The next part of Savitri we shall discuss is as follows:

All came back to her: Earth and Love and Doom,

The ancient disputants, encircled her
Like giant figures wrestling in the night:
The godheads from the dim Inconscient born
Awoke to struggle and the pang divine,
And in the shadow of her flaming heart,
At the sombre centre of the dire debate,
A guardian of the unconsoled abyss
Inheriting the long agony of the globe,
A stone-still figure of high and godlike Pain
Stared into Space with fixed regardless eyes
That saw grief's timeless depths but not life's goal.
Afflicted by his harsh divinity,
Bound to his throne, he waited unappeased
The daily oblation of her unwept tears.
All the fierce question of man's hours relived.
The sacrifice of suffering and desire
Earth offers to the immortal Ecstasy
Began again beneath the eternal Hand.
Awake she endured the moments' serried march
And looked on this green smiling dangerous world,
And heard the ignorant cry of living things.
Amid the trivial sounds, the unchanging scene
Her soul arose confronting Time and Fate.
Immobile in herself, she gathered force.
This was the day when Satyavan must die.

MEANINGS OF SOME DIFFICULT WORDS

Sombre = Dark, Depressingly gloomy, Shadowy or Sullen.

Dire = Dreadful, Awful, or disastrous in consequence; boding ill.
Oblation = The act of offering or the offering itself given solemnly to the Divine.
Trivial = Small and of little importance, Obvious and dull, Of little substance or significance,
Not large enough to consider or notice.
Serried = set close together in an ordered and disciplined manner as soldiers marching
contingent.
Unappeased = eagerly often without peace.
Revived = Restored to consciousness or life or vigor, given fresh life or vigor or spirit.
Pang = A sharp pain, or to feel or suffer a sharp pain.
Unconsoled = Lacking in moral strength.
Relived = Experience again, often in the imagination.
In the last post we discussed about the waking up of Savitri to Her Divine Task. In the early
hours She does not feel the grief, but the memory resurfaces and She realizes the universal load
on Her. Thus, Her Spirit travels back to Her and the sensations, thoughts become active enough
for Her Task. Sri Aurobindo thus gives an intense Spirituality to a process like waking up. Now
let us see what happens next:

All came back to her: Earth and Love and Doom,

The ancient disputants, encircled her
Like giant figures wrestling in the night:

As Savitri wakes up, She becomes conscious about the dispute between Earth and Doom, and the
action of Love, the Divine element. “All came back to her” means the same here. Here Earth,
Love and Doom are addresses to as “The ancient disputants”. Here, Earth signifies the matter or
life. The matter or life on earth is always questioned by the Doom of Death. So they have a
conflict or dispute between the since the creation. Therefore they are addressed to as the ancient
disputants. Love is the Divine’s element which alone can solve the conflict between Life and
Death. When two persons are having a conflict and another third person attempts to solve the
dispute, sometimes he too may become a disputant along with the two existing disputants.
Therefore, Sri Aurobindo puts Love also in line with Earth and Doom as ancient disputant. But
here see the magic of words. Whenever tow persons have a conflict and a third person is trying
to solve it, by the natural body language he places himself between the two disputants, like in a
wrestling or boxing match. Here Love is the element which alone can solve the conflict between
the Earth and Doom. Therefore Sri Aurobindo places it “between” the two disputant. Not that it
is also a disputant. Savitri realizes Her responsibility to solve this conflict, in this way and these
elements “encircled her”, “Like giant figures wrestling in night”. Sri Aurobindo describes the
conflict between Life and Death as a fight between two giants going in the darkness. Just
imagine yourself in such a situation. You have to fight for your existence with an opponent but in
darkness. You don’t know where you have to attack or where you will receive an attack. So the
fight goes like a useless or aimless or objective less battle, yielding no result. Such a dispute can
only be solved by the Divine Intervention like Love and that too of Savitri, the divine Mother.
Therefore, all these three approach Savitri, like approaching a referee in a sport to solve a
conflict.

The godheads from the dim Inconscient born

Awoke to struggle and the pang divine,
And in the shadow of her flaming heart,

Earth and Doom are here described as “godheads”, born from the “Inconscient”, which is dim
and obscure, as we have seen in the earlier part of the thread. This disputant “Awoke to struggle”
that is resumed their ancient dispute and pang, which is divine. Here “pang” is addresses as
“Divine”, because first of all here Earth and Doom are compared to godheads and also that
Divine is Immanent in them, as in everything. Thus this is a divine pang. And this dispute now
takes place “in the shadow of her flaming heart”. The Mother’s heart is the refuge for all our
disputes, conflicts and problems, to get them solved. And such disputes between Earth and
Doom can only be solved by Her only.

