As a flame disappears in endless Light
Immortally extinguished in its source,
Vanished the splendour and was stilled the word.

If you have a little candle flame, and suddenly there is endless brilliant light, you cannot see the light of your little flame any longer; it is absorbed in the greater light. The Mother withdrew like that: all her splendour vanished into the absolute Light from which she has come, ‘Immortally extinguished in its source’. This is a paradoxical way of putting it: we extinguish a fire or a flame, it goes out, it is finished, gone; but here Sri Aurobindo says ‘Immortally extinguished in its source’: This flame does not die, it returns to its source and will live there for ever. The vision of herself which the Mother had granted to Aswapati vanished, and the words which she was speaking fell silent; but an echo of their harmony lingered and gradually faded away:

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Volume 3]

An echo of delight that once was close,
The harmony journeyed towards some distant hush,
A music failing in the ear of trance,
A cadence called by distant cadences,
A voice that trembled into strains withdrawn.

The wonderful sound of the Mother’s voice is prolonged. The word was stilled, but an ‘echo’ of the delight and harmony of that beautiful sound which ‘once was close’ to Aswapati goes on travelling ‘towards some distant hush’: its music gradually fading in the inner ear. ‘Cadence’ is a word in music, particularly for music which is coming to an end, which is coming back to the base note and closing. He goes on hearing that cadence echoing and fading into the distance, as if it is being called by similar sounds further and further away; he hears it as ‘A voice that trembled into strains withdrawn’. The voice becomes fainter, but is still musical; ‘strains’ is another term in music, meaning ‘melodies’; gradually the melodies of that voice are withdrawn and eventually disappear.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Volume 3]

Her form retreated from the longing earth
Forsaking nearness to the abandoned sense,
Ascending to her unattainable home.

The glorious form in which the Mother had expressed herself moves away from ‘the longing earth’, represented by Aswapati, who is holding all the aspiration and longing of the earth in himself. For a time she has been blissfully close to him: he could see and hear and feel her. Now she is withdrawing, forsaking that nearness, and his senses feel ‘abandoned’. They feel bereft of the beauty and splendour and grace that have left them. She is ‘Ascending’ to her home, which is ‘unattainable’: it cannot be attained or reached; it is beyond Aswapati’s reach and ours.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Volume 3]

A chariot of the marvels of the heavens
Broad-based to bear the gods on fiery wheels,
Flaming he swept through the spiritual gates.

Sri Aurobindo describes Aswapati’s being as ‘A chariot’ for the gods. This is a symbolic image which is used in the old traditional stories about great warrior rishis who battled on the side of the gods, offering their capacities, their energies, their will, their strength as vehicles to carry the gods in the battle against the forces of darkness. Aswapati is one such great being. His being is ‘broad-based’, all-embracing, integral, steady, many-sided, a fit vehicle in which he can carry ‘the gods on fiery wheels’ full of energy. With all that energy,bringing the powers of the gods with him, ‘Flaming he swept through the spiritual gates’ and returned to earth.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Volume 3]

The mortal stir received him in its midst.
Once more he moved amid material scenes,
Lifted by intimations from the heights
And in the pauses of the building brain
Touched by the thoughts that skim the fathomless surge
Of Nature and wing back to hidden shores.

‘The mortal stir’, the movement of the human world, ‘received him in its midst’. Now again he is moving ‘amid material scenes’. We have been following him on his journey from level to level ever since he started to rise up the world stair, and now he is really back in the world. He is a king. He is a ruler. He has responsibilities. But amidst his earthly life he is still uplifted sometimes by ‘intimations’, by messages or hints from the higher levels; and when the ‘building brain’, the active mind, pauses and falls silent he is touched by thoughts from above which swoop down like great birds and ‘skim the fathomless surge / Of Nature’. Sometimes we see birds skimming the surface of a river or lake, or the sea, to drink or to catch an insect or a fish; they do not land, but simply skim the surface and then ‘wing back’ to where they came from. The thoughts which come like that are not products of human brains, and do not come from the lower levels of consciousness: ‘In the pauses of the building brain’ they come from above, touch just for a moment and then are gone.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Volume 3]

The eternal seeker in the aeonic field
Besieged by the intolerant press of hours
Again was strong for great swift-footed deeds.

