Summary on Savitri by Dr. M.P Pandit

Book Ten Canto II: The Gospel of Death and Vanity of the Ideal

Death speaks:

“O Prisoner of Nature, this is the unsubstantial world from which thy hopes come. This is how man’s thought erects illusions and ideals come to be formed. Actually the ideal is neither in heaven nor on earth. Love is a ferment of thy body and it must die with the body. Thy mind vainly tries to lend eternity to perishing things.

“All here emerges from Nothingness and crumbles back into Nothingness. There is no such thing as lasting love nor an ideal made real. If there is Truth, it shines far above the world.

“The legend that is love is only a desire of the flesh. It is soon spent out and its short-lived glory fades away. Death has saved thee and Satyavan from this disillusionment. Do not call back Satyavan. Go back to thy frail world. Open thy eyes and see the transitoriness of things. Forget all this struggle and pain, forget this vain Quest for the spirit.”

Savitri replies:

“Thy falsehoods mixed with strains of truth are dangerous. I forbid thee to slay my soul. My love is not of the flesh, it comes from God. It is a voice of the eternal Ecstasy. One day we shall near the Great Mother’s face; the gods shall gain their fulfilment and the darkened deities their deliverance. The Eternal comes ever in the guise of Love and tastes both the joy and the pain of life. He named himself as Satyavan for me.

“Satyavan and I have been the twin man and woman from the beginning of time. We have met and loved each other in many worlds. If there is a greater god, let him wear the face of Satyavan before I desire him.

“O Death, advance beyond the phantom beauty of this world. I care not for this world of Dream. I cherish God the Fire.”

Death speaks once again:

“Thy thoughts are only bright hallucinations. Vain is thy bid to build heaven on earth. Mind, the artificer of Ideal and Idea, is but a child of Matter in the womb of Life. Matter is the first-born, a solid image of reality. If it ends all ends, mind and soul including. Besides, even Matter turns out to be a form of Energy and its shapes, steps of Energy’s dance. Finally even this movement of Energy ends in Nothing.

“This is the stuff of which thou and thy world are made. Out of an inconscient Void has this moving world sprung forth. When all was unconscious, all was well, calm, moving according to my unerring plan. But Thought came and spoilt the harmony of my creation. Matter began to hope, think and feel; joy and pain strove. Nature lost her wide calm and the tangled paths woven by the mind came into existence. Where is the soul and where is God in this immensity of a machine? Thou claimest immortality for thy spirit, but immortality for imperfect man is dangerous. Knowledge is a phenomenon of ignorance, love a secretion from erotic glands. Mind and life are tricks of Matter’s force. How shall the Ideal’s unsubstantial hues be painted on the earth’s crimson blur? O Soul, do not be misled by the splendour of thy thoughts; obey the earthly law; take what thou canst of life’s permitted joy; suffer what thou must, till my long and calm night of sleep claims thee.”