Jugal Kishore Mukherjee’s 50-page Letter

Source: http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2011/11/4/4930804.html

36: The Editing of Savitri—Jugal Kishore Mukherjee’s 50-page Letter [A]

by RY Deshpande on Fri 04 Nov 2011 03:30 AM IST  |  Permanent Link  |  Cosmos

 

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With this thirty-sixth instalment in four parts of Jugal Kishore Mukherjee’s letter, we will be concluding the on-going series of posts dealing with general aspects of Savitri-editing. Actually the full title of the series is The Editing of Savitri—Comments-Notes-Memoirswhich will spread over three major volumes. What we have here is Part One which has already run into some 800 A-4 sheets (Words: 280 000); Part Two and Part Thee will be equally voluminous. We shall take these as we shall proceed. ~ RYD

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The Critical Edition of Savitri: Some Final Observations on the Table of Corrections

As the following Paper will be rather a lengthy one, closely reasoned and laced with documentary evidences, readers many find it inconvenient to keep track of the very various lines of argument that will be advanced against the quasi-total acceptance of the Table of Corrections got up by the editors of the Critical Edition.

 

The following Table of Contents giving the thematic captions of the different Sections treated in this Paper maybe of some help to them if they wish to re-read any of the Sections of their choice.

 

An attentive reading, without skipping, on the part of the readers is begged for by the author of this essay.

 

Merci Beaucoup

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee

 

24 April 1988-1 May 1988

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Contents

1. 1.    How all this started
2. 2.    Issues—marginal and central
3. 3.    KDS reversing his earlier decisions
4. 4.    Who is seeking to amend Sri Aurobindo? Consistency and ‘Normalisation’ “Sri Aurobindo’s Intention” & “Sri Aurobindo’s Practice”
5. 5.    “Jugal’s pursuit of a will-o’- the-wisp”—“Bee in Jugal’s bonnet”          
6. 6.    “One or two or even more” but in any case “rare”?
7. 7.    “Compositors’ fault”?
8. 8.    “Most” of the “corrections” having “better significance” and “greater appropriateness”?—No. —Argument in 14 Categories and 16 pages
9. 9.    KDS not always well-briefed in advance          
10. 10.  “But it is in the copy-text!”—What does it signify?
11. 11.  Inevitable human “errors” and deliberately introduced changes
12. 12.  “Scientific attitude” or “pseudoscientific dogma”?
13. 13.  Dictated lines’ punctuation altered
14. 14.  “Dictated lines” written by the scribe cannot be given the status of a copy-text to be followed in toto
15. 15.  In matters of punctuation, Sri Aurobind’s MS  too should be judiciously followed
16. 16.  Sri Aurobindo would not passively listen: He was alert and attentive
17. 17.  A proper re-investigation and re-evaluation is bound to lead to the rejection of many of the listed “corrections”
18. 18.  “Checking and rechecking of the original manuscripts under the supervision of Nirodbaran and K.D. Sethna”?—Doubtful.
19. 19.  “Even one single error in the Table of Corrections is worth ferreting out”
20. 20.  About consulting the manuscripts
21. 21.  As Nirod-da rightly suggests
22. 22.  Let Nirod-da decide

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Sri Aurobindo Ashram

Pondicherry

April 24, ‘88

 

Some Final Observations on “The Table of Corrections” by Jugal Kishore Mukherjee

 

This will be my very last polemical essay on Savitri: whatever may be the provocation—intellectual or otherwise, I shall refrain from any more controversial discussion centering around the “corrections” proposed by the Table as published on pages 189–235 of Archives and Research journal in its issue of December 1986.

 

This being my last communication on the topic it is liable to be somewhat lengthy. Yet I fear, I shall not be able to cover all the necessary points: time and space both forbid that. And that is not essential either. For by now, let us hope, the respective positions taken and the viewpoints adopted by the two sides in this intellectual disputation have been made amply clear to each other. So what’s the point in covering the same ground again and again or in repeating the same arguments ad nauseam? With little bit of good will and understanding on the part of all concerned, I still feel that the two positions can be easily harmonised  “for Savitri’ precious sake” (to quote a felicitous expression used by KDS, our respected Amal-da). But, for whatever reasons, if the valid points of the two positions are not allowed to be accommodated in a synthetic whole, let us accept the deplorable fact and part in good friendship.

 

Argumentation and counter-argumentation indefinitely carried on will not lead us anywhere. So, without indulging in any rhetoric or importing any emotional overtone, I propose to confine myself, in this last communication of mine, to the bare elaboration of certain facts and the pointed mention of some important factors having possible bearing on the decision one will finally arrive at.

 

Section 1: How all this started…

For the last six or seven months KDS and myself have been happily carrying on a very fruitful exchange of our mutual notes and observations concerning quite a few of the “corrections” listed in the Table.  All throughout this exercise my attitude has never been of scoring or debating point here and there but rather of ridding this “Table” of some dubious entries arising out of possible ‘errors of misjudement’, so that the final Critical Edition may be made as authentic as possible.

 

As a matter of fact this is what I wrote to KDS on 1-9-87 after having carefully gone through his essay bearing the title “The Problem of the Critical Edition of Savitri”.

 

I want with all my heart, as everyone else does, that Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri should come out in as perfect a form as is humanly possible in the hands of the editors. In no way should any avoidable slip come in which may unwittingly mar the beauty and the thought of the Poem.

 

So, faced with the Table of Corrections I asked myself:

• Suppose you have some natural intelligence;
• Suppose you are a reasonably good proof-reader;
• Suppose for a moment that Sri Aurobindo himself asks you to study these proposed ‘corrections’ and place your own suggestions at his feet for his gracious consideration leading to the acceptance of some and the rejection of some others,

 

how would you have done your job? Be sincere with yourself and do that now. No other extraneous consideration, not even the slightest trace of personal feeling or rancour, should be allowed to spoil your humble service to Sri Aurobindo. On to your task now with the calm but sacred zeal necessary for it.

 

Well, this is the attitude that is actuating me all through my work of framing my humble suggestions- humble but sincere, humble but uninhibited.

 

Please judge my labour of love in the proper light and do not misunderstand me.

 

Please do not suspect any evil motive behind my action. This is my only appeal.

 

Well, much water has flown through the Ganga since September of yester-year. I have very attentively scrutinised every one of the 1795 (Is it 1795?—I have not personally counted) listed “corrections” for the entire book of Savitri, studying each one in relation to its immediate as well as overall context. This has confirmed my earlier fears and, I hope, I have been by now able to demonstrate to KDS and my four other friends (Nirod-da, Manoj DG, Paru P and Deshpande-bhai) that before being sent to the press the Table of Corrections indeed needed a second re-appraisal; for, it is now recognised by all concerned that at least some of the listed “corrections”—if not many, many—could by no means be incorporated into the body of Savitri. The spell of initial complacency is broken and I am satisfied that my labour of love has been vindicated.

 

I said “at least some”. In fact, the number is quite large. And I wonder what’s the use of ‘correcting’ a hundred ‘transmission errors’ if at the same time we introduce on our own 30 new “errors” arising out of hasty judgment or misjudgment? And this misjudgment has been on many counts. One failed to take into consideration the facts that (i) the altered contexts because of the addition of new line/s by Sri Aurobindo necessitated some alterations in punctuations / capitalisation; (ii) that Sri Aurobindo himself introduced some changes in the ‘press proofs’; (iii) that with Sri Aurobindo’s approval NKG and others made some appropriate alterations in punctuation; (iv) etc.

           

Recently I have gone very very carefully through KDS’ piece “A Serious Response to an ‘Earnest Plea’“; I have read too his letter of 11.4.88 addressed to Nirod-da; I have also studied and analysed the xerox-copy of the Hs of a page of Savitri kindly sent to me by KDS.

 

KDS has raised some points in his “Serious Response”; to keep the record straight I am constrained to refer to some other equally important points. In support of his points KDS has adduced some instances; I too may be allowed to cite some instances to substantiate my points. My present communication will be mostly confined to this task. Our friends will be left to deduce the necessary conclusions.

 

Of course the limitation of space will not allow me to cite many, many instances; I have to content myself with the citing of one or two or a few examples in each category. But more can be produced on specific request.

 

Section 2: Issues marginal and central

The very first thing I would like to point out is the surprising fact that KDS, in his “Serious Response”, has spent much time and space to treat some marginal cases of not much intrinsic importance while he has remained silent till this day about some other more serious and crucial queries I raised in course of my weekly communications. I shall refer to some of these latter cases a little farther on.

 

First about “Eldorado” (“Serious Response”, p. 2). I don’t think I ever made an issue of whether this word should have its plural with simple—s or rather with—es. I was merely curious to know how Sri Aurobindo had spelt its plural form, the usage varying with different authors. Actually this what I had written to KDS on 1-9-87:

 

G.H. Vallins in his Good English writes:

 

Most familiar nouns ending in –o add –es for the plural. Nouns borrowed from other languages, and less familiar words generally, follow the normal rule, and add –s: folio – folios, ghetto – ghettos. … However, the matter is not serious. Even the experts are divided. Fowler, for example, says that the plural of manifesto is manifestos; but the Shorter Oxford Dictionary says manifestoes, which is certainly the popular, and therefore the correct, form in Modern English. (p. 239)

 

Please check out how Sri Aurobindo himself wrote this word in the plural: Eldoradoes or Eldorados.

 

So, there is no question of charging you with having reversed your earlier decision because you had merely stated: “No opinion.”

 

Now ‘horseback’. This too is an issue of marginal importance. I never suggested that the solid word horseback must have to be retained. I merely expressed my personal preference for this solid form and wrote to KDS on 31-10-87:

 

“In all the 4 dictionaries I have, including the Chambers’s, it is one solid word ‘horseback’. Why not allow this to stay in its present form?”

 

That’s all I wrote. But now KDS in his “Serious Response” (p. 2, para 2) has referred to this case and commented in this way:

 

I [KDS] may, in passing, say that sometimes even when not making an issue of the “table” Jugal seemed insensitive to fine shades. Thus, for him, one of the possible errors, though not thought worth contesting vehemently, was the Table’s hyphenation in ‘horseback’ in the line:

 

And sets on a high horseback of argument…

(Cent. 252: 11)

 

The unhyphenated ‘horseback’ would be correct, though not quite imperative, in a phrase like ‘on horseback’, meaning ‘mounted on a horse’, but there is in Sri Aurobindo’s line the indefinite article ‘a’, besides the adjective ‘high’. This completely changes the situation and takes the expression out of the usual idiom-category, breaking it into two related words. Further, the scansion, beginning with iamb and anapaest, stresses more the second syllable than the first in the third foot’s spondaic rhythm, whereas in the idiom the accent is altogether on the first. A hyphen is very apt.” (Serious Response”, p. 2)

 

Yes, I avow, I am quite an ignoramus so far as the finer implication of the iamb- anapaest-spondee analysis of the line is concerned, although I dabble in verse-making im my own native tongue Bengali—a fact that is known to Nirod-da. Knowing next to nothing about the prosody of English verse I fail to grasp the subtle logic which makes the hyphen apt in the case of the ‘horseback’ of this particular line. But this I know for certain that all the eight standard dictionaries we have in our “Knowledge” Library recommend the solid word ‘horseback’; as yet I have not come across a single dictionary which prefers the hyphenated ‘horse-back’. The dictionaries that I have consulted so far are as follows:

 

(i)Chambers, (ii) Oxford, (iii) Harrap, (iv) Cassell’s Englsih-French Dictionary, (v) Appleton’s English-Spanish Dictionary, (vi) Webster, (vii) Cassell’s English-German Dictionary and (viii) Amador’s Englsih-Spanish Dictionary (Barcelona).

 

Well, when it is a fact that the solid word ‘horseback’ is found printed in all the editions of Savitri, including those which came out in Sri Aurobindo’s lifetime, and when all the dictionaries favour this form, what special necessity is there to replace it by the ‘inappropriate’ form ‘horse-back’? If the answer is that the iamb-anapaest-spondaic pattern demands it, I keep mum.

 

As I have mentioned above, these questions of ‘horseback’ (or ‘horse-back’) or ‘Eldoradoes’ (or ‘Eldorados’) are not at all central ones; they are issues of minor peripheral importance. If the attention is disproportionately focused on these relatively unimportant questions, this will have the effect of shifting the discussion from the ‘Centre Court’ to a ‘side lane’ and sidetracking queries of greater import. Here are some typical instances.

 

In the case of the following and many others I have made pointed queries and have been eagerly waiting  for the responses; but till this date neither KDS nor anyone else has made me aware of the results of the investigations if at all these have been ever undertaken. I cite below only a few sample cases:

 

(1) The 1950-version has

 

On the tree of sacrifice of spiritual love.

(Cent. p. 190, l. 22)

 

The Table of Corrections proposes the correction: tree-of-sacrifice

 

Did Sri Aurobindo himself hyphenate in this way? in the copy text of ’44?

 

(2) A similar question concerning the line 24 of page 234 of Cent. Ed.

 

The 1950-text has: white-blue moonbeam

 

The Table wants to correct it to: white-blue-moonbeam

 

Is white-blue-moonbeam found in Sri Aurobindo’s own handwritten manuscripts?

 

(3) Ref. Cent. p. 150, l. 8

The 1950-text has it as

 

Thought was its apex or its gutter’s rim:

 

The Table proposes to change it into ‘apex – or’. Was it so in the ’44-text?

           

(4) Cent. p. 312, l. 13

The 1950-text has ‘her self’; the “Table” proposes to replace the two separate words by the compound expression ‘herself’. But why?

 

This is what I had written to KDS on 9-8-87:“The history of the case is very interesting. In the 1947 fascicle edition the line was:

 

Wearing, as if the sweet summary of her soul,

(p. 3, 1. 8)

 

In the 1950- edition (p. 284, l. 10), Sri Aurobindo changed ‘her soul’ to ‘her self’. ‘soul’ was altered to ‘self’: that’s all. So, let ‘her self’ remain as two distinct and separate words; these should not be compounded into a single pronomial word ‘herself’.”

                                   

As the change was made after 1947 and before 1950, it must have been a dictated one; presumably it was not there in Sri Aurobindo’s ’44 copy text. Then who is deciding to turn the printed ‘her self’ into ‘herself’?

 

My query has remained unanswered till this day.                                           

 

(5)   Ref. Cent. p. 263, l. 1

The 1950-edition has ‘steals from a lost heaven’.

 

The Table of Corrections wants to give the pride of place to ‘steals in from lost heavens’. But why?

 

This is what I had written to KDS on 8-11-87:

 

I wonder, what’s the history behind the changes? ‘in’ is dropped; ‘heavens’ is brought down to the singular number; and consequently the indefinite article ‘a’ is put before ‘lost’. These alterations are too deliberate to have been inadvertently made. Why not put the later version in the body of the Poem?

 

Then, on 15-12-87, I brought to KDS’s notice the significant fact that Sri Aurobindo was quite aware of the presence of ‘steal from a lost heaven’ when he made some changes thereabout. (vide J’s supplementary List C, p. 6) KDS had written back to me: “ ‘steals in’ is a better expression in this place than ‘steals’. But how did the line come out different from the version in the copy-text? Richard is to be consulted.”

 

I have been left in the dark as regards the outcome of this consultation.

 

(6) Ref. Cent. p. 320, l. 25

The 1950-text has the line as follows:

 

Beyond the sight, the last support form,

 

The Table of Corrections proposes to replace the line, in the body of Savitri by the altered line ‘Beyond the sight that seeks support of form’. But why?

 

This is what I had written to KDS on 3-10-87:

 

Personally speaking, I would prefer the existing version of 1950 to remain in the main body of the Poem and the variant to go to the footnote. One can write a lot on the truth of ‘the sight being the last support of form.’

 

Then on 15-12-87 I brought to notice of KDS the results of my further research. I wrote to him:

 

The preceding page (319 of Cent.) and the following page (p. 321) are full of changes and changes and changes—so many, in fact, that it would be well-nigh impossible for me to cite them all here. You may please compare pp. 319- 320 of Cent. with fascicle (1947), from p. 2 / last line to p. 5 / line 10. But the central point is that Sri Aurobindo consciously accepted ‘sight, the last’ (fascicle, p. 4, line 20; Cent. p. 320, 1. 25) when he made all these multifarious changes thereabout. The conclusion is obvious.

 

To this KDS wrote back to me: “I must consult Richard here and solve the mystery of the two versions which differ so much in sense. If ‘that seeks’ is in the copy-text, how did ‘the last’ come in? “

 

Alas, to this day I have not received any clarification. These are only few instances and there are many more equally important which could profitably be attended to instead of tackling the peripheral issues of ‘Eldorado’ and ‘horseback’.

 

Here are few more representative queries for which I sought some clarification but which remain unanswered till now.

 

 (7) Ref. Cent. p. 15, l. 11

It is ‘temple door’ in fascicle (without any hyphen) in Sri Aurobindo’s letter to KDS, dated 1936: vide Cent. p. 760, l. 10

 

It remains ‘temple door’ in fascicle ’47, p. 5, 1. 8.

 

It continues to remain ‘temple door’ in the 1950-edition, p. 15, last line.

 

But the Table of Corrections wants to have instead ‘temple-door’.

           

When did this hyphenated form appear for the first time and how did it eventually disappear? Why to bring it back again?

 

(8) Ref. Cent. p. 15, l. 35

 A similar question confronts us here.

 

It is ‘air’ (without any punctuation mark after it) in Sri Aurobindo’s letter to KDS, of the year 1936.

 

Even after 11 years it remains the same ‘air’ in fascicle ’47, p. 5, l. 11 from below.

 

The 1950-edition reproduces the same ‘air’ on p. 16, 1. 24.

 

But the Table of Corrections proposes to insert a comma after air.

 

I had asked KDS why to introduce a comma after air after so many years. KDS examined, in our presence in one of our early group-meetings, Sri Aurobindo’s handwritten copy-text of 1944 and wrote to me:

 

There is a faint long stroke in the MS, unlike Sri Aurobindo’s small short comma. I don’t give much weight to the stroke, but Nirod favours it. In any case it can stand. It raises no serious question.

 

“It raises no serious question”.—That’s right. But is this the adequate explanation for the proposed insertion of a comma now? Whether the comma can stand or not, when it is not essential and presumably not in the copy-text, why insist on introducing it now?

 

(9) Ref. Cent. p. 340, l. 34

The issue is of ‘in earthly’ or ‘can eartly’.

      The 1950- text as well as the two earlier editions have:

 

Cease not from knowledge, let thy toil be vast,

No more in earthly limits pen thy force;

Equal thy work with long unending Time’s.

 

The “Table of Corrections” proposes to put a full-stop after vast and replace “in earthly limits” by “can earthly limits” so that the altered lines will read:

 

Cease not from knowledge, let thy toil be vast.

No more can earthly limits pen thy force;

Equal thy work with long unending Time’s.

 

When I raised the issue in our group-meeting, KDS consulted the manuscripts and found that in both Sri Aurobindo’s handwritten copy-text and Nirod-da’s scribal copy it is ‘in’ as in 1950-text and not ‘can’.

 

But on p. 15 of his typed essay “The problem of the Critical Edition of Savitri, KDS mentions inter alia:

 

It is in a later manuscript that ‘can’ makes it appearance and there is a full-stop after ‘vast’. Obviously the published version comes from the earlier manuscript.

 

In a ‘later manuscript’? Even after the ’44 copy-text, Sri Aurobindo wrote in his own hand ‘can’? Did he cancel out the ‘in’ of the copy-text? And how to know that this was indeed a ‘later’ manuscript and not one anterior to the ’44 copy-text? This last question arises because of the following statement of the editors of the Critical Edition:

It may be that the scribe began to make the copy before the revision had been completed. Chronological precision is not possible since relatively few of the manuscripts were dated. Here, and in other matters of sequence, only a broad measure of accuracy is possible. (underlined ours; Archives and Research, December 1986)

 So, should we not be absolutely sure before the ‘in’ is replaced by ‘can’?

 

Section 3: Reversing the earlier decisions

KDS has referred to the case of ‘largesse’ (of the 1950-edition) which the Table of Corrections proposes to replace by the usual spelling ‘largess’ (without the terminal e).

 

But I have never insisted on the acceptance of either of the variant spellings: Personally I fancy the 50-version ‘largesse’: that’s all. As a matter of fact, in my weekly quota of queries and suggestions sent to KDS I did not include the proposed ‘largess’ in my category of inappropriate’ entries: This is what i wrote to KDS on 19-9-87:

 

Both the spellings are admissible. So we need not correct the existing form unless Sri Aurobindo himself wrote in his manuscript ‘largess’. Will you please check once again? Largesse has a beautiful Gallic flavour. I prefer it. Compare, in this connection, another word ‘astuce’ used by Sri Aurobindo:

 

                        Like God in his astuce of artist skill.

