nHe plucked the glossy fruits of her self-ease\n<\/p>\n

\nOr shared her rich content in browsing herds,\n<\/p>\n

\nThe light wayward flitting of her butterfly hours\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n3 The word <\/font> <\/i>"sympathies" is taken from a previous draft; the last manuscript reads <\/i>"scenes", apparently repeated by mistake from the previous line.<\/i>
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Page-113<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n

\nAnd her love-callings in the voice of birds,\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd felt her embodied sweetness in her vales,\n<\/p>\n

\nHer wide hill-breasts glowing in the greatness of morn\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd the lounging hips of her grasslands’ large sun-sleep\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd her covert raptures in her forest haunts\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd the beauty of her flowers of dream and muse.\n<\/p>\n

\nOften in the radiant slumber of her noons\n<\/p>\n

\nHe saw incarnate in a swarm of gleams\n<\/p>\n

\nOn a glamour and gladness of bright surfaces,\n<\/p>\n

\nA smile of depths, a cry of secrecies,\n<\/p>\n

\nThought’s dance of dragonflies on mystery’s stream\n<\/p>\n

\nThat skim but dare not dip in the murmur and race;\n<\/p>\n

\nOr the levity of her immortal mind\n<\/p>\n

\nHe heard in the laughter of her rose desires,\n<\/p>\n

\nRunning to lure the bliss of the heart’s surprise\n<\/p>\n

\nInto a world of bloom and song and light\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd through the scented ways to guide pursuit\n<\/p>\n

\nJangling sweet anklet-bells of fantasy.\n<\/p>\n

\nA comrade of the silence of her heights\n<\/p>\n

\nAccepted by her mighty loneliness,\n<\/p>\n

\nHe sat with her on meditation’s peaks\n<\/p>\n

\nWhere life and being are a sacrament\n<\/p>\n

\nOffered to a Reality beyond\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd stood with her upon the edge of Time\n<\/p>\n

\nLooking into ineffable formlessness,\n<\/p>\n

\nOr climbed a perilous stair in silent Mind\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd from a watch-tower in self’s solitudes\n<\/p>\n

\nHe saw her loose into infinity\n<\/p>\n

\nHer hooded eagles of significance,\n<\/p>\n

\nMessengers of Thought to the Unknowable.\n<\/p>\n

\nThus close to her in body and in spirit,\n<\/p>\n

\nIdentified by soul-vision and soul-sense\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd made one with all she was and longed to be,\n<\/p>\n

\nHe thought with her thoughts, suited to her steps his steps,\n<\/p>\n

\nLived by her breath and saw things with her eyes,\n<\/p>\n

\nFainted with her weakness, was powerful with her strength,\n<\/p>\n

\nThat so he might learn the secret of her soul.\n<\/p>\n

\nHe admired her splendid front of pomp and play\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd the marvels of her rich and delicate craft\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Page-114<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n

\nAnd her magic of order and her swift caprice,\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd her indomitable will to be,\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd thrilled with the insistence of her cry\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd bore like a Mother’s ardent despot clutch\n<\/p>\n

\nHer force that admits no other way than its own,\n<\/p>\n

\nHer hands that knead Fate in their violent grasp,\n<\/p>\n

\nHer touch that moves, her powers that seize and drive.\n<\/p>\n

\nA will was in her to exceed her forms\n<\/p>\n

\nImpatient to transfigure the finite world,\n<\/p>\n

\nA huge desire to marry the Infinite;\n<\/p>\n

\nHe felt in her her hope and her despair,\n<\/p>\n

\nThe trouble and rapture of her heaving breasts,\n<\/p>\n

\nThe passion that possessed her yearning limbs,\n<\/p>\n

\nHer mind that toiled dissatisfied with its fruits,\n<\/p>\n

\nHer heart that captured not the one Beloved.\n<\/p>\n

\nBut all that he could see or she disclose\n<\/p>\n

\nLeft still the ultimate secret unrevealed;\n<\/p>\n

\nSomething she was unknown to him or her.\n<\/p>\n

\nAlways he met a veiled and seeking Force,\n<\/p>\n

\nAn exiled Goddess building mimic heavens,\n<\/p>\n

\nA Sphinx whose eyes looked up to an unseen Sun.\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nOften he was near to a Spirit in her forms\n<\/p>\n

