Volume VI, Issue 1
Author: M.P. Pandit
Editor’s Note: In the Book of the Month, we feature a selection from M.P. Pandit’s book titled The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds (Part 1) which compiles several of his talks on Book Two of Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri. In this excerpt the author explains King Aswapathy’s visions of the “world-pile”, “mountain chariot of the Gods” and “the single stair to being’s goal” and beautifully connects them to the image of a temple tower.
We have made a few formatting revisions for the purpose of this digital presentation. And we have also added references for lines from Savitri (Book Two, Canto I, The World-Stair). The book is available for purchase here.
Temple-Tower (Savitri, pp. 97-99)
We have been moving with Aswapathy who has entered into the universe of the Unknown. He is having varied experiences, wonders and marvels. He is able to see without effort things which could not be seen or understood in the physical world. All in all, he is in a wonderland.
But he finds that he is unable to find the key to the whole phenomenon, the source of this variegated universe, either in the original Word or in the Idea or in the concept of totality which explains and equates equality and inequality. He is wondering what it could be.
“Mountain Chariot of the Gods”
And, as if in response to his aspiration, he sees in the inner dimension, in a charge of dynamic light, a world pile, world after world, rising up, looking like “a mountain chariot of the Gods”—a beautiful poetic image. It is not an ordinary chariot but “a mountain chariot”, “erect”. The world-pile has the earth as its plinth, the foundation, which is not seen, nor is the top seen. This “carved sea of worlds” rises to the Unknown above.
There are two similes. The “world-pile” is compared to a “mountain chariot of the Gods” and also to a sea with “foam-maned waves” rising to the Supreme.
There walled apart by its own innerness
~ Savitri, CWSA, Vol. 33, p. 98
In a mystical barrage of dynamic light
He saw a lone immense high-curved world-pile
Erect like a mountain chariot of the Gods
Motionless under an inscrutable sky.
The chariot stands solid under a sky that baffles scrutiny.
As if from Matter’s plinth and viewless base
~ Savitri, CWSA, Vol. 33, p. 98
To a top as viewless, a carved sea of worlds
Climbing with foam-maned waves to the Supreme
Ascended towards breadths immeasurable;
It hoped to soar into the Ineffable’s reign:
A hundred levels raised it to the Unknown.
That sea of worlds, “world-pile”, has a hundred rising levels. Hundred indicates plenty; not to be taken mathematically. This is a picturesque way of describing that we live in a cosmos of a number of worlds. The earth is the foundation, padbhyam prithivi, earth is his footing. That is the Vedic expression. And with the earth as the plinth the order of worlds rises upwards, towards the vastitudes of the Infinite.
Whatever the precise number of worlds there are seven broad planes of existence. Each plane is based on a separate principle of existence. The principle organises itself in a plane of existence and on that plane there are any number of worlds.
Seveanfold Creation, “storeyed temple-tower to heaven”
Right from the Vedic days it has been described as a sevenfold creation. There are seven worlds: Earth, Life-world, Mind-world, the world of Vastness, the world of Delight, the world of Consciousness, the world of sheer Existence: Bhur, Bhuvar, Swar, Mahas, Jana, Tapa, Satyam. This is the old classification. Rendered into Sri Aurobindo’s terminology it is Matter, Life or the Vital, Mind, Truth-world, the worlds of Bliss, Consciousness-Force and Existence.
These worlds are not watertight compartments. Each world in itself is governed by its particular principle and everything moves around that principle. That is why these are called typal worlds. Our earth-world is the only world which is not typal. It is evolving. The principles of all the worlds are concentrated here. In the Mind-world you will find only the mental principle, mental organisation. In the Pranic world only the life energy. But here all are ingrained.
All these worlds are interconnected. There is an interaction between them.
The higher worlds always go on exerting pressure on the lower worlds. It is an interconnected whole. That is why it is called a cosmos and not a chaos. With this background we will appreciate what we are going to read.
So it towered up to heights intangible
~ Savitri, CWSA Vol. 33, p. 98
And disappeared in the hushed conscious Vast
As climbs a storeyed temple-tower to heaven
Built by the aspiring soul of man to live
Near to his dream of the Invisible.
The world-pile disappears in a “conscious Vast”, hushed in silence. There is no sound. Those heights cannot be grasped. The poet gives here the simile of a temple-tower. Particularly in South India there are many such towers. Like a temple-tower with many storeys built by man aspiring to reach and live near the Invisible he dreams of, this order of worlds rises from the earth and soars high above.
