Translations of Reviews in French
Review by David Annoussamy
What
does the name “Sri Aurobindo” mean to the people of Pondicherry?
For many it is simply the name of a street (which
has the respectful “Sri” cut off). A significant minority knows more than this,
their conception of him rising from the philosopher to the yogi, and for some going
so far as to regard him as almost divine, the object of a devotion inspiring pilgrims
to go and bow down at his tomb in the Ashram. In fact the Ashram ranks as one
of India’s favorite places of pilgrimage, and people come by the busload from
the four corners of India while making the rounds of the sacred places in the
region. In the town, people are often disturbed by this influx of “outsiders.”
April 4 is the centenary of the coming
of this sage to Pondicherry. Here he remained until the end of his earthly life
on December 5, 1950.
Those who would like to have a more precise
knowledge of this extraordinary being ought to read the book The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, which was published
recently by Columbia University Press, New York.
It can be ordered through the Internet
and is delivered quickly.
The title should not frighten the
reader: the plural “lives” is not meant to suggest that the book is enormous; the
idea rather is to get the reader ready to tackle the story of the life of this
exceptional being, traced through the various stages of life, each quite
different from the other.
The book, which is around 500 pages
long, is remarkable. It is an exhaustive biography of the thinker covering all
the different facets of his life, starting from his birth on August 15, 1872,
in Calcutta. His name “Aurobindo” means “lotus” in Sanskrit. He passed his
childhood in the small provincial town of Rangpur, where his father, a doctor,
held an important position in the medical department. Convinced of the
superiority of English culture, which he wanted his children to absorb, his
father insisted that English, not Bengali, be spoken in his home. It therefore
was in English that Sri Aurobindo thought and expressed himself during his
childhood. The father had great ambitions for his children. He wanted them to
get a real English education so that they could pass the prestigious
competitive examination of the ICS (the equivalent of the National School of
Administration in France), something very few Indians could hope to do. He
therefore left India with his whole family, and settled his three sons in
England. Aurobindo was then 7 years old. He studied up to the secondary level in
Manchester, then went to Cambridge for two years. Here he immersed himself enthusiastically
in Greco-Roman literature as well as classical French culture. But he did not
like England or the English. At Cambridge he adopted the point of view of
Indian nationalism, and gave eloquent speeches on this subject. This was enough
to bar him from an ICS career, in which he had no interest. All this was far
from his father’s dreams, but he did not dare announce his lack of interest openly,
and took part in the competitive examination, but was disqualified for his
inability to pass the riding test.
He made his way back to India, leaving
England in January 1893. But around this time his father died suddenly after
receiving the incorrect news that the ship he thought Aurobindo would be traveling
by had been lost at sea. For years afterwards, the young man carried the bitter
memory of this death associated with his return.
Before his departure, he had been
introduced to the Maharaja of Baroda, who was then passing through London. The
Maharaja offered him an appointment in the administration of his state. Baroda
thus became Aurobindo’s destination when he returned to India. He stayed there
for 13 years, first as an official and then as a teacher. But he did not like
Baroda. Literature was his favorite preoccupation. He wrote poems, some of
which have survived. His emotional ties were with his family in Bengal. In
1901, during a brief stay in Calcutta, he got married.
In Peter Heehs’s book we follow
Aurobindo’s journey to Calcutta and then to Pondicherry. He spent 4 years in
Calcutta, years that were marked by a host of activities: political action,
prison, spiritual practices, and then the secret departure to Pondicherry. To
the people of the city, the long concluding part of Aurobindo’s life is the
best known, but they will have much to learn if they read this fast-paced and
interesting book.
Peter Heehs shows himself to be a very
serious historian who bases his conclusions on documents that are carefully
cited in the endnotes. A bibliography completes the book, which is far indeed from
being a hagiography. We are surprised to
learn that there will be no Indian edition, and that this work is the subject
matter of several court cases. It is hard to believe this. What is the source
of these attacks? Devotees concerned that the image that they had constructed
of their idol has been shaken? Relatives of the persons spoken of in this work?
My mind overflows with conjectures. Peter Heehs presents his characters and
facts with restraint. He speaks for example about Sri Aurobindo’s few lady
acquaintances in a neutral fashion and with discretion. Those who were hostile
to Aurobindo and wronged him are not made the subjects of pejorative comments attempting
to discredit them; on the contrary the author attempts to find the reasons why
they opposed Aurobindo. The author’s
objectivity becomes clear as we read the book. And yet we are informed that
this book has sparked wild reactions in India.
The author has given us a model biography,
which is accessible to the general public.
For this he deserves our thanks.
* * *
Review by Christine Devin
The
Lives of Sri Aurobindo, a
biography by Peter Heehs, who has worked for many years at the Archives
of the
Ashram, was published in the United States
last year, but it does not seem likely that it will be published in India
in the
near future.
