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We are now ready to begin our review of Part III of Savitri. The most of part III is taken up by the long colloquy between Savitri and the God of Death. The God of Death from this point on becomes an important character in Savitri, and, as we have already seen in the preceding installment, Sri Aurobindo has a perspective of his own on the phenomenon of death and its place in life. But before we begin our review of Books IX, X and XI of Savitri, which deal with this exchange with Death, it would be instructive to see how this part of the legend has been handled by Vyasa in the Mahabharata. This will enable us to appreciate better the changes which Sri Aurobindo has introduced while dealing with this part of the story of Savitri and Satyavan.

The long conversation between Savitri and the God of Death as found in the Mahabharata legend:

As soon as Satyavan breathes his last, Savitri sees in front of her a bight and luminous Person in a red attire and with a splendid crown over his head. There is a noose in the hand of this person and he is staring at Satyavan’s prone body. On seeing him, Savitri transfers Satayvan’s head from her lap to the ground and stands up with folded hands. When asked by Saviri who he was, this luminous person introduces himself as Yama. He tells her that he was conversing with her because she is a devout and chaste woman. He further states that since Satyavan was a virtuous soul with several fine qualities, he has come himself to take away soul, instead of sending his subordinates. He then casts his noose and captures Satyavan’s soul in it and pulls the soul behind him as he starts walking away from that spot. Savitri, afflicted with grief, follows Yama in his tracks. This she was able to do because of the great powers she had acquired by observing several vows.

When Yama looks back after a while, he sees Savitri following him. Yama stops and advises her not to follow him since she already had accompanied her husband after his death over the permitted distance and paid her debt to him. He advises her to attend to the funeral rites of the dead. Savitri refuses to accept Yama’s advice and instead keeps talking to him. Since she had walked with him for more than ten steps, she claims that she has earned the right of friendship with him. She then begins to argue with him extensively on certain fundamental dharmic issues. She appeals to his sense of justice and obligation to be fair since Yama is known as Dharmaraj (the king of righteousness).

Savitri’s speech is perfect, flawless in grammar, well-structured in prosody and flawless in reasoning. She argues that as a wife her place is always with her husband and she cannot go back without him; in following him she is only being true to her dharma as a wife. She further declares that there is nothing a woman cannot achieve through austerity, devotion to the preceptor, love for the husband, observance of the sacred vows and through the grace of Yama himself. She then speaks of holy people and how they abide in virtuous conduct and how therefore they never face any sorrow or affliction. She observes further that the company of holy people is always rewarding and therefore one should always be close to them. Then she declares that it is by the Truth that the saints lead the sun, and through their tapasya (askesis) they uphold the earth and therefore noble people who are in the midst of such saintly people have never any grief. In the conduct of the dharma, the illustrious people help each other and do not hurt others. They are therefore the protectors of the whole world.

These soulful utterances of Savitri charm Yama immensely, and he bestows on her several boons. The more she speaks of the lofty things of dharma, the more his admiration for her grows. By the first two boons bestowed upon her by Yama, Savitri is able to get for her father-in-law, who had gone blind, his eyesight restored, and also his kingdom restored to him. Through a third boon she asks for a hundred sons for her father, Aswapati. When she was offered a fourth boon by Yama, she replies that she would have asked for a hundred sons for herself, but that this boon would remain unfulfilled without Satyavan, whom Yama was insisting on taking with him. She points to him the strange anomaly now confronting them. “You are willing to give me the boon of having a hundred sons and you yourself are taking away my husband; for that reason I again ask the boon of the life of Satyavan. Only thus shall your words come true.”

Yama is so exceedingly gladdened by Savitiri’s discourse on Dharma that he accedes to her request and releases Satyavan’s soul from the noose in which it was captured. He tells her that Satyavan has now been restored to good health and is fit to return to earth with her. Besides this, he grants to her a life of four hundred years with Satyavan, and advises her to perform the holy yajnas for the welfare of mankind. Then Yama blesses Savitri and sends her back with the soul of Satyavan. He then returns to his own abode.