(Cent. p. 512, l. 21)

 

This is all that I wrote and it is KDS himself who commented on his own: “Nobody on his own would prefer ‘largess’ to largesse’.  No need to consult Sri Aurobindo’s MS. We may assume that he has dropped the e.”

 

Now if in his “Serious Response”, p. 2, KDS writes:

 

As  regards ‘largess’, I had never come to across this spelling (nor I in my limited study—Jugal) but recently I discovered it in both the Oxford and the Chambers Dictionaries to be an accepted alternative to the version I had always employed: “largesse”. 

 

Well, now after consulting the dictionaries if KDS prefers the introduction of the “corrected” spelling ‘largess’, that is quite OK. As I did not consider ‘largess’ as inappropriate, why should the change of opinion on the part of KDS in this particular case be shocking to me? Not at all.

 

No; when I complained of KDS’s supposed volte-face I had more serious cases in mind. I cite here only one as an illustrative example.

 

Ref. Cent. p. 20, l. 11: The 1950-text has the line:

 

A prayer, a master act, a king idea

 

The “Table of Corrections” seeks to hyphenate king and idea and replace ‘king idea’ by ‘king-idea’.  ‘king-idea’ matches very well with ‘master act’. And there is no scope here for any miscomprehension. Why hyphenate king and idea unless Sri Aurobindo himself has done so. Please check with the manuscript.

 

KDS consulted the copy-text and discovered something surprising. In his reply he wrote to me:

 

In the copy-text, I read: ‘A prayer, a master act, a king idea’. I don’t consider ‘king’ and ‘idea’ hyphenated. ‘masteract’ (one word) is a hurried combination. Sri Aurobindo couldn’t have meant it.

 

Again on 29-8-87 KDS confirmed his decision in these words:            “I don’t think there is really a hyphen in the copy-text.”

 

Well, I thought, at least in this case the question has been settled. But to my perplexed surprise KDS wrote to me on Jan. 12, ’88, after a lapse of three and a half months:

 

‘King’ as a noun-adjective occurs 4 times already in Savitri with a hyphen. Non-hyphenation here must be a mistake.

 

Well, it took my breath away. “Must be a mistake”! Mistake on whose part? Sri Aurobindo’s? And who now corrects Sri Aurobindo’s mistake in the name of statistical “consistency”? Then why say: “All the listed ‘corrections’ are in Sri Aurobindo’s own copy-text?”

 

And how many instances of this type of misjudgment have crept in, I wonder.

 

Section 4: Who is seeking to amend Sri Aurobindo?

Consistency & Normalisation: “Sri Aurobindo’s Intention” & “Sri Aurobindo’s practice”

 

The proposed rectification of Sri Aurobindo’s ‘king idea’ to hyphenated form ‘king- idea’, simply because there are four other instances where king is followed by a hyphen, forgetting the context of ‘master act’, prompts me to consider here and now a very serious question: Who is seeking to make Sri Aurobindo ‘consistent”? Who is seeking to “normalise” capitalisation, punctuation, hyphenation and spellings in Savitri?

 

A not-so-careful first reading of KDS’s “Serious Response” is apt to create in the unwary mind of the reader the altogether wrong impression that it is ‘Jugal’ who is the ‘culprit’ in this case. Anyone who has not attentively followed the nature of the weekly queries I submitted before KDS for his kind consideration is bound to believe, after having gone through “Serious Response”, that Jugal has been all the time manoeuvering to “set Sri Aurobindo straight” and alter his writing to make it conform to consistency, while KDS has been trying to defend Sri Aurobindo’s practice! This is NOT AT ALL TRUE. The fact is that the boot is on someone else’s leg, not Jugal’s.

 

I shall presently come to the expounding of this point but before that let me quote from “Serious Response” some of the passages which through persuasive logic and telling suggestion transfers the blame upon on me. Here is what KDS has written:

 

“But surely one can’t put Sri Aurobindo in a strait jacket? Should we not let him be creatively free? We have to be plastic if we are to keep pace with his –mooded steps.” (“Serious Response”, p. 7)

 

We can’t chop and change wherever we find Sri Aurobindo varying his practice from place to place. Except when we run into an obvious oversight or slip on his part, have we the right set him straight? I personally would like him to follow a fixed line, but I am not the author of Savitri. Nolini, Prithwisingh and Kishor appear to have had the same respect for Sri Aurobindo and not challenged his privilege to be a literary chameleon whenever he chooses. Occasionally the contexts can be made to account for the dissimilarities of colour but often we have no explanation for his being strangely many-aspected. To deal with Sri Aurobindo we need a plastic mind. We must also deal with him without sophistry. (Ibid, p. 8)

 

Whatever KDS has said above is altogether unexceptionable in substance and sentiment. Although I shall not dare to call Sri Aurobindo ‘a chameleon’ albeit ‘literary’, I am in full agreement with the point he wants to make. I too have been consistently and persistently  pleading against unnecessary ‘normalisation’.

 

But we differ on one essential point, which creates all the divergence in our respective approaches. Some would like to make Sri Aurobindo ‘stagnate’ at an arbitrarily fixed cut-off year and consider all further additions and alterations as “transmission errors” liable to be purged—unless there are recorded evidences available with the editors to prove that they are not so; whereas I want Sri Aurobindo’s last versions (finalised in his lifetime) to be taken as they are—unless they are found to be manifestly inapproariate because of inevitable human errors of transmission. But wherever any change is found to have been deliberately made—deliberate because of contextual exigence and harmony – this should not be disturbed, must be retained.

 

“Must be retained”, because it has now been demonstrated beyond any pale of doubt that (i) Sri Aurobindo made some alterations and addition in the various press-proofs also that (ii) Sri Aurobindo approved of punctuational and allied changes brought about by Nolini-da in his typescripts; finally that (iii) Sri Aurobindo accepted some minor suggestions sent up to him by earlier editors and proof-readers. In the absence of any written confirmatory evidence as regards these various changes approved by Sri Aurobindo and incorporated in the body of Savitri, how can anyone apply his literary axe now, being solely guided by his mental judgment? For in the process, one may very possibly reverse some of Sri Aurobindo’s own decisions. And surely that cannot be the right course.

 

Also, in the name of “Sri Aurobindo’s intention” we may eliminate or introduce something which may not be in all cases infallible.

 

Finally, what right has one to make Sri Aurobindo move backward in the name of conforming his writings to his “own practice” when none of us know how much of the “later practice” was sanctioned by Sri Aurobindo himself?

 

KDS has often remarked that here and there, there have been ‘obvious oversights and slips’—and I say, minor inconsistencies—on Sri Aurobindo’s part in his earlier manuscripts. Now, some of these have been later on rectified in the printed texts—presumably with Sri Aurobindo’s approval—should we nullify these rectifications and bring back these already discarded ‘oversights and slips’? What service would it be to Sri Aurobindo?

 

Be it unambiguously noted that I am NOT for anybody now correcting Sri Aurobindo’s “oversights and slips”: the striking example of ‘twixt’ and ‘in’ is a case in point (Cent. p. 347, l. 31).

 

But, if any are already found to be “set right” in the ’50 and ’51 editions of Savitri—whose press-copies were finalised when Sri Aurobindo was still there in his physical body—these should not be rejected now and the earlier not–so-appropriate variants brought back.

 

KDS has asked: “Have we the right to him (Sri Aurobindo) straight?” But who proposes to set Sri Aurobindo straight NOW. Not I surely. Have ever had the presumption to say such a silly thing and recommend such a foolish course of action? No, never.

Let me repeat once again what I have already said, only to make my position unambiguously clear:

 

Never for a moment can I recommend anybody “correcting” or “normalising” Sri Aurobindo’s writing NOW. What I want is that Sri Aurobindo should not be sought to be “fossilised” at a particular year in time: he should be allowed to alter and improve his own writing ever in the course of progressing years. And hence whatever of Savitri represented his final touch and approval should not be tampered with in favour of his earlier version—unless, of course, it is proved to be self-evidently due to a human error of transmission.

 

            I think I have been able to make my position crystal-clear.

 

This brings us to discuss the question whether or not at Sri Aurobindo’s own instance or with his approval any changes were brought about at the stages f proof-reading. But all the press-proofs at various stages of printing of Savitri have vanished. Then, how to prove or disprove the point?

 

I suggested a possible way out of the impasse. Why not compare the immediately preceding press-copy (Nolini-da’s typescript) and the immediately issuing printed text that comes out of the press? Any divergences anywhere between these two proximate versions are apt to reveal what were introduced in the missing proofs. And, logically, this applies not only to the case of the 1950- edition but also to the case of all other earlier printed publications including these which came out under the editorship either of Nolini-da or of Kishor-bhai.

 

But is there any prima facie evidence at all that there are any divergences between any two successive printed texts of Savitri which cannot be accounted for extant written records of the changes? Yes, there is, and the discussion of this point leads us to the next section.

 

Section 5:  “Jugal’s pursuit of a will-o’-the-wisp”: “The bee in Jugal’s bonnet”

First with the 1950-edition. KDS begins his “Postscript” (in “Serious Response”, p. 12) with these words:

 

In justice to Jugal I must consider the one case where he claims to hve indubitable evidence of Sri Aurobindo effecting a change for the 1950 edition. In the Centenary Edition 126: 2 we read:

 

            His victor Light rode on her deathless Force:

 

The Table of Corrections alters the closing colon to a semi-colon. The colon here, as also in the earlier 1954 edition, hails from 1950. Jugal comments apropos of the alteration for the Critical Edition: “It was indeed a semi-colon after ‘Force’ in Kishor-bhai’s publication but it was replaced by a colon in the 1950-edition. Could the replacement have been done without Sri Aurobindo’s approval?”

 

KDS has studied this colon-sign “under a magnifying glass” and come to the conclusion: “Sharp scrutiny convinces one that, whatever else the mark may be, it is not a clear-cut colon. A semi-colon is the only alternative according to the appearance of the three-dotted slightly irregular sign.” (“Serious Response”, p. 12)

 

KDS concludes his “Postscript” in this way: “Unluckily what looked like a strong claim for a change in the 1950-edition on Sri Aurobindo’s own initiative proves to be extremely dubious, the pursuit of a will-o’-the-wisp.” (p. 12)

 

 “The one case”?—And that too is disposed of: Well, I cite here 4 more cases. Let me hope all these too will not turn into “will-o’-the-wisp”s.

           

Cent. p. 3, l. 11: God-touch or god-touch

Fascicle 1947, p.3, l. 10 has God-touch.

But the ’50- edition (p. 5, l. 8) has god-touch.

 

Cent. p. 61, 1. 13: seer; or Seer;

The Advent, Nov. ’47, p. 208, last line has Seer;

But the ’50-edtion (p. 56, l. 3 from below) changes it to seer; (to make it uniform with ‘actor’, ‘        knower’ and ‘dreamer’).

 

Cent. p. 312, 1. 13: her self or herself

The Advent, Feb. ’47, p.8, 1. 10 from below has her soul

Fascicle ’47, p. 3 has the same her soul

But the 1950-ed. (p. 284, l. 10) alters it to her self

 

Cent. p. 146, l. 11: force. Or force,

Kishor-bhai’s publication (Book II, Canto 4), p. 49, l. 11 f. b: force.

But the 1950-edition, p. 133, l. 3 has force,

(The question is not of which sign is better, the comma or the period. The issue now is of divergence detected in the ’50-text.)

 

N.B.—Here is another instance of divergence (fascicle’s Aswapaty changed to Aswapathy in 1950). I never even imagined of citing this instance; it is KDS himself who has refered to this case and surmised that it must have been one of ‘transmission error’. But at the same time he has not been able to check the tempation of directing a dig at me. This is what he writes in his “Serious Response”, p. 10:

 

In the fascicle, p.7, line 15 from below runs: ‘But Aswapaty’s heart replied to her,’. I suppose jugal will attribute the absurd change to ‘Aswapathy’ in the 1950 edition to Sri Aurobindo’s approval of a suggestion made  by Prithwisingh. But can we imagine Prithwisingh wanting to correct the earlier ‘Aswapaty’ which happens to be true to the copy text and which Kishor did not dream of criticising? Undoubltedly a ‘transmission error’ has somehow crept in.

 

Although it is not I who raised this question of ‘Aswapaty or Aswapathy’—it is KDS himself who has introduced it—yet I now feel constrained to point out three inaccuracies in the above argument as advance by KDS.

 

Number 1: The fascicle version (Aswapaty) was printed in the Advent (under the editorship of Nolini-da) and not in Sri Aurobindo Circle. So there was not question of “Kishor dreaming of criticising it.

 

Number 2:  My research has shown and I have already communicated to KDS that ‘Aswapaty’ of the fascicle was not in isolation, corrected to Aswapathy in the ’50-edition. After the fascicle came out and before the ’50-trext got printed, Sri Aurobindo, just before the line in question containing Aswapaty, appreciably modified an old existing line and added 3 more altogether new lines. If the piece of paper incorporating these dictated alterations and additions is discovered, that will throw much light on the mystery of appearance of ‘Aswapathy’.

 

Number 3: Whether the insertion of ’Aswapathy’ in place of ‘Aswapaty’ was an unintentional transmission error or it was deliberately done because of the presence of ‘Aswapathy’ in the re-typed sheet incorporating Sri Aurobindo’s additions/ alterations, can be settled only when this particular typescript is discovered and examined. Be that as it may; But does KDS consider the other 4 divergences too ass many transmission errors? What does he say about ‘god-touch’ of 1950? What about ‘her soul’? And ‘seer’?—this bringing down to the lower case, does it not seem to be deliberate?

 

Number 4: It is rather painful to refer to this ‘Number 4’. As I have mentioned earlier, I have never, not at all, made any reference to the question of ‘Aswapaty- Aswapathy divergence’. Then why does KDS insinuate: “I suppose Jugal will attribute the absurd change…”? Why frame a hypothetical charge against me, only to demolish it with harsh hammer-blows and thus put me to ridicule? Is it fair?

 

I don’t wish to say anything more about it. Let me leave it at that.

 

I have adduced above 4 new instances of divergences noted in the ’50-text; but what about the earlier publications of Savitri including that brought about under Kishor-bhai’s ‘editorship’?

 

Section 6: “One or two or even more” but in any case “rare”?

KDS writes in his “Serious Response”, p. 4, para 2:

 

Although we don’t have in our hands any instance of questions put to Sri Aurobindo by any editor of the published texts and Prithwisingh and Nolini are no nore with us, Kishor is luckily inour midst. If he can provide from memory a list of some of the suggestions which he made to Sri Aurobindo and as a result of which Sri Aurobindo altered the spellings, punctuations, etc, from those he had favoured in his copy-text, everybody connected with Savitri will be happy to follow Kishor. Nobody has any stake in deliberately going against his evidence or indulging in so called ‘subjective judgment’.

           

Well, I felt how can anyoe “provide from memory” after a lapse of long 40 years? That is humanly not possible. But surely a close comparison of Nolini-da’s typescript and Kishor-bhai’s printed text will reveal the presence of some such suggestions that were placed before Sri Aurobindo and approved by him. But how to get this press-copy of Nolini-da? My bitter experience of last November has made me “once bitten twice shy”.

 

But the divine Mother in her infinite Grace came to my help. Most unexpectedly, KDS has attached to his “Serious Response” copies of Richard’s Reports 1 & 2. And as is my wont, I studied and analysed there Reports very carefully. This study revealed to my happy surprise already 3 instances of the sort I was looking after. I found that in these cases what was written in Sri Aurobindo’s manuscript was correctly copied by the scribe Nirod-da and again equally correctly typed by Nolini-da; and this typescript was sent to the press. But when the printed parts came out, they were found to contain altered variants. These changes were presumably introduced at the proof-reading stage.

 

Here are 3 instances as reavealed by Richard’s 1st & 2nd Reports. More reports are bound to bring to light more such instances.

 

1st instance: Ref. Cent. p. 152, l. 15

Sri Aurobindo’s MS, Nirod-da’s scribal copy and Nolini-da’s typescript all have Half animal, half god. But Kishor-bhai’s publication (Bk. II C. 5), p. 56, l. 12 has Half-animal, half-god.

 

2nd instance: Ref. Cent. p. 229, l. 31

Sri Aurobindo’s MS, scribal copy and typescript all have ‘birthplace’. But Kishor-bhai’s publication (1948), p. 89, l. 9 has ‘birth-place’.

 

Please not that Oxford, Chamber’s Harrap’s, all recommend ‘birth-place’.

 

3rd instance: Ref. Cent. p. 215, l. 18

Sri Aurobindo’s MS, scribal copy, typescript all have ‘trademark’. But Kishor-bhai’s publication (1948), p. 13, l. 6 had ‘trade-mark’.

 

N.B.—KDS writes in his recent letter to Nirod-da (dated 11.4.88):  “I may remark in passing that English usage has neither form i.e. trademark or trade-mark: the form current is two separate words: ‘trade mark’.”

 

I wonder why KDS makes this remark; for, Chambers’s, Harrap’s, Cassel’s all favour the hyphenated ‘trade-mark’. Only Oxford recommends two separate words: ‘trade mark’.

 

Anyway, after I brought these specific instances to KDS’s notice, he has written to Nirod-da in course of the above mentioned letter:

 

In any case, do these two items prove my argument wrong? (p. 1)

 

In the matter of punctuation, capitalisation, hyphenation or spelling, my words are that there could have been no alterations ‘on any substantial scale’. I have also said: ‘by and large there were no occasions to effect any changes’.  (p. 2)

 

Where have I denied the possibility of such instances? I have only argued that they would be rare. My stand is identical with regard to the pre-1950 publications. I have never said that on no occasion could they have had suggestions by their proof-readers confirmed by Sri Aurobindo. Rare exceptions I grant here as with Prithwisingh’s 1950 edition. (p. 2)

 

KDS re-affirms his belief: “rare exceptions I grant”. Alterations made at the proof reading stages are really so rare? But how to prove or disprove this point? Again, two-by-two comparisons between successive typescripts and printed fascicles become essential. But how to procure these typescripts?

 

Again, Mother comes to my rescue. I discover a paragraph in Richard’s Report–2, which is simply startling. Here is what he says in connection with the altered hyphenate ‘Half-animal, half-god’ occurring in the 1947 fascicle:

 

“The authenticity of changes of this type which frequently appear in the fascicles is always uncertain.” (Underlining by us)

 

Whether the authenticity is ‘always uncertain’ or not is a debatable point. But the indubitable fact remains that such changes “frequently appear” in the fascicles.

 

Now, what does “frequently” mean? Both Oxford and Chambers’s explain “frequent” as ‘numerous, abundant, often occurring’. How does it then square with KDS’s “rare exceptions”? Indeed, the changes made were many.

 

Section 7: Compositors’ fault?

KDS hints at some such thing when, in an effort to explain the genesis of most of these changes, he writes (in his letter to Nirod-da):

 

As to the problem in hand, we cannot say for sure what happened. Doing abundant proof-reading month after month, i see again and again how the compositors consciously or unconsciously change things.

 

Richard too comments in his 2nd Report: “It is hardly likely that the typesetters were infallible.”

 

I am sorry to say so but, I fear, here one is confusing the roles of the compositors (or the type-setters) on the one had and there of the proof-readers (and the editors) Compositors are bound to make lots of errors. But the proof-readers’ function is to rectify these errors through various stages of galley proofs and page proofs. No strike order is ever issued unless and until the author or the editor is reasonably certain that almost all the errors have been already eliminated. Doesn’t KDS do the same month after month?

 

Of course, here and there one or two or a rare few errors may escape the scrutiny of even the most conscientious proof-reader. But in the very nature of things they cannot be numerous.

 

Richard makes another observation here : “To assume that every minute change introduced in the fascicles must have been approved by Sri Aurobindo would be wishful thinking.” (Report-2)

But who claims that “every minute change” was  “approved” by Sri Aurobindo? At least not I.

 

But I must at the same time add that just as “to assume that every minute change introduced in the fascicles must have been approved by Sri Aurobindo” would be “wishful thinking”, so too to assume that most, if not all, of the “minute changes” introduced in the fascicles must be “transmission errors”, would equally be “wishful thinking”. What type of logic is this: all or none?