Now in this situation of conflict, we have players, we have an umpire that is Love, a referee who
is Savitri, and now we have a spectator!
At the sombre centre of the dire debate,
A guardian of the unconsoled abyss
Inheriting the long agony of the globe,
A stone-still figure of high and godlike Pain

Here, there is a presence of Pain. Both Earth and Savitri are in pain. When such a fight between
Life and Death is going on pain is inevitable. Sri Aurobindo not just signifies the presence of the
pain here, but personifies it and as a step forward he gives a divine status. This spectator is a
deity or God of Pain who is “A stone-still figure” because he is “Inheriting the long agony of
gloce”. Any one who has sustained a sheer pain since a long time becomes very rigid and
irresponsive. Thus he is stone-still. Also this deity is “A guardian of unconsoled abyss”. Abyss
means a deeper well or hole and this abyss is “unconsoled”, that is lacking in moral strength.
Thus “unconsoled abyss” means the pain, the pain of the entire universe. And he is “At the
sombre centre of the dire debate,”, as a spectator. Dire debate is the same dispute between the
Life and Death.

And this spectator is enjoying the game of conflict in his own way:

Stared into Space with fixed regardless eyes

That saw grief's timeless depths but not life's goal.

This deity of pain stares into Space “with fixed regardless eyes” and he sees only the eternal
depths of grief, “but not life’s goal”. These two lines have to be unfolded a little bit to
understand them.

The Space and The Supreme are one and the same. This fact is supported by following
references:

He is the Maker and the world he made. Book 1, Canto 4, Page 61.

Space is himself and Time is only he. Book 1, Canto 4, Page 67.

WûËUiÉãuÉ eÉaÉiÉç, eÉaÉSãuÉ WûËUÈ | Some Scripture.

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Therefore, the whole universe is a symbol of The Supreme. But for us The Mother is the
Supreme! The following references will make it clear.

There are two who are One and play in many worlds; Book 1 Canto 4 Page 61.

For this is sure that he and she are one. Book 1 Canto 4 Page 72.
In addition the following excerpt from the book The Supreme will clear all the doubts.

“in the terrestrial evolution, man, who is emerging out of the inconscience and ignorance, is
guided by the Supreme, in order to manifest His reign upon earth, labours to uplift the human
consciousness so as to establish the Divine Consciousness; and for this He does not delegate
some one but Himself manifests physically, even in Ignorance, to accomplish His work. And it is
I who have been appointed to raise up man and the creation out this Inconscience. It is I who am
responsible. What I wish, the Lord also wished, I am the Supreme in the Unmanifest. But in the
creation the Supreme acts only through me, and wills nothing but what I will. There is no
distinction to be made.”

The Mother.

Now, let us some up these references. Space is the Supreme, and we have also seen that there is
no distinction between The Supreme and The Mother. Therefore, it implies that Space = The
Mother = Savitri!

Therefore here this deity of pain stares into “Spaces” means stares on “Savitri”. When he stares
at Savitri, he looks only for her grief, which is eternally deep. This grief is of Death therefore Sri
Aurobindo describes it as eternally deep. But he does not look at the goal of life of Savitri.
Because he is a God of Pain and is only interested in the tears of Savitri not Her Life, and
Delight. Next lines will clarify it.

Afflicted by his harsh divinity,

Bound to his throne, he waited unappeased
The daily oblation of her unwept tears.

“Afflicted” means harassed. And “harsh divinity” means his nature of receiving and inheriting
the pain. Sri M P Pandit explains in The Book of Beginnings that Pain is Divine in its aspect of
harshness. If one can endure or sustain the pain without complaining, it leads to a resolution of
the issue by The Supreme. There are many such examples of endurance of the pain and then
realization of Divine, in our culture. Any way this deity is harassed by his divinity. And this
deity is “Bound to his throne”. All the godheads have a particular responsibility according to the
Vedic Knowledge. But they are not autonomous to carry out their functions. They are the
executioners of the Will of The Supreme. Similarly this deity of Pain is fixed to his royal seat.
Such a deity of pain who is a guardian of depths of pains, inheritor of the global agony,
“waited”, for “The daily oblation of her unwept tears”, that too “unappeased”. Oblation means
an offering to Divine. We have a tradition of offering something particular to a particular deity in
our culture. Accordingly this deity of pain receives the oblation of tears. Therefore, he receives
the offering of tears by Savitri that too every day and still he waits for them eagerly, as if he is
hungry for them since long time. Now what are unwept tears? It refers to the suppressing of the
grief. Tears that flow out when we cry if we are in grief, flush out our grief and a sort of release
is felt. But if the tears are suppressed by the person or he is bound to do so, it is even painful.
Savitri is a Divine Incarnation. She is not the one who will flush out Her grief and feel relief. She
is sustaining all the pain of all the lives as she bears all lives in her. Please recall following lines
from our previous discussions:
Even in this moment of her soul's despair,
In its grim rendezvous with death and fear,
No cry broke from her lips, no call for aid;
She told the secret of her woe to none:
Calm was her face and courage kept her mute.

