The divine Savitri has taken the human birth; however, in a yet deeper sense she remains unaffected by it. But then this situation raises a perplexing question. It is something as follows. If Savitri is the incarnate Shakti or the Consciousness-Force who has come here with a mission, how is it then that the Power that is seated within her, in her loving and luminous heart, the Guest within is not making any response? one who is the indisputable and infallible guide in all these thousand human predicaments, remaining untouched by our small joys and our small afflictions, as if impervious to everything, big or insignificant, transient and fleeting or sempiternal? Is he indifferent to all this which he has accepted to change it? Why is it that he is not giving any reply to the helpless creature’s cries? If he is not participating with his active involvement, what is he here then for? Let us look into some of these aspects related to the Guest.

The “Guest” is a Vedic-Upanishadic image; in fact he is the true reality sitting in the cave of the heart, hŗdaya-guhā. He is the Divine Agni, the Veda’s Immortal in the Mortal, one living in house and house, damé-damé; he is the Purusha no bigger than the thumb of a man, anguşţha-mātra-puruşah of the Upanishads; he is the eternal portion of the Divine, amśa sanātanah of the Gita; he is the witness, sākşi, and the giver of consent, anumantā, consent or sanction to Prakriti or Nature to do her work. But aloof and apart he lives, that Nature may do her work in the efficacy of her nature.

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Savitri joins the eager crowd that heard the brilliant Summoner’s call. She is here now, amongst us, foregoing her majesty and her great world of happiness; she is here in this small dingy place to pursue her ageless undertaking, the task pertaining to this mortal creation. She has condescended to pass through the portals of the heavy and sullen birth, the birth that is a perpetual death. She is here where death is a mechanism for the progress of life. But this ought to end. She is here to terminate that process and make life grow by the true truth of life, that is, by love. She is here among the tribes of men lifting up the burden of their harsh and toilsome fate, the primordial fate that in fact, if time has come, must undergo a transformative change. Her coming marks the arrival of that moment. She rejects not the human plight and the travail, the ignominy of mortality—and she does it with full understanding of the issues involved, yet succumbing not to the degradation associated with them. ...

It must be appreciated that the entire Exordium of Savitri is set in the Transcendental. The difficulty in the march of this creation, with the mind of Night standing across the path of the divine Event, the aspects of two primordial Nothingnesses, the mystery of the fathomless, the absolute Zero, the repeated appearance of the divine Dawn and her work remaining half done,—everything is happening over there. The appearance of the Dawn is first in the transcendental sky, and therefore what is described here, in the opening canto of Savitri, is the illustrious symbol of that marvellous Dawn; the epic begins with the Symbol Dawn for us in which the symbol is for the reality that is set into truth-movement in that high domain of truth and beauty and joy and awareness and love. Which means that, to introduce the poem to us, it is not quite the technique of the flashback that the poet is using here; it is a description of the beginning of the Beginning occurring elsewhere. It is not Horace’s in media res, into the middle of things, the act of plunging into middle of the story; but it is narrating the story which begins at the beginning, ab initio or ab ovo, from the mature ovule, from the egg. Because it is first happening in the high transcendental, there is in it the certitude, the absoluteness of it being victoriously accomplished here. The breaking out of the Dawn in the transcendental is what is presented to us as the Symbol Dawn.

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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.

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At the beginning of the Mahabharata War Arjuna suddenly develops cold feet and throws away his weapon of conquest, the mighty Gandiva bow. This conduct of his would never be acceptable to Krishna and for this Arjuna is harangued in no uncertain manner. Now with the forceful Gita delivered on the battlefield, the hero is set to fight the gory war. But there is something equally significant also, not well known to everyone. The message is firmly delivered, and Arjuna is ready to pick up the weapon. However, Krishna tells Arjuna to first step down from the chariot and offer prayers to Durga, who is the Protectress of the Worlds and the Giver of the Victory. This is great indeed, occultly.

The day of Satyavan’s death comes with a golden dawn. Savitri gets ready early in the morning and worships Durga whose image was carved on a forest stone by Satyavan himself. In fact it is her living presence there that had the power to protect the place fully, the place where death was to occur.

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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.

