This is a “story long written but
acted now”, acted in a human frame. The future and the past are held together
in the present of the story. Narad has made known the death of Satyavan one
year after the marriage. Now Savitri begins to live with him in the lonely
hermitage of the forest, leaving behind in the gladness of her heart the pomp
and comfort of the royal palace. Satyavan and Savitri, full of lustrous youth
and excitement flowing in their young blood, are given to the natural life of a
passionate young couple, full of life’s hope and happiness. In their
cohabitation nothing adverse, nothing calamitous enters. Though Savitri in the
depth of her soul is quite aware of what is going to happen, and happen pretty
soon, at the moment she does not seem to be too concerned about it. She is
swayed between joy and grief.
About these twelve passionate months we have a perfect description in the
opening canto of The Book of Yoga,
Book Seven Canto One. Here is the human Savitri during the year, she living
with her husband, and swayed between the happiness of the union and the grief
of the known doom arriving on the wings of unfortunate time. We may quickly run
through it in the following:
All was fulfilled the heart of
Savitri
Flower-sweet and adamant,
passionate and calm,
Had chosen and on her strength's
unbending road
Forced to its issue the long cosmic
curve…
The past receded and the future
neared:
Far now behind lay Madra's spacious
halls,
The white carved pillars, the cool
dim alcoves,
The tinged mosaic of the crystal
floors,
The towered pavilions, the
wind-rippled pools
And gardens humming with the murmur
of bees…
The slow moonrise gliding in front
of Night…
All put behind her that was once
her life,
All welcomed that henceforth was
his and hers,
She abode with Satyavan in the wild
woods:
Priceless she deemed her joy so
close to death;
Apart with love she lived for love
alone.
As if self-poised above the march
of days,
Her immobile spirit watched the
haste of Time,
A statue of passion and invincible
force,
An absolutism of sweet imperious
will,
A tranquillity and a violence of
the gods
Indomitable and immutable.
At first to her beneath the
sapphire heavens
The sylvan solitude was a gorgeous
dream…
A fusing of the joys of earth and
heaven,
A tremulous blaze of nuptial
rapture passed,
A rushing of two spirits to be one,
A burning of two bodies in one
flame.
Opened were gates of unforgettable
bliss:
Two lives were locked within an
earthly heaven
And fate and grief fled from that
fiery hour.
But soon now failed the summer's
ardent breath…
The grief of all the world came
near to her:
Night's darkness seemed her
future's ominous face.
The shadow of her lover's doom
arose
And fear laid hands upon her mortal
heart.
The moments swift and ruthless
raced; alarmed
Her thoughts, her mind remembered
Narad's date…
Vainly she fled into abysms of
bliss
From her pursuing foresight of the
end.
The more she plunged into love that
anguish grew;
Her deepest grief from sweetest
gulfs arose.
Remembrance was a poignant pang,
she felt
Each day a golden leaf torn cruelly
out
From her too slender book of love
and joy.
Thus swaying in strong gusts of
happiness
And swimming in foreboding's sombre
waves
And feeding sorrow and terror with
her heart,—
For now they sat among her bosom's
guests
Or in her inner chamber paced
apart,—
Her eyes stared blind into the
future's night…
She in her dreadful knowledge was
alone…
A glimpse or flashes came, the
Presence was hid.
Only her violent heart and passionate
will
Were pushed in front to meet the
immutable doom;
Defenceless, nude, bound to her
human lot
They had no means to act, no way to
save.
These she controlled, nothing was
shown outside…
In all her acts a strange divinity
shone…
But when her grief to the surface
pressed too close,
These things, once gracious
adjuncts of her joy,
Seemed meaningless to her, a
gleaming shell,
Or were a round mechanical and
void,
Her body's actions shared not by
her will.
Always behind this strange divided
life
Her spirit like a sea of living
fire
Possessed her lover and to his body
clung,
One locked embrace to guard its
threatened mate.
At night she woke through the slow
silent hours
Brooding on the treasure of his
bosom and face,
Hung o'er the sleep-bound beauty of
his brow
Or laid her burning cheek upon his
feet.
Waking at morn her lips endlessly
clung to his,
Unwilling ever to separate again
Or lose that honeyed drain of
lingering joy,
Unwilling to loose his body from
her breast,
The warm inadequate signs that love
must use.
Intolerant of the poverty of Time
Her passion catching at the
fugitive hours
Willed the expense of centuries in
one day…
After all was given she demanded
still;
Even by his strong embrace
unsatisfied,
She longed to cry, “O tender
Satyavan,
O lover of my soul, give more, give
more
Of love while yet thou canst, to
her thou lov'st.
Imprint thyself for every nerve to
keep
That thrills to thee the message of
my heart…”
All was too little for her
bottomless need…
Often it seemed to her the ages'
pain
Had pressed their quintessence into
her single woe,
Concentrating in her a tortured
world…
Yet ever they grew into each other
more
Until it seemed no power could rend
apart,
Since even the body's walls could
not divide.
The year now paused upon the brink
of change.
No more the storms sailed with
stupendous wings
And thunder strode in wrath across
the world…
Only in the privacy of its brooding
pain
Her human heart spoke to the body's
fate.
Apropos of this difficult and testing psychological condition of Savitri, we
have a comment from Sri Aurobindo himself. AB Purani reports in the Evening Talks: “I think it was
Madhususan Dutt who translated Savitri from the Mahabharata and portrayed her
as weeping, whereas in the Mahabharata there is no trace of it. Even when her
heart was being sawn in two not a single tear appeared in her eyes. By making
her weep he took away the very strength of which Savitri is built.”
But the true greatness of twelve passionate months comes out with a kind of
yogic ambience and strength in the hands of Sri Aurobindo. Remarkable indeed!