In Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri did the divine executive Shakti get the consent from the Supreme before she granted the boon to Aswapati? This aspect is very clear in the Savitri-tale narrated by Vyasa in the Mahabharata, when she told him that she is giving him the boon of a radiant daughter in the authorization of the great Father-Creator Brahma himself, bhagavān pitāmaha. But it seems to be absent in the epic by Sri Aurobindo. If, as we have in his The Mother, “nothing can be here or elsewhere but what she decides and the Supreme sanctions,” then this difference between the two narratives assumes importance of a fundamental character; in a certain sense, it becomes crucial also, absolutely central. Vyasa’s Aswapati approaches Goddess Savitri with the intention of getting a son, that by the righteous conduct the order of the worlds be maintained in its functioning, that the dharma of the eternal truth which upholds the creation, which holds it together and which makes it move forward is maintained; that is the sense of the word dharma. It is in that context that the Goddess obtains the sanction from the Supreme, from the Father-Creator Brahma, bhagavān pitāmaha. Did in a similar way, or in some other manner the divine Shakti in Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri receive such a sanction from the Supreme? Did she already have it with her before her meeting with the Son of Strength, one who had climbed the creation’s peaks? Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri does not speak of it in any specific way. Perhaps extremely significant occult-spiritual factors, aspects of the yogic will are present in the profound issue and they need to be looked into with attention. Perhaps bringing the theme of “sanction” into the presentation could be incongruous in more than one respect.

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