Awhile on the chill dreadful edge of Night
All stood as if a world were doomed to die
And waited on the eternal silence' brink…
Hungry beyond, the night desired her soul.
But still in its lone niche of templed strength
Motionless, her flame-bright spirit, mute, erect,
Burned like a torch-fire from a windowed room
Pointing against the darkness' sombre breast.
The Woman first affronted the Abyss
Daring to journey through the eternal Night.
Armoured with light she advanced her foot to plunge
Into the dread and hueless vacancy;
Immortal, unappalled her spirit faced
The danger of the ruthless eyeless waste…   more »

At first in a blind stress of woods she moved
With strange inhuman paces on the soil,
Journeying as if upon an unseen road.
Around her on the green and imaged earth
The flickering screen of forests ringed her steps.
Its thick luxurious obstacle of boughs
Besieged her body pressing dimly through
In a rich realm of whispers palpable,
And all the murmurous beauty of the leaves
Rippled around her like an emerald robe.
But more and more this grew an alien sound,
And her old intimate body seemed to her
A burden which her being remotely bore.
Herself lived far in some uplifted scene
Where to the trance-chained vision of pursuit,
Sole presences in a high spaceless dream,
The luminous spirit glided stilly on
And the great shadow travelled vague behind.
Still with an amorous crowd of seeking hands
Softly entreated by their old desires
Her senses felt earth's close and gentle air…   more »

These 111 photographs of the Samadhi, seven inches by ten inches in size, taken at different times of the day and from different angles, have been collected and printed on art paper in this volume. They evoke the presence of this sacred place with its atmosphere of deep peace and serenity. Many of the photographs capture the beauty of the floral decorations and designs that are created twice daily on the Samadhi. A short introduction records how the care of the Samadhi and its environs developed from December 1950 to the present and includes many of the Mother's instructions on how things were to be kept and arranged.

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This pencil-sketch of Arjava, with the caption below it, is by Amal Kiran drawn on a piece of paper. It is kept by him as a frontispiece in his copy of Poems by Arjava (J A Chadwick) published in 1941. The copy contains, in Amal’s hand, Sri Aurobindo’s comments on a fairly large number of poems. These poems were mostly written during the 1930s. It is significant to note that Arjava the logician-philosopher started writing poetry after joining the Ashram.

The dim and awful godhead rose erect
From his brief stooping to his touch on earth,
And like a dream that wakes out of a dream,
Forsaking the poor mould of that dead clay,
Another luminous Satyavan arose,
Starting upright from the recumbent earth
As if someone over viewless borders stepped
Emerging on the edge of unseen worlds.
In the earth's day the silent marvel stood
Between the mortal woman and the god.
Such seemed he as if one departed came
Wearing the light of a celestial shape
Splendidly alien to the mortal air…
Between two realms he stood, not wavering,
But fixed in quiet strong expectancy…
But now the impulse of the Path was felt
Moving from the Silence that supports the stars
To touch the confines of the visible world.
Luminous he moved away…   more »

In his copy of Arjava’s Poems, Amal Kiran has pasted as frontispiece the pencil impression of Arjava made by himself, Amal Kiran. He is shown clad in dhoti and a buttoned-up shortish kurta, with a walking stick in his hand. He is well-groomed, has a pointed nose and a pointed chin. In this copy of his Amal has, importantly, copied Sri Aurobindo’s comments on the poems. Amal writes about Arjava’s poetry as follows: “As we might expect of a mind trained to careful intellectuality, Chadwick—or Arjava, as he came to be known from the name Arjavananda (meaning "Joy of straightforwardness") given him by Sri Aurobindo—did not achieve closeness to the Ideal through a lavish spontaneity whose very breath is song. A deliberate self-critical compact perfection belonged to him. Instead of taking the Kingdom of Heaven by a stormy frontal assault, he laid slow siege to it and won its treasures by patient compulsion—a victory no less complete though differing in plan and technique. Here too is a superb energy of imagination expended not so much in a royal diffusion as in concentrated exquisiteness or magnificence. We feel, to quote the poet's own words from a sonnet, "a chaos-ending chisel-smite" in each work—a faultless statue emerges in which every line and curve has been traced by an inspired precision…” This is one of the deepest studies on the Ovehead poetry that has come after Sri Aurobindo and it must prove immensely helpful in our critical appreciation as well as creative effort. ...   more »

The two opposed each other with their eyes,
Woman and universal god: around her,
Piling their void unbearable loneliness
Upon her mighty uncompanioned soul,
Many inhuman solitudes came close.
Vacant eternities forbidding hope
Laid upon her their huge and lifeless look,
And to her ears silencing earthly sounds,
A sad and formidable voice arose
Which seemed the whole adverse world's. “Unclasp,” it cried,
“Thy passionate influence and relax, O slave
Of Nature, changing tool of changeless Law,
Who vainly writhst rebellious to my yoke,
Thy elemental grasp; weep and forget.
Entomb thy passion in its living grave.
Leave now the once-loved spirit's abandoned robe:
Pass lonely back to thy vain life on earth.”
It ceased, she moved not and it spoke again…   more »

A book of tributes entitled Dr. M. V. Nadkarni—A journey on the Sunlit Path is going to be released on Friday 4 April 2008 at the Society Beach Office in Pondicherry. Arun Vaidya’s article which appears in it is being posted here, particularly in view of the two photographs that accompany it.—RYD   more »