\nWhose passive presence was her nature’s strength;\n<\/p>\n

\nBut nowhere could be found its outward trace,\n<\/p>\n

\nOr its stamp on her acts was indecipherable.\n<\/p>\n

\nOnly at times, as in a blurred vignette,\n<\/p>\n

\nThe eye that looks on the dark side of things\n<\/p>\n

\nMade out an imagined figure from the blot.\n<\/p>\n

\nAmid a fitful sleet of dazzling light\n<\/p>\n

\nWas seen a half-blind chained divinity\n<\/p>\n

\nBewildered by the world in which he moved:\n<\/p>\n

\nYet conscious of the light prompting his soul\n<\/p>\n

\nHe sought his way amidst her laughter and call\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd the index chaos of her myriad steps,\n<\/p>\n

\nLed by the fluting of a distant player\n<\/p>\n

\nTowards a total deep infinitude.\n<\/p>\n

\nAround him was the forest of her signs:\n<\/p>\n

\nIn an inconsequent crowding sequence came\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Page-115<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n

\nThe changing coloured roadlights of idea\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd the hieroglyph of her symbol pageantries\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd, like strange stars studding the cosmic map,\n<\/p>\n

\nHer landmarks on the tangled paths of Time.\n<\/p>\n

\nIn her mazes of pursuit and of retreat\n<\/p>\n

\nAll ways she leads him, but no way is sure.\n<\/p>\n

\nTo every side she draws him and rejects.\n<\/p>\n

\nAllured by the many-toned marvel of her chant,\n<\/p>\n

\nAttracted by the witchcraft of her moods\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd moved by her casual touch to joy and grief,\n<\/p>\n

\nHe loses himself in her, but wins her not.\n<\/p>\n

\nA fugitive paradise smiles at him from her eyes;\n<\/p>\n

\nHe dreams of her beauty he shall hold as his joy,\n<\/p>\n

\nHe dreams of his mastery her limbs shall bear,\n<\/p>\n

\nHe dreams of the magic of her breasts of bliss.\n<\/p>\n

\nIn her illumined script, her fanciful\n<\/p>\n

\nTranslation of God’s pure original text,\n<\/p>\n

\nHe hopes to find the Scripture Wonderful,\n<\/p>\n

\nHieratic key of unknown beatitudes.\n<\/p>\n

\nBut the word of Life is hidden in its script,\n<\/p>\n

\nThe chant of Life has lost its divine note.\n<\/p>\n

\nA fire and colour tint her harmonies,\n<\/p>\n

\nYet they but bring a thrill of transient grace\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd brief unsatisfied soon-spent delight\n<\/p>\n

\nWallowing in ravishments of mind and sense\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd miss the luminous answer of the soul.\n<\/p>\n

\nAn ecstasy of unfulfilled desire\n<\/p>\n

\nIs now the golden summit of her song;\n<\/p>\n

\nA pathos of lost heights is her appeal,4<\/sup>\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n4 Cf. 192.3, where this line (with <\/font> <\/i>"its" instead <\/i>of "her" before <\/i>"appeal") occurs as part of a previous passage. The version reproduced here is Sri Aurobindo’s fair copy, revised in his own hand, of the manuscript which, differently revised by dictation, was used for the published text of the canto. In the earlier manuscript, the line in question was written between two columns with no clear indication of where it was to be inserted. It was evidently intended to go with the right column, as in Sri Aurobindo’s own copy (printed above). But when the manuscript was revised by dictation and copied by the scribe, this line was taken with the left column. It remained there through much subsequent revision of the passage into which it was introduced as well as of the passage with which it originally belonged. The extent of this revision has deterred the editors from shifting it back to its original position in the text, though it would read well after <\/i>"Track the last heavenward climbings of her voice." (193.35).<\/i>
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

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Page-116<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n

\nA <\/i>blind heart-throb that reaches joy through tears:\n<\/p>\n

\nShe cherishes sorrow as her deepest call.\n<\/p>\n

\nA wanderer on forlorn despairing routes,\n<\/p>\n

\nAlong the roads of sound a frustrate voice\n<\/p>\n

\nForsaken cries to a forgotten bliss.\n<\/p>\n

\nIn caverns of the echo of desire\n<\/p>\n

\nThere murmurs low a sourdined faint lament,\n<\/p>\n

\nOr lingers upon sweet and errant notes\n<\/p>\n

\nHunting for pleasure in the heart of pain:\n<\/p>\n

\nIts happier tunes are fragments of an hour.\n<\/p>\n

\n(Cf. 189.34-194.18)<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n*<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\nFor being is eternal, endless life.\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd whatsoever our will, to endure or cease,\n<\/p>\n

