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So far we have been discussing the first lines of the Savitri, and we have discussed how our

material universe came into existence. In the last post we have discussed how our mother Earth
was at this stage. We should not forget that at this stage, even though the cosmos has emerged, it
is still in the nescience. For the elimination of this nescience, the Nescient night should open for
the Supreme Dawn, which brings in the Consciousness of Supreme.

Before we continue on we should ask ourselves some questions.


1. Why Sri Aurobindo begins with these lines referring to the creation of the cosmos and the
state before?
2. Why the first canto is named as “The Symbol Dawn”?

Savitri actually begins with the Dawn of the day on which Satyavan is destined to die. The why
does Sri Aurobindo begin with these lines?

Every night is an element of the Nescient Night so far we have discussed, that is the night that
prevails before the outbreak of the Dawn is subjective and indicates the Nescience that reigned
before the cosmos or universe was created. Therefore Sri Aurobindo begins with the lines we
have discussed so far, in a spiritually subjective way, but yet profoundly objective. Sri
Aurobindo has written in a letter about the same as “ The attempt at mystic spiritual poetry of
the kind I am at, demands above all a spiritual objectivity, an intense psycho-physical
concreteness”. (This is the part of the reference I a making. Remaining part will be called in the
later portions of this thread). Another reference given Sri A B Purani from Sri Aurobindo’s
translation of Rig Veda is as follows. This hymn is known as Hymn of Creation.

“Then existence was not nor non-existence, the mid world was not nor the ether nor what is
beyond. What covered all? Where was it? In whose refuge? What was that ocean dense and
deep? Death was not nor immortality nor the knowledge of day and night. That One lived
without breath by this self-law, there was nothing else nor aught beyond ocean of inconscience.
When universal being was concealed by fragmentation, than by the greatness of its energy That
One was born. That moved at first as desire within, which was the primal seed of mind. The seers
of Truth discovered the building of being in non-being by will in the heart and by the thought;
their ray was extended horizontally; but what was there below, what was there above? There
were Casters of the Seed, there were Greatnesses: there was self-law below, there was Will
Above.
Rig Veda X, 129
Therefore this reference to the process of creation is not at all subjective, it is profoundly
objective. Sri Aurobindo symbolically refers to the creation and the state before in these lines.

Now coming to the second question “The Symbol Dawn” is again related to the Vedic goddess
Usha. This nescient night prevailing, then or now opens to Dawn. Again this concept is derived
from Vedic Concepts and therefore is utterly objective, with reference to the following lines
from Sri Aurobindo’s translation of Rig Veda.

“She follows to the goal of those that re passing beyond, She is the first in the eternal succession
of the dawns that are coming, -Usha widens bringing out that which lives, awakening someone
who was dead” (contd.)

Usha is the goddess dawn who appears at the very beginning of the evolution, initiating it. She
fills life or consciousness in the Nescient Night and awakens the dead. Therefore –

“What is her scope when she harmonizes with the dawns that are shone before and those that
now must shine? She desires the ancient mornings and fulfils their light; projecting forwards her
illumination she enters the communion with the rest that are yet to come”
Rig Veda I 113, 8-10.
Usha – Dawn- here symbolizes the continuity – the ever-fresh continuity of the process of Time.
Generally Dawn stands for life eternal, life ever fresh, life ever beautiful. In Savitri it symbolizes
the perpetual (Permanent, Constant, Everlasting) awakening of Night of Nescience to the light of
consciousness, which gives rise to cosmos and then in succession or in successive dawns
awakens in man the aspiration for the Spirit from the normal state of ignorance. That is why we
call the early morning hours as “Uahkaala” and our ancestors suggest that we should wake
before the sunrise, because the dawn awakens the aspiration in us for the Spirit. This is the more
profound and scientific reason behind our parents suggesting us to study in the early morning
hours, because you will understand the things easily. Especially those who are studying Sanskrit,
will get a suggestion from their teachers to study in early morning hours for the same reason.

Therefore now, the material universe has come to existence but is still in the Nescience. Now it
has to open to the dawn, for the process of evolution to continue. In the coming parts we will see
how this aspiration is awakened in the mind of this night and how dawn supersedes this nescient
night.

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