Prithwi Singh NaharSri Aurobindo
The Mother
to Prithwi Singh
Correspondence (1933-1967)
Prithwi Singh Nahar
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In the western parts of India, what is now Rajasthan, there is the Aravalli Range, a chain of mountains whose tallest peak stands 1695 metres above sea level — the highest altitude between the Nilgiris and the Himalayas. One of the most ancient rocks in the peninsula, Mount Abu is a beautiful natural structure. Like all such beauty-spots, it too is full of mythological stories. Specially because the river Saraswati, which was born in the Himalayas and got lost in the desert of Rajasthan, appears again from Mount Abu. But today it is more renowned for its marvels in marble — the Jain temple complex at Dilwara.
It is at the legendary agnikund (fire altar) that four great Rajput clans emerged. Parsanath, the twenty-third Tirthankar, lived about eight centuries before the Christian era began. With him Jainism made a big onslaught on Brahminism. So a group of Brahmins went on top of Mount Abu and lit a sacrificial fire. They invoked the God of Light, Bibhavasu. Then Shaktidevi, the goddess of Power, gave them a boon, and out of the fire came four men. They were: the Parmar, the Pratihar, the Solanki and the Chauhan.
Prithwi Singh Nahar's family legend claim to be descendants of the first born, Parmar. A historically known clan, the Parmars founded a kingdom in Gujarat. Their reign ended in the thirteenth century AD when Alauddin Khilji annexed their kingdom. But while they reigned, those Parmar kings were renowned patrons of knowledge and learning, art and culture.
The 35th descendant of Parmar, Ashdhar, was reared by a lioness. So, when he returned among men, Ashdhar could no longer kill animals among whom he had spent his childhood. He therefore changed from being a Vaishnav to a Jain, and took the name Nahar, which means lion. The Nahars were real migratory birds ! They spread all over India. Kharag Singh Nahar, 78th descendant from Parmar, went to Bengal. That is the origin of the Nahars of Bengal.
Some of the Nahars have the original fire burning in their hearts and Saraswati, the giver of knowledge and learning, the goddess of art and music, flooding their nature. Prithwi Singh combined well in himself that fire and that floodlight.
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Prithwi Singh Nahar was born on June 3, 1898, in the old renowned zamindar (or landowner) family of the Nahars of Azimganj, Murshidabad, in West Bengal. He was the fifth of nine children of Puran Chand Nahar, an eminent Jain scholar and patron of arts who combined erudition with imagination, scholarship with practicality, nobility and dignity with a sense of humour. After receiving his early education in Hare School, Prithwi Singh joined the Presidency College, Calcutta, where he obtained his BA degree in March, 1920. But he discontinued his post-graduate studies, leaving the College in protest against disparaging remarks about Hinduism made by his professor, the celebrated Brahmo, Heramba Maitra; Prithwi Singh's passionate letter to Sir Asutosh Mukherjee, the then vice-chancellor of the Calcutta University, 
was given wide publicity and caused quite a stir in the elite circles.
In 1915, Prithwi Singh had married Suhag Kumari, the eldest daughter of Pratapchand Sipani of Jiaganj, from whom he was to have five sons and three daughters. A fine sitarist, he was conversant with both Indian and European music, and played the piano well, but it was his literary talents and deep appreciation of art that brought him closer to the Tagores and other eminent personalities of the time, a time of cultural blossoming, especially in Bengal. He was one of the young talented writers of Sabuj Patra, a magazine with close ties with the Tagores, and also regularly contributed to Vichitra, The Modern Review, Prabasi, etc.1 His articles on Jain painting and Indian music showed him to be not only a literary critic but also an evaluator of archaeological finds, art and music. Along with this love of art, he inherited from his father the hobby of collecting antiques, in particular modern Indian paintings (by Abanindranath Tagore, Gaganendranath Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Mukul Dey, Asit Haldar, to name a few), rare Buddhist, Jain and Hindu sculptures, old coins, and of course books — preferably first editions. His collection of almost all the first editions of Rabindranath Tagore's books and some original manuscripts was later purchased by Visva Bharati ; his collection of gold coins he was to offer to Mother.