\nFrom life we escape only by greater life.\n<\/p>\n

\nAfter the body’s death when all seems done,\n<\/p>\n

\nOur acts compel us and perforce we must still\n<\/p>\n

\nContinue in the orbit we have made:\n<\/p>\n

\nCarried from birth to birth, from world to world,\n<\/p>\n

\nThere is a mute command from the Supreme,\n<\/p>\n

\nThere is creation’s occult need to serve:\n<\/p>\n

\nIf earth should perish, another earth would come,\n<\/p>\n

\nSome ancient deep impulsion labours on;\n<\/p>\n

\nAll is in labour with incessant birth;\n<\/p>\n

\nNo silent peak is found where Time could rest.\n<\/p>\n

\nThis was reflected in that greater scene;\n<\/p>\n

\nThere flowed a magic stream that could not cease.\n<\/p>\n

\n(Cf. 197.5-17.)<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Page-117<\/p>\n

\n

\n

B.
\nBOOK TWO, CANTO SEVEN<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThese passages have been selected from Sri Aurobindo’s last handwritten version of the first part of Book Two, Canto Seven. The selections contain most of the lines occurring in this version that are not found in the published text. The manuscript was discontinued after an extensive reworking of the passage corresponding to pp. 212-13 in the Revised Edition. Two versions of this last passage are included below.<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nA fateful Influence upon creatures stole:\n<\/p>\n

\nIts lethal touch pursued the immortal spirit,\n<\/p>\n

\nOn life was laid the finger of cold numb death\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd overcome with error and grief and pain\n<\/p>\n

\nThe soul’s native will for truth and joy and light.\n<\/p>\n

\nA deformation coiled that claimed to be5 <\/sup>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe being’s very turn, Nature’s true drive,\n<\/p>\n

\nThe twist and curve that cosmos takes in its birth,\n<\/p>\n

\nAn idiosyncracy of the Absolute.\n<\/p>\n

\nIn every corner ensconced of conscious life\n<\/p>\n

\nA hostile and invading Mind was at work\n<\/p>\n

\nCorrupting Truth with its own formulas,\n<\/p>\n

\nAfflicting Knowledge with the hue of doubt.\n<\/p>\n

\nNothing was safe from the cunning of its touch\n<\/p>\n

\nOr armed against the irony of its smile.\n<\/p>\n

\nInterceptor of the listenings of the soul\n<\/p>\n

\nIt captured the oracles of the occult gods,\n<\/p>\n

\nCancelled the firm rock-edicts graved by Time,\n<\/p>\n

\nEffaced the sign-posts of Life’s pilgrimage,\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd on the foundations of the cosmic Law\n<\/p>\n

\nErected its bronze pylons of misrule.\n<\/p>\n

\n(Cf. 203.4-20)<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nIn silence the inaudible voices spoke,\n<\/p>\n

\nHands that none saw planted the fatal grain,\n<\/p>\n

\nNo form was seen, yet a dire work was done.\n<\/p>\n

\nIn the heart, of seerhood’s natural right deprived,\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n5 This line, found in the previous manuscript, was omitted by Sri Aurobindo in the present version. It is clearly needed to complete the sense.<\/font><\/i>
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

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Page-118<\/p>\n

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\n

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\nThe will of God could now no more be read;\n<\/p>\n

\nAn iron decree in crooked uncials written\n<\/p>\n

\nImposed a law of sin and adverse fate.\n<\/p>\n

\n(Cf. 204.4-8)<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n*<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\nIt was a space where nothing could be true;\n<\/p>\n

\nFor all was other than it claimed to be\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd none confessed to himself his own deceit\n<\/p>\n

\nBut justified his wrong as native right;\n<\/p>\n

\nEach clung to his falsehood as to heaven’s truth,\n<\/p>\n

\nHiding from his soul, from Nature and from God:\n<\/p>\n

\nA vast deception was the law of things.\n<\/p>\n

\nOnly by that deception they could live:\n<\/p>\n

\nIn error they moved and breathed and found their force.\n<\/p>\n

\nAll that attracted had a hollow charm;\n<\/p>\n

\nEach rainbow brilliance was a splendid lie:\n<\/p>\n

\nA beauty unreal wore a glamour face.\n<\/p>\n

\n(Cf. 206.20-35)<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n*<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\nThere Life displayed to the spectator soul\n<\/p>\n