 

Let us take a balanced view of the matter. It must be now admitted by all concerned that changes were made in the press-proofs either by Sri Aurobindo himself or with his approval. And these were numerous. Neirher Nolini-da nor Prithwisinh-da is there any more; but “Kshor is luckily in our midst”. KDS wanted to have a firsthand report from him and he has kindly complied with the request. This is what Kishorbhai has written in hes letter of the 14th instant addressed to KDS (a copy of which has been sent to me):

All that i had done was to prepose for Sri Aurobindo’s consideration 2 or 3 minor punctuation changes at the proof-stage through Nirod. I had made these proposals in pencil in the margin of the proof. Nirod had taken them to Sri Aurobindo and marked these which Sri Aurobindo had approved and cancelled the rest. Beyond this, I had not done anything with the text of the press-copy at any stage. I may mention that when the proofs of those cantos published in Sri Aurobindo Circle Annuals were being made in the Press, there were others also who used to send their proposals for changes Sri Aurobindo through Nirod. Those were not sent through, so i am not aware what they were and what Sri Aurobindo did with them.” (p. 2)

 

Kishor-bhai adds : “My role in this matter of ‘editing’ is not on a par with Prithwisingh’s or Nolini’s.” (p. 2)

 

The above long citation from Kishor-bhai’s letter to KDS makes everything clear. There were “others”  “who used to send their proposals for changes to Sri Aurobindo through Nirod”. And although Kishor-bhai is not aware of “what they were” and “what Sri Aurobindo did with them”, Richard’s assertion of the “frequent apperance” of changes in the fascicles makes the point explicit that Sri Aurobindo approved quite a few of the changes suggested and these were duly incorporated into the text of Savitri. One is not entitled to say now that prima facie all these noted changes are suspect and of “uncertain authenticity” and therefore liable to be purged now at the new editors’ discretion. In this way one is apt to remove some of the alterations which Sri Aurobindo himself effected of approved.

 

This is like opening “Pandora’s Box” bristling with imponderables. Why tread on the slippery ground and in the process court unnecessary risk. The most rational and wise approach should be to take the 1950-text (prepared and printed in Sri Aurobindo’s lifetime) as the basic one, retain its versions if they are found quite apt in themselves and in their immediate context and confine the editors’ task to the sole job of eliminating obvious transmission errors. But inadvertent human errors should be clearly differentiated from the deliberately introduced changes in the earlier printed texts.

 

In this way the editors of the Critical Edition will save themselves from committing many “errors of misjudgment” of their own. And this is all i have been pleading for during the last eight months—apparently without much success. But as the occasion has arisen, I take this opportuninty of repeating my ‘earnest plea’ once again.

 

But the editors may possibly retort: “But if the listed ‘corrections’ as given is the Table of Corrections appear to be more appropriate offering a richer significance?

 

Yes, it’s an important question and les us devote the following Section to a calm unbiased consideration of this point.

 

For, the issue is crucial and much depends on the proper answer to it. If the answer comes to be a ‘YES’, then,  of course, whatever may have been the history behind the changes, the listed “corrections” have to be given effect to. But if the answer is not decidedly ‘YES’ or even ‘NO’ in some cases, we must give the benefit of doubt to the current versions in the earlier printed texts of Savitri and allow them to remain undisturbed, and that for reasons which i have been elaborating all through this present Section VII. So let us see whether the answer is an ‘YES’ or ‘NO’.

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Source: http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2011/11/5/4931434.html 

36: The Editing of Savitri—Jugal Kishore Mukherjee’s 50-page Letter [B]

by RY Deshpande on Sat 05 Nov 2011 03:30 AM IST  |  Permanent Link  |  Cosmos

 

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 With this thirty-sixth instalment in four parts of Jugal Kishore Mukherjee’s letter, we will be concluding the on-going series of posts dealing with general aspects of Savitri-editing. Actually the full title of the series is The Editing of Savitri—Comments-Notes-Memoirs which will spread over three major volumes. What we have here is Part One which has already run into some 800 A-4 sheets (Words: 280 000); Part Two and Part Thee will be equally voluminous. We shall take these as and when possible. ~ RYD

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 Section 8:  Most of the “corrections” having “better significance” & “greater appropriateness”?

KDS has written in his “Serious Responses”:

 

When Jugal has questioned it the Table of Corrections, I have patiently explained the meaning of the lines concerned in order to show the greater appropriateness of what is present in the copy text than of the version in the 1950 edition of Part I which is the last one read out to Sri Aurobindo and published in his lifetime.

 

Elsewhere, on p. 2 of the same piece, he has this to say:

 

I hold no total brief for anything. We have to keep an open mind. But I have inclined towards the ‘Table’ on most occasions because I have found that it gives a better significance. Whenever I have found such significance I have explained why in some detail and attempted to satisfy Jugal’s keen questions.

 

“On most occasions”? in most cases?—Sorry, No. Not in most cases, not even in the majority of cases, but only in some. And I am immensely grateful to KDS for these very apt explanations.

 

But in many other cases, not only do the listed “corrections” fail to have “better significance” or “greater appropriateness”, but they positively prove themselves to be inappropriate. I shall cite examples in due course in support of my contention.

 

As a matter of fact, if such would have been the case ( that is, “most” possessing “better significance” and “greater appropriateness”), have I then spent my last 7 months only to ‘kill’ KDS’s precious time just by trying to get the meanings clarified and the corresponding “corrections” justified?

 

Sorry, that has not been my purpose nor the impression I have gathered through our intellectual exchanges carried on during the past so many months. I wanted to challenge the validity of many of the listed “corrections” and I still do even after having carefully gone through KDS’s ‘explanations’. I am now more convinced than ever before that quite a few of these so-called “corrections” have to be discarded in favour of the 1950-versions for “Savitri’s precious make”.

 

To simply affirm (as KDS has done in his “Serious Response”) that “most” of the Table’s “corrections” afford ‘better significance’ and possess ‘greater appropriateness’, will, I fear, convey an altogether unwarranted erroneous impression to the minds of our unwary friends who have had no privilege of following our sustained exchanges in the form of notes and counter-notes.

 

KDS could have been a little more charitable and pointed out that Jugal’s searching queried have led to the rejection of quite a few of the “corrections” and the suspension of final judgment in respect of many others.

 

Personally speaking, I do not seek any credit or recognition for this service to Sri Aurobindo. Far from that. But what I want is that a truly correct and balanced picture should be presented as regards the actual state of things and the outcome of my queries and research.

 

I’m afraid KDS’s “Serious Responses” has not done adequate justice to me. It has given and one-sided view, focusing undue attention of some minor, negative and secondary aspects while keeping under a carpet of silence more important issues and some facts of primary concern.

 

In his “Serious Responses”, as also in his earlier essay “The Problem…”, KDS has cited instances in profusion to validate his points. I too may be allowed to cite instances ( 1 or 2 in each category) to substantiate the points i make. Together they may help to present a rounded picture. Then, let our friends judge for themselves.

 

1. 1.    One very important point has to be made clear even at the very outset. KDS has stated: “whenever Jugal questioned…”. but questioned what?  I myself have pointed out in each one of my weekly communications to KDS that many of the “corrections” listed in the ‘Table’ are deemed by me quite appropriate;
2. 2.    many others are as good as the 1950-version: I have no preference there;
3. 3.    many other “corrections” are not needed, therefore these needn’t be given effect to; but if given effect to, it does  not matter much. finally,
4. 4.    many listed ‘corrections”, almost 200 in numberm are considered by me rather inappropriate and I shall  feel these are introduced into the body of Part I of Savitri.

 

In addition, there are some miscellaneous cases which require, according to my humble opinion, a careful re-appraisal before any of these are ratified.

 

Now my question is: for how many of these “inappropriate” ‘corrections’ (which I brought to the notice of KDS) has he been able to offer “better significance” and “greater appropriateness”?

 

For “most”?—as KDS avers?—I fear, NOT. ‘only for a limited few’ is the actual truth. The coming few pages will be devoted to the exemplification of this point.

 

I. In many cases KDS has merely stated: “Can’t decide” or “can’t decide on merit”.

 

Two illustrative examples:

Ref. Cent. p. 250, l. 15: 1950-edition has it as ‘control’

The “Table of Corrections” wants to put a comma after control.

 

My question: Did Sri Aurobindo himself insert a comma here?

 

 

Ref. Cent. p. 53, l. 25: 1950-edition has it as mate.

The “Table” wants to replace the full-stop sign with a colon.

 

My question: Is the colon there in Sri Aurobindo’s own handwritten  MS?

 

II. In other cases, KDS has opined: “No objection to this ‘correction’ .”

 

But the question is not of “no objection”. The central question is: “Is the “correction” essential here?

 

III. In many cases KDS has merely advised: “Both seem equally good. So follow copy-text.” Or “not much to choose. Follow copy-text.”

 

But so far as punctuation-problems are concerned, the question is: which copy-text? If  it is Sri Aurobindo’s own handwritten manuscript, then, of course, YES.

 

But if the dubious punctuation sign is (i) either in dictated lines, or (ii) in Nirod-da’s hand in a typescript, then it loses much of its sacrosanctity. A further investigation is called for in such cases.

 

For those cases where KDS has written “Both will serve”, my humble query is this: What compulsion is there then for “correcting” the ’50-version?

 

One may possibly retort by saying: “But the “correction” is in the copy-text and hence it must have to be incorporated.”

 

But I say, in many cases (I am referring to the whole of Savitri including all the three Parts)—in many cases these “corrections” are NOT in Sri Aurobindo’s own handwritten manuscript.

 

Seems too daring as assertion on my part?—Yes, I can prove the veracity of my statement, if asked to do so.

 

 “Most” ‘corrections’—as included in the Table—have “better significance” and possess “greater appropriateness”?

 

I don’t know the exact semantic connotation of “most”; but what is left out then? 5? 10? 20? If so, I humbly state that KDS has failed to bring out “better significance” or “greater appropriateness” in the case of many, many of the listed “corrections” referred to him in the course of my weekly queries and analyses. I shall presently come to this point.

 

I propose to categorise these “inapprorpiate corrections” and for each category furnish 1 or 2 or 3 illustrative instances embodying my queries and KDS’s answers thereto. I said ‘1 or 2 or 3’ for lack of space, but more can be cited on request.

 

First Category

In these cases KDS’s very able and subtle explanation has brought out the deep meaning implied. I am genuinely grateful to him for the light he has thrown on the questions discussed.

 

Example 1: Ref. Cent. p. 347, l. 22: his or its

 

What I had written to KDS on 15-8-87: “This is a very interesting case. But, first, let us see the existent version as it is found in the Centenary Edition:

 

Across the light of fast-receding planes

That fled from him as from a falling star,

Compelled to fill his human house in Time

His soul drew back into the speed and noise

Of the vast business of created things.

 

As far as I feel, it should be ‘his human house’ (and not ‘its’) here. ‘his’  I think, refers to ‘him’ of the immediately preceding line, i.e., to the ‘Traveller of the Worlds’ who climbed ‘creation’s peaks’ and is now coming back to ‘the vast business of created things’. For, as the following lines indicate,

 

Flaming he swept through the spiritual gates.

The mortal stir received him in its midst.

(CE, p. 347)

 

‘his human’ occurs everywhere in all the three earlier editions ( Advent, fascicle and 1950). So we see, Sri Aurobindo heard it read to him as ‘his human’ at least on three different occasions and each time sanctioned the use.  So, now, after almost 40 years after his passing, it would be prudent on our part to retain ‘his human’ and not change it to ‘its human’. ”

 

This is how KDS replied: “‘his’ is more expected than ‘its’ because of the earlier sequence but ‘its human house’ is more suitable to ‘his soul’. Otherwise ‘house’ might suggest Ashwapaty’s palace rather than his body.”

 

I accept KDS’ without any further reservation on my part.

 

Example 2: Ref. Cent. p. 101, l. 23: born, or born;

 

I suggested that the semi-colon need not replace the existing comma after born. The lines are:

 

A miracle of the Absolute was born,

Infinity put on a finite soul,

All ocean lived within a wandering drop,

A time-made body housed the Illimitable.

           

This is how KDS very rightly justified the “corrections” in the form of the (;)

 

The line ‘A miracle of the Absolute was born’ is an introductory generality unlike the three other lines which are particularities—two of which carry commas and the third a full-stop. A comma after the generality would reduce the line to the level of the other three. A colon or a semi-colon is needed here. (Marginal note in Jugal’s Supplementary List F)

 

I very much appreciate KDS’s beautiful explanation.

Second Category

In these cases, KDS has indeed applied subtle reasoning to justify the “corrections”. And I accept his decision—but with a lingering minor reservation. 

 

Example 1: Ref.  Cent. p. 322, l. 31:    look or look.

  Cent. p. 322, l. 32:     depths; or depths,

           

Here are the lines as occurring in the 1950-edition:

 

Then suddenly there came a downward look

As if sea exploring  its own depths;

A living Oneness widened at its core

And joined him to unnembered multitues.

 

I had written to KDS to this effect that the ‘downward look’ of the first quoted line and  ‘exploring… depths’ of the second one go very well as allied images, and hence these two lines should not be disjoined by the interposition of a full-stop after look ( the end-word of the first line).

 

KDS on 19-1-88 offered a very apt explanation justifying this change. He wrote:

 

In the present version, grammaticlly ‘look’ gets compared to ‘a sea’. The comparison is odd. In the corrected version, the comparison is between ‘A living Oneness’ and ‘a sea’. The sense of ‘a downward look’ is carried over in the corrected version by ‘depths’. The second line (“As if… depths”) would go very well with first (‘Then suddenly…look’), if its ‘if’ were a mistake for ‘of’. But then the suggestion might be that a sea was accustomed to explore its own depths!

 

I accepted KDS’s explanation in toto. But the reservation appeared when I read in his “The Problem of the Critical Edition of Savitri”, p. 12:

 

 Sri Aurobindo’s latest manuscript has a full-stop after ‘look’ and a comma after ‘depths’. It thus links the second line not to the first but to the third.

 

The suggested “corrections” are then in Sri Aurobindo’s “latest manuscript”? In Sri Aurobindo’s own handwritten manuscript? Or written in Nirod-da’s hand in a typescript? And what is there in the ’44-copy-text?

These are the nagging questions crying for a reply. However, I have accepted KDS’s decision in favour of the “corrections”, for the corrected lines now appear to me more natural.

 

Third Category

In such cases, KDS has prima facie rejected the listed “corrections” when i brought the anomalies to his notice. Indeed, the editors Critical Edition appear to have made many types of misjudgment: (i) wrong deletion of punctuation marks, (ii) wrong introduction of signs of punctuation, (iii) wrong capitalisation, (iv) wrong hyphenation, etc.

 

A few illustrative examples follow.

 

Example 1: Ref. Cent. p. 58, l. 9: mind  or mind,

The lines concerned are:

 

Our passion heaves to wed the eternal calm,

Our dwarf-search mind to meet the Omniscient’s force.

 

The Table of Corrections, apart from changing eternal  to Eternal’s and force to light, proposes to insert a comma after mind of the second line. As there is already a comma after calm of the 1st line, this additional comma after mind (purporting to replace heaves which is understood) will be incongruous and confusing besides being totally unnecessary.

 

I had written to KDS on 9-8-87: “This ‘correction’ should be rejected without much ado.”

 

KDS gave a monosyllabic reply: “Yes”.

 

Example 2: Ref. Cent. p. 305, l. 8:  works or works,

The lines as they are in 1950-ed. Are:

 

Hidden by its own works it seemed far off,

Impenetrable, occult, voiceless, obscure.

 

The Table of Corrections in addition to correcting ‘far off’ to ‘far-off’ proposes to insert a comma after works of the 1st line. But why? Apart from being not essential even if the first sentence represented by the first line stood alone in isolation, here in the proximity of the other 4 commas, this additionally introduced comma would not be apt at all.

 

KDS wrote in the margin of my tenth list: “The comma after ‘works’ seems unnecessary.”

 

Example 3: Ref. Cent. p. 72, l. 16: traveller or Traveller

The 1950-version has ‘traveller’ here; but the Table wants to correct it to ‘Traveller’ (with a T cap).

 

This is what I had written to KDS on 1-9-87:

 

We find ‘sailor’ with s small on p. 69 / l. 13 from below; also, ‘discover’ with a small d on the same page / l. 12 from b.; again, ‘voyager’ four lines later on, i.e. on p. 69 / l. 8 from b.

 

So my question is: Did Sri Aurobindo himself really write ‘Traveller’ with a T cap?”

 

This is what KDS wrote in reply: “ ‘sailor’ with a small s occurs also on p. 70, l. 22. The cap T looks like a slip.”

 

Example 4:Ref. Cent. p. 141, l. 33: life, or Life,

 

The Critical Edition proposes to correct ‘life’ of ’50 to ‘Life’ with a L cap.

 

This is what I had written to KDS on 26-9-87:

 

Let me quote the lines which seen together may decide the issue:

 

Then came a fierier breath of waking life,

And there arose from the dim gulf of things

The strange creations of a thinking sense,

Existence half-real and half-dream.

 

‘life’ of the 5th line, also ‘thinking sense’ of the 3rd line, are there with their small initials. What necessity is there for capitalising l of ‘life’ in the 1st line?”

 

This is how KDS replied:

I personally can’t catch the point of the capitalisation—unless, as happens frequently enough, the fifth line (‘A life was there that hoped not to survive’) was a dictated addition so a small l crept in. 

 

Example 5: Ref. Cent. p. 55, l. 7: power or Power

 

The Critical Edition proposes to replace ‘power’ of the 1950-text with ‘Power’.

 

Having found some anomaly I wrote to KDS on 9-8-87:

 

Please note the sequence of 3 lines:

 

A power into mind’s inner chamber steal,

A charm and sweetness open life’s closed doors

And beauty conquer the resisting world”

 

‘charm’,  ‘sweetness’ and ‘beauty’ are all in the ‘lower case’; is there any necessity why ‘power’ alone should be capitalised?”

 

KDS wrote back unambiguously: “I see no necessity.”

 

Example 6: Ref. Cent. p. 337, l. 36: has come or had come

The Centenary Edition wants to correct the Present Perfect ‘has come’ of the 1950-text to the Past Perfect form ‘had come’.

 

In this connection, I wrote to KDS:

 

Existent version: ‘He obeys the Inconscience he has come to rule’

 

‘has come’ is there in all the earlier versions:

 

Advent:  p. 137, l. 18 from below

 

= Fascicle: p. 306, l. 10 from below

 

= 1950: p. 306, l. 29.

 

That means, Sri Aurobindo heard ‘has come’ thrice and did not object to ‘has’. It is altogether improbable that he could not hear the word properly. After all, ‘has come’ has greater appositeness; for, although ‘he’ is currently obeying the Inconscience, his destiny to rule it remains even now intact. So, the existent version ‘has come to rule’ should remain as it is.”

 

To this KDS replied: “Grammatically ‘has’ is better.”

 

Fourth Category

In these cases, in the name of Sri Aurobindo’s “own intention” so many slips were proposed to be introduced in to the Critical Edition; but Jugal’s persistent research has lead to KDS’s ultimate rejection of the “corrections” proposed.

 

A few illustrative examples follow.

 

Example 1: Cent. p. 111, l. 9: The 1950-text has ‘ever-living’; but the Table of Corrections proposes to replace it by ‘everlasting’.

 

This is how I wrote KDS on 19-9-87:

 

Was it a scribal error? The typist’s slip? The two latter halves of the comound word are too disparate to have been so. Will you please check again? It may be that ‘everlasting’ was later on changed to ‘ever-living’ by Sri Aurobindo himself.

 

KDS remained silent. Then, after having done some research on my own on 15-12-87 I brought to KDS’s notice the significant fact that Sri Aurobindo made many alterations and additions around the line containing the word ‘ever-living’.  Not only that; he made an important change in the very line itself while leaving ‘ever-living’ intact. That means, ‘ever-living’ was consciously accepted by Sri Aurobindo and we must not replace it by something else in the name of his “earlier intention”.

 

After receiving my note, KDS wrote in reply:

 

As Sri Aurobindo directly attended to the line and by changing one word made it integral part of revised and even enlarged passage, his acceptance of ‘ever-living’ must make this adjective his ‘final intention’. A footnote should give ‘everlasting’.

 

Example 2: Ref. P.160, l. 21: roofs or floors

The Critical Edition wishes to knock out ‘roofs’ and bring instead ‘floors’.

I wrote to KDS on 10-10-87:

 

What a strange metamorphosis, a precipitate jump from ‘floors’ to ‘roofs’ and yet retaining a cogent meaning! ‘its climbing roofs’ or ‘its climbing floors’? Please verify what Sri Aurobindo actually wrote.

