Mr. K.D. Sethna has pertinently observed that Sri Aurobindo “outdoes also the modernism of Eliot no less than Jung” This is a testimony to the fact that Savitri is not only a work dealing with an ancient legend of India but also a modern work, reflecting modern ethos and modern problems. It takes into account the entire evolution from the dark nescience to the supreme levels of the Superconscient, covering all the problems of fundamentally human importance and dealing with every aspect of mystical living. Even the lines of the future evolution of earthly life have also been indicated.
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| Modernism in Aurobindo’s Savitri |
The shift of interest from the external to the internal, the analysis of the inner essences of Savitri and Aswapathy, predominance of the thought or intellectual element, objectivity, the overhead inspiration, intuition and the seeing mind of the poet, his craze and preference for blank verse and his endeavour to impart novelty, etc. are some of the modern features of Savitri. Like the modernist poetry, Savitri is rich in symbol and images. Above all the experimentation of in craftsmanship and rejection of the traditional emphasis of the epic on the external action such as battle and descriptions of war and the hero's martial adventures are also the proof of its modernity. What Sri Aurobindo wrote about the modern quest for novels in The Future Poetry is fully true of Savitri too.
Everywhere there is a seeking after some new things, a discontent with the forms, ideas and powers of the past, a spirit of innovation, a desire to get at deeper powers of language, rhythm, and form, because a subtler and vaster life is in birth. There are deeper and more significant things to be said than have yet been spoken and paltry, the highest essence of speech, must find a fitting voice for them. The human intelligence seems on the verge of an attempt to rise through the intellectual into an intuitive mentality.
The modern poet is acutely aware of the divine and its immanence. Often modern poetry deals with the subconscient dreams states, abnormal regions of man's consciousness, experience, etc. The modern poet is trying to perform the role of the prophet once again. Thus the aspiration of the human soul for ascent to the Divine which found a powerful expression in one of the inspired utterances of Whitman and other poets like Eliot, Auden and Yeats finds its best and most universal expression and Sri Aurobindo, more particularly in his Savitri. Sri Aurobindo's Savitri is a poem of double strands the ascent of the human soul to the Divine, and the descent of the Divine on earth and a promise of organic expression. The theme of this epic, thus is such as would never become unmodern or outdated.
Sri A.B.Purani has rightly observed: “Savitri takes as its theme the life of man and the movement of this soul over all the cosmic planes. The vision of the poet is like a searchlight, turning its revealing light from plane to plane where it brings into our view worlds of being, unknown to the ordinary gaze, their workings and their influences upon earth and man, and the part they play in the revolution from the Inconscient to the Superconscient. In Sri Aurobindo's poetical expression taken as a whole, the movement towards a universal subjectivism gets released from the entanglement of intellectual theories, and flies steadily into the region of the higher inspirational consciousness and from there, views the whole of the cosmos, including man, other comic powers and Nature. The spirit of the creator of Savitri is cosmic; it is a world builder.
In a great deal of its technique and craftsmanship too, Savitri is a modern poem. Sri Aurobindo uses contemporary imagery quite frequently. His imagery reflects the poet's awareness of the developments in science and technology of his age. We find references to “sperm and gene” and “plasm and gas”, “electrical energy”, “quantum”, “root”, “atomic”, “Necessity's logarithmic table”, “the calculus of destiny”, the recurrent decimal of events, “fractions” and the like. These are drawn from Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics. There is also a reference to the television:
As through a magic television's glass
Outlined to some magnifying eye
They shone like images thrown from a far scene
Too high and glad for mortal lids to seize........
And the reference to the atoms:
And Nature ‘plastic and protean change
And, strong by death to stay or to create,
The river invisible atom's omnipotent force.
And another to Maths: It made all persons fractions of the Unique, Yet all were beings secret integers. Savitri is a modern epic as well as the epic of the future not merely because of its catholicity of outlook, cosmos nature of the theme, richness of symbols and innovations in form and technique, but also because of its psycho - spiritual content and ethos as well as its modern imagery, As mentioned by Dr. A.N. Dwivedi, “That Savitri is an epic related to the Mahabharata story of the past, does not mean that it has no bearing on the present age. That it bears relationship to Vedic and Upanishadic content and manner does not necessarily imply that it is obsolete or antiquated. On the other hand, the Vedas and Upanishads and even the Mahabharata deal with perennial problems of life and in that sense they are never obsolete and always modern. Apart from this Sri Aurobindo, despite his long retirement from the outside world, has never ceased to be constantly in touch with contemporary living and thinking. He had rather kept himself abreast of all movements of human progress in every department of cultural activity.” Savitri is a modern epic as well as an epic for the future written by a man of modern age. It will be more and more relevant to our materialistic age by providing relief to our spirit lost in the dross of materialism.