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May 2002

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 WINDOW ON CANADA

Sri Aurobindo’s long philosophical poem, Savitri, has been described as “a neglected literary monument.”

The Indo-Anglican poets refuse to take note of Sri Aurobindo’s poetry, claims Parsa Venketshwar Rao Jr, “and have marginalised Sri Aurobindo's epic poem, Savitri, because of their modest talent and their fear of ambitious works.”

“Savitri needs to be brought back to the general reader. It has immense literary beauty and merit, and it should be made to stand as a monumental retort to the squeaky poetics of the modernist pygmies,” he adds.

Given his philosophical bent of mind, Sri Aurobindo looked upon the story as one with immense symbolic significance. He saw in the story an embedded philosophical message of the struggle between the forces of life and death, and the ascent of soul into eternity.

Renu Ray’s devotion to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother is immense.  She’s inspired by them and tries to live up to the ideals of Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy.

It was left to Renu Ray, who is an accomplished dancer, to give life to this one of the most moving stories in Indian mythology.

Renu played the role of the mythical Savitri while Dr. Alakananda, who did the choreography, played the role of Satyavan.  Both pupil and master were in “cosmic rhythm” as they portrayed Savitri for Toronto audience recently.

“It was light and shadow and dancing feet describing the immortal story" of Savitri, the child of the Sun and Prince Satyavan, son of Truth, is how one critic described the performance.

The story of Savitri and Satyavan is a familiar one, and occurs in Vyasa's Mahabharata. Sri Aurobindo seems to have read the story in the Vyasa's version in Baroda in 1901, where he was an English lecturer.

Neeti Prakash Ray narrated the poem in original English. This is how the story goes.

Savitri was the daughter of a very popular King Asvapati of the Madra kingdom. He had no children and there was no one to be heir to his kingdom. For eighteen years, he prayed and observed tapas and offered every day ten thousand oblations in the sacred fire repeating the Gayatri mantra. The goddess Savitri, the presiding deity of Gayatri mantra was pleased with Asvapati's devotion and appeared before him, "Tell me, what boon do you want?"

"If you are pleased with my prayers, please bless with many sons worthy of my clan."

"No", said Savitri. "You shall have only a daughter. But she will be equal to many sons."

The queen gave birth to a female child. The child was named Savitri. The king was very fond of her; gave her full freedom to do what she liked. Savitri grew up as a beautiful girl and became the darling of the entire kingdom. When the time came to marry her, the king left the choice to Savitri. So he asked her to go and select a prince who would be worthy of her.

Savitri travelled with an escort and visited many capitals of many countries. She finally chose Prince Satyavan who was living in a forest hermitage with his father, the blind king Dyumatsena of the Salvas. Dymatsena had lost his kingdom.

Savitri informs her father that she has found for herself a husband and the sage Narada, who was with her father at the time, doesn’t want her to marry Satyavan.  Narada predicts that the prince would die in a year’s time, but Savitri doesn’t change her mind. 

As predicted by Narada, Satyavan breathed his last after one year. The Lord of Death - Yama himself came to take away his life. But Savitri got back her husband's life by winning Yama's favor with her unswerving virtues.

Savitri pleads with Yama, the Lord of Death, through her wisdom and wit, tricks Yama to grant her wish to have children.

Yama is confused because he has to release Satyavan for Savitri to have children.  Satyavan is born again, but Satyavan isn’t aware of all this, as if he is getting up from a long sleep.  He later inherits his father’s kingdom and both he and Savitri live as king and queen for many years.