Goddess Savitri takes human birth in the tapasya of Aswapati. He prays to her to incarnate herself and redeem the lot of this suffering mortality. She agrees. In the story by Vyasa as we have in the Mahabharata, she tells Aswapati that it is by the sanction of the Creator-Father Brahma himself that a radiant daughter would soon be born to him. In it is avowed, in a decisive way, the Will of the Supreme coming into play in this evolutionary world. The executive Shakti working in the authority of the Supreme Being is a great occult-spiritual truth and the Savitri-story upholds it in a convincing manner—the Purusha as the giver of consent without which the Prakriti as the doer of works will not do anything: he wills, and she executes. That is the operative mechanism. The Consciousness-Force carries out the Will or samkalpa of the Truth-Being. The Power and the Presence in their inalienable operation together in this way promote the work of divine manifestation. This is the fundamental aspect and everywhere that kind of spiritual connotation, that mighty charge is present in the original story. This means, it is inappropriate to belittle it employing our small faculties. Told in the manner of a story, we can say that in the evolutionary process the role of Savitri is to implement; the role of Aswapati is to invoke her grace, with the ground having been prepared by him for her active dynamism; the role of Brahma as the Creator is to establish, through Aswapati’s yoga-tapasya, a new world in this mortal creation. It is not Aswapati’s concern to get the sanction from the Supreme; it is Savitri’s concern. It is she who gets it.

In this context let us read the last paragraph of Sri Aurobindo’s The Mother:

The supramental change is the thing decreed and inevitable in the evolution of the earth-consciousness; for its upward ascent is not ended and mind is not its last summit. But the change may arrive, take form and endure, there is needed the call from below with a will to recognise and not deny the Light when it comes, and there is needed the sanction of the Supreme from above. The power that mediates between the sanction and the call is the presence and power of the Divine Mother. The Mother's power and not any human endeavour and tapasya can alone rend the lid and tear the covering and shape the vessel and bring down into this world of obscurity and falsehood and death and suffering Truth and Light and Life divine and the immortal's Ananda.

There has to be the call, and there has to be the sanction; only then can the divine Grace descend and carry out the supramental change. This is so both in the individual and the cosmic workings. But Aswapati’s tapasya and Savitri’s response are more in the universal context than they as individuals; for, they need nothing for themselves. The symbolic aspect of the legend is, Aswapati doing yoga-tapasya for eighteen years and imploring Goddess Savitri to grant him the boon of a son; the Goddess herself obtaining the sanction from Brahma who in his wisdom decides to give him not a son but a daughter; the birth of a radiant girl as Savitri is the most wonderful thing that can ever happen to this world. Indeed, “a world’s desire compelled her mortal birth.”

In the Veda, Agni plays the role of a mediator between the gods and the one who offers to them the sacrifices. He takes the havis to the gods and brings gifts for him from them. Among several types of Yajnas, putrakāmeşţhi is a special one performed for begetting progeny. It is kāmya karma, an action carried out with a definite intention, a specific desire, here for the sake of having a child. Valmiki’s Ramayana describes such a Yajna, performed by Dasharatha under the guidance of Rishi Rishyasringa. All these Vedic connotations are present in the Vyasa-tale of Savitri, and Sri Aurobindo does not disregard them in his epic, Savitri. Without a doubt, they have thoughtful significances, and made absolutely splendid in his yogic fire.