{"id":3464,"date":"2013-07-13T01:48:45","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3464"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:48:45","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:48:45","slug":"05-letter-to-dr-karan-singh-vol-07-on-the-new-edition-of-savitri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/01-savitri\/07-on-the-new-edition-of-savitri\/05-letter-to-dr-karan-singh-vol-07-on-the-new-edition-of-savitri","title":{"rendered":"-05_Letter to Dr Karan Singh.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\nLetter to Dr. Karan Singh <\/font><\/p>\n

\nApril 27, 1999<\/font><\/p>\n

\n Respected Dr. Karan Singh-ji,<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font><\/p>\n

\n     Apropos of my brief faxed
\nreply to your kind letter of 9.4.99, I put down in relative detail some cardinal
\nfacts about the new edition of Savitri.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n     The Epic Savitri<\/i>
\nwas composed spread over a period of three and half decades (1916-1950). Sri
\nAurobindo used different kinds of paper at different times, altered, omitted and
\nintroduced new words often along the margins of the papers and it was far from
\neasy to make out several words of his text. While making fresh copies of the
\noriginal manuscripts, his disciples unwittingly made several errors. Then came
\nthe stage when parts of the epic were dictated by the Master (from the
\nmid-forties). Not only numerous punctuational omissions, but also errors in
\nwords (confusing ‘soul’ to be ‘sole’, for example) crept in. The text did not
\nfare much better in the early stages of its printing, first in some periodicals
\nand then as volumes. That was a time when the Ashram had no expert proof-readers
\nand compositors. (Even in early sixties I detected the word ‘Capital’ in The
\nSynthesis<\/i> which I felt should not be there and when the original manuscript
\nwas consulted, my feeling proved correct. Obviously, an early proof- reader had
\nwritten that word in the margin to indicate that a letter should be capitalized.
\nThe compositor had incorporated the word!) Despite all the dedication of the
\npeople concerned, numerous errors persisted in Savitri.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n     The first volume of
\nSavitri<\/i> was published in book form in 1950 shortly before Sri Aurobindo’s
\npassing away. Sri Aurobindo by then was hardly in a position to read the
\nproofs himself. The second volume followed in 1951. The three disciples <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-9<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwho were responsible for copying, taking dictation
\nand type-writing the epic, were Nirodbaran, K. D. Sethna (Amal Kiran) and
\nNolini-da. While editing the subsequent editions in 1954 and 1970, they detected
\nseveral errors and with the Mother’s approval, corrected them. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n     During the 1970s,
\nNirodbaran gave the manuscripts of Savitri<\/i> to the Archives of the Sri
\nAurobindo Ashram for preservation, microfilming, and study. During the
\npreliminary examination of the manuscripts, carried out under his direct
\nsupervision by his assistant and a member of the Archives, it was found that a
\nnumber of copying errors had been made during the long process of the poem’s
\nrevision. Some of these ‘transmission errors’ (as they are called by specialists
\nin the field of ‘textual criticism’) had inadvertently found their way into the
\ntext of the epic. Once this discovery had been made, Nirodbaran authorised a
\nfull and careful examination of all the relevant manuscripts with the aim of
\nremoving all such errors from the text of the poem. In reply to a categorical
\nquestion put to Nolini-da by Jayantilal-da (the man who was the architect and
\nleading spirit of the Archives), Nolini-da gave his green signal for the
\ncorrections approved by Nirodbaran to be carried out. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n     The editorial task and
\ntechnique were painstaking and complex. Each printed line was compared with the
\nline in the manuscript. The manuscripts as well as the available earlier
\ncorrected proof-sheets, were subjected to detailed examination by the editors
\nwith the aid of the latest computer and photo-graphic technology. I need not
\ndescribe the process in detail. But anybody with genuine quest can see that the
\nprocess involved honest and intelligent labour of a dedicated team for ten long
\nyears, for the new edition to emerge. An average person with the minimum
\ngoodwill can understand that there could be no other motive for this difficult
\nand monumental task to be undertaken except the inspiration that it is the
\nAshram’s sacred responsibility to present the Master’s work in the accurate-most
\nform. The main authority is Sri Aurobindo’s text. "What has been ‘corrected’ is
\nnot Sri Aurobindo’s text, but the errors of the scribes and the proof-readers.
\nWhy at all should a team led by <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-10<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nNirodbaran, K. D. Sethna (Amal Kiran) and
\nJayantilal Parekh do anything else? <\/font><\/p>\n