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In October 1972 KR Srinivasa Iyengar gave a series of six lectures on Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla. These could well form a first useful introduction to the poem which is the “most powerful artistic work in the world for expanding man’s mind towards the Absolute,” as Raymond Frank Piper put it. Iyengar covers the epic by developing the following themes: the Yogi and the Poet; the Savitri Legend; Aswapati the Forerunner; Savitri and Satyavan; Savitri’s Yoga; Dawn to greater Dawn. There is an easy smooth flow of narration and the panoramic details that come out do ample justice to the work in the nature of a quick broad-based survey presenting the preliminary aspects. In the context of the opening canto of Savitri, the Symbol Dawn, we have picked up relevant parts of the last chapter keeping in view also the concluding description, the prophetic description ushering in a new dawn carrying the prospects of the everlasting day.

The spate of retrospective narration—the half-dazzling half-bewildering series of cinematographic flash-backs covering the Yoga of Aswapati, his vision of the World Mother and her promise of descent to the earth; the birth and growth of flame-like Savitri; her quest, her finding of Satyavan in the forest, their love and mutual recognition and marriage; the ominous "word of fate" uttered half unwillingly by Narad, and his later prophetic qualifications; Savitri's return to Satyavan in his hermitage, and the brief year of holy wedded bliss; Savitri's gnawing inward anxieties, the mysterious call to her that she should shake off her spiritual lethargy; her occult adventuring on the quest of her true soul, the many encounters on the way, the culminating confrontation of the Real followed by the lightning sense of identity, the embrace of the Immaculate Atman and the incandescent fusion with It; the subsequent wrestle with thought-formations, and Savitri's firm rejection of all thoughts, and the immersion in Nirvanic calm and void; and, last of all, the experience of the omnipresent auspicious Divine and the perception of her own efflorescence as Rose of God, as the very stuff of all Space and Time, as the image of Eternity itself … it is a mighty spectrum of seeking, trial and splendorous fulfillment. When she has completed her Yoga, Savitri the woman and wife is also the Redeemer in readiness to face the universal enemy, Death, engage in a fight to a finish, and wrest victory for earth and men.

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Here is an attempt to present Savitri in brief stanza-like compositions, each with just twelve lines. Savitri is a poem written in pentametric blank verse form, mostly with end-stopped lines, running almost to twenty-four thousand in number. The poet was occupied with its composition for a number of years, for more than thirty years though with some long gaps in between. He also took Savitri as a means of expression of the higher truth yogically experienced and realised by him, expression turned towards fixing it here more and more with all the spiritual contents in it. It is an expression of the wonderful sovereignty itself, and hence becomes most valuable. Even in its outward character it is encyclopaedic. Therefore, to think of putting such a work in scarcely six hundred lines is a perilous task, fully loaded with the question if this should be done at all.

Yet this composition has its own worth and its own appeal, its own good point, perhaps holding an agreeable keenness of another aesthetic denomination, another possibility of perceptive enjoyment. Firstly, we cannot have the epic style for short compositions, as are presented here. The technique that has been adopted is mostly that of a short but swift and even narrative, though at times it may be lyric-sensitive or occult-symbolical. In the process, there is likelihood of moving far away from the original’s wholesome Hellenistic beauty, of falling into the trimmed expressive form that is highly profiled and geometric in tone and character. Yet, possibly, it could secure in its deep hushful seed-state everything in substance and rhythm.

There is actually a reasonable hope for the present attempt also, the bonsai attempt. The Japanese surely know for centuries the big joy of growing little bonsai. For them cultivating bonsai is a very artistic hobby, and there is nothing artificial in it. It can become for them an articulation of the sense of what is charming and attractive. The key is never to force one’s will on it but to appreciate the dignity of each living plant and treat it with love and respect.” And the nice thing about this bonsai art is that there is no such thing as a “finished” bonsai!

At times it can even bring the radiance of an early hour, or else a sudden revelation that can light up our obscurities. In the dark night of the soul where it is always three o’clock in the morning, there can break the subtler crimson or orange; it can brighten the sky with its mysterious glow. Perhaps it is that which will be most welcome in this language of poetry.

Indeed, each bonsai is a brief creation of an individual artist; it has a distinct individuality. The bonsai of a particular tree by different artists will be different, each carrying in it the aesthetic truth of its soul’s reality as experienced by him in the deep meditative association with it. He might as well say that, rightfully, it is his bonsai. Its imaginative language can thus become intensely contemplative as well as personal. Each bonsai then turns into an opener of prospects which lie beyond our immediate sight that sees only the outward form. The truth that is not relative or pragmatic can step into the silence of our mind and mould our thoughts in its verities, can give pleasing and well-formed shapes to our life’s questing moods. The chances are that an element of its expressive reality itself yet could enter into us. The Savitri-meditations will then have served the initial purpose of taking us in that truth’s ambiance. These can themselves then become gateways leading us to her sun-worlds.

