Here on a boulder carved like a huge throne
A Woman sat in gold and purple sheen,
Armed with trident and the thunderbolt,
Her feet upon a couchant lion’s back.

For most Indians this is an instantly recognisable picture: a Woman dressed in shining gold and purple silk is sitting on a ‘boulder’ cut into the form of ‘a huge throne’. She is holding a trident – a three-pronged spear – and a ‘thunderbolt’ or Vajra, a very powerful weapon. In ancient Greek mythology it is the all-powerful weapon of Zeus, the King of the Gods; it is also found in Buddhist iconography, where it is held by protective deities to ward off evil. The Madonna’s feet are resting upon the back of a lion. He is ‘couchant’, at rest, but in a watchful pose. This is Durga.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

“O Savitri, I am thy secret soul.
I have come down into the human world
And the movement watched by an unsleeping Eye
And the dark contrariety of earth’s fate
And the battle of the bright and sombre Powers.

Like the Madonna of Compassion earlier, the Mother of Might also says, ‘O Savitri, I am thy secret soul’, and like the other Madonna too, she is going to express her mission in the world: ‘I have come down into the human world’ of unceasing movement which is being watched by the ‘unsleeping Eye’ of the divine consciousness. She has come down into ‘the dark contrariety of earth’s fate’ which is being fought out in a battle between the bright Powers of light and the sombre Powers of night and death.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Men hail in my coming the Almighty’s force
Or praise with thankful tears his saviour Grace.
I smite the Titan who bestrides the world
And slay the ogre in his blood-stained den.

When people feel her presence and her action they ‘hail’ her coming as the ‘force’ of the Lord, or ‘praise with thankful tears his saviour Grace’, feeling that they have been divinely helped and saved. Another aspect of her mission is to ‘smite the Titan who bestrides the world’: she attacks the superhuman ego-centred powers who are striding across the world doing terrible and violent deeds everywhere. ‘To bestride’ means ‘to stand or stride across’ or it can mean ‘to stand with legs apart’, as if obstructing the course of world-progress. This is Durga’s work: every year she comes to slay the Asura. But unfortunately, the Mother says, her work is never completed: she has to do her task again and again every year. She also has to ‘slay the ogre in his blood-stained den’: an ‘ogre’ is a monster in superhuman form that devours human beings alive. He has a ‘den’ like an animal, stained with the blood of his victims.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

I am Durga, goddess of the proud and strong,
And Lakshmi, queen of the fair and fortunate
I wear the face of the Kali when I kill,
I trample the corpses of the demon hordes.

This is the Madonna of Might, the soul-power of dynamism and strength, who takes different forms. She is embodied as Durga who is the ‘goddess of the proud and the strong’, worshipped by many of the princely families of India and of course by practically the whole population of Bengal, who are very much in love with Durga. Her strength is shown by the fact that she rides on a lion and carries a trident. But this powerful Mother also appears as Lakshmi, full of charm and beauty and love, ‘queen of the fair’, of the beautiful, who bestows happiness and wealth and success on the fortunate. She puts on ‘the face of the Kali’ when she has to help the divine work by destroying and slaying, when she vigorously tramples and dances on the corpses of all those demon armies that she has slain. ‘Hordes’ means huge gatherings of people, and often armies. We think of Attila the Hun with his hordes, fast-moving armies on horseback swarming all over western Asia and Eastern Europe.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

I guide man to the path of the Divine
And guard him from the red Wolf and the Snake.
I set in his mortal hand my heavenly sword
And put on him the breastplate of the gods.

With her great strength and courage this soul-Power is guiding man ‘to the path of the Divine’ and protecting human beings from ‘the red Wolf and the Snake’. These are very dangerous vital powers. The red vital Wolf tears his victims apart with his terrible teeth; the Snake attacks them with his poison or crushes them in his coils. Human beings need protection from these hostile powers of the lower nature. But if a human being is strong and courageous the Mother of Might will lend him her ‘heavenly sword’, her divine weapon, and ‘the breastplate of the gods’ – divinely powerful body armour to protect him against subtle wounds.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri]

I break the ignorant pride of the human mind
And lead the thought to the wideness of the Truth;
I rend man’s narrow and successful life
And force his sorrowful eyes to gaze at the sun
That he may die to earth and live in his soul.

We may think that we have got everything organised and set up just the way that it should be, but the Mother of Might, with her Grace and Compassion, destroys our ‘ignorant pride’ in order to lead our thought ‘to the wideness of the Truth’. If we are convinced that we have got everything clear and know how things are, she will break that narrow conviction and open us to wider and truer knowledge. Similarly, when we are quite satisfied with our ‘narrow and successful life’, she comes and tears it to pieces – ‘to rend’ means ‘to tear’ – and forces us, in our sorrow, to ‘gaze at the sun’, the source of divine Light and Energy, so that we can learn to die to material things and live in the soul. We value outer success too much. Sometimes we need to be defeated and disappointed so that we can turn to more important values and learn to live in our soul.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

But the great obstinate world resists my Word,
And the crookedness and evil in man’s heart
Is stronger than Reason, profounder than the Pit,
And the malignancy of hostile Powers
Puts craftily back the clock of destiny
And mightier seems than the eternal Will.

