10: Scribbled Notes — Deus ex Machina
Savitri has chosen Satyavan as her husband, and opportunely to the Palace in Madra hurries from his home in Paradise the heavenly sage Narad; this is to make known death of Satyavan exactly one year after the marriage with Savitri, they having seen together all the seasons of the terrestrial cycle, time’s workings and measures. It has matured for the future to enter in.
Narad’s this terrestrial visit may appear as an act of Divine Intervention, an Act of God, Deus ex Machina. But certainly it is not inadvertent or fortuitous. The mystery of Satyavan’s death is further deepened, perhaps not so much by the possibility of his meeting the princess and negotiating calamitous turn in the run of events; it is more in the treatment meted out to the fated, apparently for no fault of his. Satyavan is noble and generous and handsome, and has to his credit spiritual attainments of an exceptional kind, his “figure the front of Nature’s march, a godhead quarried from the stones of life”. Yet this is his fate, fate which might not have been there had he married somebody else, not Savitri. It is specific to the Satyavan-Savitri marriage.
A divinity and kingliness gird his brow;
His eyes keep a memory from a world of bliss. ||106.135||
As brilliant as a lonely moon in heaven,
Gentle like the sweet bud that spring desires,
Pure like a stream that kisses silent banks,
He takes with bright surprise spirit and sense. ||106.136||
In him Soul and Nature, equal Presences,
Balance and fuse in a wide harmony. ||106.138||
His speech carries a light of inner truth,
And a large-eyed communion with the Power
In common things has made veilless his mind,
A seer in earth-shapes of garbless deity. ||106.140||
His strength is like a tower built to reach heaven,
A godhead quarried from the stones of life. ||106.143||
Such a prince! But one year after the marriage, perhaps specifically with Savitri, he must die.
There is an absoluteness in the edict — an “irrevocable decree” —fixed in the Transcendent itself, an edict of which the “man divine”, Narad standing between Overmind and Supermind, has the infallible intuition. It shall be. We may enweave the several strands that have gone to interlace the Event, but complex considerations are no doubt present in the entire calculus; it is in these that we have to weigh the sudden and well-timed appearance of the sage at the palace. One thing, however, is certain; there is nothing malicious in Narad declaring, at the most happy moment of life, an ill-starred fate waiting for Savitri, nothing spiteful to increase further human suffering. A singer of Vishṇu’s joyous name, of fiery sweetness, would not add more of gloom that is already heavy and thick in moonless night of the terrestrial creature.
Narad is surely not one here who takes pleasure in little mischiefs as is depicted in the post-Pauraṇic tradition. Nor is Narad an alarmist. He has great control over the situation and he can loosen the grip of the shrouded fate; actually he tightens the grip, only to loosen it in a greater way. Is he then a fatalist? While it is true that Satyavan’s death is fated, is an unavoidable necessity, it is fated in the super-Shakespearean sense — it is invested with the power of destiny. It has the meaning and purport of the transcendent Will or parama saṃkalpa. In it is, Marlowe-like, “the sweet fruition of an earthly crown”. Through it our ends are going to be shaped by the invisible divinity.
In any case, it can be maintained that Narad is not the initiator of this ominous possibility. He is only a knower of it, and he is a well-disposed bearer of the knowledge that happens to be in his possession. The benefactor’s present mission is to announce the coming of the groundbreaking event and to help Savitri in getting ready to attend to her formidable task.
Narad’s vast immortal look carries light and knowledge in it. He tells the young bride Savitri that she has come to a great perilous world which she, lost in love, sees only through the splendour of her dreams. Of Doom crouching behind life’s happiness she has no idea, and Narad considers it necessary to make her aware of it. But there is something much more than that. To give to her dreamy cloudland thoughts the pragmatism of the terrestrial reality is no doubt one elderly and sagacious concern. There is also, and more importantly, and in a very special and definite manner, the divine intervention, deus ex machina.
Deus ex Machina intensifies the mysterious and the intangible. In Greek drama, this device often involved a god or supernatural force descending to resolve a seemingly intractable situation, bringing clarity or altering the course of events. Similarly, Narad’s visit is not merely incidental but serves a pivotal role in the unfolding of the narrative. It introduces a higher perspective, revealing the workings of fate and divine will. His prophetic insights into Savitri’s marriage and the challenges it entails elevate the human drama to a cosmic scale, aligning it with the overarching spiritual and evolutionary themes of the epic. It underscores the interconnectedness of the human and divine realms, a hallmark of Sri Aurobindo’s vision in Savitri. Although originally present in Vyasa’s Tale of Savitri here we have a richer context.
Narad’s role is not to resolve the conflict directly but is to illuminate its deeper significance, guiding the characters and readers toward a greater understanding of their spiritual journey.
Thus, while Narad’s visit resonates with the structural function of a “deus ex machina,” it transcends the conventional use of the device by integrating it into the epic’s integral spiritual framework. This reflects Sri Aurobindo’s unique synthesis of ancient narrative forms with his evolutionary philosophy.
