Reading Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri as a Mythopoesis in Opposition to Sovereign Control
This is a too pedantic-arcane, too academic-scholarly dealing with the “supreme revelation” that is Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri. The spiritual realisations expressed in a language that comes from the original source of sound, the Word, the Word that is with God, with creative rhythm and iconopoeic visualisation, carrying the truth-utterance as the absolute Logos do not seem to have any context in this study. The whole basis with which it starts is suspect. She wants to convince the western academics how great this poetic work of an Indian author is. Unfortunately it doesn’t reach there at all. How can it when the author herself lacks that understanding. The plain fact is, her own reading of the text is terribly of doubtful merit, awful, with no perception, intuition, penetration.
Even for the Indian audience it becomes abhorrent when the author creates her own stories without going to the original sources. Take the following instance about Savitri going along with Satyavan on the day foretold by Narad when Satyavan is to die in the forest. She narrates:
“On the fated day of Satyavan’s death she not only fasts and prays but also follows him into the woods. After felling a few trees Satyavan, numbed with pain, falls on the ground and dies. Savitri sits there crying after taking her husband’s head on her lap. A little later Yama, the God of Death, arrives to take away Satyavan’s soul. When Savitri asks Yama why he himself had come without sending his messengers, Yama replied that Satyavan was endowed with such virtue that his soul could be carried away only by the God of Death. Yama takes Satyavan’s soul and proceeds towards the south. Savitri follows him courageously. Yama tries to stop her repeatedly but she impresses him with wise and appealing answers to his questions and the latter cannot help but grant boon after boon to her. At last, as Savitri follows the Dark God into his dark cave he realizes her unfathomed love, devotion for her husband and her innate wisdom to impress even the God of Death and, finally, grants her the almost impossible boon of returning Satyavan’s soul into his body. Beaming with joy Savitri returns to the forest where her husband’s body was still lying and persuades the soul into consciousness. Overjoyed they return home. Eventually, with the progress of time Yama’s boons to Savitri are all fulfilled.”
This is atrocious. Savitri is not fasting on the “fated day”; she fasts on the previous three full days. Satyavan dies, she tells “after felling a few trees”. We don’t know wherefrom she got all this, these “few” trees. She should as a scholar and an academic must first read Vyasa’s Savitri.
The text is:
मार्कण्डेय उवाच
अथ भार्यासहायः स फलान्यादाय वीर्यवान् |
कठिनं पूरयामास ततः काष्ठान्यपाटयत् ||१||
तस्य पाटयतः काष्ठं स्वेदो वै समजायत |
व्यायामेन च तेनास्य जज्ञे शिरसि वेदना ||२||
सोभिगम्य प्रियां भार्यामुवाच श्रमपीडितः |
व्यायमेन ममानेन जाता शिरसि वेदना ||३||
Markandeya said
Then he, lustrous in strength, and helped by his wife, collected a basketful of fruits and began chopping the firewood. [1]
But, while hewing the branches, he started sweating profusely and, as a result of that hard labour, suffering a severe headache. [2]
Distressed as he was, he went closer to his loving wife and in that affliction told her — [3].
सत्यवानुवाच
अङ्गानि चैव सावित्रि हृदयं दूयतीव च |
अस्वस्थमिव चात्मानं लक्षये मितभाषिणि ||४||
शूलैरिव शिरो विद्धमिदं संलक्षयाम्यहम् |
तत् स्वप्तुमिच्छे कल्याणि न स्थातुं शक्तिरस्ति मे ||५||
Satyavan said
There is a cleaving headache that has come to me due to this hard work. And, O Savitri, all my limbs are in agony and there is a burning sensation in my heart; I find myself gravely indisposed, O one of few words. [4]
It appears to me as though sharp spikes are being driven through my head; I wish to lie down, O blessed and auspicious, as I have no strength to remain standing. [5]
The Winds of Wonder 
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