But although she is offering all her strength and protection to help human beings on their journey towards fulfilment, she still has to face a lot of resistance. The world is ‘obstinate’. A person who is obstinate will not be persuaded. They insist on going their own way. The world is obstinately resisting her message and her help. In the human heart there is so much ‘crookedness and evil’. In the Vedas the term ‘crookedness’ is applied to our human way of seeing things: because we are deluded and in ignorance, we cannot see straight, so we can neither feel straight nor act straight. Our distorted an  ignorant understanding leads us to ‘evil’: deliberate wrong- doing. The ‘crookedness and evil’ in the human heart is stronger than ‘Reason’, the clear light of mind. We can reason all we like, but it will not help us to resist and change the dark and twisted parts of our nature. The ‘Pit’ with a capital P means Hell, the terrible lower world. The hostile powers that live in the Pit are malignant: they have active bad will. So they are always putting back the clock. Sri Aurobindo has told us that ‘A date is fixed in the calendar of the Unknown’. The clock of time is moving on towards that date when Ignorance will be overcome and the world will be saved. But the malignant hostile powers keep ‘craftily’ setting back ‘the clock of destiny’; ‘craftily’ means ‘cleverly’ but also secretly, so that no-one notices what they are doing. We do not see them doing it. They do it so cleverly that their ‘malignancy’ seems to be more powerful, ‘mightier’ than the Will of the Eternal.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

But my heart I have hardened and I do my work:
Slowly the light grows greater in the East,
Slowly the world progresses on the God’s road.

Nevertheless, she has hardened her heart. When you harden your heart, you renounce all weakness and discouragement. The Mother of Might will continue her work at all costs. She has the faith to see that ‘Slowly the light grows greater in the East’: the new dawn is approaching despite the malignancy of the adverse powers that are setting back the clock. ‘Slowly the world progresses on the God’s road’: gradually, despite all the resistance and opposition, the world is growing closer to God.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

A thinking animal, Nature’s struggling lord,
Has made of her his nurse and tool and slave
And pays to her as wage and emolument
Inescapably by a deep law in things
His heart’s grief and his body’s death and pain:
His pains are her means to grow, to see and feel;
His death assists her immortality.

Each human being is ‘A thinking animal’. Man is the lord of Nature but lacks the wisdom and mastery to rule Nature properly: humanity is only the ‘struggling lord’ of Nature. We have made use of her as our ‘nurse’, letting her feed and nourish us; as a tool that we can use however we please; and as a ‘slave’, treating her without respect, without gratitude. And yet, because of ‘a deep law in things’, we cannot avoid giving her something in return, as a ‘wage and emolument’, a salary. Because of the way that things are organised in the universe, we are not allowed to simply steal the gifts of nature: ‘Inescapably’ we have to give something back to her. What Man gives back to nature is ‘His heart’s grief and his body’s death and pain’. The pains that human beings suffer help Nature in her evolutionary process. Man’s pains are ‘her means to grow’, her way of developing and becoming more conscious, able ‘to see and feel’. When we die, we leave something behind and move on. The death of the human individual ‘assists her immortality’, the immortality of Nature.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

His soul is her guest, a sovereign mute, inert,
His body her robot, his life her way to live,
His conscious mind her strong revolted serf.

The divine soul in the human being is the guest of Nature. The true role of the soul is to rule nature, as the master and ‘sovereign’; but in our present state of evolution, this sovereign remains ‘mute’, silent, ‘inert’, inactive. Our ‘body’ is Nature’s ‘robot’, made for her purposes and made to do what she needs to have done. Our lives are the way in which Nature lives, and the human mind is her ‘serf’. In pre-revolutionary Russia serfs were peasants who were tied to the land where they lived and worked for the landowner. Our mind is the ‘serf’ of Nature, but it is strong, and in revolt against Nature’s control over it – always striving to get its own way and force Nature to do what it chooses.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Immortal spirit in the perishing clay,
I am God still unevolved in human form;
Even if he is not, he becomes in me.

Correctly he says that a human being is ‘Immortal spirit in the perishing clay’, inhabiting the perishable clay of the material body. He is also correct in saying ‘I am God still unevolved in human form’: we human souls have to evolve further to be able to express the divine qualities that we have been created to express. But when he says “Even if god does not exist, he is becoming, he is developing in me” we see the distortion. There is something true and there is something crooked. This is the ego.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

I was born weak and small and ignorant,
A helpless creature in a difficult world
Travelling through my brief years with death at my side;
I have grown greater than Nature, wiser than God.

Human beings are born very ‘weak and small and ignorant’. We are helpless creatures in a difficult world. We travel through our ‘brief years’ with death at our side; we do not have many years in a lifetime, and death is a constant companion who may destroy us at any moment. But despite all that, the Ego of this world of desire says that we human beings have grown more powerful than Nature and even ‘wiser than God’. That is his claim: that he knows better than God.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

I have found the atoms from which he built the worlds:
The first tremendous cosmic energy
Missioned shall leap to slay my enemy kin,
Expunge a nation or abolish a race,
Death’s silence leave where there was laughter and joy.

These lines were written in 1947. So we can be clear what Sri Aurobindo is referring to. The atomic physicists have discovered the atoms and also learned how to use this ‘first … cosmic energy’ which is so tremendously powerful. And what do we decide to do with it? To kill our enemies, other human beings. All human beings are ‘kin’, part of one family. But if we decide that some of them are enemies, we are ready to use this primal power to destroy them, to ‘Expunge a nation’: to completely wipe it out so that it no longer exists, or to ‘abolish a race’, utterly destroy a whole segment of humanity. This titanic being looks forward to using atomic energy to create the silence of Death where once there was all the laughter and joy of human life.

[Shraddhavn’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

I will take his means of sorcery from his hands
And do with them greater wonders than his best.
Yet through it all I have kept my balanced thought;
I have studied my being, I have examined the world,
I have grown a master of the arts of life.

He says, “I will take all these powers of God, these means by which God works miracles” – ‘sorcery’ means ‘witchcraft’ or ‘black magic’ – “I will take them from him and use them to do even more marvellous things than he has ever done.” And ‘Yet’, he says, ‘through it all’, although I have gained such great mastery, I have still kept my power of ‘balanced thought’. ‘I have studied my being’, my own physiology and psychology. ‘I have examined the world’ and ‘I have grown a master of the arts of life.’ He is proud of his achievements both in Science and in the Arts.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

And Savitri heard the voice, the warped echo heard
And turning to her being of power she spoke:
“Madonna of might, Mother of works and force,
Thou art a portion of my soul put forth
To help mankind and the travail of Time.

Savitri has heard what the Madonna of Might had to say. She has also heard this distorted, twisted echo. But she does not answer the echo. She speaks to her own soul-power, to her being of power. And she says, “You are the Madonna of power. You are the ‘Mother of works and force’, of energy and achievement. You are a part of my soul that has been ‘put forth’, emanated, to help mankind, to support human beings and the human race in their evolutionary forward movement, through ‘the travail of Time’.” The word ‘travail’ has a double meaning: used generally, it means ‘work that is done with effort, with pain and suffering’; but more particularly it refers to the labour of a woman giving birth to a child. Through the process of evolution and the work and effort that go on in the world, Time is painfully giving birth to a more glorious future for the earth. The Mother of Might has been emanated to support and help human beings in that process.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Because thou art in him, man hopes and dares;
Because thou art, men’s souls can climb the heavens
And walk like gods in the presence of the Supreme.
But without wisdom power is like a wind.
It can breathe upon the heights and kiss the sky,
It cannot build the extreme eternal things.

Savitri says, “Because you are in him, Madonna of Might, man has the courage and daring to attempt apparently impossible things. Because of your force and energy, ‘men’s souls can climb the heavens’, develop higher levels of consciousness and ‘walk like gods in the presence of the Supreme’. You give man the power to undertake great efforts of tapasya and self development. But power alone is incomplete: ‘without wisdom, power is like a wind’. Wind can be very powerful and it can breathe on the high tops of the mountains and ‘kiss the sky’, but it cannot build permanent, lasting constructions and creations: ‘It cannot build the extreme eternal things’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 7]

Thy wisdom shall be vast as vast thy power.
Then hate shall dwell no more in human hearts,
And fear and weakness shall desert men’s lives,
The cry of the ego shall be hushed within,
Its lion roar that claims the world as food,
All shall be might and bliss and happy force.”

When the soul-power of Strength is complemented by divine wisdom, hatred, fear and weakness will disappear from human lives, because the ‘cry of the ego’ will be silenced, the ‘lion roar’ that claims the whole world for its food. In its place, ‘All shall be might and bliss and happy force.’ This is the promise that Savitri makes to the Madonna of Might.

The same pattern that we found in the first section of this canto has been repeated here: first the description of the symbolic landscape in which the Madonna of Might is seated and her appearance; then the Madonna presents herself to Savitri and describes her mission, the limitations she faces, and her faith and determination to continue fulfilling her role as far as possible. When she stops speaking, there comes the distorted echo of her divine soul-power: the voice of the ‘dwarf-Titan’, the human desire-soul that claims the whole world as its food. Savitri sees these contrasts and understands the role of each of these Madonnas. She sees what they need in order to fulfil their roles completely. Next we shall see this pattern repeated in the third and last section of this canto.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, book 7]