In a conversation recorded by AB Purani Sri Aurobindo tells: “Savitri awakes on the day of destiny, the day when Satyavan has to die. The birth of Savitri is a boon of the Supreme Goddess given to Aswapati. Aswapati is the Yogi who seeks the means to deliver the world out of Ignorance.”

Satyavan has to die—that is the imperative. Satyavan must die—that is how the opening canto of Savitri ends. Such is also the prophecy the heavenly sage Narad makes in the palace of Aswapati when Savitri discloses her choice of Satyavan as her life’s partner, that twelve swift-winged months are given to him and her, and this hour returning Satyavan must die.

A great golden dawn heralds the destined day. The moment of truth has arrived and Savitri has to carry out the work for which she is here as the Goddess incarnate in a human form. It is a day in the life of human Savitri bearing far-reaching implications, superhuman implications, of doom and darkness versus light and joy. But as the day is opening with a great and golden dawn, it must be bringing happy richnesses only, the felicities of the manifesting spirit. The Yogi-Poet has already seen these in their greatness, on the golden verge of materialisation. In fact he worked for that to happen.

Savitri opens with the line “It was the hour before the Gods awake.” The arrival of the dawn must mean the full awakening of the Gods. Is this dawn, corresponding to the awakening of the Gods, the same great and golden dawn on which Savitri is getting ready for her incarnate task, of vanquishing Death? The dawn connected with the cosmic Gods and the dawn in the life of human Savitri, an individual,—are they the same? Do they mark one single event? But, and there is no doubt, these Gods are already awake when Savitri, on the fated day, is about to go to the forest along with her lover and husband Satyavan. They must have been awake well in advance,—already awake because they do carry the anguish which is also the anguish, perhaps in a much greater measure, of Savitri herself.

But, actually, the Yogi-Poet is travelling simultaneously through different zones of time and, with swift and wide luminous ease, is covering the domains of different worlds—transcendental-universal-individual all the three in one quickness of movement. While the story belongs to the terrestrial mode there are also present in it, and at every stage of its development, other dimensions too.

It is sometimes said that Savitri begins with a flashback. The central event of the story, of the death of Satyavan, has been brought right at the beginning of the narrative. It could possibly so. The Passion of Christ is a movie which has used this technique. And there are many instances too. In the literary art, ancient as well as modern, many a great examples is present. Horace himself in his Ars Poetica speaks of in media res, into the middle of things. The issue, the event, and the characters are introduced by plunging into middle of the story. Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid are such classical epics. Horace also speaks of the story beginning at the beginning, ab initio or ab ovo, from the egg. He says The Trojan War does not begin from the double egg, but hurries to the action into the middle of things.

Here is the beginning of Iliad as translated by Samuel Butler:

 

Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another.

And which of the gods was it that set them on to quarrel?

"Sons of Atreus," he cried, "and all other Achaeans, may the gods who dwell in Olympus grant you to sack the city of Priam, and to reach your homes in safety; but free my daughter, and accept a ransom for her, in reverence to Apollo, son of Jove."

With these words he sat down, and Calchas son of Thestor, wisest of augurs, who knew things past present and to come, rose to speak. He it was who had guided the Achaeans with their fleet to Ilius, through the prophesyings with which Phoebus Apollo had inspired him.

And Virgil’s Aeneid rendered by Dryden:

 

Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc'd by fate,

And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate,

Expell'd and exil'd, left the Trojan shore.

Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore,

And in the doubtful war, before he won

The Latian realm, and built the destin'd town;

His banish'd gods restor'd to rites divine,

And settled sure succession in his line,

From whence the race of Alban fathers come,

And the long glories of majestic Rome.

O Muse! the causes and the crimes relate;

What goddess was provok'd, and whence her hate;

For what offense the Queen of Heav'n began

To persecute so brave, so just a man;

Involv'd his anxious life in endless cares,

Expos'd to wants, and hurried into wars!

We may also see a few other beginnings. Dante’s Divine Comedy, translated by Longfellow opens with the following narrative:

 

Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark,

For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

 

Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say

What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,

Which in the very thought renews the fear.

 

So bitter is it, death is little more;

But of the good to treat, which there I found,

Speak will I of the other things I saw there.

 

Now, art thou that Virgilius and that fountain

Which spreads abroad so wide a river of speech?"

I made response to him with bashful forehead.

Milton’s Paradise Lost has another majesty:

 

Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit

Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast

Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,

With loss of Eden, till one greater Man

Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,

Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top

Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire

That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,

In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth

Rose out of Chaos: Or if Sion Hill

Delight thee more, and Siloa's Brook that flow'd

Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence

Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song,

That with no middle flight intends to soar

Above th' Aonian Mount, while it pursues

Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime.

And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer

Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,

Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first

Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread

Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss

And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark

Illumin, what is low raise and support;

That to the highth of this great Argument

I may assert Eternal Providence,

And justifie the wayes of God to men.