Here King Aswapati is referred to as ‘The eternal seeker’. That is what he embodies, what he represents: the eternal aspiration and seeking and longing which is a representative of the divine within us. Here he is, in ‘the aeonic field’, the field of vast time. But in the mortal body, like all of us, he is ‘besieged’, under attack ‘by the intolerant press of hours’. This is the pressure which we mortals constantly experience: “Hurry up! There is so much to do and not much time”. On the higher levels he had enjoyed a ‘grandiose respite’ from the pressure of time and ‘the vast business of created things’. Now he is back again, this powerful royal personage, ‘strong for great swift-footed deeds’: decisive actions that have to be undertaken quickly and promptly.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Volume 3]

Awake beneath the ignorant vault of Night,
He saw the unnumbered people of the stars
And heard the questioning of the unsatisfied flood
And toiled with the form-maker, measuring Mind.

Back on earth he is awake ‘beneath the ignorant vault of Night’. The night sky is like the covering of ignorance and darkness that rules our present state of evolution; in the night sky, Aswapati saw ‘the unnumbered people of the stars’, each of them representing a faraway truth, a light, faintly illumining

the night of ignorance. He heard again ‘the questioning of the unsatisfied flood’, the vast flow of life’s endless unsatisfied questioning: ‘Why, what, where, when?’ No longer in the higher spiritual consciousness, he has to become again a ‘thinker and toiler’ using the ‘measuring Mind’, that assesses limits and possibilities, creates forms, organises and arranges things. Now that he is back on earth, again he has to toil ‘with the form-maker, measuring Mind’.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Volume 3]

A wanderer from the occult invisible suns
Accomplishing the fate of transient things,
A god in the figure of the arisen beast,
He raised his brow of conquest to the heavens
Establishing the empire of the soul
On Matter and its bounded universe
As on a solid rock in infinite seas.

Aswapati returns as ‘wanderer’, a traveller from regions which are ruled by ‘occult invisible suns’: great burning lights of truth and power that are hidden and invisible to us. He has left those regions and come back into the material universe in order to accomplish ‘the fate of transient things’, to help fulfil the destiny of all these passing things in the mortal world. In his inner being he is divine, a god; but here he appears ‘in the figure of the arisen beast’: the human body – erect, the naked ape standing up on its back legs, still very much an animal in its natural being. But although Aswapati is inhabiting this animal body, he is god-like in his consciousness. He is a conqueror, a warrior. He raises ‘his brow of conquest to the heavens’: he looks up to the spiritual heights he has conquered, and he rules on earth, to establish here the ‘the empire of the soul’, basing it ‘On Matter and its bounded universe’. The material universe is not infinite: we may not be able to find a limit to the universe of matter, but it is limited to the material dimension. Aswapati takes the material world as a base on which to found ‘the empire of the soul’, as if on a ‘solid rock’ in the midst of the ‘infinite seas’ of all the other dimensions.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Volume 3]

The Lord of Life resumed his mighty rounds
In the scant field of the ambiguous globe.

Here he is called ‘The Lord of Life’. His name ‘Aswapati’, means ‘The Lord of the Horse’, symbolising the life energies. Now he is in full control of not only his own individual life energies, but all the life energies of the universe. After all his conquests and realisations he has come back to the earth and ‘resumed his mighty rounds’, as if he is riding around and seeing all that is going on in his realm. He is so mighty and has travelled so far that this little earth seems very small in comparison: ‘scant’ means ‘insufficient’, ‘inadequate’; now he will carry on his rounds ‘In the scant field of the ambiguous globe’. ‘Ambiguous’, means ‘unclear’, ‘wavering’, ‘of doubtful nature or meaning’; this globe we live on is ‘ambiguous’ because it seems to contain all the dualities, all the opposites, and here it is difficult to discern any clear trend or significance and be sure what it means. Aswapati has completed his mission, won a great boon from the Supreme Divine Mother, and now resumes his life as an earthly king. This brings us to the end of Book Three, The Book of the Divine Mother, and the end of Part One of Savitri.

[Shraddhavan’s English of Savitri, Volume 3]