\nThe shadow depths of her strange miracle.\n<\/p>\n

\nAs might a harlot empress in a bouge,\n<\/p>\n

\nNude, unashamed, exulting she upraised\n<\/p>\n

\nHer evil face of perilous beauty and charm\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd drawing panic to a shuddering kiss\n<\/p>\n

\nTwixt the magnificence of her fatal breasts,\n<\/p>\n

\nAllured to their abyss the spirit’s fall.\n<\/p>\n

\nOnce it had plunged, it asked not for release,\n<\/p>\n

\nIt took fierce joy in the ecstasy of its pains,\n<\/p>\n

\nIt found freedom’s taste in a choice of delicate bonds\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd reigned, sovereign of its own decadence.\n<\/p>\n

\nA plethora of scenes besieged the gaze,\n<\/p>\n

\nThought-webs that reproduced themselves in life\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd taught the nature to be what it saw;\n<\/p>\n

\nFor it is mind that makes the form of the days\n<\/p>\n

\nWith the colours it absorbs from the world’s hues\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd thought decides the destiny of the soul.\n<\/p>\n

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Page-119<\/p>\n

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\n

\n

\nAcross the field of sight she multiplied,\n<\/p>\n

\nAs on a scenic film or moving plate,\n<\/p>\n

\nThe implacable splendour of its nightmare pomps\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd her rapture vision of infernal joys:\n<\/p>\n

\nA glory of abominable things.\n<\/p>\n

\nOn the dark background of a soulless world\n<\/p>\n

\nShe staged between a lurid light and shade\n<\/p>\n

\nHer dramas of the sorrow of the depths\n<\/p>\n

\nWritten on the anguished nerves of living things:\n<\/p>\n

\nHer epics of horror and grim ruthless deeds\n<\/p>\n

\nParalysed pity in the hardened breast,\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd the spectacle of the degraded soul\n<\/p>\n

\nDried up the founts of natural sympathy.\n<\/p>\n

\nIn her booths of sin and night-repairs of vice\n<\/p>\n

\nHer sordid imaginations etched in flesh,\n<\/p>\n

\nSigned photogravures of her infamy,\n<\/p>\n

\nPublished the covered dirt of Nature’s guilt,\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd foul scenarios hideous and macabre\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd gargoyle masques obscene and terrible\n<\/p>\n

\nCame televisioned from the gulfs of Night:\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd twisted caricatures of reality\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd art chef-d’oeuvres of weird distorted lines\n<\/p>\n

\nTrampled the torn sense into tormented shapes.\n<\/p>\n

\nA Craft of ingenious monstrosities\n<\/p>\n

\nMade vileness great and sublimated filth.\n<\/p>\n

\n(Cf. 212.1-213.5.)<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n*<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\n(Another version of part of the preceding)<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nOnce caught, nothing could help it any more,\n<\/p>\n

\nTorn with the flame of dire beatitudes.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt took fierce joy in the ecstasy of its pains\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd reigned, sovereign of its own decadence.\n<\/p>\n

\nA plethora of scenes besieged his gaze.\n<\/p>\n

\nAcross his field of sight she multiplied\n<\/p>\n

\nAs on a scenic film or moving plate\n<\/p>\n

\nThe implacable splendour of her nightmare pomps\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd her rapture-vision of infernal joys:\n<\/p>\n

\nOn the dark background of a soulless world\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Page-120<\/p>\n

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\n

\n

\nShe staged between a lurid light and shade\n<\/p>\n

\nHer dramas of the sorrow of the depths\n<\/p>\n

\nWritten on the agonised nerves of living things;\n<\/p>\n

\nHer epics of horror and grim majesty\n<\/p>\n

\nParalysed pity in the hardened breast,\n<\/p>\n

\nAccustoming to carnage as to a meal,\n<\/p>\n

\nTo torture as to a pleasant boxing-bout,\n<\/p>\n

\nAbolishing the mind’s outcry and recoil,\n<\/p>\n

\nThe life’s revolt, the body’s antipathy.\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