Hence Her pain is greater than anyone’s.

All the fierce question of man's hours relived.

Savitri, now after all these experiences, becomes aware of “fierce question of man’s hours”.
Here “man’s hours” means life. She becomes aware of life’s fierce question, the question, the
challenge to death and the confrontation between them.

The sacrifice of suffering and desire

Earth offers to the immortal Ecstasy
Began again beneath the eternal Hand.

In our previous posts we had discussed about the duty of Yajna, with references to the Narayana
Sukta and Purusha Sukta. On our part, we are obliged to sacrifice what we have, to the Divine,
“the immortal Ecstasy”. Thus, here “Earth” can be referred to mankind and this process of
“sacrifice of suffering and desire” is a perpetual one which now again begins under the
Presidency of Savitri.

Awake she endured the moments' serried march

And looked on this green smiling dangerous world,
And heard the ignorant cry of living things.

Savitri, a descendent from the eternity, now watches the march of moments and gears up for her
task. She gains all the experiences of our world in these moments and becomes aware of all
issues by “enduring” this passage of time. For Savitri, watching the moment’s march is certainly
enduring, because She is not bound by Time! During these moments passed, she looked at our
“green smiling and dangerous world”. Our world is green that is beautiful, smiling that is full of
life, but on the same time it is dangerous. Thus, She also hears the “ignorant cry of living
things”. Sri Aurobindo describes the cry of living things as ignorant cry, because we “want” a
victory over death, but we do not “aspire” for it.

Amid the trivial sounds, the unchanging scene

Her soul arose confronting Time and Fate.

Amid this scene full of “trivial sounds” that is ignorant cries of living things, and the
unchanging scene of all mean who are bound by Time and Fate performing their daily activities,
Savitri’s Souls arises “confronting time and Death”. She has descended for the same and now
Her Soul arises for this Divine Task of confronting the Time and Death, which are limiting the
Life on Earth.

While Her Souls arose:

Immobile in herself, she gathered force.

Savitri, the Divine Mother, is “Immobile in herself” now. That is She is not executing any
movements by Her external human frame and mental being. But Her Psychic Being, Her soul
and Her Spirit are highly active to gather the force required to handle this Divine Task ahead of
Her. The Task She is accorded requires an immense Strength of Soul, not the physical force.

She gathers force in this way now because:

This was the day when Satyavan must die.

This is the day, the moment when “Satyavan must die”. Day for us, but for Savitri, it is just a
moment. This is the moment She is going to confront the Time and Fate. Sri Aurobindo puts it as
“Satyavan must die”, though it is known that he will regain the life. Because, Satyavan is bound
by Fate and no one can escape form it, generally no one can change it either. If any one who can
dare and determine to do so is only Savitri, The Divine Mother.

In this way Sri Aurobindo completes the Canto 1 of book 1, The Symbol Dawn. It begins from a
background of Nescience but evolves into an ocean of Knowledge, Devotion, and Delight. Hence
the name The Symbol Dawn. This is a symbol of one’s growth to Consciousness from Nescience.
This is the first stage if one wants to realize The Supreme, acquire His Grace, and a victory over
Death.

For us, this was a journey through many experiences. We saw how Sri Aurobindo renders an
intense spiritual touch to a Dawn, converting it completely into a Symbol of Growth to
consciousness, Manifestation of The Supreme. This is just a beginning. Still we have a whole
ocean of Nectar and Light before us.

Therefore, let us pray in Her Divine Feet to give us the ability to sustain this journey of ours. It is
only Her Grace which has made it possible that we have come so far and have completed the first
canto. Also on this account I should thank all the members. For the support you have given to
me, for the Love and affection you have showered on me. The kind of feedbacks I have received
I really don’t know whether I deserve them or not. So I dedicate all this to The Mother. It is Her
Grace only which made me to accept this work for Her and Her Grace only that it was possible
from a person like to sustain this thread so far. Therefore, it is only She who is doing all this
wok, with me as an instrument of Her.