Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol

Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol is an epic poem in blank verse by Sri Aurobindo, based upon the theology from the Mahabharata. Its central theme revolves around the transcendence of man as the consummation of terrestrial evolution, and the emergence of an immortal supramental gnostic race upon earth. Unfinished at Sri Aurobindo's death, Savitri approaches 24,000 lines.

Savitri is the masterpiece of Sri Aurobindo published in two parts in 1950 and 1951. He revised the book eighteen times before publishing it and it took nearly fifty years for completion. It consists of 12 books, and there are 49 cantos in it which further consist of about 24,000 lines. Sri Aurobindo had intended to write a lengthy introduction to Savitri, which never occurred. He did, however, write an author's note which functions as an effective summary that appears at the beginning of the poem in all its published versions. It reads:

The Mother, who was Sri Aurobindo's spiritual collaborator, said this of Savitri: "... everything is there: mysticism, occultism, philosophy, the history of evolution, the history of man, of the gods, of creation, of Nature. How the universe was created, why, for what purpose, what destiny - all is there. You can find all the answers to all your questions there. Everything is explained, even the future of man and of evolution, all that nobody yet knows. He has described it all in beautiful and clear words so that spiritual adventurers who wish to solve the mysteries of the world may understand it more easily."

Sri Aurobindo worked on Savitri for over twenty years, making it his literary life's work, with the earliest known draft written in 1916. Towards the beginning of the poem's composition, it was not uncommon for passages to undergo as many as ten redrafts, with many rearrangements of lines. In later years, as Sri Aurobindo's eyesight was failing, he dictated portions of the book to Nirodbaran. Just before his death, he fluently dictated lengthy passages with little to no correction afterwards.

Savitri was originally brought out canto by canto in small fascicles and in periodicals published by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. These periodicals were the Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual, in 1946 and 1947, the quarterly Advent in 1946 and 1947, and the Sri Aurobindo Circle Annual in 1947. These installments were also made available simultaneously in fascicles Canto-wise. The fascicles covered the first four Cantos of Book 1 and Book 3. The fifteen Cantos of Book 2 were published in book-form in two parts, Cantos 1-6 and Cantos 7-15, in 1947 and 1948 respectively.

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