 

KDS didn’t reply. Then, after having done some research I wrote to him again on 15-12-87 in the following vein:

 

 Here is the inventory of the changes made by Sri Aurobindo himself around the line containing ‘roofs’:

 

1. 1.    On p. 160 of Cent. , ‘roofs’ occurs in line 21;
2. 2.    the second half of the line 12 is new;
3. 3.    lines 13, 17, 18, 23, 24, 26, 27 are new additions;
4. 4.    lines 15, 19, 20, 22, 25 are left intact;
5. 5.    lines 16, 28 are altered in some way;
6. 6.    the second half of line 14 formed the second half of line 12 (old)
7. 7.    the very line 21 containing the word ‘roofs’ is partially modified. Thus, in ‘Kishor-bhai’ (1947), p. 63, 1. 16 it was: “Or gabled storeys piled and climbing roofs’

In 1950 (and therefore in Cent.) it became:  “Its gabled storeys piles, its climbing roofs’

 

Please note that in the midst of all these changes, the word ‘roofs’ is left intact by Sri Aurobindo. So, why replace it by ‘floors’ now?”

 

This time KDS replied:

 

It is evident that Sri Aurobindo has focused attention on the line as part of a new whole. So ‘roofs’ has to stand. Besides, one of the new lines is: ‘On the dim floor of mind’s incertitude’. The repetition of ‘floor’ is best avoided—and Sri Aurobindo seems to have avoided it by accepting ‘roofs’.

 

Example 3: This case is very interesting in its progressive development leading to the final rejection of the Suggested “correction”.

 

Ref. Cent. p. 107, l. 27:   the destiny or her destiny

 

The Critical Edition proposes to replace ‘the’ of the ’50-text by ‘her’.

 

I wrote to KDS on 19-9-87:  “Here is the line:

 

 ‘This is the destiny bequeathed to her’

 

‘the’ is better than ‘her’ before ‘destiny’. The two ‘her’ in ‘her destiny’ and’ bequeathed to her’ sound a little—what should I say?—infelicitous, especially when there is another ‘her’ just 2 lines before. I feel, at some stage Sri Aurobindo himself may have put ‘the’ before ‘destiny’. Please give some thought to this question before you decide to correct ‘the destiny’ to ‘her destiny’.”

           

To this KDS replied:

 

I am in favour of ‘the’, but if the copy-text has ‘her’ what can I do?

 

“If the copy-text has ‘her’, what can I do?”—Yes, that’s right. Then I did a little more research and brought my findings before the notice of KDS: I wrote to him once again on 15-12-87:

                       

In ‘Kishor-bhai’s publication’ (1947), p. 15, the line 18 reads:

 

This is the destiny bequeathed to her:

 

For the 1950-edition (Cent. p. 107, lines 27-29), Sri Aurobindo altered the colon after ‘her’ into a comma and composed two new lines so that the passage read:

 

This is the destiny bequeathed to her,

As if a slain god left a golden trust

To a blind force and an imprisoned soul.

 

 Thus, when Sri Aurobindo made these changes, ‘the destiny’ was there and he left it intact. Then, why remove it now?

 

This time KDS saw my point and kindly took the right decision; he wrote to me:

 

Here Sri Aurobindo undoubtedly attended to the line and accepted ‘the’. So we must keep it.

 

I hope these 3 examples will suffice for the Fourth Category; space does not permit of multiplying instances. But the point I would like to make before I close this section is this: I had to work with serious handicap of limited printed material. Yet, simply by comparing the printed fascicles and the 1950-edition, I could bring to KDS’s notice so many lines of Savitri where or around which Sri Aurobindo incorporated significant changes, necessitating the revision of the notion of what Sri Aurobindo’s final choices were.

 

If I would have been granted the opportunity of comparing the earlier manuscripts 2 by 2 in successive rows, I could have surely detected many more lines of this type. And this would have led to the rejection of quite a few “corrections” listed in the Table.

 

Incidentally, this Category 4 represents some glaring instances of how a mechanically executed word-to-word comparison (without taking the whole history or context into account) may lead to wrong conclusions as to what should go into the main body of Savitri.

 

The editors of the Critical Edition may have been—why ’may’?—must have been conspicuous by their hard work and extra-careful comparison and yet are sure to have made many misjudgments because of the rigid adoption of some arbitrarily pre-fixed guide-lines.

 

More about this point later in course of this present communication.

 

Let us now pass on to the consideration of the 5th Category.

 

Fifth Category

Here, KDS at first sought to justify the proposed “correction” with some subtle reasoning, but Jugal’s persistent research led to the ultimate rejection of the same “correction” offering another explanation for doing so.

 

Illustrative example: Ref. Cent. p. 274, l. 23: witness of or witness to

The 1950-text has ‘of’ after ‘witness’ ; the Critical Edition wants to replace it by ‘to’.

 

This is what I wrote to KDS on 8-11-87:

 

Strange! The same phenomenon is meeting us again with its problem of ‘to’ or ‘of’. Please see Cent. p. 5, l. 7. There too the 1950-version has it as ‘to’ and the recommended “correction” is ‘of’. Who could have exchanged Sri Aurobindo’s ‘to’ and ‘of’ twice over such a great interval of Cent. 269 pages, if not Sri Aurobindo himself?

 

Please give some thought to this question before you decide to change ‘witness of’ back to its earleir form ‘witness ’ back to its earlier form ‘witness to’.

 

Here is how KDS sought to justify the proposed “correction”:

The two instances seem to show diffferent attitudes. In the earlier line, there is a passivity suggested. So ‘of’ is appropriate there. In the present line, an active attitude is more appropriate. ‘she sees and cannot help accepting what she sees’. These are subtle differences: being witness of and bearing witness to.

 

I continued my research and finally wrote to KDS on 15-12-87:

 

This particular page 274 (of Cent. Ed.) is the product of many many changes they were printed in 1948. Leaving out for the moment other changes, let me concentrate now on the lines immediately preceding and immediately following the line 23 which embodies ‘witness of’.

 

Then I placed before KDS all the various changes in a detailed way. Finally I concluded my pleading with these words:

 

The point I am trying to make through all this discussion is that Sri Aurobindo was perfectly aware of the presence of the expression ‘witness of’ when he brought in all these alterations.

 

After having gone through my notes KDS wrote to me:

 

‘She acclaims’, etc., ‘serves’ etc. Are expressions of activity and are best preceded by the activity-implying ‘witness to’ rather than the comparatively passive ‘of’. But the new line, with its more subdued ‘servitor’ and the more generalised ‘a’ instead of the earlier ‘his’, is quite fittingly preceded by ‘witness of’. Perhaps the ‘to’ of the new line needs also a little variety in the preceding lines proposition.

 

All in all, I think Sri Aurobindo, in the context of his change, felt ‘of’ to be the mot juste.”

 

Sixth Category

In such cases, KDS appreciated the point that I made but still tried to put up a case in defence of the proposed “correction”; but ultimately, in the light of new facts brought to his notice, he rejected the “correction”.

 

Illustrative example: Ref. Cent. p. 263, l. 11: its purple or a purple

This is what I had written to KDS on 8-11-87:

 

Here are the two relevant lines:

 

It recovers its renounced imperial right,

It wears once more its purple robe of thought

 

In company with ‘recovers’ of the 1st line, ‘once more’ of the 2nd line tilts the choice in favour of ‘its’ purple robe.”

 

But KDS wrote back:

 

Your argument is cogent. I see no need of any change. But I also see that a change in the second line is quite possible, particularly in view of the next line—‘And knows itself the Ideal’s seer and king’. In the first line ‘its’ is inevitable. In the second line there is no such necessity. So, however cogent the argument, the comparison of the two lines is not absolutely required of us.

 

After some further research I informed KDS on 15-12-87 that Sri Aurobindo had effected many changes on pages 261 and 262, also on p. 263 (of Cent. Ed.) where  ‘its purple’ occurs. I ended my note with these words:

 

Sri altered one word in the line immediately preceding that containing the phrase ‘its purple’.

 

Thus, in Kishor-bhai’s publication (1948), p. 56, ll. 23-24 read as follows:

 

Recovering its renounced imperial right,

It wears once more its purple robe of thought

 

In 1950 (therefore in the Cent. p. 263, lines 10-11), they became:

 

It recovers its renounced imperial right,

It wears once more its purple robe of thought

 

So, it is obvious that that when Sri Aurobindo made the change ‘It recovers’ he was quite aware of  ‘its purple’ in the following line.

 

Now KDS saw my point and decided in favour of the ’50-version ‘its’; he wrote:

 

When the two lines are made symmetrical like that, Sri Aurobindo is bound to have noted the ‘its’ of the secondline and found it quite appropriate. In the original version, ‘a’ must have been the favoured word which somehow got miscopied as ‘its’.

 

Seventh Category

I pointed out to KDS “errors of misjudgment” having been committed by the editors of the Critical Edition and he kindly rejected the proposed “corrections” in favour of the ’50-versions.

 

1st illustrative example: Ref. Cent. p. 70, l. 12: unknown or known

This case is by now too well-known to all of us to need any detailed recounting here. It concerns the two lines of Savitri ( Book One – Canto Four):

 

Severing the foam of a great land-locked sea

To reach unknown harbour lights in distant climes

 

The Table of Corrections propose to replace ‘unknown’ of the second line by ‘known- which is patently absurd. After I brought some new facts to KDS’s notice, he gave his final decision in favour of the existent ‘unknown’.

 

As a matter of fact, he has elaborately discussed this issue in his “The Problem of the Critical Edition of Savitri” (pages 3 & 3/a). And he wrote to me in the margin of my fifth list of 1-9-87:

 

Yes, and the old ‘known’ may be relegated to a note somewhere. But ‘unknown’ occurring 3 times in the passage,( twice very closely) seems to me a bit of an artistic defect. If I had had the chance, I would have drawn Sri Aurobindo’s attention to the fact.

 

2nd illustrative example: Ref. Cent. p. 330, l. 16:

The 1950-text has “Merged into the Unknowable’s mystery”

 

The Critical Edition seeks to change it to “Merging into unknowable mystery’

 

This is how I wrote KDS on 3-10-87:

 

A very interesting case. Changes have been made three times in a row in the tense forms of two verbs: ‘to merge’ and ‘to leave’. The relevant lines, as they are found in Advent (April ’47, also in the fascicle) are:

 

A chrysalis of a great and glorious truth,

It stifles the winged marvel in its sheath

Lest from the prison of Matter it escape

And, wasting its beauty on the formless Vast,

Merge into the Unknowable’s mystery,

Leaving unfulfilled the world’s miraculous fate.

 

In the 1950-edition, Unknowable’s remained unaltered, but ‘merge’ was changed to ‘merged’ (from the subjunctive mood to the past participle form) and ‘leaving’ was altered to ‘leave’ (from the present participle form to the subjunctive mood): ‘lest it escape and leave’.

 

Lest from the prison of Matter it escape

And, wasting its beauty on the formess Vast,

Merged into the Unknowable’s mystery,

Leave unfulfilled the world’s miraculous fate

 

And then I pleaded with KDS:

 

Why not leave the beautiful line of 1950 in the main body of Savitri and print the proposed variant as a footnote?

 

KDS very kindly wrote back: If Sri Aurobindo made corrections in the passage and even in the very line concerned, I don’t see how we can go back to an older text. The 1950 version has to stand. The older text can be mentioned as variant.

 

Thus, a careful scrutiny led to the ultimate rejection of the “correction”.

 

Eighth Category

In some cases KDS has offered explanations justifying the proposed “corrections”. But somehow I do not find these explanations convincing. I still consider the 1950- versions more apt and appropriate.

 

1st illustrative example: Ref. Cent. p. 150, l. 8: apex or   or apex—or

These are the lines as they are found in the ’50-text:

 

Although for action, not for wisdom made,

Thought was its apex or its gutter’s rim:

 

The Critical Edition proposes to insert a dash after apex. And in support of this “correction” KDS advances the argument: “The dash is more dramatic.” I can appreciate what he is trying to convey by his remark, but I still feel that this dash, even if it was in an earlier text, was deliberately removed at a later stage.

 

2nd example: Ref. Cent. p. 200, l. 28: more,   or   more

Here are the lines as occurring in the ’50-text:

 

In a high state where ignorance is no more,

Each movement is wave of peace and bliss

 

The Critical Edition propose to knock out the comma after more (the end-word of the 1st line) and leave the two lines joined up without any punctuation sign intervening between them. The proposal is so odd.

 

But KDS sought to justify in these terms (marginal note of 19-1-88):

 

A comma may or may not be put here. Nobody on his own can decide. Clearly the copy-text has been followed.

 

This argument doesn’t clear my doubt. A comma after “more” is definitely preferable here. Even if it was not in the copy-text, this comma must have been deliberately inserted later on: it’s not an inadvertent ‘transmission error’. And have I not pointed out to KDS and is it not an admitted fact that many of the lines in the earlier copy-text lack some essential pointing which were very appropriately set right by the earlier editors with Sri Aurobindo’s own approval? To my mind, the comma has to remain after the end-word more in the present instance.

 

Ninth Category

In the cases of this category, KDS has sought to justify the proposed “corrections” with elaborate and subtle and ingenious explanations; but even now the 1950- versions appear to me much more straightforward and much more convincing.

 

One illustrative example: Ref. Cent. p. 332, l. 9:

The 1950-text has ‘its vast’ ; The Critical Edition would like to have here ‘his vast’

 

This is what I wrote to KDS on 3-10-87:

 

The line in question is

 

In the centre of its vast and fateful trance

 

The issue is: Whose trance is spoken of here? ‘His’? or his ‘heart’s’?

 

More naturally it refers to the ‘heart’; for we find a few lines before:

 

His living, sacrificed and offered heart

Absorbed in adoration mystical

(p. 332, lines 3-4)

 

Also, 2 lines later on:

 

In the luminous stillness of its mute appeal

(p. 332, l. 6)

 

‘His heart’, ‘it’ and ‘its’ are mentioned many a time in the long passage preceding line 9 (p. 332) as also in the passage following it. If , indeed, on examination it is found that there is ‘his vast’ in Sri Aurobindo’ vast’ in Sri Aurobindo’s own manuscript, it may be presumed that at now unknown later stage he altered it to ‘its vast’.

 

After receiving my note KDS replied:

 

According to your reading, the heart turned ‘in the centre’ of its vast trance to the Divine Mother. What Sri Aurobindo means is that the heart is in the centre of Aswapaty’s trance: it lies half-way between his free and fallen selves. So ‘his’ is correct and ‘its’ an error though, with all that goes before and after, it is not an unnatural error.

 

It may be that what KDS has said represents the right explanation. But the question remains: How is it that during proof-reading stages for the Advent as also for the 1950-edition Sri Aurobindo heard ‘its vast’ and did not object to its use? Why don’t you check again the history of the change? That will make it clear whether the replacement in The Advent of ‘his vast’ was a deliberate alteration following Sri Aurobindo’s instruction or just an accidental ‘transmission error’.

 

Tenth Category

At times KDS’s hasty explanation justifying the proposed “corrections” definitely “misfired”. I could not accept the validity of the reasoning and humbly pointed out to him the fallacies involved in the so-called explanations.

 

1st illustrative example: Ref. Cent. P. 327, l. 35: pursued or pursued,

Here are the lines as they are found in the 1950-text:

 

There Life pursued unwearied of her sport,

Joy in her heart and laughter on her lips,

The bright adventure of God’s game of chance.

 

The Table of Corrections proposes to insert after the word pursued of the first line. When I suggested the inappropriateness of this comma here, KDS hastily replied:

 

As the object of ‘pursued’ is ‘Joy’ of the next line, the intervening phrase must have a comma before it just as it has a comma after it.

 

I had to point out to KDS the inaptness of this interpretation, also the fact that the object of ‘pursued’ is not ‘Joy’ of the 2nd line but the ‘adventure’ of the 3rd line. The second line is parenthetical with ‘with’ understood before ‘Joy’ so that the whole construction should be: “Life, unwearied… and with joy and laughter, pursued the adventure.

 

An unnecessary insertion of a comma after pursued will create the ambiguity as if ‘Life pursued joy…’. let the line remain as it is without any punctuation mark after pursued.

 

Eleventh Category

In some cases KDS felt uneasy with the suggested “corrections” but yet tried to valiantly defend of legitimise these in some way.

 

Example 1: Ref. Cent. p. 227, l. 26: apathy or apathy,

According to the 1950-text we have the two relevant lines as follows:

 

A questionless mind was ranked as wise content,

A dull heart’s silent apathy as peace:

      

When i asked KDS: “How can one put a comma after ‘apathy’?”, he replied: “A comma would be very awkward here.” KDS could have stopped with that, but he continued “though in itself a comma is not illegitimate when the same verb as in a preceding phrase is understood.”

 

No, one can’t put a comma here after apathy as there is already a comma after the end-word content of the 1st line. If there would have a semi-colon there, a comma after apathy of the 2nd line would have been very apt; but not as it is now.

 

Twelfth Category

KDS at first thought that the proposed “correction” is in Sri Aurobindo’s 1944-copy-text and tried to explain its rationale in a very able way. But when it was pointed to him that the 1950-version is something introduced by Sri Aurobindo after the fascicle came out and is therefore presumably a part of a dictacted line, yet he persisted in referring to the earlier copy-text as a possible support for the “correction”.

 

Illustrative example: Ref. Cent. p. 312, l. 13: her self    or herself

The Critical Edition proposes to replace ‘her self’ of the ’50-text by ‘herself’.

 

I wrote to KDS on 9-8-87:

 

No, it has to be ‘her self’ and not ‘herself’. The history of the case is very interesting. In the 1947 fascicle edition the line was:

 

Wearing, as if the sweet summary of her soul

 

In the 1950-edition (p.284, l. 10), Sri Aurobindo changed ‘her soul’ to ‘her self’ ‘soul’ was altered to ‘self’: That’s all. So, let ‘her self’ remain as two distinct and separate words; these need not be compounded into a single pronominal word ‘herself’.

 

After receiving my note KDS replied: “Very good argument. Until I see ‘herself’ in the original script, the argument holds.”

 

But strangely after a lapse of 2 months KDS wrote in the margin of my tenth list (3-10-87): “To separate ‘self’ form ‘her’ suggests that something other than the ‘self’ was left over. The conjoint ‘herself’ means all of her and this sense strikes me as more apt.”

 

Then 15-12-87, after having done some research, I brought to the notice of KDS the fact that Sri Aurobindo did a lot of additions and alterations around the line in question—why ‘around’? in the line itself—and ended my note with these words:

 

There is another ‘soul’ nearby (same page, line 19). Presumably because of this Sri Aurobindo altered the first ‘soul’ into ‘self’ – or for any other reason not known to us. But the fact remains that ‘her soul’ was changed ‘her self’ along with changes effected in the same line. It cannot be the solid word ‘herself’.

 

KDS rejoined:

 

If ‘her soul’ (two separate words) is changed to a phrase including the word ‘self’, the presumption would be that ‘her’ as a separate word would remain separate. But if ‘herself’ is in the copy-text, we can be certain Sri Aurobindo found ‘soul’ a mistake and corrected to the original ‘self’. In that case, ‘herself’ would be the right verbal form, mistakenly split by the recorder or the oral correction.

 

Very cogent argument indeed. But what does Sri Aurobindo’s copy-text show?

 

Thirteenth Category

In these cases, KDS’s ultimate line of defence in support of the proposed “corrections” has been of this sort: “But These must be in the copy-text and therefore must have to be accepted…”

 

But which copy-text? Sri Aurobindo’s own handwritten manuscript or something else? This has to be investigated.

 

Also, could there not be some possible change introduced by Sri Aurobindo later on, consequent on the altered context due to the addition of new line/s or the modification of old lines? This too has to be investigated.

 

A simple statement such as “This ‘correction’ must have been in the copy-text” cannot foreclose the issues here.

 

What is interesting is the fact that at times KDS has deemed the ’50-versions O.K. or even better, felt the proposed “correction” inappropriate, yet has drawn the curtain upon further investigation under the assumption that somehow the “corrections” favoured by the Table must have been there in Sri Aurobindo’s own handwritten ’44-copy-text and therefore must be sacrosanct. But, I am sure, a further research in these particular cases is bound to remove many of the anomalies proposed to be introduced into Savitri by the Critical Edition.

 

I can cite many cases falling in this Thirteenth Category; but time and space forbidding I shall confine myself to only a few of them. In each case I shall quote what I wrote to KDS, also what he wrote back to me in reply. I hope these exchanges will be self-explanatory.

 

Example 1: Ref. Cent. p. 146, l. 12:    ignorance, or ignorance ;

What I wrote to KDS on 9-8-87:

 

No, no. The comma after ignorance has to remain. Please note the sequence in the 4 relevant lines:

 

Only she had beaten out sparks of ignorance,

Only the life could think and not the mind,

Only the sense could feel and not the soul,

Only was lit some heat of the flame of Life,

Some joy to be, some rapturous leaps of sense.

