{"id":525,"date":"2013-07-13T01:28:36","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:28:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=525"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:28:36","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:28:36","slug":"03-early-life-in-england-vol-26-on-himself-volume-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/26-on-himself-volume-26\/03-early-life-in-england-vol-26-on-himself-volume-26","title":{"rendered":"-03_Early Life in England.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

\n
\nI.
\n EARLY LIFE IN <\/a> <\/span><\/b> ENGLAND<\/span><\/b>:
\n 1879-1893<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n
\naurobindo <\/span><\/font> <\/span>
\nwas born on <\/font> <\/span>August
\n 15th, 1872<\/font><\/span>,
\nin <\/font> <\/span>
\nCalcutta<\/font><\/span>. His father, a man of great ability
\nand strong personality, had been among the first to go to <\/font> <\/span>
\nEngland<\/font><\/span> for his education. He returned
\nentirely anglicised in habits, ideas and ideals,\u2014 so strongly that his
\nAurobindo as a child spoke English and Hindustani only and learned his
\nmother-tongue only after his return from <\/font> <\/span>
\nEngland<\/font><\/span>. He was determined that his children
\nshould receive an entirely European upbringing. While in <\/font> <\/span>
\nIndia<\/font><\/span> they were sent for the beginning of
\ntheir education to an Irish nuns’ school in <\/font> <\/span>
\nDarjeeling<\/font><\/span> and in 1879 he took his three sons
\nto <\/font> <\/span>
\nEngland<\/font><\/span> and placed them with an English
\nclergyman and his wife with strict instructions that they should not be allowed
\nto make the acquaintance of any Indian or undergo any Indian influence. These
\ninstructions were carried out to the letter and Aurobindo grew up in entire
\nignorance of <\/font> <\/span>
\nIndia<\/font><\/span>, her people, her religion and her
\nculture.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nAurobindo never went to <\/font> <\/span>
\nManchester<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>
\nGrammar School<\/font><\/span>. His two brothers studied there, but
\nhe himself was educated privately by Mr. and Mrs. Drewett. Drewett was an accomplished
\nLatin scholar; he did not teach him Greek, but grounded him so well in Latin
\nthat the headmaster of <\/font> <\/span>
\nSt. Paul<\/font><\/span>‘s school in <\/font> <\/span>
\nLondon<\/font><\/span> took up Aurobindo himself to ground
\nhim in Greek and then pushed him rapidly into the higher classes of the school.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nAusten Leigh was not Provost at that
\ntime; the Provost’s name was Prothero.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nAurobindo gave his attention to the
\nclassics at <\/font> <\/span>
\nManchester<\/font><\/span> and at <\/font> <\/span>
\nSt. Paul<\/font><\/span>‘s; but even at <\/font> <\/span>
\nSt. Paul<\/font><\/span>‘s in the last three years he simply
\nwent through his school course and spent most of his spare time in general
\nreading, especially English poetry, literature and fiction, French literature
\nand the history of ancient, mediaeval and modern <\/font> <\/span>
\nEurope<\/font><\/span>. He spent some time also over
\nlearning Italian, some German and a little Spanish. He spent much time too in
\nwriting poetry. The school studies during this period engaged very little of
\nhis time; he was already at ease in them and did not think it necessary to
\nlabour over them any<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Page – 1<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nlonger. All the same he
\nwas able to win all the prizes in King’s College in one year for Greek and
\nLatin verse, etc.<\/p>\n

He did not graduate at Cambridge.
\nHe passed high in the First Part of the Tripos (first class); it is on passing
\nthis First Part that the degree of B.A. is usually given; but as he had only
\ntwo years at his disposal, he had to pass it in his second year at Cambridge;
\nand the First Part gives the degree only if it is taken in the third year; if
\none takes it in the second year one has to appear for the Second Part of the
\nTripos in the fourth year to qualify for the degree. He might have got the
\ndegree if he had made an application for it, but he did not care to do so. A
\ndegree in English is valuable only if one wants to take up an academical
\ncareer.<\/p>\n

St.
\n Paul’s was a day school. The three brothers lived in London
\nfor some time with the mother of Mr. Drewett, but she left them after a quarrel
\nbetween her and Manmohan about religion. The old Mrs. Drewett was fervently
\nEvangelical and she said she would not live with an atheist as the house might
\nfall down on her. Afterwards Benoybhusan and Aurobindo occupied a room in the
\nSouth Kensington Liberal Club where Mr. J. S. Cotton, brother of Sir Henry
\nCotton, for some time Lt. Governor of Bengal, was the
\nsecretary and Benoy assisted him in his work. Manmohan went into lodgings. This
\nwas the time of the greatest suffering and poverty. Subsequently Aurobindo also
\nwent separately into lodgings until he took up residence at Cambridge.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