READ
Sri Aurobindo on A Temple in Its Inmost Reality
It is rising because there is a call from the Infinity above. Its spire, its top, touches the apex of the world. Mounting to the highest heights where there is a “voiceless stillness”, it joins the earth to the eternal. The eternities are veiled even at the height where Aswapathy has arrived.
Infinity calls to it as it dreams and climbs;
~ Savitri, CWSA, Vol. 33, p. 98
Its spire touches the apex of the world;
Mounting into great voiceless stillnesses
It marries the earth to screened eternities.
Many are the systems woven in the course of the manifestation of the One into the Many. Each system has a design behind it. It is intended to promote a creative joy; the more you understand it, the more you derive a joy that is creative, not dissipative.
But this system of worlds is something special. It points to us our journey back out of our self-loss. We have lost our way, we have forgotten ourselves. And this order of worlds points the way to go back to our home.
Amid the many systems of the One
~ Savitri, CWSA, Vol. 33, p. 98
Made by an interpreting creative joy
Alone it points us to our journey back
Out of our long self-loss in Nature’s deeps;
All realms of existence are contained in this system of worlds.
Planted on earth it holds in it all realms:
~ Savitri, CWSA, Vol. 33, p. 98
It is a brief compendium of the Vast.
Compendium is a summarisation, a condensation of the Vast.
“Single Stair to Being’s Goal”
Aswapathy sees that here is the stair to the goal of the being in evolution. Now this scheme is reproduced in a miniature form at the individual level too. The stair of planes of existence and the worlds is reproduced in a micro manner in each one of us. The individual copy is reproduced from the cosmic model. It is subtle, not sensible to our physical experience.
This was the single stair to being’s goal.
~ Savitri, CWSA, Vol. 33, p. 98
A summary of the stages of the spirit,
Its copy of the cosmic hierarchies
Refashioned in our secret air of self
A subtle pattern of the universe.
It is within, below, without above.
And this system acts upon us, wakes us from the heavy sleep of earth matter and forces us to think, to feel and to experience joy. It is this scheme, this organisation of the multiple levels of existence, that shapes our diviner parts. It lifts mortal mind into greater air, forces this life of flesh to high aims, and it relates even the body’s death with immortality. Further, it reveals that what we consider to be the end of the body is the call of the immortal to enter into the next cycle of life.
Towards a Superconscient Light
Acting upon this visible Nature’s scheme
~ Savitri, CWSA, Vol. 33, pp. 98-99
It wakens our earth-matter’s heavy doze
To think and feel and to react to joy;
It models in us our diviner parts,
Lifts mortal mind into a greater air,
Makes yearn this life of flesh to intangible aims,
Links the body’s death with immortality’s call:
Out of the swoon of the Inconscience
It labours towards a superconscient Light.
This stair links up the inconscient levels with the superconscient Light. It does not happen all of a sudden. There is a labour.
“If earth were all…”
Now, the poet observes, if the earth were everything, this physical universe of Matter, were everything and these higher elements were not present there could be no thought, there could be no joy of life and earth would be peopled only by material forms without life or mind, driven by a mechanical world-force.
If earth were all and this were not in her,
~ Savitri, CWSA Vol. 33, p. 99
Thought could not be nor life-delight’s response:
Only material forms could then be her guests
Driven by an inanimate world-force
There is more than earth; it is a “golden superfluity”. It may look as if it is superfluous and Matter is the only reality. But it is a rich content. Such an earth has given birth to thinking man. That is not the end. She shall still bear a being more than man.
Earth by this golden superfluity
Bore thinking man and more than man shall bear;
Further,
This higher scheme of being is our cause
~ Savitri, CWSA Vol. 33, p. 99
And holds the key to our ascending fate;
It calls out of our dense mortality
The conscious spirit nursed in Matter’s house.
This spirit which is ascending has been nursed and nourished in Matter’s house.
There is a hint here that a temple tower is designed closely on the model of the world-stair.
The Indian mind goes further in that it related the temple to the individual form. The architectural science of temples lays it down that it is a reproduction in stone of human values. The soul is at the centre; the deity is in the garbha-griha, the centre. And there are so many thresholds: the physical, the vital, the mental and a certain area where you cannot step unless you are even physically purified. So a temple is not just a product of an artist’s imagination. It has its science.
Even in the construction of idols, the murti, there is a male wood and there is a female wood. For a male deity only male wood should be utilised. So also with the metals. There are certain metals which are used only for male deities and some for the female. Somehow in our craze for modernity we have lost sight of this profound sense of everything in the temple. The main temple is always surrounded by minor temples. They are the guardians at the gate and you have to propitiate them before you have the password to go further.
Watch a 1-min video featuring the Gopuram of Brihadeeswarar Temple
~ Design: Beloo Mehra