C.
\nBOOK FOUR, CANTO TWO<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThe top and carbon copies of a typescript of this canto were differently revised by Sri Aurobindo on separate occasions. When the canto was prepared for publication in 1950, the text was based primarily on the revised carbon copy, the middle part of which contained extensive additions. A few lines from the other revised copy of the typescript were inserted near the beginning, with minor modifications that show some involvement of Sri Aurobindo in the process. Otherwise this version was not used. The opening portion of the unused version contains significant revision which cannot always be combined with the version on which the final text is based. This is printed below.<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nA land of mountains and wide sun-beat plains\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd giant rivers pacing to vast seas,\n<\/p>\n

\nA marvellous land of reverie and trance,\n<\/p>\n

\nSilence swallowing life’s act into its sea\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd action springing from spiritual hush,\n<\/p>\n

\nOf thought’s transcendent climb or heavenward leap,\n<\/p>\n

\nHome of the mightiest works of God and man\n<\/p>\n

\nWhere Nature seemed a dream of the Divine\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd beauty and grace and grandeur flowered from its dream,\n<\/p>\n

\nHarboured the childhood of the incarnate Flame.\n<\/p>\n

\nOver her watched millennial influences\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd the deep godheads of a grandiose past\n<\/p>\n

\nLooked out and saw the future’s godheads come.\n<\/p>\n

\nEarth’s brooding wisdom spoke to her still breast;\n<\/p>\n

\nMounting from mind’s last peaks to mate with gods,\n<\/p>\n

\nMaking earth’s brilliant thoughts a springing board\n<\/p>\n

\nTo dive into the cosmic vastnesses\n<\/p>\n

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\n

\n

\nThe knowledge of the thinker and the seer\n<\/p>\n

\nSaw the unseen and thought the unthinkable,\n<\/p>\n

\nOpened large doors upon infinity\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd gave a shoreless sweep to mortal acts.\n<\/p>\n

\nArt and the vision of beauty called to the eyes\n<\/p>\n

\nFigure and hues native to higher worlds\n<\/p>\n

\nTill this world’s images took that greater stamp.\n<\/p>\n

\nNature and soul vied in nobility.\n<\/p>\n

\nEthics keyed earthly lives to imitate heaven’s;\n<\/p>\n

\nThe harmony of a rich culture’s tones\n<\/p>\n

\nExhausted and exceeded earth’s full store,\n<\/p>\n

\nRefined the sense and magnified its reach\n<\/p>\n

\nTo hear the unheard and glimpse the invisible\n<\/p>\n

\nIn subtle fields that escape our narrow ken\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd taught the soul to soar beyond the known\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd steal entry into the Immortals’ worlds.\n<\/p>\n

\nInspiring life to greaten beyond its bounds\n<\/p>\n

\nLeaving earth’s safety daring wings of Mind\n<\/p>\n

\nBore her above the trodden roads of thought\n<\/p>\n

\nTo live on eagle heights nearer the Sun\n<\/p>\n

\nWhere wisdom sits on her eternal throne.\n<\/p>\n

\nAll her life’s turns led her to symbol doors\n<\/p>\n

\nAdmitting to secret Powers who were her kin;\n<\/p>\n

\nInitiate of bliss and child of Light,\n<\/p>\n

\nA mystic acolyte trained in Nature’s school\n<\/p>\n

\nAware of the marvel of created things\n<\/p>\n

\nHer soul’s gifts she gave, earth-magic’s miracles\n<\/p>\n

\nLaid on the altar of the Wonderful;\n<\/p>\n

\nHer hours were a ritual in a timeless fane;\n<\/p>\n

\nHer acts she made gestures of sacrifice.\n<\/p>\n

\nInvested with the rhythm of higher spheres\n<\/p>\n

\nThe word became a hieratic means\n<\/p>\n

\nFor the release of the imprisoned spirit\n<\/p>\n

\nInto communion with its comrade gods:\n<\/p>\n

\nHelping to new expression and new form\n<\/p>\n

\nSome immemorial Soul in men and things,\n<\/p>\n

\nSeeker of the Unknown and the Unborn,\n<\/p>\n

\nIt drew the veil from Nature’s secrecies.\n<\/p>\n

\n(Cf. 359.1-360.25.)<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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\n

\n

D. BOOK FIVE, CANTO
\nTHREE<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThese lines are found, written in the scribe’s hand, at the end of a typed copy of this canto.<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nNow she travelled through many changing lands,\n<\/p>\n