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The Epilogue in the Vyasa story of Savitri runs briefly as follows: Yama has departed and Savitri comes to the place where the dead body of Satyavan was lying. He regains his consciousness and makes enquiries about the terrifying figure who had dragged him with him to a strange world. Savitri mentions that it was the Ordainer of the Worlds himself who had come, but hastens to add that it was now all over. They prepare to quickly get going to the hermitage, as it was getting pretty dark in the night. In the meanwhile, the old parents of Satyavan are concerned for his having not returned yet to the cottage. The wise and elderly Rishis in the forest try to dispel their natural apprehension with assuring words. Soon arrive Satyavan and Savitri. They are questioned as to why they were late in coming back, belatedly in the night. Satyavan tries to answer something, but he is unable to do so in proper detail. At the pleading of Gautama, Savitri narrates everything. She begins with the prophecy made by Narad and the purpose of her accompanying Satyavan that day to the forest. She narrates about her encounter with Yama and how she received several boons from him. The mighty God, she tells, was immensely pleased with her utterances of the Truth and, finally, among several boons granted a life of four hundred years to them. The Rishis speak great, again and again, about the extreme good fortune or mahābhāgyam of Savitri and depart to their cottages.

“To feel love and oneness is to live”,—that is the mantra of life in Sri Aurobindo’s epic Savitri. In it the primordial Night, dreaming in silver peace, guards the mystic light and a greater dawn is awaited.

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The eternal day has dawned. However, a choice has yet to be made. Savitri has vanquished Death but earth has yet to receive the boon of that victory. There are endless realms of beauty and wonder and the young couple could as well live in those realms, in the transcendent. Savitri has now to reject that Empire of Light, escape from this bright snare also. It could easily become a wide gate for disappearance into the everlasting day, lost to earth. But she maintains that, after all, it was to bring God down to the world on earth that they had taken birth and it cannot remain unfulfilled. Hers is a wonderful affirmation of the divine in the material. Savitri makes a choice and asks for Peace, Oneness, Power, and Joy. Identifying herself with the Will of the Supreme she prays for those exceptional boons, but only for the good soul of the earth. “Be it so, tathāstu” declares the Lord and Savitri’s heart is glad. The seal of sanction is put on the Incarnate’s forceful plea-and-the-claim, that Superman shall wake in the mortal creature. This earthly life shall become the life divine. Even as Savitri holding in her deep bosom the soul of Satyavan returns to the earth, follow them Krishna and Kali. That is the most magnificent thing she has done, of bringing them down to this world of ours.

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Savitri’s affront cannot be taken lightly and she must be chastised for that. In fact she has committed a double sin, of harbouring spiritual superiority and of the will-to-be even in the Nihil. In that heavy and bare darkness, that terrible darkness she must atone for it. She does it and moves through the dream-ideal. There is her Satyavan, wonderful and lovely and charming. In it all pain becomes bliss. But then it could very well be that this dream-ideal was nothing but Savitri’s own yearning for Satyavan, an imagination. She wanted to make him the centre of her joy and it is that which has taken this form. However, in the existence of Death even this stands at once nullified. The occult fact is that this dream-ideal cannot be safe in this mortal world. Savitri should go to the root of the matter and remove the cause of the failure. It lies in Death and therefore he must go. Indeed, he becomes negatively a touchstone for the Divinity’s presence in Matter.

To imagine that Truth can exist on earth, that this corporeal body can house God is, according to Death, nothing but a disorientation, a hallucination. But for Savitri this is an indisputable reality. She is certain that Spirit and Nature can and ought to come together. Above the climbing hierarchy are ever present Truth and Love and Bliss and Beauty, and to Death she tells so. The descent of that Truth can make this earthly life divine. But Death is least impressed. He insists on Savitri revealing to him nothing but her conquering power. At once a mighty transformation comes upon her. The force of Mahakundalini rushes into her, and Darkness sees God’s living Reality. She commands Death to release the soul of Satyavan. Death resists, but he is consumed by her fire. There, waiting on the inscrutable Will, stand alone Satyavan and Savitri,—but separated by a translucent wall.

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