 

Commas being everywhere at the ends of the same types of lines how can one propose the separation of the 1st line with the inserton of a semi-colon after ignorance?

 

This is how KDS tried to justify the “correction”:

 

The first line states a generality about what was produced. It is not really in sequence with the rest which deal with particulars. A colon would have been best, but a semi-colon I better than a comma.

 

An ingenious explanation no doubt, but not very convincing. The pattern ‘Only ….Only….Only…Only’

 

Very naturally demands a comma after “ignorance”.

 

Example 2: Ref. Cent. p. 133, 1. 4: bless of bless,

The lines of Savitri as they are in the 1950-text are:

 

The Night that came upon the earth to bless

Has stayed on earth to suffer and aspire.

 

The Critical Edition wishes to insert a comma after bless (the end-word of the first line). But why? The comma is not needed at all.

 

This is how KDS commented:

 

I wouldn’t put a comma, but Sri Aurobindo’s practice could be different but is the comma there in Sri Aurobindo’s own handwritten MS? To be checked.

 

Example 3: Ref. Cent. p. 146, l. 27: desire or Desire

 I had written to KDS

 

Here is the line: ‘An unborn godhead’s will, a mute deisre’. Will is there in the ‘lower case’; also, it’s ‘a desire’ and not ‘the desire’. Any necessity for capitalising the d of ‘desire’—as the Critical Edition is proposing?

 

This is how KDS replied:

 

I see no particular necessity but Sri Aurobindo’s cap D is unmistakable and if it is there, as evidently it is, the desire for a small d has to be yogically renounced.

 

‘As evidently it is’-Why don’t you check again? Sri Aurobindo could not change it?

 

Example 4: Ref. Cent. p. 164, l. 7: cares,  or cares;

This is how I wrote To KDS on 10-10-87:

 

The relevant lines are:

 

If new designs, if richer details grow

And thought is added and more tangled cares,

If little by little it wears a brighter face,

Still even in man the plot is mean and poor.

 

If a semi-colon, as proposed by the Critical Edition, is inserted after cares (the end-word of the 2nd line), the dependent clause starting with “If” and represented by the first two lines will remain hanging in the air, being deprived of the principal clause: “Still even in man the plot is mean and poor”.

 

So a comma should remain after “cares” as well as after “face” ( the end-word of the other dependant clause). The proposed insertion of a semi-colon after cares will be most incongruous.

 

But KDS replied to me in these words:

 

I don’t see the special point of the semi-colon, but if it is in the copy-text we have to presume such a point.

 

‘But if it is in the copy-text…’—The same argument again. But could not Sri Aurobindo change it later on? Who prevents him from doing so? And how does one decide that the appropriate punctuation mark comma after cares is not deliberately introduced but just an inadvertent ‘transmission error’?

 

Example 5: Ref. Cent. p. 234, l. 24: white-blue moonbeam or white-blue-moonbeam

The 1950-edition had this line:

 

In the white-blue moonbeam air of Paradise.

 

The Table of Correction proposes to put another hyphen after blue and turn the expression into the odd Combination white-blue-moonbeam. When I pointed this out to KDS, he simply replied:

 

Don’t what it was, never having been there. So let’s accept Sri Aurobindo’s combination, though personally I don’t fancy the hyphen.

 

Surely this is a case for further investigation; for, we have to ascertain when the second hyphen first appeared and when it disappeared; and that too, deliberately or accidentally? One cannot foreclose the issue.

 

Example 6: Ref. Cent. p. 311, l. 29: soul. or soul:

Here are the relevant lines from Savitri as they occur in the ’50-text:

 

But in her grandiose nothingness all is there:

When her strong garbs are torn away from us,

The soul’s ignorance is slain but not the soul.

The zero covers an immortal face.

 

The Centenary Edition proposes to replace the full-stop after soul with a colon.

 

I had asked KDS in my Supplementary List H: “Is the colon there in Sri Aurobindo’s own manuscript?”

 

KDS simply answered: “It must be. The editorial policy does not allow such a change.”

 

‘It must be.’—Well, this sort of assertion leaves me unsatisfied. When we have detected ‘errors of misjudgment’ elsewhere, why not do the re-checking for the second time to see whether any changes were subsequently made here? What’s the harm of doing further research to settle the question?

 

Example 7: Cent. p. 250, l. 15: control or control,

Here are the lines from Savitri as found in the 1950-edition:

 

All life to harmonise by thought’s control

She with the huge imbroglio struggles still:

 

The Critical Edition makes an improbable suggestion here: Put a comma after control (the end-word of the 1st line). What necessity is there for it? Did Sri Aurobindo really put a comma here in his own manuscript? If yes, was it deliberately removed later on? —because the comma is not very appropriate here.

 

KDS wrote back to me:

 

The comma must be there in the copy-text—nobody would bother to put it.

 

But does this sort of answer settle the issue, I ask? And is this the way of proving “greater appropriateness” for most of the cases Jugal referred to?

 

Example 8: Ref. Cent. p. 161, l. 33: slow stammering or slow-stammering

The Savitri line as occurring in the 1950-text is:

 

Ill-trained slow stammering interpreters

 

The Critical Edition proposes to put a hyphen between slow and stammering.

 

I had raised my objection to KDS on 23-8-87 in these words:

 

The ‘stammering’ is not slow; it is the ‘interpreters’ who are ‘slow’. Hence the necessity of keeping apart ‘slow’ and ‘stammering’. Please consider my point before you come to your final decision.

 

Basing himself on his personal experience KDS replied to me in a lighter vein:

 

Whether the “interpreters” are “slow” or the “stammering” is so, only Sri Aurobindo can tell. But I vouch that stammering does slow down an interpreter.

 

Although humorously put, the implication of KDS’s observation is that it is the ‘interpreters’ who became slow and ‘slow’ and ‘stammering’ should not be joined by a hyphen. But after a month and half, KDS wrote to me again in the margin of my eleventh list (10-10-87):

 

The hyphen goes well here in view of the preceding ‘Ill-trained’. That’s all I can say in its favour.

 

Sorry, KDS, it is a false analogy: “ill-trained” has to be hyphenated because the ‘training’ is ‘ill’, but the ‘stammering’ is not ‘slow’.

 

“That’s all I can say in its (the hyphen’s) favour.”—But why has one to say something in its favour when there is no compulsion to do so? Why should one bring in any far-fetched justification?

 

The ’50-version is quite all right: let us maintain it. If one says that the hyphen is in the copy-text, then check again the history of its suppression—whether it was deliberately done or not. Then only can the question be finally settled. Why grudge this extra labour?

 

Now I proceed to the consideration of a very very important category of “corrections”.

 

Fourteenth Category

In these cases my searching queries and persistent pleading convinced KDS that a further investigation is really called for. He wanted to consult Richard but has remained silent till this day. At least nobody has informed me about the results of the investigations if at all they have been conducted or about the final decisions arrived at in these cases.

 

These cases clearly show that my intervention has not been altogether devoid of any value. They also demonstrate that throughout the 6 month-long exchange of our notes and counter-notes, KDS’s sole function has not been to point out to me in “most” of the cases “richer significance” and “greater appropriateness” of the “corrections” figuring in the Table.

 

I could cite many instances belonging to this 14th and last category. But no use doing so. Instead let me indicate here only a few representative examples.

 

Example 1: Ref. Cent. p. 253, l. 22: cause; or Cause;

The ’50-edition has ‘cause’; the Critical Edition would have a capital C for the word. But it is so unnatural in the context. This is what I wrote to KDS on 11-10-87:

 

Here are the two relevant lines:

 

It has no mover, no maker, no idea:

Its vast self-action toils without a cause;

 

Well, I don’t find any special justification for capitalising the initial letter of ‘cause’. After all, it is a cause, not even the cause. Also, ‘cause’ with a small c is in happy company with its other comrades: mover, maker and idea, all satisfied with their minuscules.

 

KDS wrote back to me:

 

A definite article here is inconceivable. So the question raised in the score is, I think, irrelevant. But the company of ‘mover’, ‘maker’ and ‘idea’ appears to suggest a small c. But the copy-text is the final court of appeal. I’ll lodge an appeal.

 

Result?? 

 

Example 2: Ref. Cent. p. 72, l. 31: person or Person

Cent. p. 72, l. 34: power or Power

 

The relevant lines form Savitri as occuring in the 1950-text are:

 

To evoke a person in the impersona Void,

Wake a dumb self in the inconscient depths

And raise a lost power from its python sleep’

 

The Table of Corrections proposes to capitalise the initial letters of ‘person’ and ‘power’; but that will create an anomaly here. Therefore I wrote to KDS on 1-9-87:

 

The proposed ‘corrections’ are ‘Person’ and ‘Power’ for ‘person and ‘power’. Why, then, leave ‘self’ in the lurch? What special relevance is there for capitalising both ‘person’ and ‘power’ and leaving s of ‘self’ small? Better to leave all three in their present forms; after all, we are speaking here of a ‘dumb self’ and of a ‘lost power’.

 

This is how KDS replied:

 

Can’t understand why ‘self’ should remain with a small s. I would consider the small s an obvious oversight.

 

Example 3: Ref. Cent. p. 247, l. 28: Force. or Force;

The Critical Edition wants to replace the full-stop after Force with a semi-colon. The incongruity of this “correction” will be obvious when we study the whole passage in it full context. This is how I presented my case before KDS on 31-10-87:

 

The full-stop is the more apt punctuation mark here, for it helps to keep apart two distinctly separate trains of images represented by two groups of lines. Here are the lines:

 

A radiance gleaming on a murky stream.

It flamed towards heaven, then sank engulfed towards hell;

It climbed to drag down Truth into the mire

And used for muddy ends its brilliant Force.

 

These lines are followed by

 

A huge chameleon hold and blue and red

Turning to black and grey and lurid brown,

Hungry it stared from a mottled bough of life

To snap up insect joys, its favourite food,

The dingy sustenance of a sumptuous frame

Nursing the spendid passion of its hues.

 

Then comes a third image of “A snake of flame with a dark cloud for tail.”

 

I feel it is better to leave the full-stop after ‘Force’ undisturbed, ‘force’ being the end-word of the first passage.

 

To this KDS replied:

 

I find the full-stop better, as a quite different activity comes in the next sentence. Wherever such an activity is narrated, a full-stop is used in the whole passage. We must make sure whether a semi-colon has been put by Sri Aurobindo.

  

As I have already come to page twenty-eight of the present paper, these two illustrative examples will suffice for the moment. In some other cases, although I am deeply interested in knowing the right answers to my queries, KDS has not replied to me till to-day. Here are two examples:

 

Example 1: Ref. Cent. p. 40, l. 23:  Word.    Or Word: 

The fascicle (1947) has these lines:

 

A glimpse was caught of things forever unknown:

The letters stood out of the unmobing Word.

In the immutable nameless Origin

Was seen emerging as from fathomless seas

The trail of the Ides that made the world,

etc.

 

The Critical Edition proposes to replace the full-stop after Word (the end-wordof the 2nd quoted line) by a colon. Two colons so close to each other? Did Sri Aurobindo himself put the colon here? Nobody has answered my question.

 

Example 2: Ref. Cent. p. 33, l. 27: Illumined that or Illumined That

Here are the two relevant lines as occurring in the ’50-text:

 

Overtaking the moment the eternal Ray

Illumined that which never yet was made.

 

The Table of Corrections wants to capitalise the initial letter t of ‘that’. I wondered whether Sri Aurobindo himself in his own handwritten manuscript had put a T cap here and I raised my query with KDS. No answer till this date.

 

It is high time I close this overlong Section VIII which has consumed 15 pages (from p.13 to this page 29) in the elaboration of its 14 Categories. But this detailed discussion and exemplification was very much needed in order to dispel once for all the erroneous “claim” that most of the proposed “corrections” objected to by ‘Jugal’ indeed offer “richer significance” and “greater appropriateness” as compared to the 1950-versions: this is simply not true.

 

Now, let us resume the thread of our old discussion and come to the next Section.

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Source: http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2011/11/6/4931438.html 

36: The Editing of Savitri—Jugal Kishore Mukherjee’s 50-page Letter [C]

by RY Deshpande on Sun 06 Nov 2011 03:30 AM IST  |  Permanent Link  |  Cosmos

 

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 With this thirty-sixth instalment in four parts of Jugal Kishore Mukherjee’s letter, we will be concluding the on-going series of posts dealing with general aspects of Savitri-editing. Actually the full title of the series is The Editing of Savitri—Comments-Notes-Memoirs which will spread over three major volumes. What we have here is Part One which has already run into some 800 A-4 sheets (Words: 280 000); Part Two and Part Thee will be equally voluminous. We shall take these as and when possible. ~ RYD

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Section 9: KDS not always well-briefed in advance

I have noted at times in course of our weekly exchanges that KDS had not been adequately or correctly briefed as regards the actual position and much of his first and hasty criticism levelled against some of my opinions became as a result rather ‘dévoye’, as they would say in French.

 

When I pleaded against “correcting” many of the apt and appropriate ’50-versions following a procedure of “normalisation” in the name of adhering to so-called “Sri Aurobindo’s practice”, or when I pleaded against the alteration or addition of punctuation signs in dictated lines as distinct from Sri Aurobindo’s own handwritten MS, when these changes were not necessary at all, KDS’s first reaction has been one of surprise as if what I had been pleading against had been resorted to only rarely, when the fact is that these, often unnecessary changes have been made galore.

 

In his “Serious Response” KDS opines (see p. 2, last para):

 

I think it stands to reason as well as common sense to believe that neither Peter nor Richard could be bent on introducing against Sri Aurobindo’s wishes any hyphenation, punctuation, capitalisation or spelling.

 

I say, surely not “bent on”; but in spite of all the good will one can one may still commit ‘errors of wrong judment’ and that in ‘good faith’. I am afraid, this type of ‘errors of judgment’ has crept in quite often into the Table of Corrections. If I am asked for it, I can cite examples to substantiate my point.

 

And “against Sri Aurobindo’s wishes”?—How does one determine now with absolute certainty what proposed “corrections” are according to “Sri Aurobindo’s wishes” when he is no more physically in our midst and that too after long 40 years? This is too risky a venture. The wiser course would be to leave undisturbed all the punctuations in the ’50-text which are not obviously inappropriate.

 

And “according to Sri Aurobindo’s practice”? That too is a risky game. I shall come to this point a little later on.

 

The latest in the series of KDS’s harsh remarks directed against me is in connection with my earnest pleading against unnecessary removal of certain punctuation  signs occurring in the ’50-text proving quite OK.

 

In his “Serious Responses” KDS has employed expressions like the following in his attempt to denounce my assertion: (i) “twist it (J’s comment) has introduced; (ii) “the utterly erroneous drift”; (iii) “The dots conceal…”; (iv) “ a complete distortion”, etc.

 

KDS concludes his criticism with these words:

 

To omit matter which yields the truth of declaration and to create an entirely different meaning in order to put people in the wrong box is a very regrettable manoeuver. (p. 7)

 

Sorry for this misconstruction of my intention. With all the sincerity at my command I can humbly affirm that it was not my intention either to give a wrong twist as alleged or to deliberately conceal anything essential or even to put people concerned in the wrong box. Far from that.

 

The introductory qualifying adverbial expression “For example” the editors of the Critical Edition have used before their statement (“For example, he /Sri Aurobindo/ often did not put commas before and after present participle phrases”) made me understand that this is only one of many other situations where the editors, in their own words, “have removed much previous editorial punctuation that seemed to them unnecessary”. The omission of the “For example” sentence or its restitution does not in any way alter the trend of my argument. Does KDS seriously think that apart from present participal clauses, other types of removal of previous “editorial” punctuations are inexistent, or at best or at worst very rare? If yes, then, I fear, he is not well cognizant of the situation. The underlined words in the above sentence from the editor’s declaration (“only one”, “removed much”, “seemed”, “unnecessary”) speak for themselves.

 

I honestly believed when I made that assertion and I still believe that the editors of the Critical Edition propose to remove, unnecessarily or even inappropriately, many punctuation signs of the 1950-text.

 

One may retort: “But why are you not referring to the particular statement of the editors that they ‘have tried to follow Sri Aurobindo’s’ own practice?”

 

But may I humbly ask: What is meant by Sri Aurobindo’s “own practice”? Who judges now what Sri Aurobindo’s practice was? By studying his extant writings? And practice of which period? An earlier one—as recorded in his earlier manuscripts? So, Sri Aurobindo would not be allowed to adopt a new practice at a later stage at the suggestion of his editors and proof-readers —even if this new practice as enshrined in the ’50-text looks better and more appropriate to the context? Who prevents him from doing so?

 

Limitation of space prevents me from multiplying instances, but let me content myself with citing only two examples to show how in the name of following Sri Aurobindo’s “own practice” utter incongruities are being perpetrated.

 

Example 1: Ref. Cent. P. 34, l. 23: long,  or  long

The Critical Edition most inappropriately seeks to delete the comma after long.

 

This is what I wrote to KDS on 29-8-87:

 

The lines in question are:

 

A nostalgia of old little works and joys,

A need to call back small familiar selves,

To tread the accustomed and inferior way,

The need to rest in a natural poise of fall,

As a child who learns to walk can walk not long,

Replace the titan will for ever to climb

 

Well, how can one delete the comma after ‘long’ of the 5th line?? ‘A nostalgia’, ‘a need to call back’, ‘the need to rest’: all these ‘replace’ the ‘titan will’. In between, the parenthetical clause ( ‘As a child who learns to walk can walk not long’) is inserted between 2 commas, as it should be.

 

How strange is the suggestion to suppress the coma after ‘long’ so that it may read ‘As a child… replace’!

 

After receiving my note KDS wrote back to me: “I see no point in the omission of the comma. I think its omission is an oversight.”

 

So you see what type of discretion the editors exercised.

 

Example 2: Ref. Cent. P. 164, l. 7: cares,  or  cares;

This is an example not of the removal of an appropriate punctuation sign but of the wrong replacement of an apt ’50-text sign by an inappropriate one.

 

I have already referred to this case on p. 26 of the present paper (quod vide, Example 4). Shorn of the auxiliaries, the main point boils down to this: If a dependent clause begins with ‘If’, can one put a semi-colon as proposed by the Table (instead of a comma as in the ’50-text) at the end of this dependent clause to separate it from the following principal clause? Abridged and in prose order the relevant lines are: “If thought is added and more tangled cares, still even in man the plot is mean and poor.”

 

Well, can one knock out the comma after cares and replace it by a semi-colon—all in the name of following Sri Aurobindo’s practice?

 

Such punctuational anomalies and others like these are sought to be introduced into the Critical Edition of Savitri in the name of “Sri Aurobindo’s own practice” and yet KDS solemnly declares in his “Serious Response” (p. 7):

 

If the editors previous to Peter and Richard overlooked Sri Aurobindo’s practice when they did the punctuating, their general ‘fidelity’ to Sri Aurobindo cannot save them from being corrected.

 

“When they did the punctuating”—But did they do so their own without Sri Aurobindo’s permission and/or approval?

 

“Cannot save them from being corrected”—I can only pray: If such is the way and nature of the new “corrections”, God save Sri Aurobindo’s existing Savitri from being “corrected” in this fashion!

 

“Sri Aurobindo’s own practice?”—I can cite examples and examples from Sri Aurobindo’s own handwritten manuscript, sometime the last one, where no punctuation marks exist separating complete and independent sentences; and these are not rare or infrequent. I quote here at random 3 or 4 instances:

 

Their lives were as concrete as the lives of men

Their touch as vivid as our fellows’ touch;

 

The Ideas that Fate fulfills not yet are seen

The secret Will has its headquarters there

 

There is God’s staff; there is his High Command

The Truth lives there which oversees the world

 

One can very well see that the end-words (men, seen, Command) of the above quoted lines from Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri-manuscript need some punctuation marks after them. But Sri Aurobindo did not put any there—either because of hurried writing or because he concentrated on the inspiration and not on the punctuation while composing or because… he alone knows why.

 

But what I am driving at is this:

 

If lines of this and other allied types are found incorporated into the body of the printed text of Savitri (whether of the year ’50 or of the year ’51) and the appropriate punctuation marks are discovered to have been introduced there under the editorship of Nolini-da with the tacit or explicit sanction of Sri Aurobindo, should one be allowed now to restore the not-so-apt non-punctuated versions with the misplaced idea of repecting Sri Aurobindo’s “own-practice”?