\nEarth round her was illumined by her joy;\n<\/p>\n

\nIts hours were long supports for rapture’s face;\n<\/p>\n

\nLife was an outbreak of the All-Wonderful.\n<\/p>\n

\nAll hope and chance took on a brighter shape:\n<\/p>\n

\nThis ordinary life of man could change;\n<\/p>\n

\nThe seal was there of the Ineffable.\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThis meeting cut across old Nature-lines\n<\/p>\n

\nTo pen upon its bold decisive page\n<\/p>\n

\nThe foreword of her soul’s biography.\n<\/p>\n

\nTwo powers had come down from the unknown Beyond\n<\/p>\n

\nTo play their part upon the cosmic ground.\n<\/p>\n

\nThese spirits linked two lines of eternity,\n<\/p>\n

\nThese bodies joined two points of the infinite.\n<\/p>\n

\nThese lives must serve the Timeless and Unseen\n<\/p>\n

\nFor writing out in symbol human acts\n<\/p>\n

\nThe meaning of God’s mystery play in Time.\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

E.
\nBOOK SIX, CANTO TWO<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThis is another version, written by Sri Aurobindo in a small note-pad, of the passage following the line, <\/i>"It keeps for her her privilege of pain." (457.2). The manuscript is difficult to decipher. A few readings are slightly uncertain and some punctuation has been supplied by the editors.<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nBut hard it is for human mind to feel\n<\/p>\n

\nHeaven’s good in life’s crash and the iron grasp of Doom\n<\/p>\n

\nOr tolerate the dreadful mystery\n<\/p>\n

\nOf pain and grief and evil masking God.\n<\/p>\n

\nHow can it seize the thousand-sided drive,\n<\/p>\n

\nThe single act pointing a million acts,\n<\/p>\n

\nThe mystic total of the magical sum\n<\/p>\n

\nOr swept by the world-ocean’s rushing waves\n<\/p>\n

\nSense mid the wash and spume and loud multitude\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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\n

\n

\n

\nThe one all-discerning Will, the touch, the tread\n<\/p>\n

\nOf God’s indivisible reality?\n<\/p>\n

\nMan’s thought is like a diamond cutting gems,\n<\/p>\n

\nMan’s will is like a labourer hewing stones:\n<\/p>\n

\nHe cuts into sky-strips the boundless Truth\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd takes each strip as if it were all the heavens.\n<\/p>\n

\nHis knowledge chained to thought and led by words\n<\/p>\n

\nIs gaoled in the divisions it has made.\n<\/p>\n

\nHe looks at infinite possibility\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd gives to its plastic Vast the name of Chance;\n<\/p>\n

\nHe sees the long result of the all-wise Force\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd feels the cold rigid limbs of lifeless Law.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe will of the Timeless working out in Time\n<\/p>\n

\nIn the free absolute steps of cosmic Truth\n<\/p>\n

\nHe thinks a dead machine, an unconscious Fate.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt is decreed and Satyavan must die;\n<\/p>\n

\nHer hour is known, foreseen the fatal stroke.\n<\/p>\n

\nWhat else shall be is written in her soul,\n<\/p>\n

\nBut till the hour reveals the fateful script,\n<\/p>\n

\nThe writing waits illegible and mute.\n<\/p>\n

\nHer mortal breast hides her immortal Fate.\n<\/p>\n

\nO King, thy fate is a transaction fixed\n<\/p>\n

\nIn long advance but altered and renewed\n<\/p>\n

\nAt every hour between Nature and thy soul.\n<\/p>\n

\nIts items ever grow and ever change;\n<\/p>\n

\nIt is a balance drawn in Destiny’s book.\n<\/p>\n

\nThou canst open with thy fate a new account\n<\/p>\n

\nBegun upon a stainless virgin page.\n<\/p>\n

\nThou canst dispute her formidable claim\n<\/p>\n

\nWith God as the foreseeing arbiter,\n<\/p>\n

\nThou canst accept thy fate, thou canst refuse.\n<\/p>\n

\nEven if the Judge maintains the unseen decree\n<\/p>\n

\nYet thy refusal is in thy credit written:\n<\/p>\n

\nDeath is no end, Fate moves, it stands not still.\n<\/p>\n

\nIts will unshaken by the bronze blare of Doom,\n<\/p>\n

\nThe spirit soars up stronger by defeat,\n<\/p>\n

\nIts godlike wings grow wider with each fall.\n<\/p>\n

\nIts growth within is watered by its wounds,\n<\/p>\n

\nIts splendid failures’ sum is victory.\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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\n