Savitri’s Dialogue with Death in Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri

Savitri’s dialogue with Death in Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri, deals with issues of a totally different kind from those that figure in Savitri’s exchanges with Yama in the Mahabharata legend. Savitri follows Satyavan’s soul into the kingdom of Death because she loves Satyavan and she wants to take him back to earth where together they are going to prepare for the advent of a new age on earth. Their love and its fulfilment on earth symbolise Sri Aurobindo’s quest of perfection of life on earth for humanity as a whole. The God of Death is cast here in the role of an adversary of this ideal. He tries various strategies to dissuade Savitri from pursuing him and from laying a claim on Satyavan’s soul. First he tries to scare her by demonstrating how helpless and miniscule she is in comparison with this vast universe and its majestic march through time. When this fails, he tries to argue against the feasibility and likelihood of the ideal she holds so dear. He also tries to show that ideologically she really has no ground to stand on. In this protracted debate, he takes on the positions of the various philosophies and ideologies that can be pitted against what may be called Sri Aurobindo’s Adwaitic Integralism. In this debate almost all the major philosophies and ideologies of today figure in some form. Savitri is pitted against all these as the protagonist of Sri Aurobindo’s vision of a perfect life here on earth.

What is most fascinating here is the way that these various ideologies take on flesh and blood and come out as glowing poetry and not as dry arguments. Let us now take up the Books Nine, Ten and Eleven canto by canto. We begin with Book Nine, Canto One.

Book Nine: The Book of Eternal Night; Canto One:
Towards the Black Void

Section 1

The poet begins by capturing in a few lines the scene in the huge wood; Savitri was all alone surrounded by the forest and she had “her husband’s corpse on her forsaken breast”. She was too benumbed by the event of her husband’s passing, either to measure her loss or to bewail it. She even ignored the presence of the “dreadful god” (the God of Death), standing in front of her. It was as though her mind had died with Satyavan. Only her heart was still active in her. She held close to her the lifeless form of Satyavan as though she could thereby guard their oneness and help Satyavan keep his spirit in his body.

And then came upon her a change that comes over human beings in great and climacteric moments of their life when the veil over the soul is torn, and there is no intervention from the mind. The spirit sees directly and all is known at once. Such a moment had now come in Savitri’s life. The poet describes in some detail the nature of this change. It is as it were one’s doors of perception suddenly get cleansed and one sees the world around him differently. There is a power above our eyebrows, which is calm and immobile. It remains unaffected by the vicissitudes of life and its pain and error and is able to control the whirl of things around us. In such great moments the spirit experiences the Glory which is truly its own. The mind of earth then receives in flashes godlike thoughts. A series of profound changes take place in the individual; the soul itself feels reborn to new glory. One feels bathed in a celestial music. The will becomes intensely gathered into an ecstasy. Such a miraculous birth now took place in Savitri. The Spirit in her, so far hidden in Nature, now soared out of its dwelling and ascended like a fire in the skies of night.

The cords of her self-oblivion were torn apart and at the summit of her being she sees the source of all that she had seemed to be and all that she had worked out through her sadhana. She saw herself as an instrument of an immutable power. A force descended into her which seemed to connect her to Infinity. As this force sank into her, it entered the mystic lotus of thousand petals at the crown of her head. Savitri was now guided by this omnipotent power standing above her, calm and unmoving.

Section 2

As Savitri was being filled with this great inrush, the last vestige of any human frailty vanished from her. It is as though a young divinity filled her life-energies with a vast spiritual power. She was now entirely free from the pain and the fear that haunted her often and the grief that lashed her from time to time. Her mind was now still and beat quietly with an imperious force. Savitri was now free from all attachment and her acts proceeded from a godlike calm. Calmly, she placed Satyavan’s body (until now lying on her breast) upon the ground and firmly turned her gaze away from it. All alone, she now rose to meet the dreadful God of Death.

The poet comments on the significance of this event, namely, Savitri’s resolve to confront Death. The mighty spirit that Savitri embodied now is returning to a task she had left unfinished so far because until now the mind was the highest power manifested on earth and under its rule the human instrument was too crude for the task of confronting Death. Now in Savitri this human limitation is transcended and she commands a mightier power than that of mind and also a godlike will.

