Author: K R Srinivasa Iyengar
Publisher: Sri Aurobindo Ashram
Year: 2006
Language: English
Pages: 843
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8170588138
Description
The first edition of this book was published on 21 February 1945. When I started work on it late in 1942, I was not slow to realize that the biographer of Sri Aurobindo had himself to be a poet and a prophet, a philosopher and a Yogi; and being fully conscious of my limitations, I knew that the task I had undertaken greatly exceeded my abilities.
Neverthless I persevered, benefiting by encouragement, counsel and criticism from several friends in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, and it was my unique good fortune that Sri Aurobindo himself was magnanimous enough to go through my first and second drafts of February 1943 and November 1943 respectively, rectifying many errors whether of fact or interpretation. In the result, the book was received warmly as a reliable first introduction to Sri Aurobindo’s life and work.
The second edition appeared on 21 February 1950. In preparing it for the press, I had retained the main text of the first edition, but I had also tried to make it up-to-date by introducing additional matter here and there, and supplying a few more footnotes. Although the second edition sold out not long afterwards, and although there were calls for a new edition, for about twenty years I found myself unable to return to this task. During this period a great deal of valuable material came to light and a large mass of Sri Aurobindo’s own writings-prose as well as poetry-was posthumously published.
While I no doubt tried desperately to keep in touch with this growing literature- both writing by Sri Aurobindo and writing on Sri Aurobindo-the idea of a third edition of my biography nevertheless filled me with grave misgivings. It was clear that a casual or piecemeal revision wouldn’t serve the purpose. With each succeeding year, the task only became more and more difficult, and I felt correspondingly inadequate and was afraid even to make a beginning. I realized too that I could look for no respite so long as I consented to be shackled to the arduous tasks of university teaching or administration.
Contents
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION
INTRODUCTION
Renascent India and Sri Aurobindo
PART ONE
HUMANIST AND POET
Childhood, Boyhood and Youth
Baroda
Translations
Epic and Romance
Dramas of Conflict and Change
Musa Spiritus
PART TWO
PATRIOT AND PROPHET
Bhavani Mandit
Hour of God
Bande Mataram
The Nation’s Pace-maker
On the Eve
Sadhana in Prison
Karmayogin
PART THREE
PILIGRIM OF ETERNITY
Chandernagore: Inn of Tranquillity
Pondicherry: Cave of Tapasya
Arya: A God’s Labour
The Supramental Manifesto
Lights on Scripture
Man and Collective Man
Global Comprehension
PART FOUR
ARCHITECT OF THE LIFE DIVINE
Lighthouse
The Ten Limbs of the Yoga
The Yoga and the Ashram
Poet of Yoga
Savitri
Identity with God
EPILOGUE
Sri Aurobindo’s Action
REFERENCES
CHRONOLOGY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX