SAIIER 2021:Savitri Bhavan

Indian Film Festival in Auroville		Divine Flowers exhibition
Entity::Savitri Bhavan by Author::Shraddhavan and Dhanalakshmi

Savitri Bhavan has grown up since its inception in 1994 as an educational centre dedicated to fostering awareness and understanding of the vision and teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, which are the underlying foundation of the aims and ideals of Auroville. Its purpose is to gather, create and make available to Aurovilians and members of the interested general public all kinds of materials and activities which will support this awareness and understanding.

Activities of the year:

Due to the COVID pandemic visits to Savitri Bhavan were restricted to a minimum this year. Nevertheless we estimate about 1,000 beneficiaries for all our programmes, including those held online.

Classes:

In order to complete the English of Savitri series, the classes were held online. Now the full sequence of one-hour videos, providing sentence-by-sentence explanations of passages from Sri Aurobindo’s epic Savitri, is available on Savitri Bhavan website as well as on YouTube. A total of 345 videos have been recorded, edited, checked and finally uploaded. This enormous work, extending over several years, has been successfully carried out by an enthusiastic group of 5 Aurovilians making use of Savitri Bhavan’s newly established multi-media studio facilities.

At the request of Savitri lovers, the regular one-and-a-half-hour Sunday morning Savitri Study Circle was continued in the Sangam Hall while observing social distancing and other required anti-covid precautions, and the sessions were also broadcast live. Steps are being taken to make edited versions of these sessions available with sub-titles on the Savitri Bhavan website.

Exhibitions:

Despite lockdown restrictions two exhibitions were held on the Savitri Bhavan premises during the reporting period:

1. “Divine Flowers” exhibition from February 21-28, 2021 (see following report). During the exhibition period two talks were given on the subject of flowers and their spiritual significances: first, on February 22nd, Dr. Alok Pandey spoke on “The Yoga of Nature”; then on February 27th Loretta spoke on “The Mother’s Guidance with Flowers”.
2. CREEVA, an art forum of Auroville, presented an exhibition entitled “Out of Lockdown” featuring paintings created by 20 Aurovilian artists during the lockdown period, which was on display in the Square Hall from 9th to 28th March 2021.

Events:

• On 24th April 2020, to mark the centenary of the Mother’s final arrival in Pondicherry, a second edition of the “Savitri Around the World” parayan was shown live on YouTube. Several new readers participated in this latest version.
• By request, On 29th May 2020 Aurovilian Angad gave a reading at Savitri Bhavan of the famous Uttarpara speech given by Sri Aurobindo on that date after his release from Alipore Jail in 1908. Then on August 15, Angad’s reading was recorded and is now available on the Savitri Bhavan website.
• On 10th January 2021, at the request of the Auromira Centre of London, Shraddhavan gave an online overview of Book Seven, Canto IV: “The Triple Soul-Forces” and Canto V: “The Finding of the Soul”, via Zoom. Savitri-lovers from Sri Aurobindo Centres in England and Europe as well as India participated in this gathering.
• On 28th February 2021 to celebrate the Mother’s birthday, Her chair was put on display in the Sangam Hall for silent concentration. During this time her powerful recorded reading of the entire first Canto of Savitri was played.
• On 5th March 2021 15 children of Deepanam School, Auroville visited Savitri Bhavan.
• On 18th March 2021 18 children and 3 teachers from Arulvazhi school visited Savitri Bhavan. An orientation session was given by Dhanalakshmi.
• Under the frame of ‘Facing mental challenges on the spiritual path’, organized jointly by Santé and the ‘Let’s talk about Death’ group, Dr. Alok Pandey gave a talk on Death on 13th March 2021.

• On 27th March 2021 an online presentation on Savitri was given by Shraddhavan at the request of Auroville International USA. Donations received from about 100 registered participants around the world raised approximately Rs. 4 lakhs for the benefit of the Auroville Central Fund.
• We are happy and gratefully wish to mention that newcomer Matthias Pommerening has provided transcriptions of the Life Divine Sessions held at Savitri Bhavan some years ago. In this reporting year he transcribed 54 sessions up to Chapter XXII: “The Problem of Life”.
• Alexander Pereverzev, a long-term volunteer with Savitri Bhavan presented 3 slide-shows with explanations on 4th February, 18th February and 4th March 2021 on the life and work of Nicholas Roerich, Russian visionary artist, thinker and philosopher. The presentations were well attended and appreciated, and each one was followed by a question-and-answer session.

Publications:

Two more volumes of The English of Savitri series of books were published recently: Volume Seven covers Book Two, Cantos 5 and 6, and Volume Eight covers Book Two, Cantos 7, 8 and 9.

It is intended that during the up-coming 150th anniversary year of Sri Aurobindo (August 15, 2021 to August 15, 2022), publication of four further volumes of The English of Savitri book series will provide complete coverage of Sri Aurobindo’s epic for the assistance of Savitri-lovers and students.

A booklet in English entitled ‘An Introduction to Sri Aurobindo’s Epic Savitri: a Legend and a Symbol’ was published and much appreciated. As a result, the original English version was translated, first into German, and then into Tamil. The second of these was issued as an English-Tamil bi-lingual publication, which has also been much appreciated. Publication of all these volumes was financed by donations received from well-wishers.

One issue of our English journal Invocation (No. 53) was published in November 2020 and sent to regular readers by post. Two issues of our Tamil journal Prarthana (Nos. 34 and 35) were published in August 2020 and February 2021.

Research highlights:

We would like to highlight the Online Encyclopedia of Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri. This project was originally conceived and initiated by some ex-students of SAICE, who wanted to make more widely available all the insights they had received from their wonderful teachers, such as Tehmi, Jhumur-di and others. Shraddhavan heard about their idea and was happy to encourage their efforts. Sebastian Nitzschke, a volunteer from Germany, joined the project to assist in website development and allied ways. Finally, Gopal Ahir joined them as main editor and is currently managing the project together with Sebastian Nitzschke. The 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 can be understood with the help of a dictionary, but the dictionary meaning of the words may not correspond with the significances given to them by Sri Aurobindo in composing his epic. Even with the help of a dictionary, sometimes it is not easy to understand the full meaning of a word because Sri Aurobindo may have used the word in the context of the unfolding spiritual and mystical narrative of the poem. One can visit the website of the Savitri Online Encyclopedia, move the cursor over a word and its meaning will pop up next to it. Thus, the need to search the printed or online dictionary is eliminated.
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. These are indicated by Sri Aurobindo’s symbol – clicking on the symbol shows what Sri Aurobindo wrote to Amal Kiran about those lines or passages.
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. Clicking the EoS sign shows Shraddhavan’s explanation of the word or lines.

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. There is the vision to add more commentary on Savitri from different sources over the next years and new queries about the text will be integrated. The link to the Encyclopedia is: encyclopedia.savitribhavan.org/

Reflections:

The main challenges which Savitri Bhavan and the Savitri Bhavan team had to face during the reporting period were connected with the covid-19 epidemic and the restrictions which had to be observed to protect the health of team-members, staff and students. Facing these challenges led us to experiment with on-line sessions, targeting both local and long-distance audiences, and developing new methods of spreading knowledge about the life, vision and teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. This involved innovative learning for the team as a whole, which will surely be put into practice over the coming months and developed further.

Conclusion:

The experience gained over the last year will certainly be built on and developed in the coming months, particularly in view of the approaching celebration of the 150th anniversary year of Sri Aurobindo, which is scheduled to be celebrated nationwide from August 15, 2021 to August 15 2022. The Savitri Bhavan team is currently engaged in preparations for playing our part in this significant celebration.