Unlike
other books relating the life of Sri Aurobindo, Heehs’s study follows
the norms
of historical writing as practiced in universities, and is based on a
large
number of authentic sources. Peter Heehs has done a great deal of
research
lasting many years, working in archives in Delhi,
Calcutta, Baroda,
London, and Paris.
Three
serious problems must be faced by anyone who would write a biography of
Sri
Aurobindo.
First and
most important: is it necessary or even possible to attempt such a tast?
One
remembers a well-known remark of Sri Aurobindo's: "Neither you nor
anyone
else knows anything at all about my life; it has not been on the surface
for man
to see."
Second
problem: if the biography is intended for academic or intellectual
readers
interested in Sri Aurobindo the poet or the revolutionary, it follows
that any
attention given to his spiritual life will be considered superfluous,
incomprehensible, or belonging to the domain of psychoanalysis and
needing to
be treated as such.
Third
problem: if the book is written for those who are disciples of Sri
Aurobindo,
will they not be shocked by any description or account that alters the
image
they have created of their guru, an image that they venerate deeply.
In my view
– and I know this will sound like a paradox – Heehs’s biography does not
contradict the statement by Sri Aurobindo quoted above. After the reader
closes
the book, Sri Aurobindo seems, even more than before, to be unseizably
immense,
unfathomably deep. In the end, all the incidents that the author
reports, all
the detailed documents and varied testimony he cites, do indeed come
together
to form a silhouette - not that of a man called Sri Aurobindo, but
rather the
silhouette of a Sri Aurobindo that will remain forever ungraspable, and
behind
which can be felt the touch of the infinite. And this evokes in the
reader a
renewed sense of the marvelous. This brings to mind a remark by Madhava
Vidyaranya,
a biographer of Shankaracharya, about his effort to tell the life of
this great
being: “In a small mirror, it is possible to see clearly even the
enormous brow
of an elephant.”
As for the
different expectations of readers who are devotees and readers who are
academics, Peter Heehs seems to have found a fine and subtle balance.
Take for
example the crucial moment in 1908 when Sri Aurobindo met the yogi
Vishnu
Bhaskar Lele, meditated with him and had the experience of absolute
silence,
the formless Brahman. The author lays stress on the dramatic turning
point that
this experience represented at that particular juncture. Sri Aurobindo
had
reached the most intense moment of his political life: “He had arrived in Baroda
[where he had arranged to meet Lele] as a leader of a movement that
involved
the lives and energies of thousands of people. Its demand—independence
from the
world’s dominant imperial power—had enormous potential consequences. As
a
journalist and organizer, Aurobindo’s authority was exceeded only by
Tilak’s;
as an inspiration to the revolutionaries, his influence was unrivalled.
And
for both politicians and revolutionaries, it was a moment of crisis.
The
terrorists had struck in Narayangarh and the police were on their trail.
The
Congress had split and the Extremists were in danger of being shut out
from the
organization. It would thus be safe to say that when Aurobindo left Surat,
he had a number
of things on his mind. Now, by his own account, his mind was ‘full of an
eternal silence.’ ” Sri Aurobindo’s experience of the impersonal Brahman
remained unchanged for several months. In fact, as he would explain
later, it
remained with him for years, so that he could write in 1936 that it was
“there
now though in fusion with other realisations.”
How is a
biographer to deal with such a statement? Up to this moment in Sri
Aurobindo’s
life, Peter Heehs was able to satisfy the
insistence
of critical readers for objective verification. But once Sri Aurobindo
begins
to speak of his own experiences, such verification is no longer
possible. And
yet Heehs knows well that to refuse to deal with Sri Aurobindo’s
experiences
would be to ignore the most important part of his life. Therefore he
attempts
to recount these experiences, making use of what Sri Aurobindo himself
said
about them, without transforming or reducing them to psychoanalytic or
sociological data.
One is therefore surprised to learn that this book has raised an outcry
in India. Some readers are so
scandalized
that they are trying to block the publication of the book in India.
A
petition was circulated accusing the author of “bringing down Sri
Aurobindo very low” and supported only by the sweeping and astounding
statement
that “foreigners are incapable of understanding Indian spirituality or
the
spiritual gurus of India”.
It
is likely that most of the people who signed the petition never even
read
the book. It may well be that a number of sincere disciples of Sri
Aurobindo
were shocked by some of Heehs’s analyses, for example his criticism of
some of
Sri Aurobindo’s poetical works or his remarks on Sri Aurobindo’s
approach
towards the married state. But it is likely that these disciples are not
the
ones who are protesting. Such people know that Sri Aurobindo is too vast
to be diminished
by one or another point of view, interpretation, or possible error of
judgment.
Speaking for myself, I found the book full of new things to learn and
admire. What
is astounding is that a many books published in India
written by “eminent
historians” of the Left, even books used in schools, show Sri Aurobindo
in an
extremely unflattering light. I remember reading in one such book (a
so-called
reference work on the freedom movement) that Sri Aurobindo “fled” to Pondicherry
out of “fear”
of the British. As far as I know, no one has tried to suppress that
book...