A GROWING TREASURE TROVE FOR UNDERSTANDING SRI AUROBINDO’S EPIC POEM
Savitri Online Encyclopedia.pdf
“For the opening of the psychic, for the growth of consciousness and even for the improvement of English it is good to read one or two pages of Savitri each day.”
(The Mother to Norman Dowsett, an inmate of the Ashram)
It is always a matter of joy to know new and creative attempts to facilitate the study, the understanding and inspiration of Sri Aurobindo’s epic poem Savitri. This is precisely what Gopal Ahir, one of the friends of Auroville and donors to A4A from Vadodara, is doing. After retiring from his service in the State Bank of India, he has engaged himself in an interesting (and important) work – Savitri Online Encyclopedia.
The idea originally came to some ex-students of the Ashram school at Pondicherry (known as Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, SAICE), who sought to make more widely available the understanding and insights about the epic they had received from their wonderful school teachers, Tehmi, Jhumur-di and others. Shraddhavan, of Savitri Bhavan in Auroville, encouraged their efforts. A young volunteer from Germany, Sebastian Nitzschke, helped in website development and allied ways. Finally, our friend Gopal Ahir learnt about the project during one of his visits to Auroville and offered to work as a main editor with their silent but ever helpful assistance.
Savitri Online Encyclopedia offers three important kinds of assistance to readers.
1) Meaning of the words in the context of the poem
For a lay reader, Savitri may not be easy reading. One comes across plenty of words which necessitates the help of a dictionary. But even with the help of dictionary, one cannot be always sure that they will explain perfectly with the significances given to them by Sri Aurobindo. This is so because Sri Aurobindo may have used the word in the context of the unfolding spiritual and mystical narrative of the poem. But when you visit the website of the Savitri Online Encyclopedia, just keep the cursor at the word and its meaning will pop up next to it. Thus, not only the need to search the printed or online dictionary is eliminated but you get the meaning of the words that facilitates your understanding of the epic.
2) Explanation of lines in Sri Aurobindo’s words
Sri Aurobindo had an extensive correspondence with Amal Kiran (K.D. Sethna) about Savitri. The Savitri Online Encyclopedia offers his remarks on certain lines or passages. Just put your cursor at Sri Aurobindo’s symbol and what Sri Aurobindo wrote to Amal Kiran about those lines or passages will pop up.
3) Research by Shraddhavan
For a long time, Shraddhavan has been taking “English of Savitri” (EoS) classes. These have been transcribed and are in the process of being published in a series of books with the same title. Relevant passages from volumes which have already been published have also been integrated into the Online Encyclopedia. Just take the cursor to EoS sign and Shraddhavan’s explanation of the word or lines will pop up next to it.
All these three attributes of the Savitri Online Encyclopedia make reading and understanding of Sri Aurobindo’s epic easier and more profound. Meanwhile, the Encyclopedia continues to grow. Their vision is to add more commentary on Savitri from different sources over the next years.
The link to the Encyclopedia is https://encyclopedia.savitribhavan.org/
For any queries please contact Gopal Ahir by email at ahir.gopal@gmail.com
“For the opening of the psychic, for the growth of consciousness and even for the improvement of English it is good to read one or two pages of Savitri each day.”