NAME IN <\/span><\/span><\/b>ENGLAND<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The name given by his
\nfather was Aurobindo Ackroyd Ghose. <\/p>\n

Sri Aurobindo dropped the
\n"Ackroyd" from his name before he left England
\nand never used it again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

HARDSHIPS DURING SCHOOL LIFE IN <\/b>LONDON<\/b><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

During a whole year a
\nslice or two of sandwich, bread and butter and a cup of tea in the morning and
\nin the evening a penny saveloy formed the only food.<\/p>\n

\nPage – 2<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nFAILURE TO APPEAR FOR THE RIDING TEST IN THE <\/b>I.C.S. EXAMINATION<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nothing detained him in
\nhis room. He felt no call for the I.C.S. and was seeking some way to escape
\nfrom that bondage. By certain manoeuvres he managed to get himself disqualified
\nfor riding without himself rejecting the Service, which his family would not
\nhave allowed him to do.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\nAfter being
\ndisqualified for the Indian Civil Service Sri Aurobindo turned his full
\nattention <\/b>to<\/span> classical  studies.<\/i><\/p>\n

These
\nstudies were already finished at that time <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nTwo
\nyears after the Indian<\/i> Civil Service examination he graduated from
\nKing’s College with a First Class in Classical Tripos.<\/i><\/p>\n

This happened earlier, not
\nafter the Civil Service failure.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Aurobindo, even before
\nhe was twenty years old, had mastered Greek and Latin and English and had also
\nacquired sufficient familiarity with continental languages like German, French
\nand Italian.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This should be corrected
\nas: "…mastered Greek and Latin, English and French and had also
\nacquired some familiarity with continental languages like German and
\nItalian."<\/p>\n

In <\/i>England<\/i>
\nat an early age he took the firm decision of liberating his own nation.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not quite that; at this
\nage Aurobindo began first to be interested in Indian politics of which
\npreviously he knew nothing. His father began sending the newspaper The
\nBengalee<\/i> with passages marked relating cases of maltreatment of Indians by
\nEnglishmen and he wrote in his letters denouncing the British Government in India <\/p>\n

\nPage – 3<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

as a heartless Government.
\nAt the age of eleven Aurobindo had already received strongly the impression
\nthat a period of general upheaval and great revolutionary changes was coming in
\nthe world and he himself was destined to play a part in it. His attention was
\nnow drawn to India
\nand this feeling was soon canalised into the idea of the liberation of his own
\ncountry. But the "firm decision" took full shape only towards the end
\nof another four years. It had already been made when he went to Cambridge and
\nas a member and for some time secretary of the Indian Majlis at Cambridge he
\ndelivered many revolutionary speeches which, as he afterwards learnt, had their
\npart in determining the authorities to exclude him from the Indian Civil
\nService; the failure in the riding test was only the occasion, for in some
\nother cases an opportunity was given for remedying this defect in India itself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Young Aurobindo formed
\nthe secret society\u2014"Lotus and Dagger"<\/i> \u2014 while in <\/i>England<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is not correct. The
\nIndian students in London did once
\nmeet to form a secret society called romantically the "Lotus and Dagger"
\nin which each member vowed to work for the liberation of India
\ngenerally and to take some special work in furtherance of that end. Aurobindo
\ndid not form the society, but he became a member along with his brothers. But
\nthe society was still-born. This happened immediately before the return to India
\nand when he had finally left Cambridge.
\nIndian politics at that time was timid and moderate and this was the first
\nattempt of the kind by Indian students in England.
\nIn India itself Aurobindo’s maternal grandfather Raj Narayan Bose formed once a
\nsecret society \u2014 of which Tagore, then a very young man, became a member, and
\nalso set up an institution for national and revolutionary propaganda, but this
\nfinally came to nothing. Later on there was a revolutionary spirit in Maharashtra and a secret society was started in Western India with a Rajput
\nnoble as the head and this had a Council of Five in Bombay with several
\nprominent Maharatta politicians as its members. This society was contacted and
\njoined by Aurobindo somewhere in 1902-3, sometime after he had <\/p>\n

