Let us see the perfect shrine in its several attributes of perfection, even as the poet describes them in their splendid succession.

Her Spirit

Near to earth's wideness, intimate with heaven,

Exalted and swift her young large-visioned spirit—

 

Here is the swiftness of a young spirit, full of celestial enthusiasm, āvéśa, the rush of love and joy, that at once holds in the magnificence of its living and speedy movement earth and heaven, dyāvā-pŗthivī as the Vedic ŗshis would say; she has come from some far-off region to the evolutionary mortal world and identified herself with it, as much as she yet retains a firm and indissoluble connection with the place of her bright origin, the transcendental that supports her in every way. Hers is a mortal birth for an immortal purpose, a divine concern for the creation. Eagerness to connect earth and heaven is visible in her will and action and feeling and thought.

Her Mind

Voyaging through worlds of splendour and of calm—

 

Here is the sweep of a wide-winging spirit, at once luminous and well-poised; she can travel freely in the naturalness of her flight from heaven to earth, as much as from earth to heaven. Even here in the terrestrial sky there is the overmental rhythm in that flight. The line scans beautifully: Voy‛aging / through worlds‛ / of splend‛ / our and / of calm‛ / beginning with the dactylic majesty and with a pyrrhic dip before climbing to the regions of calm, she has the sovereignty of knowledge that sees and conquers all ignorance.

Overflew the ways of Thought to unborn things—

 

The skies of thought are too narrow, too cramped, too small, almost unimportant or insignificant for the freedom of the flight that can reach their very birthplace, far beyond the worlds of splendour and of calm; the original wing-beat of the gold-and-blue bird has the intensity to carry them into the birth of a life that shall not know end.

Her Will

Ardent was her self-poised unstumbling will;

Her mind, a sea of white sincerity,

Passionate in flow, had not one turbid wave—

 

Her will is supported by the purity of her mind, a sea that in its impetuosity can reach every shore of understanding, shores near or far or beyond vision’s reach. Absolute purity is the ādhāra, the support for all divine activity. There is so much of dross and darkness around, and ignorance, and falsehood, that to make genuine spiritual progress there ought to be, writes Sri Aurobindo, the central sincerity: “There is one indispensable condition, sincerity.” Not swayed by passion, unflawed by grime and clay, is her will working in the true and the good.

Her Heart

A heart of silence in the hands of joy

Inhabited with rich creative beats—

 

Her hands hold her heart. The joyous creativity has its surging fountain in the deeps of silence. There is a constant welling up of inspiration, originality, imagination, felicity, of idea-forces and truth-forces, in shapes of beauty, giving rise to new forms, bringing out new worlds, of thoughts and feelings and activities.

Her Body

A body like a parable of dawn

That seemed a niche for veiled divinity

Or golden temple door to things beyond—

 

The Upanishad speaks of passing through the doors of the sun, sūryasya dwārah, but this shrine itself is the golden temple door, hiraņya dwārah, to things beyond, perhaps even beyond the worlds opened out by the Upanishadic sun. It is beyonding the beyond, if we have to adapt Meredith. The dawn is that door of the sun, pink-rosy, in colourful and brightening moods. Following the path of the truth, ŗtasya panthāh, she leads the creation to the Truth, full of the Truth, ŗtāvarī, her abundances bring the abundances of the Truth. They become accessible, the beyond is brought close by.

Her Steps

Immortal rhythms swayed in her time-born steps;

Her look, her smile awoke celestial sense

Even in earth-stuff, and their intense delight

Poured a supernal beauty on men's lives—

 

Such is the wonder of her movements, carrying the substance of the Eternal, the senses opening to truth-conscient and truth-joyous hearing and seeing, a sight that is not cut into segments, and a sound that is charged with all the possibilities of omniscient hush.

Whether the spiritual qualities mould the physical or it is the other way around,—that is a question which perhaps cannot be asked in the case of the incarnate beings. A body prepared in an occult way through long ages is always expressive of their self and their individuality, a flame springing up from a fire as much as the fire holding in its golden depths a flame. That is their birth. Savitri’s spirit, mind, will, heart, her body, her physical movements, her smile, her beauty, they are all what Savitri is within and without and above. That is her perfection. That makes her a perfect shrine for housing the God of Love.