 

To me the answer is obvious: It’s an emphatic NO. Let others judge for themselves. The best course is to take the ’50 and ’51 text as they are and evaluate each case separately on its merit for its appropriateness or otherwise, and not force it to follow a set pattern conforming to arbitrarily fixed guide-lines.

 

Well, this is my considered view and I have not found any valid reasons so far to change it. And this leads me naturally to the consideration of another important point which will be the theme of my next Section.

 

Section 10: “But it is in the copy-text!”

For many of the proposed “corrections” which I consider inappropriate, the standard retort has been: “But these are in the copy-text.”

 

“Copy-text” … “Copy-text”—It’s too overbearing and awe-inspiring an assertion which is sure to silence any ill-informed reader, as if the very mention of “Copy-text” is enough to close the issue, making any further investigation superfluous! But the problem is not so simple as that. Let me explain.

 

KDS in his “Serious Response” has asserted:

 

Apart from complex cases, every appeal to Sri Aurobindo’s final handwritten text—“copy text”—of 1944 has confirmed the Table.

 

1st point: “Apart from complex cases”. But we are keenly interested in these complex cases and their number is not at all negligible. Nobody is challenging the simpler ones: only an intellectual curiosity to know if there have been any inadvertent miscalculation anywhere—That’s all.

 

2nd point: “time and again verified”.—But on the other end of the spectrum, “time and again” it has been demonstrated that although a particular listed “correction” is indeed in the “copy-text”, it cannot be considered as Sri Aurobindo’s final choice’: 1950-version has to be adopted as conforming to his deliberately accepted ‘final preference’. So, what’s the use of pointing out that the particular proposed “correction” being in the ‘copy-text’ has to be now brought back even at the cost of all propriety?

 

3rd point: what about the probable changes that were introduced during proof-reading—and at times there have been 7 or 8 stages of proof-reading—necessitating the invalidation of the earlier copy-text versions? Does one propose to ignore these later alterations, simply because the corrected proofs have vanished without leaving any trace of their contents except perhaps in the body of the printed texts?

 

4th point: “The ‘correction’ is in the copy-text; it is in the copy-text.”—But what is meant by the term “copy-text”? The unwary reader will be struck dumb by the very mention of this piece of argument, mistakenly thinking that it is surely Sri Aurobindo’s own handwritten manuscript of 1944 which is signified by ‘copy-text’ and therefore any further questioning about the aptness of the “correction” is not admissible. But is it really so? I fear, not.

 

Let us see how the editors of the Critical Edition have defined the term “copy-text”.

 

They have written on p. 174 of Archives and Research journal in its December ’86 issue:

 

To be sure of catching all of them / all the ‘transmission errors’ the editors had to go back to the last stage that Sri Aurobindo alone was responsible for. In cantos composed by hand, this was his final handwritten draft: for the few cantos that were composed orally, it was the transcription of the original dictation. The manuscripts representing this stage, which together are referred to somewhat loosely as the ‘final version’ of the poem, form the copy-text of the Critical Edition of Savitri.

 

So we see that the term “copy-text” does not invariably mean Sri Aurobindo’s own handwritten manuscript; it means at times for many many pages of Savitri “the transcription of the original dictation”. And if this is so, why to assert that “Sri Aurobindo alone was responsible for this” stage? There is the possibility of the scribe mishearing and miscopying and mis-punctuating and mis-capitalising. And it is not a mere conjectural possibility; it is an established fact and admitted by all concerned that many types of slips of omission and commission escaped the notice of the scribe when he took Sri Aurobindo’s dictation. The Xerox-copy of a single page of manuscript of Savitri (Book IV Canto II) exemplifies quite a few obvious but serious mistakes that have crept into the scribal notings.

 

Then why should this type of imperfect ‘copy-text’ (for which Sri Aurobindo alone is not responsible) be conferred sacrosanctity in par with that of Sri Aurobindo’ own handwritten manuscript? And why should this faulty ‘dictation script’ be taken as the standard to judge the appropriateness or inaptness of the printed versions which might have presumably incorporated more apt alterations modifications suited to the context and done with the approval of Sri Aurobindo? So, simply stating that “the ‘correction’ is in the ‘copy-text’ ” cannot carry much weight in these cases. And I am speaking now of the whole of Savitri (including all its three Parts) where almost 1800 “corrections” are sought to be introduced. Each of these “corrections” requires a careful re-investigation before it can be accepted in preference to the ’50 and ’51 version.

 

5th point: Even coming back to the ’44-text of Savitri, “It is in the copy-text” does not offer the final solution in all cases. The reasons are as follows:

 

I am not contesting the claim that if a line-by-line and word-by-word comparison is carried out, it will be found that many, even most, of the listed “corrections” (it cannot be all, surely not all, for there are many newly introduced punctuational alterations, etc.) will be found to occur in the earlier copy-text of ’44. This point need not be stressed again and again, for this is readily conceded by me. But that is not the central issue at all. What I am contesting is the very principle of this type of mechanically executed line-to-line or word-to-word or punctuation mark to punctuation mark comparison to spot the ‘transmission errors’; and I am sure in my mind that such a procedure cannot be the basis for the preparation of the Critical Edition of Savitri. Let me explain myself.

 

Most of the “corrections” listed in the Table for Part One of Savitri may indeed have been there in Sri Aurobindo’s ’44-copytext. But we should not forget that there are many important factors that account for legitimate changes having been introduced at a later stage (including, be it carefully noted, the various stages of proof-reading—the “bee in Jugal’s bonnet”!). Some of these factors may be enumerated as follows:

 

1. 1.    addition of new lines or alteration of old lines having their own repercussion on punctuation, etc.
2. 2.    acceptance of the suggestions put forward by the previous editors and proof-readers;
3. 3.    Sri Aurobindo having deliberately accepted inadvertently made alterations—made either by the scribe or by the typist;
4. 4.    Sri Aurobindo’ own “obvious oversights and slips” (to quote KDS’s phrase) having been set right with his own approval
5. 5.    Sri Aurobindo’s punctuational irregularities having been somewhat made regular—again with his own permission;
6. 6.    etc.

 

I can cite examples in each of the categories listed above. But I don’t think there is necessity for that now.

The pith of my argument is this: Simply to point out that such and such listed “corrections” are found in the ‘copy-text’ and therefore must have to be incorporated now, irrespective of any other consideration, is a plea devoid of much validity. Does one propose to “fossilize” Sri Aurobindo’s writings to some particular earlier year?

 

No, each case has to be carefully assessed taking due account of the altered context. No rule-of-the thumb procedure can help us here.

 

Section 10. Inevitable human “errors” and deliberately introduced changes

In order to devalue the importance of the 1950-edition as the basic text, KDS in his “Serious Response”, p. 4, writes:

 

Even that of 1950 under the eyes of Prithwisingh, whose “faithfulness to Sri Aurobindo” is “legendary” and whose “proof-reading” was “very conscientious” fails to be reliable. From this astounding oversight in the 1950 edition we may presume the possibility of many other shortcomings.

 

No, to err is human. One “glaring” instance does not necessarily prove that there may be many more and therefore the whole thing should be suspect. In that case why should not one take the Table of Corrections too to be terribly suspect because it can be easily shown that it suffers from many an “astounding oversight”?

 

So no use engaging in this sort of condemnatory generalization. Instead, let us have a balanced and unbiased view and study each entry separately, strictly on its own merit, takind due consideration of the harmony of its new total context. If, for whatever reasons, we fail to adopt such a commonsense approach, many a type of intractable difficulties is bound to arise. And there is no need for that.

 

In his “Serious Response”, p. 2, KDS affirms:

 

Where nothing has been added, a comparison with the final handwritten text is surely natural, especially when we are aware that a good number of ‘transmission errors’ have taken place, mistakes which are admitted by Jugal.

 

“A comparison with the final handwritten text is surely natural”—Why merely ‘natural’, I would say ‘absolutely necessary’. But at the same time I would like to add that this should not be all-sufficing yardstick. And why I hold this opinion, that is what I have been elaborating all through this many-paged paper of mine.

 

We must never lose sight of the cardinal distinction between and inadvertently committed “transmission error” and alterations deliberately brought about because of factors as indicated in the preceding  brought about because of factors as indicated in the preceding Section IX (quod vide). While the indubitably established “transmission errors” are liable to “correction”, one must be very very wary before one decides to apply ones’ scythe upon any of the “intentional alterations”; for, many or even most of these may have been supported by Sri Aurobindo himself. The history behind these deliberately undertaken changes being not known to the present team of editors, why should one rush to commit acts of indiscretion by excising away very very appropriate printed versions?

 

Let me cite here only one case which will show that the change was made to some definite purpose and not merely accidentally. For the moment I am not entering into the discussion of whether the change effected was right or wrong; The point I wish to stress is that the alterations (in this instance, the capitalization) was deliberately and not at all due to inattention. The case relates to the capitalization of the word ‘Eternity’. Here are the 3 instances culled from three different pages of the capitalization of the word ‘Eternity’. Here are the 3 instances culled from three different pages of Savitri far apart from one another and yet exhibiting one common trait that these capitals harmonise well with these in the vicinity, and yet all these capitals of ‘Eternity’ are now sought to be banished in the name of the “copy-text”. A proper investigation is sure to throw some added light here.

 

1st instance of ‘Eternity’: Ref. Cent. p. 34, l. 11: Eternity or eternity

The relevant lines are:

 

Movement was married to the immobile Vast;

He plunged his roots into the Infinite,

He based his life upon Eternity.

 

2nd instance of ‘Eternity’: Ref. Cent. p. 80, l. 32: Eternity’s or eternity’s

The relevant lines are:

 

His spirit mingles with Eternity’s heart

And bears the silence of the Infinite.

 

3rd instance of ‘Eternity’: Ref. Cent. p. 91, l. 9: Eternity or eternity

The relevant lines are:

 

Above were the Immortal’s changeless seats,

White chambers of dalliance with Eternity

And the stupendous gates of the Alone.

 

These 3 instances show that the capitalization of the initial letter of ‘Eternity’ was not at all an inadvertent slip which needs to be “corrected with the 1950-text; it seems to be too deliberate to be easily wished away.

 

KDS makes a very pertinent point in connection with the 1950-text; he writes on p.9 of his “Serious Response”:

 

Is it not a fact that mostly the punctuation, capitalization, hyphenation and spelling in the 1950 edition are the same as in whatever portions of this edition were published before that year?

 

A very interesting question and the answer is plausibly ‘Yes’. But its implication is worth pondering over.

 

For it means that Nolini-da in particular proved himself super-meticulous in correctly typing, supervising the composition and reading the proofs through different stages so that the pre-’50 printed text and the ’50-edition could perfectly match in most respects, even in the matter of “punctuation, capitalization, hyphenation and spelling”. And if this is accepted, how can one possibly assume with verisimilitude that the same scrupulous Nolini-da did commit in the earlier period of typing, etc. not one not two, but hundreds and hundreds of “transmission errors” without any reference to Sri Aurobindo which have to be set right now? Simply because not written records are available now to justify the historical rationale behind the alterations he made?

 

Sorry! NKG is not there to defend himself. But to dub most of the divergences noted in his various typescripts as so many “errors” and “blunders” (although many of these when studied in their context appear to be quite appropriate and deliberately brought in) is a proposition very difficult to swallow. Some others may accept it without any compunction but, sorry, I cannot accept it so easily in his absence.

 

Yes, Nolini-da may have made some “transmission errors”—who does not?—and these can surely be rectified now. But what right have we not to remove almost all the divergences which might have behind them Sri Aurobindo’s approval?

 

One can immediately retort: “But what proof is there that many of these were brought about with Sri Aurobindo’s consent if not at his own instance?”

 

Our next Section (Section XI) will be devoted to this very important issue.

 

Section 11: “Scientific attitude or “pseudoscientific dogma”?

KDS has this to say in his “Serious Response”, p. 3, para 3:

 

Controversy can concern only old word and old lines as well as their punctuation, hyphenation and capitalisation. Here the departures from the copy text cannot be regarded as Sri Aurobindo’s own doing unless we have concrete evidence for it. Every departure has to be studied in terms of its quality: we cannot assume that it is due to Sri Aurobindo’s own doing in the lost proofs and the missing slips of paper. Such is the general scientific attitude, which has to proceed on available facts, indispensable for a Critical Edition.

 

Elsewhere (op. cit., p. 14) KDS writes:

 

We may imagine that Sri Aurobindo approved of Nolini’s alteration, though we have no grounds for doing so.

 

 “Every departure has to be studied in terms of its quality.”—A very right declaration and this is all I have been pleading for again and again during the last 8 months.

 

And if it is found on study that a particular “departure” from the copy text appears to be quite all right fitting well its own context, what does one propose to do? Will the editors of the Critical Edition allow this variant to stand? If ‘Yes’, I have nothing more to say: this is all that I have been begging for, As a matter of fact, this is what I had written to KDS and Nirod-da in my very 1st list of 9-8-87:

 

I do not suggest that anybody should be an obscurantist or make a fetish of the literal meaning of the Mother’s words. But at the same time we should not try to become iconoclasts all the way. We must respect the spirit behind the Mother’s injunction.

 

So, these should be our working propositions:

1. 1.    The ‘1950’ readings and punctuations marks should remain unaltered wherever these are found not inappropriate.
2. 2.    Obvious slips, errors of oversight, conclusively established scribal errors can be set right.
3. 3.    In case of any doubt, the “1950” reading should remain in the body of the  text and the possible variant be printed at the back of the book in the editorial Notes.

 

If we scrupulously follow these 3 principles, we shall be able to avoid many slippery decisions and errors of misjudgment and, at the same time, remain strictly faithful to the Mother’s wish.”

 

This is how I formulated my position in the month of August last and I still subscribe to this position; because all of us know Sri Aurobindo used to make changes and changes at every step of the composition, the revision and proof-reading of Savitri. So, why take the unnecessary risk of discarding some of the changes brought about by Sri Aurobindo at any later time of which no extant written records are available now?

 

But KDS has enunciated the “scientific attitude” starting from the other end of the scale. He says in effect that unless “available facts”—“available” with whom? the editors of the Critical Edition??—I repeat, according to KDS unless “available facts” offer “concrete evidence” that such and such ‘departures’ were “due to Sri Aurobindo’s doing”, these have to be held as suspect and prima facie liable to rejection.

 

But, according to my humble opinion, this is neither a right procedure nor is according to the principle of ‘natural justice’. How can you say that every man should be considered suspect and liable to punishment unless he can prove that he is innocent? Rather you should consider everyone innocent unless you can conclusively prove his guilt.

 

In the same way, one should not adopt the negative-destructive approach of annulling 1950-variants—even if they are found appropriate. Simply under the alibi that “concrete evidence” is not “available” with the editors to legitimise these variants. One should rather follow the positive-constructive procedure of giving the ‘benefit of doubt’ to the ’50-variants if, of course, they are found apt and OK, and allow these to remain undisturbed.

 

And “available facts” and “concrete evidence”?—How does one assume that the editors of The Critical Edition have their possession all possible documents relevant to the question and that no document is missing? All the corrected proofs are missing, we know. And, who knows, other intermediate “instructions” too may not be on record.

 

But is it the contention that even in the case where certain possible documents are not now available with a particular team of editors, these editors should be permitted to ignore the earlier existence and later disappearance of these essential documents and draw conclusions solely on the basis of the so-called “available facts”? And this is being put forward as the “scientific attitude” “indispensable for Critical Edition”!

 

I may be excused if I prefer my humble opinion that truly speaking this is not the “genera scientific attitude”, it is rather a ‘pseudoscientific dogma’. And if this type of “scientific attitude” is proposed to be applied in the case of bringing out Critical Editions of Sri Aurobindo’s and Mother’s works, I shudder to think what would befall their writings. For on that score all their books that came out in print during their lifetime should now or later on be changed back to earlier indubitable handwritten or recorded versions, simply because no “concrete evidence” is now available with the Archives to substantiate the claim that many of the later changes were brought about by Sri Aurobindo and Mother themselves.

 

Savitri’s 1950-versions are being challenged and “corrected” after almost 40 years; after some more years does one seriously propose to critically re-edit Sri Aurobindo’s Letters on Yoga solely on the basis of his own earlier handwritten manuscripts which will form the ‘copy-text’? God forbid!

 

I elaborately discussed, in my 2nd list of 15-8-87, the utter impropriety of this erroneously conceived procedure. I append below a few additional instances to show how Sri Aurobindo used to incorporate many types of changes in his writings before the printing was undertaken, changes involving words and expressions and even punctuation, but these changes have not left any “available” evidence of their legitimacy. What do we do now with these alterations done by Sri Aurobindo himself or at the instance of his editors and proof-readers? To correct these back to the handwritten manuscript versions? Surely not.

 

Here are examples culled at random:

 

1. 1.    Ref. Nirodbaran’s Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo, Vol. One, p. 483:

Manuscripts version: “To reduce all to a single hedonistic strain seems to  me very poor psychology”

 

Printed version as found in “Lights on Life-Problem”, p. 7: “To reduce all into a single hard construction seems to be very poor psychology”

1. 2.    “Correspondence”—version: “This is the Karmayoga laid down in  the Gita and developed by myself in the Arya.”

 

Printed version as occurring in Letters on Yoga (Cent. Ed., p. 529):

“This Is the Karmayoga laid down in the Gita as I have developed it for the integral spiritual life.”

 

1. 3.    Ref. Sri Aurobindo’s famous letter to Dilip-da (D.K. Roy) written in Feb., 1942 after the untimely passing of Uma Bose (as found in Dilip’s Sri Aurobindo Came to Me.

 

     (i) Earlier manuscript version: “If we look only at the outward facts”

Printed version occurring in Letters on Yoga: “if we look only at outward facts”

(ii)  Manuscript versions: “… at most, we see interventions”

Printed version: “… at most, we may see interventions

(iii) Manuscript versions: “there is a supporting Consciousness and Will”

Printed version: “a supporting Consciousness and Will is there”

(iv) Manuscript version: “… must be leading the individual certainly, and the world presumably, towards that higher state…

 

Printed version: “… must be leading towards that higher state of things. It is leading the individual,  and the world, presumably, towards the higher state…”

 

I needn’t cite more examples. Now my anxious query is this: Will these ‘departures’ be considered as “transmission errors” committed by the previous editors or type-setters? Will a future editor, in the absence of “available” “concrete evidence” be allowed to “correct” these to the “copy-text”—versions? If not, then, why does one propose to do the same impermissible thing in the case of the Critical Edition of Savtri. I don’t want to say anything more this question: I leave it at that.

 

Section 12: Dictated lines’ punctuation altered

KDS writes in his “Serious Response”: “At a few points he (Sri Aurobindo) has made substantial additions which naturally can have no counterpart in the 1944 text. There we cannot touch anything except when what goes before and come after may raise the query whether a certain word should be capitalized or not.”

 

 “There we cannot touch anything except…”—The affirmation is somewhat ambiguous. If it is meant that whatever is there in the dictated lines as noted down by the scribe has to be adhered to in tete and as a corollary if NKG and other previous editors made some necessary changes therein, these too must now be annulled and Nirod-da’s original versions including the punctuation signs must be restored—well, if this is the intended meaning of KDS’s assertion, it cannot be accepted at all. Because KDS is well aware of the fact that the scribe’s dictated lines suffer from many types of slips which had to rectified by NKG or/and previous editors. (I shall deal with this point in my next Section: Section 13.)

 

On the contrary, if the statement “There we cannot touch anything except…” means that the editors of the Critical Edition will not unnecessarily alter anything in the printed lines corresponding to the dictated lines, then the proposition is acceptable. And this is what I pleaded for in my communication of Jan. 5, ’88:

 

Even if you decide, as a principle, to retain Sri Aurobindo’s original punctuation marks in preference to those of ‘1950’, at least in the case of dictated lines as also in that of these marks which the editors of the Critical Edition propose to introduce, please allow the ‘1950’ signs to stand—if, of course, they conform to your criterion of ‘appropriateness’. This is my humble request to you two.

 

And this is what KDS wrote in the margin of my Supplementary List H:

 

But, of course, the punctuation of the dictated lines in the 1950 edition should not be disturbed unless there is a glaring inappropriateness.

 

I hope I am not misinterpreting KDS’s intention in any way by quoting this remark of his. And I have a lurking feeling that KDS is genuinely under the impression that the present editors have not tried to bring in any modification of the punctuation marks in dictated lines, unless it is absolutely called for. But the fact belies this impression. I give a few examples to substantiate my assertion.

           

Example 1: Ref. Cent. p. 65, l. 9: house or house,

 

I had asked KDS in my weekly communication of 1-9-87: “This line, be it noted, is a new line added by Sri Aurobindo and there is not comma in the 1950-edition. As a matter of fact the page containing the line in question contains many many new lines, also altered ones.”