\n     In fact, every edition has
\nbeen an improvement in the sense of coming closer to the original and the latest
\nedition is the culmination of the process. It is the term ‘revised’, understood
\nsuperficially, which scared some people. Added to that was the supplementary
\nvolume explaining the raison d’etre of the corrections. Produced in good faith,
\nthe supplementary volume only made some people pounce upon the great number of
\ncorrections (in fact the bulk of it is punctuational though) and make a
\nhullabaloo, without caring for the explanations. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n     The irony is, an Advocate
\nof Calcutta High Court (God save the legal system) who literally cannot spell
\nthe name of Sri Aurobindo or Savitri<\/i> correctly, brought a P.I.L. in the
\nCalcutta High Court, praying for an order to withdraw the new edition of
\nSavitri!<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n     The judgement delivered on
\n20.4.99 reads: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n     "The present edition is
\nnot the first to contain corrections. Each previous edition of Savitri<\/i> has
\namended a number of errors noticed by the editors or brought to their attention
\nby readers. Once a likely mistake had been observed, the manuscript was
\nsometimes consulted for confirmation. But a systematic search for errors was not
\nconducted until the work began on the present edition. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n     "The reasons are
\nconvincing. The supplementary volume also gives a table of emendations to show
\nthe present readings and the previous readings. A table of alternative readings
\nhas also been printed in the volume. A researcher or a serious student of Sri
\nAurobindo can very well find out the original text as well as the amended ones.
\nThere appears to be no distortion in the revised edition. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n     "We are, therefore, of the
\nview that there is no force in this petition and the same deserves to be
\ndismissed and is hereby dismissed." <\/font><\/p>\n

\n     Here is a passage from
\nUdar’s reminiscences: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n     "One day the Mother told
\nme that the whole of Savitri<\/i> was a Mantra for the transformation of the
\nworld. I then asked the<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-11<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nMother why is it that we can see no sign of its
\naction in the world so far? She replied, ‘The original transcriptions of the
\nmanuscripts of Savitri<\/i> have some mistakes in them, and these mistakes
\nhave dulled its force.’ So the Mother Herself knew that there were mistakes in
\nthe original publication of Savitri."
\n<\/i>If people like X desire to continue with the earlier editions of
\nSavitri,<\/i> who is stopping them from doing so? In a few years the copyright
\nof the work will cease to be with the Ashram. We cannot stop anybody from
\nbringing out a new print of any of the old editions. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n     There is a Chinese
\nproverb: "When a finger points at the moon, the imbecile looks at the finger,
\ninstead of at the moon." I cannot, by any stretch of imagination, look upon
\nthese people as imbecile. At the same time I fail to understand their wisdom.
\nThe supplementary volume is self-explanatory. In any case they could have paid a
\nvisit to our Archives and got their curiosity satisfied instead of rushing to
\nthe Court or sensationalising it in various ways. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n     Are they a part of a wider
\neffort to scandalise the Ashram? Disappointed at some other fronts, are they
\nbanging their fists on his beautiful work – the new edition of Savitri,<\/i>
\nclosest so far to the Master’s original? I do not know. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n     Thanking you for writing
\nto me and with warm regards, <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nYours sincerely, <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nMANOJ DAS <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-12<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Letter to Dr. Karan Singh April 27, 1999  Respected Dr. Karan Singh-ji,        Apropos of my brief faxed reply to your kind letter of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-07-on-the-new-edition-of-savitri","wpcat-79-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3464","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=3464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}