Her Magnanimity

A wide self-giving was her native act;

A magnanimity as of sea or sky

Enveloped with its greatness all that came

And gave a sense as of a greatened world:

Her kindly care was a sweet temperate sun,

Her high passion a blue heaven's equipoise—

 

Generosity, excellence, fineness, merit, self-poised and pleasant bearings radiate light from her personality, as does the calm temperate sun all sweetness. In the company of the accomplished souls there is always the spiritual presence and happiness, cheering and comforting harmony in which nothing can go wrong, nothing become inappropriate.

Her Ambiance

As might a soul fly like a hunted bird,

Escaping with tired wings from a world of storms,

And a quiet reach like a remembered breast,

In a haven of safety and splendid soft repose

One could drink life back in streams of honey-fire,

Recover the lost habit of happiness,

Feel her bright nature's glorious ambiance,

And preen joy in her warmth and colour's rule—

 

This world is a haunt of Ignorance, a home of Pain—tells Narad in the Book of Fate; Keats speaks of the nest of pain. Full of sorrow and suffering is this worldly life, idi samsāram bahu duhkham, keeps on telling the scripture. But here is a nest of repose and comfort, well-cushioned and warm, and loving and tender, for the bird of love. Do we have such a nest available anywhere, on any tree, tall or short, in the city or in the mountain, or by the side of a crystal lake, in the day or in the night? Can we reach a quiet when there is so much of conflict and clash, so much of discordance at every little step, and everywhere, north south, up down, in front and at the rear, within and without? Do we have a nest to feel reassured? Is there a Savitri for each of us? The bird has spotted on its radar screen the destination ‘Quiet’ and with confidence it is winging towards it. But where’s our ‘Quiet’? and is there a possibility of our reaching it and, on reaching, preening our joys in it?

Her Love

A deep of compassion, a hushed sanctuary,

Her inward help unbarred a gate in heaven;

Love in her was wider than the universe,

The whole world could take refuge in her single heart.

 

The great unsatisfied godhead here could dwell:

Vacant of the dwarf self’s imprisoned air,

Her mood could harbour his sublimer breath

Spiritual that can make all things divine—

 

It is not just a nest of quietude. It is a help to make progress, that divinity in everything will open out to our souls. That is the quality of her love. It heals our wounds, but more than that. It sets all our movements in the rhythms of the Truth, the love that moves the sun and the other stars, in the Dantesque experience.

Her Gulfs

For even her gulfs were secrecies of light.

 

At once she was the stillness and the word,

A continent of self-diffusing peace,

An ocean of untrembling virgin fire;

The strength, the silence of the gods were hers—

 

There are depths below luminous depths, the depths in the triple superconscience, realms entering into the impenetrable, realms that have come into high manifestation and realms that can be brought into it, waiting for it, waiting even to enter into the dynamism of Time. That is her pregnant silence, that is her fruit-yielding strength. That is the creative Word and that is the supportive Calm, the Rhythm that carries the movements of the Truth and the Substance that upholds the Truth in the Vision of the Truth-Conscient, the Real-Idea in its twofold play. The passive Brahman and the active Brahman of the Vedantist are here. In it are the Becoming and the Being. That is Savitri.

Her Vastness

In her he found a vastness like his own,

His high warm subtle ether he refound

And moved in her as in his natural home—

 

No wonder, the God of Love found her as her perfect shrine, Matrimandir in its all-supportive stillness and in its expressive dynamism.

Her Eternity

In her he met his own eternity—

 

Long had been his search; rather long had been his waiting, since the beginning of the terrestrial creation. Now she has come, full-grown and mighty. Because his own eternity is like her eternity, they do no hurt to each other. The charge of the quiet suffering eternity of the aeons has now been taken over by the eternity that has accepted the mortal birth, consented “to pass through the portals of the birth that is a death.”