\nPage – 4<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

already started secret
\nrevolutionary work in Bengal on his own account. In Bengal
\nhe found some very small secret societies recently started and acting
\nseparately without any clear direction and tried to unite them with a common
\nprogramme. The union was never complete and did not last, but the movement
\nitself grew and very soon received an enormous extension and became a
\nformidable factor in the general unrest in Bengal.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While in <\/i>London<\/i>
\nhe used to attend the weekly meetings of the Fabian Society.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Never <\/b>once.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Young Aurobindo was
\nsensitive to beauty in man and Nature…. He watched with pain the thousand and
\none instances of man’s cruelty to man.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The feeling was more
\nabhorrence than pain; from early childhood there was a strong hatred and
\ndisgust for all kinds of cruelty and oppression, but the term ‘pain’ would not
\naccurately describe the reaction.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He may have known a
\nsmattering of Bengali till he was five years of age. Thereafter till twenty-one
\nhe spoke only English.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In my father’s house only
\nEnglish and Hindustani were spoken. I knew no Bengali.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In much of Aurobindo’s
\nearly English verse written between his eighteenth and twentieth years in <\/i>England<\/i>,
\nincluded in "Songs to Myrtilla", the derivative element is prominent.
\nNot only are names and lineaments and allusions foreign in their garb, but the
\nliterary echoes are many and drawn from varied sources.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Foreign to what? He knew
\nnothing about India
\nor her culture,<\/p>\n

\nPage – 5<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

etc. What these poems
\nexpress is the education and imaginations and ideas and feelings created by a
\npurely European culture and surroundings \u2014 it could not be otherwise. In the
\nsame way the poems on Indian subjects and surroundings in the same book express
\nthe first reactions to India
\nand Indian culture after the return home and a first acquaintance with these
\nthings.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Like Macaulay’s A
\nJacobite’s Epitaph", Aurobindo’s "Hic Jacet" also achieves its
\nsevere beauty through sheer economy of words; the theme, the very rhythm and
\nlanguage of the poem, all hark back to Macaulay.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If so, it must have been
\nan unconscious influence; for after early childhood Macaulay’s verse (The
\nLays)<\/i> ceased to appeal. The Jacobite’s Epitaph<\/i> was perhaps not even
\nread twice; it made no impression.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sir Henry Cotton was
\nmuch connected with Maharshi Raj Narayan Bose \u2014 Aurobindo’s maternal
\ngrandfather. His son James Cotton was at this time in <\/i>London<\/i>.
\nAs a result of these favourable circumstances a meeting came about with the
\nGaekwar of <\/i>Baroda<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cotton was my father’s
\nfriend \u2014 they had made arrangements for my posting in Bengal;
\nbut he had nothing to do with my meeting with the Gaekwar. James Cotton was
\nwell acquainted with my elder brother, because he was Secretary of the South
\nKensington Liberal Club where we were living and my brother was his assistant.
\nHe took great interest in us. It was he who arranged the meeting.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For fourteen years
\nyoung Aurobindo had lived in <\/i>England<\/i>
\ndivorced from the culture of his own nation and was not happy with himself. He
\nlonged to begin all again from the beginning and to try to re-nationalise
\nhimself.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There was no unhappiness
\nfor that reason, nor at that time any<\/p>\n

\nPage – 6<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

deliberate will for
\nre-nationalisation \u2014 which came, after reaching India,
\nby natural attraction to Indian culture and ways of life and a temperamental
\nfeeling and preference for all that was Indian.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He was leaving, he
\nwished to leave, and yet there was a touch of regret as well at the thought of
\nleaving <\/i>England<\/i>.
\nHe felt the flutter of unutterable misgivings and regrets; he achieved escape
\nfrom them by having recourse to poetic expression.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There was no such regret
\nin leaving England,
\nno attachment to past or misgivings for the future. Few friendships were ; in England
\nand none very intimate; the mental atmosphere not found congenial. There was
\ntherefore no need for any escape.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Aurobindo was going
\n"back to India to serve under the Gaekwar of Baroda; he cast one last look
\nat his all but adopted country and uttered his parting words in
\n"Envoi".<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No, the statement was of a
\ntransition from one culture to another. There was an attachment to English and
\nEuropean thought and literature, but not to England as a country; he had no
\nties there and did not make England his adopted country, as Manmohan did for a
\ntime. If there was attachment to a European land as a second country, it was
\nintellectually and emotionally to one not seen or lived in in this life, not England,
\nbut France.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nDEATH OF AUROBINDO’S FATHER DUE TO FALSE REPORT OF HIS SON’S DEATH<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There was no question of
\nthe two other brothers starting [from England.]
\nIt was only Aurobindo’s death that was reported and it was while uttering his
\nname in lamentation that the father died.<\/p>\n

\nPage – 7<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

After his father’s demise the
\nresponsibility of supporting the family devolved on him and he had to take up
\nsome appointment soon<\/span>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There was no question of
\nsupporting the family at that time. That happened some time after going to India.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage – 8<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I. EARLY LIFE IN ENGLAND: 1879-1893   aurobindo was born on August 15th, 1872, in Calcutta. His father, a man of great ability and strong…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-26-on-himself-volume-26","wpcat-11-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525","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=525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}