\n

\nThy fate touches the abyss to leap at heaven.\n<\/p>\n

\nThy fate is like an army’s marching ranks;\n<\/p>\n

\nIt has many fronts and stands on many lines.\n<\/p>\n

\nThy future’s map is kept in planes unseen,\n<\/p>\n

\nThy soul has planned its strategy with God.\n<\/p>\n

\nThy body’s fate comes first, a column pushed\n<\/p>\n

\nThrough the forts of the present to a city unknown;\n<\/p>\n

\nIts march is marshalled by the wheeling stars\n<\/p>\n

\nThat carry its cosmic consigns in their light.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt sees not where it goes but walks by faith;\n<\/p>\n

\nIt smites its way through the world’s opponent powers,\n<\/p>\n

\nOr, frustrate, longs and waits a happier birth.\n<\/p>\n

\nA second front is in a greater plane;\n<\/p>\n

\nThence thy life-forces drive like rolling waves\n<\/p>\n

\nIts small or large formations towards earth’s days\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd swell the might of thy terrestrial fate.\n<\/p>\n

\nOr as the wind-gods’ squadrons jostle in heaven,\n<\/p>\n

\nTrumpeting with breath of storm and thunder’s call\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd their arrows like gold lightnings fill the sky,\n<\/p>\n

\nSuch is their coming, such their clamour and charge.\n<\/p>\n

\nIn armour bright the shining riders come,\n<\/p>\n

\nLeaders hurrying Destiny’s tardy pace,\n<\/p>\n

\nVictors preparing grander shocks to come.\n<\/p>\n

\nIf the soul could rise into that greater plane\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd with its motions quicken man’s petty life,\n<\/p>\n

\nErasing the firm consigns of the stars\n<\/p>\n

\nThy will could then give orders to thy fate.\n<\/p>\n

\nOn the radiant skyline of a greater Mind\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Ideas that Fate fulfils not yet are seen.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe secret Will has its headquarters there\n<\/p>\n

\nThat planned the tactics of the things that are\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd behind them plans for greater things to be.\n<\/p>\n

\nThence gleam the reconnaissances divine,\n<\/p>\n

\nThence come the prophet scouts, the observer seers,\n<\/p>\n

\nThe godlike dreams, the vast and wide-winged thoughts\n<\/p>\n

\nThat cannot yet take shape in earthly life,\n<\/p>\n

\nBut here and there small part-fulfilments dawned\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd of their fragments is our present made.\n<\/p>\n

\nBut if the soul could live upon those heights,\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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\n

\n

\n

\nThen would his life be the plaything of his thoughts,\n<\/p>\n

\nHis mind could be the shaper of his fate.\n<\/p>\n

\nAbove all glows a supramental range.\n<\/p>\n

\nThere is God’s staff; there is his High Command.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Truth lives there which oversees the world,\n<\/p>\n

\nOf which all things are the disfiguring robe.\n<\/p>\n

\nO mortal, even now couldst thou receive\n<\/p>\n

\nOnly some influence from that marvellous plane,\n<\/p>\n

\nAll then would change, divinity be thy fate.\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

F.
\nBOOK SEVEN, CANTO THREE<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThese lines were printed in a footnote in previous editions as an alternative to the twelve lines beginning with <\/i>"Here was a quiet country of fixed mind," (498.5-16).<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThis narrowed life’s pedestrian thought and will\n<\/p>\n

\nDebouched into a little continent space\n<\/p>\n

\nWhere soul was not nor spirit, and thinking mind\n<\/p>\n

\nLaboured content with small finalities.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt seemed to it the top of being’s arc\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd the last circle of the quest of life.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt was a paradise for thought’s crowned ease\n<\/p>\n

\nWhere nothing more was left to find or know,\n<\/p>\n

\nA tabernacle of wise contented life.\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Page-126<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unused Versions and Omitted Passages A. BOOK TWO, CANTO SIX The passages below have been transcribed from Sri Aurobindo’s last handwritten version of the end…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-09-supplement-to-the-revised-edition-of-savitri","wpcat-74-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3316\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}