She looked for a lingering moment on Satyavan’s body lying at her feet and then she raised her head “like a tree recovering from a wind” to turn her gaze on the being standing in front of her. Then in a few lines the poet gives us a portrait of the spiritual truth of Death (I shall use the expressions “god of Death” and “Death”, with a capital D, interchangeably here):

Something stood there, unearthly, sombre, grand,
A limitless denial of all being
That wore the terror and wonder of a shape.
In its appalling eyes the tenebrous Form
Bore the deep pity of destroying gods;
A sorrowful irony curved the dreadful lips
That speak the word of doom. Eternal Night
In the dire beauty of an immortal face
Pitying arose, receiving all that lives
For ever into its fathomless heart, refuge
Of creatures from their anguish and world-pain.
His shape was nothingness made real, his limbs
Were monuments of transience and beneath
Brows of unwearying calm large godlike lids
Silent beheld the writhing serpent, life.
Unmoved their timeless wide unchanging gaze
Had seen the unprofitable cycles pass,
Survived the passing of unnumbered stars
And sheltered still the same immutable orbs.
(Pg 574)

“The God of Death” stood there, the poet says, “unearthly, sombre, grand”. He describes him as “the limitless denial of all being”. There cannot be a better description of Death and the role he plays in this confrontation with Savitri. Death, as he is portrayed here, does not represent merely the force that brings about the physical disintegration of all living beings but it is also a power that denies and tries to thwart this very creation as it evolves to its perfection. That is why he is described as “A limitless denial of all being”. Death is a destroying god who bears deep pity for all creatures. His lips are curved in “a sorrowful irony: he gives refuge in his heart to all the creatures from their life of anguish and world-pain on earth. The poet describes his shape as “nothingness made real” and his limbs as “monuments of transience”. His eyes are focussed silently on life, “the writhing serpent”. The eyes of Death have seen the passing away of unnumbered stars.

The woman and the universal God of Death faced each other. Savitri’s loneliness was almost palpable. And silencing all earthly sounds, Death spoke to her in a voice, sad and formidable at the same time.

Death: “O slave of Nature, you are but a changing tool of a rigid, unchanging Law. Why do you vainly rebel against my yoke? Loosen your crude grip on Satyavan. Weep and forget Satyavan. Bury your passion. Leave now the body forsaken by the spirit of Satyavan. Return to your vain life on earth.”

Savitri made no response. And the voice of Death spoke again but this time lowering its formidable voice and it sounded like a moan of hungry far sweeping waves, echoing the sadness and scorn of the gods.

Death: “ O Savitri, you are yourself a creature doomed like him to die some day. Do you hope to be able to hold his soul a captive of your passionate heart and deny it death’s calm, and silent rest. Loosen your grip on him. Woman, your husband suffers in this tug-of-war between you and me. The body of Satyavan belongs to earth and therefore it is yours, but not his spirit, which now belongs to a greater power.”

Savitri relaxed her hold on Satyavan’s body that lay on the smooth grass. She now remembered his face as it looked when he was in sleep as she rose from their couch at dawn to attend to her daily tasks. Now too she rose with all her strength gathered like a runner who drops his mantle and gets ready for the race and waits for the signal. But she did not know on what course she was going to be called upon to run. Her spirit watched vigilantly waiting to see what far-ranging impulse was going to rise out of the eternal depths of her being.

Then Death leaned down to gather Satyavan’s soul as leans the Night over the tired lands when the evening pales and the moon is yet to rise. As he stands erect, another luminous Satyavan arose from the life-less body as though he had emerged from another world. This silent wonder, the luminous Satyavan, stood between Savitri and the god of Death. This new figure looked as if “one departed came wearing the light of a celestial shape, splendidly alien to the mortal air.” The mind that looks for things familiar and loved in this new figure, would fall back foiled from the strangeness that surrounds it. The phantasm, the new figure representing Satyavan’s being, looked too strange to fit into the grasp of this earth. Only the spirit of Savitri recognised the spirit of Satyavan in this being, and her heart felt in it the heart which she had loved. This figure standing between Death and Savitri, was not wavering but steady and expectant like someone blind waiting for a word of command. So these three stood there, none of them powers of this earth but one of them in a human form.

On either side of this figure of Satyavan, the two spirits strove, Love and Death, “silence battled with silence, vast with vast”. Soon the impulse to move took over. The luminous figure of Satyavan moved in the front; behind him walked Death like a herdsman following a straying member of his heard. Behind these two walked Savitri. Although mortal, she walked at an equal pace with the God of Death. She walked into the perilous regions of death planting her feet in Satyavan’s footsteps.