But Prithwi Singh's deeper interest lay elsewhere. Prom his childhood he had been greatly attracted to sadhus and Sannyasins; in 1924, in his mid-twenties, he came under the influence of Thakur Anukulchandra (1888-1969), whose life is said to have been full of miracles and who was the founder of Satsang, a group to which people of all creeds were attracted — Buddhists and Christians, Jains and Jews, Hindus, Muslims.... Prithwi Singh then began the practice of yoga under the guidance of Nishanath Raichowdhury, a disciple of Anukul Thakur, and that was the start of several crucial experiences, including the awakening of the Kundalini.
In December 1929, breaking the narrow limits of his community and incurring the displeasure of his father Puran Chand, who despite his manifold interests and erudition retained a core of orthodoxy, Prithwi Singh moved to Santiniketan with his family, eager to give his children a broader education. This was Santiniketan's golden age, when the students could mingle freely with teachers who bore such names as Nandalal Bose, Dinendra Nath Tagore, Pandit Bidhu Sekhar Shastri, Jagadananda Ray, Khitimohan Sen, Nepal Ray, not to speak of the Poet himself, in a stimulating atmosphere of unhindered creativity and freedom where grace and beauty in all activities were given pre-eminence and “studies” were life itself
Prithwi Singh, although never an active politician like his younger brother, Bijoy Singh, was nevertheless an out-and-out nationalist. In reply to a 1930 letter from Maharaj Pradyot Kumar Tagore, president of the Land-Holders' Association of Bengal, restating “the loyalty of the zemindars of Bengal to the Throne and person of His Majesty the King-Emperor,” Prithwi Singh wrote : “It is my considered opinion that flattery towards the British can 
achieve but very little — at best it can become the recipient of a few patronising gifts in the shape of doles, but generally because of its inherent weakness it is mockingly spurned and considered at heart to be of little worth except of course for purposes of show.”
In 1932, almost three years after moving to Santiniketan, Prithwi Singh's well-ordered life was shattered by the death of his wife on October 9, Vijaya Dasami. He was only thirty-four. Although pressured, he refused to remarry — he wanted another kind of life, a deeper anchor that would never fail. His wife's death had cut deep into him and the questions and queries he had carried in him since his childhood resurfaced with tenfold intensity. He started travelling all over India, in search of a Master — someone who could guide him to his inner life and reveal to him the purpose of his being on earth.
A year later, on his way down south to the magnificent temple of Rameswaram, he halted at Pondicherry. There, in that French enclave, lived Sri Aurobindo and Mother. In them he found the Guides he was seeking. He was in 1934 accepted as a sadhak and permanent member of the Ashram, and finally settled there in 1938, at the age of forty; he was accompanied by Sujata, his sixth child, who was then twelve. His other children later followed, choosing one by one to come and live under the wing of Mother and Sri Aurobindo: his third son, Noren Singh, in 1939, then Abhay Singh, the fifth; then in 1941 the last two children, Sumitra and Suprabha, along with Dhir Singh's family, followed by the fourth son, Nirmal Singh. Bir Singh, the second son, a Flying Officer in the Royal Air Force, joined the Ashram in 1945, after the War was over.
In the Ashram, Prithwi Singh's first work was to organize the library. This led him to start the publication section from scratch, prompted by an eagerness to share with the whole world the inestimable gift given by Sri Aurobindo. He thus engaged in correspondence with an increasing number of friends in India and abroad, many of whom became his admirers. In spite of a failing eyesight, he typed out many texts (including the whole of The Life Divine three times !), prepared a thorough index and glossary of the major works of Sri Aurobindo, translated several writings, poems and dramas by Sri Aurobindo into Bengali,2 besides composing his own poems, songs and sonnets in English and Bengali.
As his correspondence with Sri Aurobindo and Mother reveals, Prithwi Singh's deep loyalty to them went beyond his material work. Devoted but discreet, refined but humble, his unswerving faith in his Masters enabled him to face and overcome the obstacles and pitfalls inevitable in any sincere sadhana. Dogged by ill health, he confided to a friend: “I have all the diseases in my body but the Mother once told me, ‘Prithwi Singh, you are my laboratory for experiments. One day I will cure you of all the diseases.’ ”
After Mother's physical withdrawal in 1973, Prithwi Singh said on several occasions, “My soul has gone with the Mother.” He left his body on April 13, 1976, Chaitra Sankranti, the last day of the Bengali year 1382.
1 See Prithwi Singh's Bengali writings in Jyotirmoy Prithwisingh (Mira Aditi, 1996).
2 Published under the title Kabita, Natok O Probandho (Mira Aditi, 1998).