Savitri stepped out of Sri
Aurobindo’s room for the first time on 25 October 1936. A few lines—16—by way
of an example of spiritual-mystic poetry were sent to Amal Kiran at his
persistent request. The sequel leading to this favour from Sri Aurobindo is
described by him in Sri Aurobindo—the
Poet, pp. 170-76, 1970. These lines as they stood in 1936 are as
follows:
It was the
hour before the Gods awake.
Across the
path of the divine Event
The huge
foreboding mind of Night, alone
In her
unlit temple of immensity,
Lay
stretched immobile upon silence’ marge,
Mute with
the unplumbed prevision of her change.
The
impassive skies were neutral, waste and still.
Then a
faint hesitating glimmer broke.
A slow
miraculous gesture dimly came,
The
insistence thrill of a transfiguring touch
Persuaded
the inert black quietude
And beauty
and wonder disturbed the fields of God.
A
wandering hand of pale enchanted light
That
glowed along the moment’s fading brink
Fixed with
gold panel and opalescent hinge
A gate of
dreams ajar on mystery’s verge.
The
93-line passage of 1993 is as follows:
It was the
hour before the Gods awake.
Across the
path of the divine Event
The huge
foreboding mind of Night, alone
In her
unlit temple of eternity,
Lay
stretched immobile upon Silence' marge.
Almost one
felt, opaque, impenetrable,
In the
sombre symbol of her eyeless muse
The abysm
of the unbodied Infinite;
A
fathomless zero occupied the world.
A power of
fallen boundless self awake
Between
the first and the last Nothingness,
Recalling
the tenebrous womb from which it came,
Turned
from the insoluble mystery of birth
And the
tardy process of mortality
And longed
to reach its end in vacant Nought.
As in a
dark beginning of all things,
A mute
featureless semblance of the Unknown
Repeating
for ever the unconscious act,
Prolonging
for ever the unseeing will,
Cradled
the cosmic drowse of ignorant Force
Whose
moved creative slumber kindles the suns
And
carries our lives in its somnambulist whirl.
Athwart
the vain enormous trance of Space,
Its
formless stupor without mind or life,
A shadow
spinning through a soulless Void,
Thrown
back once more into unthinking dreams,
Earth
wheeled abandoned in the hollow gulfs
Forgetful
of her spirit and her fate.
The
impassive skies were neutral, empty, still.
Then
something in the inscrutable darkness stirred;
A nameless
movement, an unthought Idea
Insistent,
dissatisfied, without an aim,
Something
that wished but knew not how to be,
Teased the
Inconscient to wake Ignorance.
A throe
that came and left a quivering trace,
Gave room
for an old tired want unfilled,
At peace
in its subconscient moonless cave
To raise
its head and look for absent light,
Straining
closed eyes of vanished memory,
Like one
who searches for a bygone self
And only
meets the corpse of his desire.
It was as
though even in this Nought's profound,
Even in
this ultimate dissolution's core,
There
lurked an unremembering entity,
Survivor
of a slain and buried past
Condemned
to resume the effort and the pang,
Reviving
in another frustrate world.
An
unshaped consciousness desired light
And a
blank prescience yearned towards distant change.
As if a
childlike finger laid on a cheek
Reminded
of the endless need in things
The
heedless Mother of the universe,
An infant
longing clutched the sombre Vast.
Insensibly
somewhere a breach began:
A long
lone line of hesitating hue
Like a
vague smile tempting a desert heart
Troubled
the far rim of life's obscure sleep.
Arrived
from the other side of boundlessness
An eye of
deity peered through the dumb deeps;
A scout in
a reconnaissance from the sun,
It seemed
amid a heavy cosmic rest,
The torpor
of a sick and weary world,
To seek
for a spirit sole and desolate
Too fallen
to recollect forgotten bliss.
Intervening
in a mindless universe,
Its
message crept through the reluctant hush
Calling
the adventure of consciousness and joy
And,
conquering Nature's disillusioned breast,
Compelled
renewed consent to see and feel.
A thought
was sown in the unsounded Void,
A sense
was born within the darkness' depths,
A memory
quivered in the heart of Time
As if a
soul long dead were moved to live:
But the
oblivion that succeeds the fall,
Had
blotted the crowded tablets of the past,
And all
that was destroyed must be rebuilt
And old
experience laboured out once more.
All can be
done if the god-touch is there.
A hope
stole in that hardly dared to be
Amid the
Night's forlorn indifference.
As if
solicited in an alien world
With timid
and hazardous instinctive grace,
Orphaned
and driven out to seek a home,
An errant
marvel with no place to live,
Into a
far-off nook of heaven there came
A slow
miraculous gesture's dim appeal.
The
persistent thrill of a transfiguring touch
Persuaded
the inert black quietude
And beauty
and wonder disturbed the fields of God.
A
wandering hand of pale enchanted light
That
glowed along a fading moment's brink,
Fixed with
gold panel and opalescent hinge
A gate of
dreams ajar on mystery's verge.
This opening
passage of Savitri had started taking new
shape and was more or less finalized by 1942. So between 1936 and 1942 the
passage grew from 16 to 93 lines. It is interesting to note that the earlier
versions had “gods” instead of “Gods” in the first line and “spirit of Night”
instead of “mind of Night” in the third line. What attention to details!
Everything has a significance in Savitri.
A query is made about the opening lines as follows: “I'm wondering if the first 16
lines of Savitri that Sri Aurobindo
sent to Amal Kiran originally read:
It was the hour before the gods awake.
Across the path of the divine Event
The huge foreboding spirit of Night, alone
In her unlit temple of immensity,
Lay stretched immobile upon silence’ marge,
Mute with the unplumbed prevision of her change."
No, 'gods' and 'spirit' are not present in the 1936 draft that was sent to
Amal. It has, as you read in the passage quoted, 'Gods' instead of ‘gods’ in
the first line and 'mind' instead of ‘spirit’ in the third. Actually 'gods'
became 'Gods' in the 25th draft of the passage. Sri Aurobindo was still
experimenting about the whole thing, The
Symbol Dawn being the working ground.
It is interesting to note that in
an earlier draft Sri Aurobindo started writing in the third line ‘spirit’ but
after ‘spir’ he wrote ‘mind’. See the fascicle reproduced at
http://www.savitrithelightofthesupreme.org/blog/_archives/2008/12/13/4019387.html
~ RYD