Book V—The Book of Love

 

Canto 1

The Destined Meeting-Place

 

Mango-blossoms burst in the yellow’s richness,

And the air was filled with delicate fragrance,

And the distant coїl sang a welcome song.

Far were left behind the kings’ palaces,

And the rivers threading proud cities of time,

And the gods dwelling in luminous shrines,

And meditation’s groves awake to the spirit.

She now reached a place where absent was life’s buzz

And mind needed not the tracks of thought to run.

There close to Shiva’s fane came seeking her

The flame of love in a body of death

And blazed in a sudden moment the idol.

 

 

Designed in the sky but built upon the earth is the place where Satyavan and Savitri are to meet. It is the primo-essential cosmic space and time that shaped its bright emerald reality. The breeze is fragrant, and the mountains serene, and the streams carry the murmuring happiness of life in their crystal flow. If fate should walk through that windswept realm, of wonder and joy, it would do so only to bring the longing souls of love together. There is already the soft rustling air of expectancy, and Nature is awaiting the chosen to come together. The spell of Destiny shall cast its charm on lives of the exceptional two. Unspoiled by thought and pure in its zealous gladness, there burns high the incense of aspiring hope. A small pretty shrine of Shiva is guarding it against inadvertent Time. Here, driven by the unknown voice of the summer, arrives Satyavan to meet Savitri.

 

 

Canto 2

Satyavan

 

Through the Shalwa tapovanas as she moved,

In the lotus of her heart opened a pink sun,

Splendid in the summer of eternity.

Though born in a transient world, his tranquil gaze

Was a look of the spirit, winning nature’s joys,

And his dawns were the gifts of her wisdom.

The one whom she met in the sudden forest

Gave bright deservance to the dreams of her life,—

Even as he discovered the charmed moon

Of beauty in the chariot of his delight.

Gods and goddesses gathered in the sky

And calm was heard the chiming of happy bells.

 

 

Noble and erect, and youthful in his Aryanhood, is Satyavan. He is a Veda-knower, and he has grown in companionship of nature, and there is the glow of a Rishi on his face. No wonder, Savitri was seeing a dream when her first glance fell on him. A miracle is done and into her life marches this alchemic splendour. An equal change takes place in Satyavan. There was until now something amiss in his life, and he was looking for that which would remove it. Now, that unexpected something has come to him from the happy unknown. The joyful doors of his heart see a hidden sweetness walking into it, even without knowing it. Savitri in the depth of her soul recollects her long past, and recognizes the two eyes which through the ages claimed her. The presiding deity of Time took a Manvantara, an aeon, to prepare the body of Love, and so now has Satyavan come to meet Savitri. Thus they arrive to discover each other, and the moment stands tranquil watching the wonder.

 

 

Canto 3

Satyavan and Savitri

 

God’s Savitri and goddess’s Satyavan

Courted the green fields of life together.

If love urged her divinity to step out

And spread beauty’ spell over his mortal soul,

The beloved brought a skyful of sweetness

And healed his wounds, of cleaved matter and spirit.

Beings of glad worlds thronged the forest grove

And swift from the hilltops came flocks of birds

And dimpling waters ran with murmuring notes

And wild flowers scattered their joy in the air

And doe and buck pranced in the green blithesome grass

And priests of high nature chanted the marriage hymn.

 

 

It is Satyavan who has to make advances and court Savitri, she the sunlight who had driven herself unto him. Such things of joy and beauty he had seen, but was amazed that here was one approaching him from the heavens of happiness. He entreats her to step down from her swift-yoked chariot, and visit the creepered hermitage, ready to receive her. There, in that forest-grove, he read things of eternity with the eyes of the spirit. There, he conversed with Nature. There, he felt oneness with all that exists. But he also carried with him a sense of sorrowing despondency, that body and soul have so far remained disunited. Yet he had the secret conviction that, one day, even the physical shall discover the true meaning of existence. It is that hope which is now getting kindled in him. It is Savitri who shall bring about that miracle. In the union of Satyavan and Savitri shall be the union of Spirit and Matter. In the happy authenticity of such an intuition, in their souls they pledge to join together. And the Gods of Nature and the Sky rejoicing from above shower marriage blessings on them.