 

After having read my note KDS gave expression to his surprise in this way:

 

The comma can be put by the Archives, only if the line already exists in Sri Aurobindo’s handwritten text. How then can the line be considered newly composed? He must have asked Nirod to refer back to the copy-text.

 

But, indeed, it is a new line along with many new lines in its immediate vicinity which were composed by Sri Aurobindo between ’47 and ’50.

           

Example 2: Ref. Cent. p. 193, l. 28: Time or Time,

I had written to KDS on 5-9-87:

                       

It is all a question of the right interpretation of the two lines:

 

A vagrant march struck by the wanderer Time

They call to brief unsatisfied delight’

 

Is it: ‘They’ = ‘A vagrant march’? (In that case, a comma is needed after Time). Or, ‘They call a vagrant march to a…’? (In that case, the comma should not be there.) The comma is not there in the 1950-edition (p. 176, line 7 from below).

 

Here is how KDS replied to my query: “I think it is this: ‘They’ = ‘A vagrant march’. But I’ll check with Richard.

 

I wrote to KDS for the second time on 19-1-88 on the same issue: “The verse-line, ‘A vagrant march struck by the wanderer Time’ is a new line first printed in the 1950-edition. Being a new addition, it must have been a dictated line written by the scribe, so the question is: When the comma is not there in the ’50-text, who puts the comma now after the end-word ‘Time’? Surely this comma could not be there in Sri Aurobindo’s copy-text?” I have received no response after that.

 

Section 13: “Dictated lines” written by the scribe cannot be given the status of a copy-text to be followed in toto

One or two examples will make clear what I am seeking to convey.

 

Example 1: Ref. Cent. P. 339, l. 36: Infinite’s Or infinite’s

 

The 1950-text has ‘Infinite’s with I capital, but the Critical Edition proposes to turn this into a small i. And this is most inappropriate. The history of the case is very interesting. Let me narrate the successive steps of our research.

 

This is how I initiated the discussion by writing to KDS on 15-12-87:

 

It is a new line added by Sri Aurobindo after the fascicle came out. In the fascicle of ’47 we find:

 

His transience trembles with the Eternal’s touch.

The Immortals have their entries in his life.’

 

In the 1950-edition this passage becomes with the addition of an intervening line:

 

His transience trembles with the Eternal’s touch.

His barriers cede beneath the Infinite’s tread;

The Immortals have their entries in his life:’

 

The point at issue is this: ‘Infinite’s’ I cap should not be brought down to the lower case (i small), because it harmonises so well with the ‘Eternal’ (with E cap) of the preceding line. So, the 1950-version with I cap has to continue.

 

On KDS’s request Richard investigated the case and reported back to him in these words:

 

Line dictated when fascicle revised. Nirod changed capital ‘I’ to lower case in the fascicle, presumably following Sri Aurobindo’s instructions; the change is very clear and deliberate. Printed ‘Infinite ‘S’ in the 1950 edition. The change to lower cas seems odd because of ‘Eternal’s’ in the preceding line; this could conceivably have been brought to Sri Aurobindo’s attention and the capital approved by him.

 

KDS himself has discussed this particular issue in his “The Problem of the Critical Edition of Savitri”. P.10. Here is what he has written there:

 

A real puzzle faces us in Nirod’s copy of the lines which at present stand:

 

His transience trembles with the Eternal’s touch,

His barriers cede beaneath the Infinite’s tread;

The Immortals have their entries in his life…’

 

In the second line Nirod has cancelled the capital I and made it small. Generally we have to assume that such a correction is done on Sri Aurobindo’s order. But isn’t the small I completely out of harmony with the rest of the content? Will it be right to attribute so patent an inconsistency to Sri Aurobindo? Should we not take it to be somehow a misunderstanding on Nirod’s side?

 

“Somehow a misunderstanding on Nirod’s side”—Yes, so it must have been; and the scribe’s dictated writing betrays this type of “misunderstanding” elsewhere too. Here I cite one instance where the placement of the punctuation sign (in this case a comma) seems to me an inappropriate rendering of what Sri Aurobindo may have instructed.

I am referring to the case of ‘need,’ or ‘clasp,’.

 

There are three lines of Savitri (Book IV Canto 2, Cent, p. 365):

 

As earth claims light for its lone separate need,

Demanding her for their sole jealous clasp

They asked from her movements bounded like their own

 

Well, the 1951-edition has a comma after need (the end-word of the 1st line) and no sign of punctuation after clasp (the end-word of the 2nd line) and this is as it should be. But the “Table of Corrections” proposes to displace the position of the comma: it wants to knock out the comma after need and instead insert a comma after clasp, which inaptly changes the meaing altogether. When I raised this question with KDS, he asked Richard to investigate. Richard produced a Xerox-copy of a typescript of the page concerned which contained many notings in the scribe’s hand: dictated lines, punctuational changes, paragraphing, etc.

 

But what is of immediate interest to us is the fact that this particular Xerox-copy shows unmistakably that Nirod-da has removed the punctuation sign after need and introduce instead a most confusing comma after clasp. And this is what the Critical Edition has depended upon as a document to suggest the necessary “corrections” which on the face of it seems to be very odd.

 

But can this document be considered sacrosanct or even reliable? The markings are not in Sri Aurobindo’s own hand but in that of the scribe; should these be taken as representing Sri Aurobindo’s “final intention”? I very much doubt and that for two reasons.

 

1st reason: When the original document containing the line ‘As earth claims… for its lone separate need’ was examined—this being the document where this new line was for the first time dictated and modified by Sri Aurobindo, all written in the scribe’s hand—it was found to our pleasant surprise that Nirod-da had put a comma after need (as it should be and as it is in the ’51-text) and deleted the punctuation mark after clasp (again according to our expectations and as it is found in the ’51-edition). Then, how was the anomaly of signs introduced in between? Could Sri Aurobindo be responsible for what the scribe noted? Difficult to believe. More naturally it should be construed, as in the case of the ‘infinite’ with I small referred to on the preceding page, as an inadvertent misunderstanding on Nirod-da’s side. And such cases can be detected elsewhere too.

 

2nd reason: The very document (Xerox-copy referred to above) showing the iappropriate placement of the comma sign, contains many other types of obvious ‘slips and oversight’. For example,

 

1. 1.    the scribe has forgotten to put the necessary comma sign after world of the line: ‘But mid this world these hearts that answered her call’
2. 2.    Nor is there any punctuation sign (presumably a comma in this case) after call (the end-word of the 1st line) to separate the two lines:

 

But mid this world these hearts that answered her call

None could stand up her equal and her mate.

1. 3.    Before a new para begins, the scribe forgot to put a full-stop (indeed any punctuation sign at all) after the last word souls of the preceding complete sentence:

 

Her glory and grace that had enslave their souls

 

1. 4.    The scribe wrote to dictation ‘endure’ and ‘yearn’ (present indicative plural forms) instead of ‘endured’ and ‘yearned’ (past tense forms)—an obvious mishearing of what Sri Aurobindo had uttered.

 

Luckily all these and other slips were later on corrected.

 

So, the pertinent question is: Can documents of this sort, faulty in many ways, be put forward as sufficient justification for “correcting” the ’50 or ’51 texts, expecially when their versions are judged to be quite all right? Can these dictated scripts be given the same value as Sri Aurobindo’s own handwritten manuscripts, in the matter of judging whether the ’50 or ’51 versions really represent Sri Aurobindo’s own “intention”?

 

Surely not. At least that is my personal opinion. Others may differ from me if they can produce any valid reasons for doing so.

 

N.B. Incidentally, I may mention that the close examination of this Xerox-copy has revealed the fact that the editors of th Critical Edition have quite freely and quite unnecessarily introduced and modified the quite apt punctuation marks, even in dictated lines—I repeat, even in dictated line. KDS may please note this point.

 

One or two examples I may cite here. Nirod-da had written to dictation:

 

Unable to mount to levels too sublime

They yearn to draw her down to their own earth.

           

Nirod-da had not put any punctuation mark after sublime (a correct procedure) and NKG in his typescript did the same, but the Table of Corrections “corrects” to insert a comma after sublime—which is not essential at all. I showed to brother Manoj D.G. that in my private papers I had noted against this particular “correction”: “Is it Sri Aurobindo himself who put the comma after sublime?—I wonder.” One could have said: “Yes, it is in the copy-text!”

 

Fortunately for me, through KDS’s kind intervention the Xerox-copy of the line has come to my hand. On examination I find it is the editors who are introducing this comma. Surely this comma could not be put there by Sri Aurobindo with his own hand!

 

So! Less said the better.

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Source: http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2011/11/7/4931443.html 

36: The Editing of Savitri—Jugal Kishore Mukherjee’s 50-page Letter [D]

by RY Deshpande on Mon 07 Nov 2011 03:30 AM IST  |  Permanent Link  |  Cosmos

 

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 With this thirty-sixth instalment in four parts of Jugal Kishore Mukherjee’s letter, we will be concluding the on-going series of posts dealing with general aspects of Savitri-editing. Actually the full title of the series is The Editing of Savitri—Comments-Notes-Memoirswhich will spread over three major volumes. What we have here is Part One which has already run into some 800 A-4 sheets (Words: 280 000); Part Two and Part Thee will be equally voluminous. We shall take these as and when possible. ~ RYD

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Section 14: In matters of punctuation, Sri Aurobindo’s MS too should be judiciously followed

I have already referred to the fact and given examples to show that at times Sri Aurobindo used not to put any punctuation mark (comma or semi-colon or full-stop) to separate independent and complete sentences.

 

At other times, the previously occurring sign of punctuation was quite all right in its own context. But the intercalation of any new line/s or the modification of the old line/s necessitated certain changes in punctuation in the old line but somehow this change was not effected and the earlier now-inappropriate punctuational sign was left as it was. Surely in such cases a line-to-line comparison and a consequent attempt to restore the old punctuation mark in the printed text would not be right at all.

 

For such and similar reasons we must avoid the tendency to promptly “correct” any punctuational ‘departure’ noted in the ’50 or the ’51 text with the argument that the suggested “correction” is actually found in Sri Aurobindo’s own manuscript. We have to be circumspect in this field. But some of the “corrections” listed in the Table have been prompted, I fear, by this sort of blinkered comparison not taking adequate account of the altered context.

 

I am going to cite below 1st 2 instances which will, I hope, make it abundantly clear why a mechanical adherence to an earlier manuscript cannot in all cases do justice to Sri Aurobindo’s writings.

 

1st instance:

Ref. Plate 2 (1944) Manuscript with dictated revisions, Bk. III, C. 3

(Reproduced in Archives and Research, Dec. ’86)

See line 10 (in Sri Aurobindo’s own hand):

 

Each lived for God in him and God in all

 

Please note that no punctuation mark has been put after ‘all’ in the manuscript although another independent sentence has been brought down to a position immediately after the line in question to make the due:

 

Each lived for God in him and God in all

Each soleness inexpressibly held the whole.

 

A comma was rightly put after the end-word all of the 1st line in the fascicle of 1947 and this sign has subsisted till this day.

 

A mechanical line-to-line comparison would force us to cancel this essential comma.

 

2nd instance:

Ref. Same Plate 2 as printed in the same number of the Archives, lines 13-12 ffrom bottom:

 

All Nature was a conscious front of God

A plenitude of illimitable Light

Inspired…

                  

Please note that Sri Aurobindo did not put any punctuation mark after God or the 1st line although a complete and independent sentence ended there.

 

The fascicle (1947) printed a colon here and this sign has subsisted till now.

 

3rd instance:

Ref. Archives , Dec. ’86, p. 157, lines 12 & 13 (written by Sri Aurobindo in a small chit-pad):

 

Man’s thought is like a diamond cutting gems

Man’s will is like a labourer hewing stones:

 

We don’t find any punctuation sign so separate the two complete independent sentences; normally we would expect either a comma or a semi-colon after gems (the end-word of the 1st line).

 

These three examples will suffice to demonstrate that no rule-of-the-thumb solution can be offered. Each case has to be studied on its own merits. In the generality of straightforward cases we have to give more weight to the copy-text, but not blindly even there.

 

Section 14: Sri Aurobindo would not passively listen

At times an impression has been sought to be created that Sri Aurobindo, being some what hard of hearing towards the last phase of his physical existence, could not possibly catch the proper sounds of some of the words read out to him by our Nirod-da; also suffering from failing eye-sight, he could not possibly see the words typed or printed and therefore could not be aware of the punctuation marks nor of the capitalization of any letters. Sri Aurobindo used to perhaps passively listen to the recital of Savitri lines by his scribe: 

Fortunately for us none of these impressions are true. Neither his failing eye-sight nor the so-called deficiency of his hearing could prevent him from taking a very keen and active and attentive interest in Savitri through all the phases of correcting and dictating. 

In the beginning no documentary proofs were in my possession to establish my point; but through Mother’s Grace, almost unsolicited two Xerox-copies of a page of Savitri in its successive stages of revision with dictated lines, have very recently come to my hand. A mere look at these two Xerox-copies replete with various intricate modifications and additions will immediately explode the myth of Sri Aurobindo’s passivity and inattention. KDS, Nirod-da, Manoj D.G., Paru P. and myself—all of us have seen these Xerox-copies.

           

Even otherwise, before I had had a chance to see and examine these Xerox-copies, I referred KDS to a particular case of ‘free’ or ‘bare’ where Sri Aurobindo effected lots of intricate changes near about the line containing the controversial word ‘free’. After receiving my detailed note, KDS himself observed:

 

To get in sound two bears so close together is too much of a zoo. I think Nirod’s miscopying is quite a commendable creative act. Your pointing out that Sri Aurobindo was changing things in the 1950-edition, just a few lines before the overbearing two suggests that Sri Aurobindo was in a fairly alert state when he came to them. This fact by itself is not sufficient for us to believe that Sri Aurobindo approved ‘free’ in preference to ‘bare’ of the copy-text, but it provides good ground to hold that he was not entirely passive when the reading was done. This gives us some freedom of choice for the Critical Edition.

 

I say, not only “not entirely passive”, but on the contrary quite active and attentive. This point has been indubitably proved by the analyses of the aforementioned Xerox-copies.

 

So, one should not seek now to introduce “corrections” solely on the assumed ground of Sri Aurobindo having missed “seeing” or “hearing” the word properly. I don’t want to dilate upon this point any further, for it is a topic I personally fail to relish.

 

N.B I hope I have not misrepresented KDS’s view in any way by underling certain phrases in the above extract quoted from his notes.

 

A word of apology to the readers of this present paper of mine. As because of lack of space I have not been able to give the whole history of our continued exchanges, the readers will fail to understand all the allusions contained in KDS’s note. Even to appreciate KDS’s pun and humour scintillating through the above extract requires a fair knowledge of the background.

 

But that is not essential for our purpose of the moment. We are interested in the conclusion KDS has drawn and that is all matters for the central theme of this Section 14. Once I had written to KDS (on 19-1-88): “These 1950-punctuation signs were put in Sri Aurobindo’s lifetime with his tacit or explicit concurrence.” KDS underlined my phrase “with his tacit or explicit concurrence” and remarked: “The punctuation signs could hardly have been read out.”

 

After having seen the Xerox-copies, I at least cannot accept at its face value this last affirmation of KDS.

 

Section 16: A proper re-investigation and re-evaluation is bound to lead to the rejection of many of the listed “corrections”.

An unbiased understanding of the implications of the various factors that we have been discussing in the last 15 Sections is sure to convince us that the unintentional ignoring of many of these factors has led the editors of the Critical Edition to make some avoidable errors of misjudgment: these need to be rectified now for the sake of the perfection of Savitri. And for that a second investigation is called for all the 1795 (?) listed “corrections” involving the whole of Savitri and, I hope, the persons concerned will not grudge the extra labour that will be required for this very essential task.

 

That this re-investigation and re-appraisal will lead to the rejection of many of the “corrections” and the retention of the ’50 and ’51 versions, is borne out by the fact that my painstaking little research even in the absence of the essential manuscripts has already led to the discarding by KDS of some of the “corrections” in preference to the current printed versions. I have in Section 5/subsection adduced a few examples of this sort; let me cite here 3 or 4 new examples.

 

Example 1: Ref. Cent. P. 98, l. 21: Made by  or  Made for

The Critical Edition proposes to replace the proposition ‘by’ of 1950 by ‘for’.

 

This is how I initiated the discussion on 19-9-87:

 

The line is:

 

Made by an interpreting creative joy

 

According to the Upanishadic Vision, Joy created the world ( anandat hi eva khalu imani bhutani jayante). I prefer ‘Made by’ to ‘Made for’. Why not print the former in the body of the text and the latter as footnote?

 

KDS replied to me:

 

My instinct is for ‘by’. But ‘for’ is not without sense if we understand it as ‘on behalf of’ or ‘for the sake of’.

 

After doing a little bit of research of my own, I wrote to KDS again on 15-12-87:

 

As compared to ‘Kishor-bhai’s publication’ (1947), 3 changes were made by Sri Aurobindo for the 1950-edition: 1 line modified and 2 new lines added. Thus in ‘Kishor-bhai’ (Book II Canto I), p. 6, lines 10-12, we find:

 

Made by an interpreting creative joy

Alone it points us to our journey back;

Planted on earth it is all realms in One.’

 

In the 1950-edition (Cent. p. 98, lines 21 to 25), the passage becomes:

 

Made by an interpreting creative joy

Alone it points us to our journey back

Out of our long self-less in Nature’s deeps;

Planted on earth it holds in it all realms:

It is a brief compendium of the Vast.

 

So you see, ‘Made by’ was there when Sri Aurobindo made these changes.

 

On receiving my second note KDS commented:

 

The changes are not close enough to count very much. I would like to know how ‘by’ came when the copy-text has ‘for’. Nirod’s notebook should be consulted. If Sri Aurobindo changed the ‘for’ there to ‘by’, the problem would be quite solved.

 

Then KDS referred the question to Richard and Richard reported back after having carried the investigation:

 

Nirod miscopied ‘for’ of the original as ‘from’. Then Sri Aurobindo corrected it to ‘by’ when Nirod read out his copy. So now we have to keep both. I prefer ‘by’ to be in the text and ‘for’ as footnote variant.

 

I (Jugal) became so happy with this final decision.

 

Example 2: Ref. Cent. p. 108, l. 11: inconscience, or inconscience;  

The 1950-text has a comma after ‘inconscience’; but the Table of Corrections proposes to replace it by a semi-colon which is quite anomalous. So I wrote to KDS on 19-9-87:

 

Here are the relevant lines:

 

A brute half-conscious body serves as means

A mind that must recover a knowledge lost

Held in stone-grip by the world’s inconscience,

And wearing still these countless knots of Law

A spirit bound up as Nature’s king.

 

Well, if you insert a semi-colon after ‘inconscience’ thus grammatically  separating the last two lines, how do you explain the anomaly ‘A spirit stand up’?

 

After receiving my note KDS replied to me:

 

Here ‘to’ is understood before ‘mind’, and ‘must’ is understood after ‘bound’ in the last line. Without a ‘must’ here, the present tense ‘stand up’ is incomprehensible. I think a semi-colon after ‘inconscience’ will hinder this ‘must’ from being understood. I’ll consult the manuscript.

 

Well, the case was referred to Richard for further investigation and this is how he reported back:

 

The semi-colon was there when there was ‘stands’ instead of ‘stand’ in the last line. When ‘stand’ came, the semi-colon which was on the preceding page was overlooked. In any case Nirod had a comma in his copy. So the comma is preferable to the semi-colon for the sake of the syntax.

 

I (Jugal) am happy again with this final decision in this case too. Incidentally, this instance clearly demonstrates the fallacy of line-to-line comparison. If the editors of the Critical Edition would not have confined their task to the line-to-line comparison for detecting the faulty departures but taken sufficient account of the total context, they would not have made the mistake of suggesting the “correction” of the printed version (coma in this case) to an impossible semi-colon.

 

Sorry to make such a remark but the fact is too patent to miss.

 

Example 3: Ref. Cent. P. 126, 1. 18: work,  or  work;

Here too the Critical Edition proposes to correct the existing comma after work to a semi-colon which will leave the second sentence without any verb. Feeling uneasy with this suggested “correction”, I wrote to KDS on 19-9-87:

 

Let me quote the two relevant lines:

 

There work was play and play the only work,

The tasks of heaven a game of godlike might:

 

The two plays of the first line and the game of the second line are so proximate in senses that a comma after the first line seems to be a better punctuation mark than a semi-colon.

