Savitri as a young girl is growing in the love and beauty of the palace in Madra, growing on the banks of the swift-running Alacananda. A golden princess wearing the raiment of the gods, she knows only happiness,—and there is the protection of tranquil heaven for all her movements. But she must also meet the reality of this world if she has come to deal with the reality of this world. The gladness of her soul must experience pain and anguish of the mortal creature. She cannot be someone who is exempt from the woes of mortality. She must bear this creature’s suffering lot. But how is this going to happen? Savitri by her native right is child of felicity, calm and purple-robed and bright like the gold-fire. Can grief at all enter into her life? Yet that must happen. If it has to happen it can happen only because of the working of the firm and inescapable Hand and not because of anything else, certainly not from anything from herself. But whose is this inescapable Hand? Sri Aurobindo himself explains.

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