Book Description

The Symbol Dawn, the opening Canto of Sri Aurobindo's epic Savitri, has been the subject matter of many studies, and many studies will continue to appear, will continue to flourish and develop. There have been explanations and theses and dissertations written on it, any number of them, elucidations, talks, paintings, musical, choreographical presentations and representations, there will be sculptures and multi-media expositions based on it. The explorative dimensions are countless. The richness, the universality of it is inexhaustible and the creative spirit can reach intense depths or broadest widenesses or lofty heights. In fact these can be the means for endless realisations which Savitri holds for it. "It is a marvellous work, magnificent and of an incomparable perfection." This is what the Mother said about Savitri, Savitri whose "revelation is prophetic". What she said is seen in its fullness in the very first Canto itself, a Canto which got crystallised after some two dozen plus definitive drafts. Its inspiration is from another new realm of poetry: It is Overhead Poetry that brings to us the utterance of the dynamic and beauteous spirit itself.Sri Aurobindo's own early statement about Savitri is: "it is only an attempt to render into poetry a symbol of things occult and spiritual." Perhaps this symbol, of things occult and spiritual, is heaviest and profoundest in The Symbol Dawn, the dawn symbolising the appearance of a new and marvellous creation here on earth, in the mortal world. Our endeavour is to go essentially by the original text itself and see to what extent one can read those multiple layers of symbolism that are present in this rosy-fingered Dawn.