Yet Narad is a significant figure in Vyasa’s Mahabharata, and Sri Aurobindo retains it, transforms it. He imbues Narad with a cosmic significance. Narad’s is a voice of the divine, articulating the interplay of human aspiration and divine will; it reveals the spiritual challenges that Savitri must face as part of her transformative journey.
This inspired Deus ex machina is a wonderful event and everything is gathered into its deep occult. In the Legend a pretext is found for Savitri to do Yoga to house the divine Force in her soul and vanquish Death. That is the imperative. In that sense Narad is initiating Savitri into the Occult Yoga of Victory over Death. This human Savitri in the Legend rises to the occasion.
Of that deus ex machina Narad is a luminous instrument. He lent himself to the divine cause admirably. He is a noble praiseworthy “slave of God”.
But why should this truth be given at all, why make known the “irrevocable decree”? Had he not come, this question would have never arisen. In it is perhaps the aspect of the inexplicable imponderable, of deus ex machina.
But what is deus ex machina, god from the machine? It is a term describing “the sudden appearance of an unexpected way out of a difficult situation.
Sophocles in Philoctetes and Euripides more widely used the divine intervention technique of deus ex machina in their tragedies. In Greek drama, a god would appear on the stage from a mechane to resolve the plot. One device is the ekkyklema, ‘a wheeled-out thing’, a platform on wheels rolled out through one of the doors of the skene, on which a tableau was displayed representing the result of an action indoors (e.g., a murder) and unseen by the audience.
The other device is called a mechane, ‘theatrical machine’, a crane to which a cable with a harness for an actor was attached. This device allowed an actor portraying a god or goddess to arrive on scene in the most realistic way possible, from the sky. The mechane deposited the actor on top of the skene so that he as a deity could address the human characters from an appropriately higher level. This device was not exclusively limited to use by divine characters, but was employed whenever the plot required any character to fly. On the other hand, not every god arrived on scene by means of this machine.
The Latin phrase deus ex machina, ‘the god from the machine’, is often used to refer to the appearance of gods by means of the mechane in tragedy. This phrase is also employed in a pejorative sense in modern literary criticism to refer to an improbable character or event introduced by an author to resolve a difficult situation. This secondary meaning of deus ex machina developed from the practice of inferior ancient dramatists who introduced a god at the end of a play in order to untangle a badly snarled plot.” [An Internet write-up]
Euripides is full of deus ex machina. But let us take just one example, Medea’s. Medea along with her two children has been banished from the land by Creon, the ruler of Corinth. The Chorus asks: “O woman, woman of sorrow,” [Gilbert Murray’s translation]
Where wilt thou turn and flee?
What town shall be thine to-morrow,
What land of all lands that be,
What door of strange man’s home?
Yea, God hath hunted thee,
Medea, forth to the foam
Of a trackless sea.
The poor woman is waiting, depressed and downcast, seated upon a doorstep, and there passes by, unexpectedly Aegeus, King of Athens. As he catches sight of Medea, he stops:
Have joy, Medea! ’tis the homeliest
Word that old friends can greet with, and the best.
Medea of course becomes jubilant:
God, and God’s Justice, and ye blinding skies!
At last the victory dawneth! Yea, mine eyes
See, and my foot is on the mountain’s brow…
With this scene the drama moves forward with another zest; with it the “dreadful and insistent clamour of hate” gets accentuated in our ears. Not exactly a god from the machine, but something of the sort has happened in the machination of the sordid deed.
Can Narad’s participation be considered a deus ex machina? It is so in a certain sense, from a dramatic point of view, but that sense is not quite the Grecian sense. He does descend unexpectedly from heaven, which gives a twist to the Savitri-tale. But this deus ex machina is of another kind: it is Vedic in character. If things move in the Truth-dynamism, are governed by Ritam, then it is that Ritam we see entering into a decisive action, action through Narad’s instrumentation. In spiritual poetry, as against æsthetic-secular genre, it is the movement of the Truth that has to be first recognised, Truth finding her own means and methods. Narad’s visit is an aspect of that Truth’s movement; it is an operation of the Vedic Ritam.
Narad’s participation is unique. There is a great sense of responsibility displayed by him in announcing the death of Satyavan in the presence of Savitri. She has come to know of this future event at the most appropriate moment. Now her Yoga can begin. In a certain sense, he initiates Savitri into Yoga. Without this Yoga she could not have met Death and dealt with its problem in this evolutionary creation.
In the Legend her mission needs an instrumental prompting, and the sage provides it. His is a participation in the Divine work, divya karma. Vyāsa’s narrative makes Narad, revered even by the gods, the Preceptor of Aswapati. How marvellous indeed! It is such a being who comes here in greatness of the Spirit’s commitment to the evolutionary earth.
18 March 2026
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