And Savitri too awoke among these
tribes
That hastened to join the brilliant
Summoner's chant
And, lured by the beauty of the
apparent ways,
Acclaimed their portion of
ephemeral joy.
Akin to the eternity whence she
came,
No part she took in this small
happiness;
A mighty stranger in the human
field,
The embodied Guest within made no
response.
The call that wakes the leap of
human mind,
Its chequered eager motion of
pursuit,
Its fluttering-hued illusion of
desire,
Visited her heart like a sweet
alien note.
Time's message of brief light was
not for her.
In her there was the anguish of the
gods
Imprisoned in our transient human
mould,
The deathless conquered by the
death of things.
A vaster Nature's joy had once been
hers,
But long could keep not its gold
heavenly hue
Or stand upon this brittle earthly
base.
A narrow movement on Time's deep
abysm,
Life's fragile littleness denied
the power,
The proud and conscious wideness
and the bliss
She had brought with her into the
human form,
The calm delight that weds one soul
to all,
The key to the flaming doors of
ecstasy.
Earth's grain that needs the sap of
pleasure and tears
Rejected the undying rapture's
boon:
Offered to the daughter of infinity
Her passion-flower of love and doom
she gave.
In vain now seemed the splendid
sacrifice.
A prodigal of her rich divinity,
Her self and all she was she had
lent to men,
Hoping her greater being to implant
And in their body's lives
acclimatise
That heaven might native grow on
mortal soil.
Savitri, pp. 6-7
Let us look into the first two
lines of the above passage:
And Savitri too awoke among these
tribes
That hastened to join the brilliant
Summoner's chant
Savitri awakes and joins the brilliant Summoner’s chant.
But who is this brilliant Summoner, and what is his chant? With that chant
Savitri awakes from her sleep, the sleep of Prajna consciousness, of perfect
knowledge. The Summoner calls her and she is here now to do her work in the
dynamism of perfect knowledge. Here perfect knowledge is also accompanied by
conquering strength.
In the context of the story Savitri’s waking is described as the beginning of
the day on which Satyavan is to die. Narad has already foretold the exact place
and time when this death is going to occur, and Savitri is aware of it. On the
fated day she gets up early in the morning, offers her worships to Goddess
Durga, the Protectress of the Worlds, and is now ready to face the God of
Death. The death will occur under a kingly tree in the Shalwa woods, and the transcendental
Goddess is already present there.
The Sun-God is the brilliant Summoner. He is the divine Aditya beckoning her
early in the morning. The second half of the night itself has two parts:
between midnight and 3.00 am, tamasobhāga, the dark part, and between 3
to 6 am jyotirbhāga, the bright part. The divine Ashwinikumars appear in
the sky on horseback, heralding the advent of Light. Running through the night,
they then hand over the charge to Usha, the Dawn, and the sky is aglow with her
rosy light, the rosy-fingered dawn of Homer. She is then followed by Savita,
the Progenitor of Light. After him comes Bhaga with his aiśwarya, with his majesty and richness. Finally arrives the Sun.
The Sun himself attains the full form in Pushan the Nourisher. The highest form
of Light reaches its zenith in the highest heavens presided by Vishnu. Sri
Krishna in the Gita says that among the Adityas he is Vishnu. He then becomes
the Summoner to whose call awakes Savitri.
And what is his chant? Narad is Vishnu’s devotee, bhakta, and he is always
immersed in him. From his home in
… the name of Vishnu and the birth
And joy and passion of the mystic
world,
And how the stars were made and
life began
And the mute regions stirred with
the throb of a Soul.
… the Inconscient and its secret
self,
Its power omnipotent knowing not
what it does,
All-shaping without will or thought
or sense,
Its blind unerring occult mystery,
And darkness yearning towards the
eternal Light,
And Love that broods within the dim
abyss
And waits the answer of the human
heart,
And death that climbs to
immortality.
… the Truth that cries from Night's
blind deeps,
And the Mother-Wisdom hid in
Nature's breast
And the Idea that through her
dumbness works
And the miracle of her transforming
hands,
Of life that slumbers in the stone
and sun
And Mind subliminal in mindless
life,
And the Consciousness that wakes in
beasts and men.
… the glory and marvel still to be
born,
Of Godhead throwing off at last its
veil,
Of bodies made divine and life made
bliss,
Immortal sweetness clasping
immortal might,
Heart sensing heart, thought
looking straight at thought,
And the delight when every barrier
falls,
And the transfiguration and the
ecstasy.
The Summoner’s chant waking up Savitri is the Chant of the Transfiguration and
the Ecstasy.