 

Also, the adverbial first word ‘there’ of the first line applies equally to the three clauses: ‘work was play’, ‘play (was) the only work’ and ‘The tasks…(were) a game…’. The insertion of the proposed semi-colon after the end-word ‘work’ of the first line will cut off this ‘there’ from the clause represented by the second line. So I plead against the replacement of the comma by a semi-colon.

 

After reading my note KDS remarked:

 

I can’t understand why the semi-colon has been put. Your argument makes good sense. I’ll look at the copy-text.

 

Richard was duly notified of the case and he, after investigation, reported back:

 

The semi-colon got there by a mistake of Nirod’s part because the passage was revised and enlarged. So a comma is more appropriate.

 

I (Jugal) am happy that my position got vindicated once again. This case illustrated the point that I have insisted upon again and again, this point being that once some revision is made thereabout, it is apt to have its repercussion on the old punctuation signs. If we forget to read the altered passage in its new context, we are sure to land ourselves into such anomalous decisions.

 

These three illustrative cases as well as the case of ‘Infinite’ dealt with in an earlier Section will drive home the point that a more careful re-investigation applied to all the listed “corrections” forming Table, is sure to lead to the re-appraisal of many of them and their consequent rejection. Why not accept this already established fact and start in good faith the task of a second investigation?

 

Section 17: “Checking and rechecking of the original manuscripts under the supervision of Nirodbaran and K.D. Sethna?

One argument that may be possibly advanced to militate against the institution of a second thorough investigation as regards the propriety or otherwise of the listed “corrections” may be the fact that the editors of the Critical Edition have already done a thorough job. And is it not true that in the process they have unearthed many a “transmission errors”? Then, why to do the same job once again? What benefit will accrue out of it?

 

My reply: Yes, it is true that the editors have over the years done a painstaking job and brought to light many ‘slips and oversights’ committed in the past. And all of us are genuinely and ungrudgingly thankful to them for this labour of love put in the service of Savitri.

 

But sincerity, good will and industry are not sufficient safeguards against committing on one’s own part certain other new ‘slips and oversights’. And that is what has unfortunately happened in the case of the composing of the Table of Corrections. Because of the fixing up of some not-so-sound guide-lines and the adoption of a not-so-foolproof procedure, all the laborious scrutiny (line-to-line and word-to-word punctuation-mark to punctuation-mark comparison have not saved the editors from drawing invalid inferences in many cases; and this has led them to brand quite a few correct current variants as “errors” and therefore liable to be removed in favour of the old variants which were rendered inappropriate as a result of posterior contextual changes brought about by Sri Aurobindo himself. I hope I have been able by now to point out convincingly some lapses of this type. And I am sure there are many more left to discover. And this alone, apart from other equally important considerations, necessitates a second investigation.

 

As all of you (KDS, NB, MDG, PP and Deshpande-bhai) are aware, I myself have included in each of my weekly communications addressed to KDS and Nirod-da, a list of the “corrections” suggested by the editors which to my humble assessment appeared to be quite appropriate and therefore to be given effect to.

 

But alongside I have included 2 other lists of “corrections” which I have humbly thought to be unnecessary or not more appropriate than the 1950-versions.

 

But the real difficulty is with my 4th list—list of those proposed “corrections” which have seemed to me rather “inappropriate”: I have felt uneasy with them and thought rightly or wrongly that the introduction of these “corrections” into the body of Savitri would, instead of enhancing its quality, mar the beauty and perfection of the Poem. What is more, I have strongly felt that if I be given a chance to study the necessary documents, I shall be able to clear many of the anomalies.

 

My feeling and conviction may smack of vainglory and foolhardiness: others are free to judge me the way they like; I bear no complaint on that score. But still the feeling remains and the conviction grows that many of the listed “corrections” are the results of “errors of misjudgment”. And my feeling and conviction have gained substance when I have seen that a thorough re-investigation conducted by Richard has finally validated the points I made in the case of some of the “corrections”. KDS is well aware of this fact although, for reasons of his own, he has not cared to refer to these cases in his “Serious Responses”. Even in this present paper of mine, I have cited a few examples of this category.

 

KDS has referred to “Jugal’s misfiring”. Well and good. But he could have been a little more kind to mention somewhere in his “Serious Responses” that not infrequently “Jugal’s” keen queries have led to the discovery of serious lapses in the case of some nay, many of the so-called “corrections” which would have been by now permanently incorporated into Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri but for my humble intervention in the nick of time. However…

 

I am not making a serious issue of those “corrections” which I have termed either “not necessary” or “not more appropriate”. But I am deeply concerned about the final decisions that will be taken as regards the more than 200 “corrections” which have made me uneasy and which have been proposed to be introduced into Part I of Savitri. Even now I humbly beseech a thorough second investigation into these cases taking due account of the total context in the matters of meaning, syntax, etc and not confining oneself to the routine task of one-to-one comparison.

It won’t do to declare that a thorough checking has already been done and therefore no more than a nominal sample investigation is called for now. As KDS has himself quoted in his “Serious Responses”, an extract from the editors’ preliminary remarks says:

 

The new edition is the result of eight years of careful checking and rechecking of the original manuscripts. This work was done under the supervision of Nirodbaran and K. D. Sethna

 

“Eight years of checking and rechecking”:—Others may be struck dumb by this awe-inspiring assertion; but, sorry, I can’t, because I have very carefully gone through all the listed “corrections” and I wonder how some of the glaring ‘errors of misjudgment escaped the notice to the editors through all this process of “checking and rechecking”

 

And “under the supervision of Nirodbaran and K.D. Sethna”?—Well, there too I have some serious misgivings. Did Nirodbaran look with due attention through all the 1795(?) “corrections” listed in the Table? I very much doubt.

 

And KDS? Did he really sanction all, all the “corrections” with due regard paid to the context and meaning? That too I have grounds to doubt. Because, how then, at my prodding, he is discovering now so many ‘errors of misjudgment’ having crept into the Table?

 

I give below only 2 instances to show that it is impossible to think that either Nirod-da or KDS could have sanctioned these suggested “corrections” after sufficient thought or consideration. They may have dittoed the ‘one-to-one’ finding but they were not surely aware of the fact that thus doing they were approving some preposterous “corrections”.

 

Example 1: Ref. Cent. P. 708, l. 6: front, or front:

The Critical Edition proposes to replace the comma of 1951-text by a colon. That this “correction” is not at all apt will be evident from the following analysis.

 

The relevant lines from Savitri are:

 

This universe shall unseal its occult sense,

Creation’s process change its antique front,

An ignorant evolution’s hierarchy

Release the Wisdom chained below its base.

Well, the construction here is supposed to be as follows: ‘This universe shall unseal’, ‘Creation’s process (shall) change’ and ‘An ignorant evolution’s hierarchy (shall) release’. Now, if one inserts a colon after ‘front’ of the second line, ‘shall’ cannot be understood before release and ‘a hierarchy release’ will be a patent anomaly—grammarwise as well as meaningwise. And this is what is being proposed by the Table of Corrections. Did Nirod-da and KDS ditto this proposal?

 

Example 2: Ref. Cent. P. 691, l. 32: flutters,  or  flutters

Here the case is still more startling. The editors of the Critical Edition propose to eliminate the necessary comma after flutters. Let us study the case.

 

Here are the two relevant lines from Savitri:

 

Lift up the fallen heart of love which flutters,

Cast down desire’s abyss into the gulfs.

 

Well, the two verbal forms ‘Lift up’ and ‘Cast down’ are here in the Imperative Mood. The two sentences represented by the two lines are grammatically complete and independent. How can one propose to juxtapose these two sentences without any punctuation mark separating them? And have we to believe that after due circumspection the two authorities decided to knock down the very essential mark of punctuation?

 

Difficult to imagine. Or can it be that I, Jugal, as proving myself insensitive to some “richer significance” or “greater appropriateness” offered by the suggested punctuational alterations? I hope, not.

 

So, no use saying that the listed “corrections” are the result of “checking and rechecking” “under the supervision of Nirodbaran and K.D. Sethna. It will be discreet to admit that mistakes have been committed here and there, and not infrequently, and then proceed to re-investigate at least those cases which I have prima facie marked “inappropriate”. And if these slips and oversights are pointed out by somebody, the editors should gladly welcome it: why should they take it as a personal affront and be irritated?

 

Section 18: Even one single error in the Table of Corresctions is worth ferretting out

In justification of what I have been doing during the last 7 or 8 months in connection with Savitri, once our brother Manoj very kindly remarked to one of the editors of the Critical Edition:

 

For the sake of the perfection of Savitri, even if only one avoidable error is detected in the Table of Corrections and then eliminated, that itself is worth all the labour that is being put in.

 

It was very charitable on Manoj’s part to make such a remark. But I can assure him with all the emphasis at my command that my persistent queries have already led to the rejection of quite a few, many more than one, inappropriate “corrections” that were sought to be introduced into Savitri; and I can equally assure him that my other queries, if properly investigated, will lead to the rejection of many more.

 

But unless the editors’ views are appreciable modified and made more flexible, many unnecessary, often inappropriate and at times seriously inapt “corrections” will be incorporated into the text of Savitri, and most if not all in the name of the “copy-text” as if all of them are in Sri Aurobindo’s own handwritten final manuscript and all are in keeping with their altered contexts.

 

But in many cases it is not so. I am more convinced about this point than ever before and am ready to establish it at any time before any independent and competent authority.

 

It is now clear to me that if the Table of Corrections is carried out in toto, what will happen is that along with the happy elimination of many genuine “transmission errors”, some other new and serious errors of misjudgment on the editors’ part will be at the same time deplorably introduced into the text of the Poem.

 

No personality factors are involved here: there is no question of one party winning and the other losing a debating point. All of us are in the service of Mother and Sri Aurobindo. Let us take the exercise in this spirit and remain good friends in willing cooperation.

 

But if anybody thinks that ‘Jugal’ is a total ignoramus in this matter of editing of Savitri, let it be clearly articulated: I shall then gracefully withdraw from the scene. Otherwise I must point out what I honestly consider to be inappropriate “corrections” and that is for the sake of Savitri.

 

I had no occasion, as KDS had, to speak to the Mother: “I would give my heart’s blood for Savitri.” But that does not mean that my love for Savitri is any the less. And this applies to many of us in the Ashram.

I almost gate-crashed into the affair. If my intervention is felt to be inconvenient, let it be explicitly stated and I shall turn quiet and silent and not say anything on my own unless I am specifically asked to do so.

 

And the same thing applies to the case of Parts II and III of Savitri. So far as these two Parts are concerned, the Table of Corrections contain many suggestions which are equally faulty as these for the First Part. But I refrain from submitting my queries and comments vis-à-vis these for the two parts till the final decisions are taken about the “corrections” to be permanently introduced into the text ofSavitri.

 

Section 19: About consulting the manuscripts

On p. 11 of his “Serious Response” KDS has proposed:

 

If Jugal wishes, Richard can be asked to bring Nolini’s various typescripts to my place and both Jugal and our mutual friend Deshpande with whom he desires to share the verification can be present.

 

No, sorry, this is not the way of conducting any serious research. It is not that I shall merely ask Richard to show me a particular word or a punctuation sign and he will point out to me a corresponding line which indeed contains the word or the sign in question. The problem is not so simple as that.

 

In this connection I may be allowed to remind all concerned how I “won” the battle for the retention of Sri Aurobindo’s “unknown” in preference to the suggested “correction” “known” proposed by the Critical Edition.

 

At KDS’s place, in one of our group-meetings, it was shown to all of us that the 1944 copy-text of Sri Aurobindo as well as the scribal copy done by Nirod-da had in fact “known” and not “unknown” as occurring in the ‘50-text. So, what further justification was needed to replace the “transmission error” (!) “unknown” by the correction “know”?

 

Yet I could not take the question as being finally solved. Because the context of the lines as occurring in the ’50-text made me feel sure that “unknown” has to stand here and not be replaced by the totally incongruous “known”.

 

So I went back home and pondered and pondered over the mystery of ‘known’ and ‘unknown’. Suddenly an inner indication led me to compare the ’50-version with that of the earlier fascicle. And I chanced upon certain discoveries which cleared the issue at once. When I brought the new facts to KDS’s notice, he immediately saw the implication of the changes made by Sri Aurobindo and opted for the retention of the current version “unknown”. He has elaborately discussed this question in his article The Problem of the Critical Edition of Savitri.

 

Well, the history of this particular case amply demonstrates that merely sitting at KDS’s place with Richard in front could not have solved the problem, because he would have immediately pointed out, as KDS did himself in our group-meeting, that “known” is found in Sri Aurobindo’s copy-text and hence “unknown” has perforce to be rejected as an unwelcome intruder.

 

Or take the cases of ‘inconscience,’ or ‘inconscience;’ and ‘work,’ or ‘work;’ as discussed on pages 42 and 43 of this present paper (Vide Example 2 and Example 3 there). Sitting at KDS’s place I could be possibly confronted with the semi-colon marks appearing somewhere in the manuscripts. But it is not the line-to-line comparison that can settle questions of this nature- a fact which, I hope, is recognised by all concerned. A quiet and methodical investigation was needed to pin-point the fallacy. And this was done as a result of Richard’s further research away from KDS’s place.

 

Or, again, take the case of the anomalous shifting of the comma sign from after need to a position after clasp (Ref. Cent. P. 365, lines 8 & 9). This too could not be simplistically treated to solve the riddle. It necessitated the Xeroxing of 2 successive manuscripts and a careful study of these two Xerox-copies has revealed so many facets of the manuscript-making which were not previously known to many of us. And this too surely could not be done by sitting at KDS’s place with Richard holding a typescript in his hand.

 

No, no, a meaningful investigation cannot be conducted following the procedure suggested by KDS. I have to study the doubtful cases alone in silence all by myself, focusing my attention on the total context and the background history of the changes. And this can conveniently be done at a place free from the din of immediate discussions.

 

And this is what I wanted to do in good faith during my last vacation-period of November when I approached the Archives with MDG’s written note to seek for a small place there to work for a fortnight with NKG’s typescripts. I could have finished the job of verification long ago with a little bit of goodwill shown towards me.

 

But fate and human nature decided otherwise and I was rudely prevented from doing so. Yet through Mother’s Grace and Sri Aurobindo’s Compassion, simply through the attentive comparisons of the printed texts available with me, I could detect and point to KDS quite a few ‘errors of misjudgment’ polluting the Table of Corrections. I humbly feel, I can detect many more if I am allowed access to the MS or even their Xerox copies.

 

If there is no trust in me, I do not propose to carry these MS or the corresponding Xerox-copies to my own place. I can work at the Archives itself. And, for whatever reasons, if that too is found not feasible, I may be allowed to sit and work in Harikant-da’s side-office (Prithwisingh-da’s old room) or at Manoj’s place or wherever the Trustees indicate. But the essential point is that I should be left to study these documents quietly and without any hurry. Otherwise no useful purpose be served by the proposed consultation with Richard at KDS’s place.

 

Of course, if the Trustee-in-charge have any objection, my whole proposal drops. But if they have no objection, why should I be prevented from making this study?

 

One may possibly retort: “But what credentials do you have to claim any access to either the manuscripts or their Xerox-copies? Any Tom, Dick and Harry can’t be allowed to do so for the mere asking!”

 

My answer: Have I not already pointed out some significant errors of omission and commission and thus established some sort of credentials? For “Savitri’s precious sake” should not one welcome any legitimate and bona fide offer of help and cooperation coming from any quarter? Why to look askance at such an offer? That’s all I can say.

 

Section 20: As Nirod-da suggests…

KDS, in his “Serious Response” (p.2), has this to say:

 

The 1950 edition by which he /Jugal/ sets great store has been proved to be not at all sacrosanct. How far we can go to set it right is a delicate matter, for even the Table of Corrections cannot be held sacrosanct, as misjudgment can be shown to have crept in here and there. I hold no total brief for anything. We have to keep an open mind.

 

Elsewhere on p. 9 of the same essay KDS writes:

 

The distortion is made because they /Peter and Richard/ do not attach to the 1950 edition the basic importance desired in respect of punctuation, capitalization, hyphenation and spelling.

 

OK, let us harmonise the two view-points. As Nirod-da recently told me, let us not offer the pride of place  to either of the texts old or new, the’44-text or the ’50-edition, but judge each case strictly on its merit.

 

For, the long-continued discussions carried on during the last 8 months have made all of us aware of ascertain number of well-established facts. These are as follows.

 

1. 1.    it is granted that many “transmission errors” have crept into the ’50-text.
2. 2.    It is admitted that many deliberate (as distinct from accidental) editorial changes were introduced earlier—presumably, nay certainly, with Sri Aurobindo’s tacit or explicit approval. That these were “deliberate” can be ascertained from their self-evident harmony with the context.
3. 3.    Some changes were made at the proof-reading stages, not merely during the last stage of 1950, but in course of all the other previous stages, at times as many as 7or 8 in number and spread over a period of 4-5 years. As the editors of the Critical Edition have informed us (Archives and Research, Dec. ’86, p. 171):

 

The proofs of these journal-instalments or fascicles were read out to Sri Aurobindo and corrected by him. He also heard and corrected the printed text of each of the cantos that were published. In 1950, before all the cantos of the poem had been released separately, the whole of the first part was printed in book form by the Ashram press. The proofs of this first edition were read to Sri Aurobindo and he made some changes and additions.

 

Now the fact is that these various corrected proofs are missing, and in their absence who can vouch now which departures in successive printed texts are mere ‘transmission errors’ and which ones were approved by Sri Aurobindo himself?

 

Evidently, none can.

1. 4.    KDS writes in his “Serious Response”, p. 9:

 

Most of the divergences from the text of 1944 are assumed by Jugal to be ‘alterations approved by Sri Aurobindo’ in response to suggestions sent up to him by the proof-reader on small slips of paper which are now missing.

 

My clarification: 

(i) Not most, but many.

(ii) Not ‘approved’ by Sri Aurobindo, but ‘presumable approved’ by Sri Aurobindo, if they are found, on examination, to be quite appropriate to the now-existing context.

1. 5.    This too is admitted by all concerned that the Table of Corrections contain many instances of “errors of misjudgment”.

 

Taking due consideration of the above five established facts, let us now set ourselves to the task of evaluating each “correction” on its sole merit and accept or reject whichever is judged more appropriate or less so in respect of its total context, without importing any other extraneous consideration in the matter.

 

In case of equal appropriateness, better to retain the 1950-versions, and that for reasons which I have discussed in an earlier Section of this paper (quod vide).

 

This will be now for us the wisest and safest procedure to guard us against unintentional rejection of changes made of approved by Sri Aurobindo himself but whose histories are not now known to us.

 

One last point and I come to the end of this fatiguingly long essay.

 

Section 21: Let Nirod-da decide…

KDS writes in “Serious Response”, p. 5:

 

As long as the need of punctuation remains, someone has to do the job according to Sri Aurobindo’s expectations. What is more, Nirod was originally covered by the permission and he is still there to see whether the job is well done.

 

All right; let Nirod-da judge whether many of the punctuational alterations (additions, alterations and removal) suggested by the Table for all the three Parts of Savitri are “well done” or not.

 

Also, on p. 6 of the same article, KDS remarks:

 

As to who would decide, the answer is: “Ultimately Nirod and he is sure to bring in Amal in as well.”

 

So be it. But before that I would like to sit with Nirod-da alone and show him as samples a score or so of the listed “corrections” and ask for his independent assessment of the worth or worthlessness of what I have been saying in objection to their acceptance.

 

Finally, let the venerable Trustee-in-charge of publication have the last say. I humbly leave it to their ultimate decision.

 

By this time I have able to rattle everybody concerned out of complacency as regards the 1795 “corrections: proposed by the editors of the Critical Edition: that is my sufficient consolation. Otherwise, all these without exception, irrespective of their aptness or not, would have been irretrievably embedded in Savitri. But now all have woken up to the problem and I may withdraw in contentment.

 

Eight months back I approached Nirod-da on a fateful day after having received an inner indication from the Mother; today I am retiring with expressing my infinite gratitude to Her for all Her gracious intervention at many crucial moments during the last few months.

 

As I mentioned at the beginning of this essay this is my last polemical communication on the subject of the preparation of a Critical Edition of Savitri. In future I have no inclination to enter into any further discussion on the matter either in way of rebutting charges against me or in vindication of my own points whether old or new. Let the posterity judge the germaneness of my intervention albeit unsolicited.

 

I close this chapter on a note of loving gratitude towards KDS—my dearest Amalda—for all the kind consideration he has consistently shown me all throughout our literary exchanges. Passing storms may rage for a moment but the blue radiance of the sky shines for ever.

 

Ultimately, let the Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s Will alone prevail in the matter of Savitri. Victoire a la Douce Mere.

 

 

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee

1. 5. 88

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