Following King Aswapati in his exploration of the World- Stair of planes of cosmic existence, we have seen the emergence of the Life-Force imprisoned in matter, first in very primitive life-forms, and then in the ‘animal creation’, which included beings who wore a human form but were not yet fully human. Now the poet will show us a first emergence of mind and thinking beings.

A third creation now revealed its face.
A mould of body’s early mind was made.
A glint of light kindled the obscure World-Force;
It dowered a driven world with the seeing Idea
And armed the act with thought’s dynamic point:
A small thinking being watched the works of Time.

This emergence of  ind represents a new plane of existence, the beginning of a ‘third creation’. Living animal bodies have already been established; now a ‘mould’ or form is made to contain ‘body’s early mind’. This new development brings a ‘glint of light’, a first gleam of consciousness to light up ‘the obscure World-Force’ which is guiding the development of the  Earth. That ‘glint of light’ introduces a new capacity into the world. ‘Dowered with’ means ‘gave to’ or ‘endowed with’. This new consciousness brings into the animal world, so far driven only by material law and blind instinct, ‘the seeing Idea’ – the beginning of conscious will, so that action can now be guided and made more effective by thought. For the first time, ‘A small thinking being’ is able to consciously observe ‘the works of Time’ going on in the world around it:

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

A difficult evolution from below
Called a masked intervention from above;
Else this great, blind inconscient universe
Could never have disclosed its hidden mind,
Or even in blinkers worked in beast and man
The Intelligence that devised the cosmic scheme.

How could this new development come about? The poet tells us that it was prepared by a ‘difficult evolution from below’, in matter and the lower levels of life, which ‘Called a masked intervention from above’. At every stage in evolution there is this interaction, of a preparation and a call or aspiration from below which receives a response from above. If there had not been that call and the responding intervention it would have been impossible for ‘this great, blind inconscient universe’ to disclose the power of mind-consciousness hidden within it and allowed ‘The Intelligence that devised the cosmic scheme’ to work ‘in beast and man’ in the form of mind and thought. ‘Blinkers’ were eye-shades that used to be put on working horses in cities, to prevent them from being distracted and alarmed by all the bustling traffic around them: they could see only what was directly in front of them. ‘To work in blinkers’ means ‘to have severely restricted vision’. Without the call of a ‘difficult evolution from below’ and the response of ‘a masked intervention from above’ the material universe would never have been able to release the mind-power involved within it, and the indwelling ‘Intelligence’ which has conceived the universe could not have been expressed on earth in conscious beings, even in a very restricted way.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

It flowed emerging into upper light
From the deep pool of its subliminal birth
To reach some high existence still unknown.

This thin current of mind-power flows towards the surface of the life-ocean, into ‘upper light’, from ‘the deep pool’ of ‘subliminal’ or subconscious awareness which is its origin, on its way to a higher state: ‘some high existence still unknown’. We have come across this word ‘subliminal’ earlier: it means literally ‘below the threshold’ – the threshold of waking consciousness. Sri Aurobindo writes of the Subliminal as a vast reservoir of universal consciousness lying below or deep within the individual waking awareness.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Its right to be immortal it reserved,
But built a wall against the siege of death
And threw a hook to clutch eternity.

This first conscious individuality is not yet claiming the immortality it is destined to enjoy at a later stage of its development, but it is able to establish a lasting individual existence, building a protective wall against the ‘siege of death’, the attacks and pressures of the surrounding environment which is constantly tending to consume and dissolve it. It ‘threw a hook to clutch eternity’, to establish a connection with its everlasting origin. As a result of this process, this pressure of ‘a strange observing Power’ on the first disordered flux of mental consciousness, there is a new development:

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, book 2]

A backward scholar on logic’s rickety bench
Indoctrinated by the erring sense,
It took appearance for the face of God,
For casual lights the marching of the suns,
For heaven a starry strip of doubtful blue;
Aspects of being feigned to be the whole.

The poet compares this emerging life-mind to a ‘backward scholar’: not the brightest boy in the class, as he sits on his unsteady ‘rickety bench’ at the back of the schoolroom. He is trying to support himself on ‘logic’, an important tool of the reasoning mind; but he is struggling to master it. He is ‘Indoctrinated by the erring sense’, convinced of what his senses tell him, although they are ‘erring’ and mislead him so that he mistakes the surface appearance of things ‘for the face of God’; he mistakes the stars in the night sky for ‘casual lights’, with  little meaning or significance, unaware that each little pin- point of light may be a galaxy containing a billion gigantic suns. He imagines that the ‘starry strip of doubtful blue’ above him is ‘heaven’: the home of powerful gods. To him, outer aspects of things seem to be their whole truth; ‘to feign’ means ‘to pretend’ or ‘to put on a false appearance’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

In limits only it was powerful;
Acute to capture truth for outward use,
Its knowledge was the body’s instrument;
Absorbed in the little works of its prison-house
It turned around the same unchanging points
In the same circle of interest and desire,
But thought itself the master of its jail.

This creature intelligence has a certain degree of power, but can use it only within limits. It is ‘Acute’: quick and clever at seizing hold of any useful truth ‘for outward use’, but its knowledge is no more than a tool of the body. That mind is ‘Absorbed in the little works of its prison-house’: fully concentrated on the needs of the body which is its prison. It is restricted to a little unchanging circle of self-interest and desires, but does not realise how it is subject to its longings and habits: the body is its prison, but it thinks that it is in charge: ‘the master of its jail’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Although for action, not for wisdom made,
Thought was its apex—or its gutter’s rim:
It saw an image of the external world
And saw its surface self, but knew no more.

This creature is made for action, not wisdom, but ‘Thought was its apex’, its highest point – but perhaps that highest point is nothing more than the edge of the ‘gutter’, the muddy drain it lives in. This limited thinking entity is aware of the outer world around it, and of its own ‘surface self’, but of nothing more than that.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

Out of a slow confused embroiled self-search
Mind grew to a clarity cut out, precise,
A gleam enclosed in a stone ignorance.

Nevertheless, out of this slow, confused, entangled searching, Mind did grow and develop, achieved ‘a clarity’ that was distinct, ‘cut out, precise’: a gleam of light surrounded on all sides by ‘a stone ignorance’ – the inertia and unconsciousness of Matter.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

This petty state resembled our human days
But fixed to eternity of changeless type,
A moment’s movement doomed to last through Time.

This limited and limiting state is something like our human life, but without any progressive development. What Aswapati is seeing is not an evolving world but an unchanging typal plane of existence ‘fixed to eternity of changeless type’. It has come into existence and will remain in existence, unchanged, representing a step in the ascension of the soul, ‘A moment’s movement doomed to last through Time’. The life-mind has emerged and established itself, but Mind as such has many more levels of its self-expression to reveal. But the poet will not show these to us yet: He has more aspects of the Life- Worlds to show to us in the next four cantos before he will move on to show us more about Mind.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]

A little light in a great darkness born,
Life knew not where it went nor whence it came.
Around all floated still the nescient haze.

The Kingdoms of the Little Life appear as part of that vast pile. At this stage, Life is unconscious, unaware of where it is going and where it has come from. The thick haze or mist of Nescience is still floating all around it.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Book 2]