 

Firdausi’s Shah Nameh, The Epic of the Kings:

 

Kaiumers first sat upon the throne of Persia, and was master of the world. He took up his abode in the mountains, and clad himself and his people in tiger-skins, and from him sprang all kindly nurture and the arts of clothing, till then unknown. Men and beasts from all parts of the earth came to do him homage and receive laws at his hands, and his glory was like to the sun. Then Ahriman the Evil, when he saw how the Shah’s honour was increased, waxed envious, and sought to usurp the diadem of the world. So he bade his son, a mighty Deev, gather together an army to go out against Kaiumers and his beloved son Saiamuk and destroy them utterly.

Now the Serosch, the angel who defendeth men from the snares of the Deevs, and who each night flieth seven times around the earth that he may watch over the children of Ormuzd, when he learned this, appeared like unto a Peri and warned Kaiumers. So when Saiamuk set forth at the head of his warriors to meet the army of Ahriman, he knew that he was contending against a Deev, and he put forth all his strength. But the Deev was mightier than he, and overcame him, and crushed him under his hands.

When Kaiumers heard the news of mourning, he was bowed to the ground. For a year did he weep without ceasing, and his army wept with him; yea, even the savage beasts and the birds of the air joined in the wailing. And sorrow reigned in the land, and all the world was darkened until the Serosch bade the Shah lift his head and think on vengeance. And Kaiumers obeyed, and commanded Husheng, the son of Saiamuk, “Take the lead of the army, and march against the Deevs.” And the King, by reason of his great age, went in the rear. Now there were in the host Peris; also tigers, lions, wolves, and other fierce creatures, and when the black Deev heard their roaring he trembled for very fear. Neither could he hold himself against them, and Husheng routed him utterly. Then when Kaiumers saw that his well-beloved son was revenged he laid him down to die, and the world was void of him, and Husheng reigned in his stead.

 

And here is Savitri:

 

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…

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…

An errant marvel with no place to live,

Into a far-off nook of heaven there came

A slow miraculous gesture's dim appeal…

A message from the unknown immortal Light

Ablaze upon creation's quivering edge,

Dawn built her aura of magnificent hues

And buried its seed of grandeur in the hours…

Once more a tread perturbed the vacant Vasts;

Infinity's centre, a Face of rapturous calm

Parted the eternal lids that open heaven;

A Form from far beatitudes seemed to near…

All grew a consecration and a rite...

Here too the vision and prophetic gleam

Lit into miracles common meaningless shapes;

Then the divine afflatus, spent, withdrew,

Unwanted, fading from the mortal's range…

The message ceased and waned the messenger.

The single Call, the uncompanioned Power,

Drew back into some far-off secret world…

There was the common light of earthly day…

All sprang to their unvarying daily acts;

The thousand peoples of the soil and tree

Obeyed the unforeseeing instant's urge,

And, leader here with his uncertain mind,

Alone who stares at the future's covered face,

Man lifted up the burden of his fate.

And it is in this condition of the world that Savitri awakes, awakes with the great golden dawn:

 

And Savitri too awoke among these tribes

That hastened to join the brilliant Summoner's chant…

While Savitri’s awaking on the fated day looks like a flashback, plunging into the middle of the story, in media res, the opening of the epic belongs to another category, beginning at the beginning of things. But even Savitri’s awaking is at the beginning of beginnings. “This was the day when Satyavan must die” does not belong to the category of in media res. Nor is it exactly ab initio. We may say that Sri Aurobindo is following the convention of the Indian classical epics and narratives, beginning at the beginnings.

The entire scene actually belongs to the transcendental dimension. The cosmic opening and the great golden dawn of Savitri's waking are seen in the Transcendent. All this is happening up there, in the Transcendent. The decision that Satyavan must die is taken in the Transcendent. The three divisions of Time—past-present-future—and the three divisions of Space—individual-cosmic-transcendent—are viewed from the Truth-awareness in the Transcendent. It is that Truth-reality which is unfolding in the terrestrial action.

 

The decision about the death of Satyavan has already been taken elsewhere, in fact it is a part of the boon received by Aswapati from the divine Goddesswhom he met on the borders of this creation:

 

One shall descend and break the iron Law. …

She shall bear Wisdom in her voiceless bosom,

Strength shall be with he like a conqueror’s sword

And from her eyes the Eternal’s bliss shall gaze.

A seed shall be sown in Death’s tremendous hour,

A branch of heaven transplant to human soil;

Nature shall overleap her mortal step;

Fate shall be changed by an unchanging will.

(Savitri, p. 346)

 

The stipulation of Death’s tremendous hour is multiply significant. It is an aspect of the divine boon itself. But when does the tremendous hour of Death arrive? It arrives at the time of Satyavan’s death. In it the seed of immortality shall be sown. When was that seed sown? on 5 December 1950 at 1.26 in the morning before the Gods awake.