Summary of Savitri continued

Book 1 The Book of Beginnings

Canto 2 : The Issue 

              The second canto traces the growth of savitri’s personality, the circumstances that surrounded her and the necessary psychological readjustments and spiritual changes which must be carried out within herself if she is to solve the problem of man with which she is faced. Her own calamity is to her only a “private sign” of man’s general fate.

              In this canto Savitri is seen reviewing her past mapped on the canvas of her memory. She saw her childhood and her youth and her love and the doom that was pronounced.

                        "Her witness self stood reviewing time"

              She relived the 12 passionate months she spent with satyavan. Savitri passed through a supernatural darkness such as one that falls upon a man when he draws near God. She knew that only the power of the spirit could lift the yoke imposed by birth in time.

              She broke her past by the soul’s force because it would only be a stumbling block on the immortal’s road. The outer personality of man should dissolve to let the soul come forward and manifest. The true self being eternal and infinite has powers to weigh itself against the whole universe. She has to face the doom. On one side there is law of Karma working in ignorance against the sovereign right of her soul.

                        "The world unknowing for the world she stood"

Savitri felt utterly alone in her spirit. Love came to her hiding the shadow the death. The god of love in her met a vastness like his own.

           "Although she leaned to bear the human load

            Her walk kept still the measure of the gods.

            Whether to bear with Ignorance and Death

            Or hew the ways of Immortality,

            To win or lose the godlike game for man,

            Was her soul’s issue thrown with destiny’s dice."

The idea of a single individual will challenging the cosmic rule may be difficult to grasp. Even in this dark cosmic prison house where man seems to be fumbling in the dark,

          "A magic leverage suddenly is caught

           That moves the veiled ineffable’s timeless will:

           A prayer, a master act, a king idea

           Can link man’s strength to a transcendent force.

           Then miracle is made the common rule,

           One mighty deed can change the course of things;

           A lonely thought becomes omnipotent.

           Savitri became a flaming warrior who

           Smote form Death’s visage its dumb absolute

           And burst the bounds of consciousness and Time."