Summary on Savitri by Dr. M.P Pandit

Book Ten Canto IV: The Dream Twilight of the Earthly Real

There comes a slope slipping away from the realm of the ideal downwards to lower levels. Thought and sense grow heavy. Savitri sees the mountains, streams, cities and harbours below with multitudes in travail. In an air of uncertainty all seem to wait for death to end their labour. Before her eyes pass all systems, philosophies, laws, creeds—now persisting, now perishing, again reappearing. All looks a meaningless dream. Ascetics call, anchorites meditate—but to no purpose. The cycles roll and come back again.

Death cries once again across this spectacle of fruitless labour: “Behold this dream of creation, this malady of man’s hope. Nothing can change; all is ruled by Nature’s law. Man cannot soar beyond the limits the mind sets for him. In vain he prays peopling the void with brilliant Gods. Gods are his imagination. God is beyond the reach of mortal time. There is no final aim in life; life turns in cycles. The world is a myth, a legend told to itself by the Mind. Hope not to make Matter’s world the home of God; Truth cannot come there, only the thought of Truth; God is not there, only the name of God. God is above, unconcerned. His solitary joy needs not thy love. Leave this scene of sorrow and vain toil and choose the high station in thy immutable Self in the Eternal. Die to thyself. I, Death, am the gate of immortality.”

Savitri answers: “Thou makest the Word a dart to slay my living soul. Not for me are thy boons; give them to the timid spirits who want to flee from the play of God. I cannot seek rest in endless peace; in me is the mighty Mother’s violent force. This world may be a poor translation of the Truth that is beyond idea and speech, but it is not cut off from Truth and God. In vain is thy wall, Death. The light of Heaven is already on our being’s verge, the powers of the Unknown are emerging from Nature’s sleep. God is near, Truth is close. I have discovered that the world is the body of God. A lonely freedom cannot satisfy me. I am a deputy of the aspiring word. I ask my spirit’s liberty for all.”

There is a change in the dread form of Death, a change in his voice though it still rings in doubt. He speaks: “Thy heart is too violent, too passionate. Touch not the ancient laws. Be tranquil. Be wise.”

Savitri: “Changeless Law is not all. Dull fixity may be well for inanimate things. But man is meant for a noble walk. I trample on thy law, I claim for Time my will’s eternity.”

Death: “Why should the immortal Will stoop to this petty earth? Is thine the right to use high strength and thought to grasp these little shreds of earthly life? Why dost thou keep him whom thou lovest from the grand release of the heavens?”

Savitri: “I am driven by God to build his glory on earth. My soul is free to play with love and beauty; most bound, the soul is most free. Heaven can wait, the wager of life is wonderful.”

Death: “Whatever be the source of thy strength, the cosmic Law is greater than thy will. What and where is the Truth thou speakest of? All that is patent is the conflict between two contrary Powers in this world. All is an enigma. Eternal truth lives not with mortal men. If she is within thee, show me the body of the living truth that I too may worship her. I know only one truth and that is that nothing can bring back the dead to life. Seek thy solace in life, O Savitri.”

Savitri answers and as she answers her mortality disappears. Her goddess self appears in her eyes. She speaks:

“O Death, thou too art God, though only his black shadow. Thou art his dark head. All contraries are aspects of God’s face. One and Many, Personal and Impersonal, Silence and Word, Darkness and Light—all are contraries needed for his great World task. He is all and transcends all. There is a plan, an Intelligence in this world-movement. The supreme Truth has forced the world to be. The Infinite flowers in the finite. The soul grows slowly from its imprisonment in Matter’s trance and gazes on the peaks of existence when man wakes into the spiritual mind. The embodied spirit in its flight enters into the cosmic empire of the overmind and then into the glorious kingdom of eternal Light where reigns the Truth supreme. There is the Truth, the Light, the Love, the Bliss for which the whole world yearns. But who can show to thee Truth’s glorious face? O Death, if thou were to touch the Truth, thou wouldst cease to be.”

Death answers for the last time:

“If Truth supreme transcends her shadow here, what is the bridge to span the gulf? Truth speaks through thy words, but where is thy strength to conquer Time and Death? O human claimant to immortality, reveal thy power, bare thy spirit’s face; then will I give back Satyavan to thee. Show me the face of the Mighty Mother, if she is with thee.”

Savitri looks at Death. She does not answer. A mighty transformation comes over her. The Immortal’s lustre fills her and overflows making the air a luminous sea. The Incarnation thrusts aside its veil. A Power and Presence from her being’s summit comes down into her, centre by centre it moves till it smites the thousand-hooded Serpent Force which blazes upwards and clasps the World-Self above. Eternity looks into the eyes of Death. A Voice is heard in the stillness:

“I hail thee, almighty Death, Darkness of the Infinite. Thou art my shadow and my instrument; I have given thee thy awful shape of dread and thy sword of terror to force the soul of man to struggle for light. Thou art the whip to man’s yearning for eternal bliss. Live a while, O Death, be my instrument. But now stand aside and leave the path of my incarnate Force. Release the soul of the world, Satyavan.”

But Death still resists. The two oppose each other face to face. Soon her intolerable force weighs upon him, her Light licks him up, his darkness perishes in her blaze. He calls to Night, but she falls back. He calls to Hell but it retires. He turns to the Inconscient for support, but it draws him back towards its Void. His body is eaten by Light, his spirit is devoured. He recognises that defeat is inevitable and flees dreading her touch.

The Shadow disappears. Savitri and Satyavan are alone. Neither stirs; a mute, translucent wall rises up between them.

Nothing moves. All waits on the unknown inscrutable Will of God.