Section 3

Savitri was now walking through a strange region in which the road was hardly seen and she felt as though she was walking through a screen of forests. She felt surrounded by the murmur of the green leaves. But gradually this sound seemed alien to her. She began to feel her own physical body far from her, a distant load she bore. She felt that she was in some high region where she saw in a trance the luminous spirit of Satyavan being followed by the great dark figure, Death.

She felt that the earth stood aloof and yet near her. She still felt close to its sweetness, greenness and delight, the brilliance of the vivid colours, the golden sunlight, the blue skies and the soft warm soil. But now her body seemed to be slowing her down. She felt that the two spirits walking in front of her were speeding along a grander road beyond some intangible boundary. Death now looked mightier and more distant as he advanced in these spaces and she feared that she might lose contact with Satyavan’s soul. Death and he were moving ahead swiftly as if pulled away from the hold of earth. She feared she might lose them.

Alarmed, she suddenly soared out of her body and rushed towards Satyavan. She was now like a she-eagle whose little ones are threatened by danger. Her spirit surged up in terror and as a divine fury through the rocky expanses in that space against the ascending god of Death and his weapon of death. She rose like a mass of golden fire on the wings of power and grief. Thus she crossed the borders of this tangible world on the flaming wings of her spirit. Her mortal parts dropped from her like so many sheaths discarded, and she entered her subtle body. This resulted in a momentary loss of consciousness; she forgot the sun, earth and the world; she was no more conscious of thought, time or death. She was not aware even of her own self. She forgot who she was.

In this desperate situation what sustained Savitri and gave her strength to push ahead was her supreme identity with Satyavan, the sovereign of her life who is like her heartbeat. He was herself, she felt, yet different, a veritable treasure clasped by her. All that remained with her in this collapsing of space was this treasure. Savitri’s consciousness now surged around Satyavan, her spirit fulfilled in his spirit as though the immortal moment of love had been found.

This enabled her to come out of the trance and she became once more aware of Time and began to notice the world around her. Satyavan, Death and she herself, she felt, were moving as though in her own soul-space. She saw vague memories passing before her as scenes towards their goal. This was a totally new experience for her, of a world where there were no soul entities but only living moods.

She saw around her a strange, hushed, weird country. Even the skies above had a strange look about them. The poet describes this unearthly scene in the following words:

Weird were the grasses, weird the treeless plains;
Weird ran the road which like fear hastening
Towards that of which it has most terror, passed
Phantasmal between pillared conscious rocks
Sombre and high, gates brooding, whose stone thoughts
Lost their huge sense beyond in giant night.
(Pg 579 – 580)

It would seem as though the God of Death was leading Savitri through this weird place to create fear in her. The rocky terrain, the dismal, high and brooding gates led them on to an abysmal night beyond them. The night to which these gates led them was the night of the Inconscient, waiting for them like the fearsome jaws of an ogre on a haunted path.

As they reached the chill and scorched boundary, the luminous form of Satyavan stood arrested for a while and cast a backward glance at Savitri with his wonderful eyes. It would seem that they had reached a point beyond which mortals like Savitri would have no access. Death made this clear and cried out to Savitri in a forbidding voice.

Death: “O mortal, return to your transient world which abides in time. Do not hope to trespass into the homeland of Death. You cannot breathe and be alive in that land. The passion that drives you is a mind-born strength and it cannot lift you beyond the earth and free you from your material cage. It will not be able to sustain you in this region of Nought and support you through the pathless infinite. It is best for man to live within human limits. Do not trust the misleading voices that make you imagine that you are immortal. That is just an unreal dream built on a floating ground. Do not be persuaded by these false gods to trespass into a world where you will perish like an alien unsubstantial thought. Know the limits, within which it is safe for you to hope and dream. Do not try to achieve what is beyond human powers.

Man is an ignorant creature and his steps are stumbling even within the brief boundaries within which it is safe for him to operate. But he fancies himself the world’s king; it is his mind that keeps tormenting his nature. Man can only dream of divinity in his sleep. When he wakes up from this sleep, he starts trembling realising how weak and fragile he is in the immensity of this space. Do not expect to bind the eternal gods with the force of your love, which is so transient and brittle.”

Savitri refused to give an answer. She shed the trappings of mortality and stood up in the primal force of her soul. Fixed destiny and rigidity of old laws did not daunt her. Alone like a statue on a pedestal in that vast silence, she rose like a column of flame and light against the mute abysses of the Inconscient massed against her.