The Winds of Wonder

The story of Satyavan and Savitri is an immediate recognition of their absolute inalienable identity at the very first contact of each other, the wonderful case of love at the very first sight itself. It is in the bloom of their purity and passion that they join together. Even as Savitri weaves a rapid garland of joyous blossoms to put around his neck he bends and takes her into his own. Hopes of waiting times have folded together and the wedding solemnised:

He bent to her and took into his own

Their married yearning joined like folded hopes;

As if a whole rich world suddenly possessed,

Wedded to all he had been became himself,

An inexhaustible joy made his alone,

He gathered all Savitri into his clasp. ||104.10||

Around her his embrace became the sign

Of a locked closeness through slow intimate years,

A first sweet summary of delight to come,

One brevity intense of all long life. ||104.11||

But what a daring! Satyavan gathering all Savitri into his clasp! He must have been a luminous mighty hero to make such a move, a rapturous blue sky embracing the eager blushing expectant smiling earth, hope fusing into hope, noon blazing in noon:

On the high glowing cupola of the day

Fate tied a knot with morning’s halo threads

While by the ministry of an auspice-hour

Heart-bound before the sun, their marriage fire,

The wedding of the eternal Lord and Spouse

Took place again on earth in human forms:

In a new act of the drama of the world

The united Two began a greater age. ||104.19||

That is the glory and golden greatness of “He gathered all Savitri into his clasp”. Such is the topmost spiritual poetry of love and romance, of the sublimest kind, noble and fulfilling and enthusing, without the vital-passionate of Kalidasean romanticism, absolutely nothing of Kāmasūtra, the lurid burning of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, nothing, nothing of eroticism; it is pure fire ablaze in pure fire, diamond-dense and aglow with the solar light and intensity.

“He gathered all Savitri into his clasp”. But who is this divinely wonderful Savitri, she by the mind of man totally ungraspable, a magical and incredible marvel? The text reveals in several ways the supreme miracle she is, dynamic, all in her pointing to a nobler kind. Exalted and swift her young spirit, voyaging through the worlds of splendour and of calm, flies above the ways of Thought; it soars to unborn things. And her body, it is like a parable of dawn, is a niche for veiled divinity, a golden temple door to inaccessible things in the luminous far beyond. And

Love in her was wider than the universe,

The whole world could take refuge in her single heart. ||3.37||

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. ||3.40||

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. ||3.41||

In her he met his own eternity. ||3.42||

If Satyavan is an exultant smile of the Supreme’s blade Savitri can be called as his fine-curved jewelled hilt. She is the Sun-Word raising the earth-soul to Light and bringing down God into the lives of men. That shall make earth his work-chamber and his house, a garden of life to plant a seed divine. The revelation is:

O Satyavan, O luminous Savitri,

I sent you forth of old beneath the stars,

A dual power of God in an ignorant world, …

.Lifting earth-beings to immortality. ||155.2||

You are my Force at work to uplift earth’s fate, … ||155.3||

He is my soul that climbs from nescient Night …

To the supernal light of Timelessness… ||155.4||

He is the godhead growing in human lives

And in the body of earth-being’s forms,

He is the soul of man climbing to God

In Nature’s surge out of earth’s ignorance. ||155.7||

O Savitri, thou art my spirit’s Power,

The revealing voice of my immortal Word,

The face of Truth upon the roads of Time

Pointing to the souls of men the routes to God. ||155.8||

The incarnate dual Power shall open God’s door,

Eternal supermind touch earthly Time. ||155.30||

It is this Satyavan who is gathering all Savitri into his clasp.

Savitri Book 1 Canto 2 – The Issue

All in her pointed to a nobler kind. ||3.30||

Near to earth’s wideness, intimate with heaven,

Exalted and swift her young large-visioned spirit

Voyaging through worlds of splendour and of calm

Overflew the ways of Thought to unborn things. ||3.31||

Ardent was her self-poised unstumbling will;

Her mind, a sea of white sincerity,

Passionate in flow, had not one turbid wave. ||3.32||

All in| her point|+ed to| a nobl|+er kind.| 3.30

Near to| earth’s wide|+ness, in|+ti+mate| with heav+en,|

Ex+alt+ed| and swift| her young| large-vi|+sioned spir+it|

Voy+ag+ing| through worlds| of splen|+dour and| of calm|

O+ver+flew| the ways| of Thought| to un|+born things.| 3.31

Ar+dent| was her| self-poised| un+stum|+bling will;|

Her mind,| a sea| of white| sin+cer|+i+ty,|

Pas+sion+ate| in flow,| had not| one tur|+bid wave.| 3.32

The featured image is a painting by Huta

Sketch by the Mother

Akash Deshpnade proposed the full passage to be presented. Here it is:

Then down she came from her high carven car

Descending with a soft and faltering haste;

Her many-hued raiment glistening in the light

Hovered a moment over the wind-stirred grass,

Mixed with a glimmer of her body’s ray

Like lovely plumage of a settling bird. ||104.3||

Her gleaming feet upon the green gold sward

Scattered a memory of wandering beams

And lightly pressed the unspoken desire of earth

Cherished in her too brief passing by the soil. ||104.4||

Then flitting like pale brilliant moths her hands

Took from the sylvan verge’s sunlit arms

A load of their jewel faces’ clustering swarms,

Companions of the spring-time and the breeze. ||104.5||

A candid garland set with simple forms

Her rapid fingers taught a flower song

The stanzaed movement of a marriage hymn. ||104.6||

Profound in perfume and immersed in hue

They mixed their yearning’s coloured signs and made

The bloom of their purity and passion one. ||104.7||

A sacrament of joy in treasuring palms

She brought, flower-symbol of her offered life,

Then with raised hands that trembled a little now

At the very closeness that her soul desired,

This bond of sweetness, their bright union’s sign,

She laid on the bosom coveted by her love. ||104.8||

As if inclined before some gracious god

Who has out of his mist of greatness shone

To fill with beauty his adorer’s hours,

She bowed and touched his feet with worshipping hands;

She made her life his world for him to tread

And made her body the room of his delight,

Her beating heart a remembrancer of bliss. ||104.9||