Sri Aurobindo
Essays Divine and Human
Writings from Manuscripts. 1910 – 1950
Notes on the Texts
ESSAYS DIVINE AND HUMAN consists of short prose pieces written by Sri Aurobindo between 1910 and the late 1940s and not published before his passing in 1950. Most prose works written prior to 1910 on subjects other than politics are published in Early Cultural Writings, volume 1 of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO. Most short prose works written after 1910 and published during his lifetime are included in Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, volume 13 of THE COMPLETE WORKS. Short writings on the Vedas, the Upanishads and other specialised subjects are included in the volumes devoted to those subjects. Most of the writings in the present volume deal with philosophy, yoga, and yogic psychology. The contents have been divided into four parts:
Part One. Essays Divine and Human. More or less complete essays, most of which were given titles and revised to some extent by the author. They have been grouped by period in five sections.
Part Two. From Man to Superman. Notes, drafts and fragments on yoga and yogic philosophy and psychology. Few of these pieces were revised; most are incomplete, several quite fragmentary. The editors have arranged them by subject on lines explained below.
Part Three. Notes and Fragments on Various Subjects. Miscellaneous pieces that received little or no revision by the author. They differ from the pieces in Part Two in dealing with subjects not directly related to yoga, philosophy or psychology.
Part Four. Thoughts and Aphorisms. A series of aphorisms, revised but never prepared for publication by the author.
PART ONE: ESSAYS DIVINE AND HUMAN
The pieces in this part have been arranged by the editors in five chronological sections. Many of the sections or subsections correspond to organic divisions in the author's work.
Section One (circa 1911)
All but the first piece in this section were written in a single notebook, probably in 1911. “Certitudes” belongs roughly to the same period. Above “Man” Sri Aurobindo wrote a collective title: “Essays —”.
Certitudes. Circa 1911-13. The Sanskrit phrase at the end, a citation from the Bhagavad Gita (4.11), means “as men approach me, so I accept them to my love”.
Moksha. Circa 1911.
Man. Circa 1911. The Sanskrit phrase in the second paragraph, an altered citation from the Aitareya Upanishad (1.2.3), means “well-built, indeed”.
Philosophy. Circa 1911.
The Siddhis. Circa 1911.
The Psychology of Yoga. Circa 1911. Sri Aurobindo used this title again for a piece in Section Two that was written independently a year or two later and yet again as the general title of the first group of essays in Section Three.
Section Two (1910-1913)
Manuscripts of six of these essays — “The Sources of Poetry”, “The Interpretation of Scripture”, “On Original Thinking”, “The Balance of Justice”, “Social Reform” and “The Claims of Theosophy” — were typed in or around 1912 using the same typewriter and the same sort of paper. The other seven essays are related to the typed ones by subject or date or both.
Na Kinchidapi Chintayet. Possibly early 1910. The title is a quotation from the Bhagavad Gita (6.25): “One should not think of anything at all.”
The Sources of Poetry. Circa 1912.
The Interpretation of Scripture. Circa 1912.
On Original Thinking. Circa 1912. After the text of the principal version, the editors have placed the draft opening of another version, entitled in the manuscript “On the Importance of Original Thinking”. Above this title Sri Aurobindo wrote:
“Essays — Human and Divine”. The editors have used a variant of this (see “The Silence behind Life” below) as the title of this part and of the volume as a whole.
The Balance of Justice. Circa 1912. This is a revised and enlarged version of “European Justice” (published in Early Cultural Writings), which probably was written in 1910.
Social Reform. Circa 1912. The first nine paragraphs were typewritten. Sri Aurobindo subsequently added five handwritten paragraphs to the last typed sheet. (These paragraphs are difficult to read and parts have been lost through mutilation of the manuscript.) The passage beginning “We are Hindus” was written separately and headed “For ‘Social Reform’”. Sri Aurobindo left no indication where he wanted it inserted. The editors have placed it at the end, separating it from the main text by a white space.
Hinduism and the Mission of India. Circa 1912. Editorial title. The first pages of the manuscript have been lost; the first surviving sentence lacks its beginning.
The Psychology of Yoga (regarding the title, see the note on “The Psychology of Yoga” in Section One). Circa 1912 (written around the same time as the pieces on Theosophy that follow). The Claims of Theosophy. Circa 1910-12 (certainly written after January 1908, when Sri Aurobindo met V. B. Lele, the “member of the Theosophical Society who [gave] me spiritual help” mentioned in paragraph six). This article, like the others on Theosophy, was never published by Sri Aurobindo. However much he disagreed with some of the methods or doctrines of the Theosophical Society, he was well aware of the pioneering work done by this movement, which “with its comprehensive combinations of old and new beliefs and its appeal to ancient spiritual and psychic systems, has everywhere exercised an influence far beyond the circle of its professed adherents” (The Renaissance in India, CWSA vol. 20, p. 70). He assured a disciple who had been associated with the Theosophists: “I have nothing against it [the Theosophical Society] nor against any of the Theosophists, to all of whom I wish the best. I am not against them” (Talk with a disciple, 11 January 1926). 
Science and Religion in Theosophy. Circa 1910-12. Heading in the manuscript: “Papers on Theosophy / II / Science and Religion in Theosophy”. (Although not so identified, “The Claims of Theosophy” evidently is the first of the papers.)
Sat. Circa 1912.
Sachchidananda. Circa 1912-13.
The Silence behind Life. Circa 1912. Above the title Sri Aurobindo wrote: “Essays Divine and Human”. The editors have used this as the title of this part and of the volume as a whole.
Section Three (circa 1913)
The essays in this section form three groups, which were written in three notebooks in or around 1913. The titles of the first and third groups were given by Sri Aurobindo.
The Psychology of Yoga. Sri Aurobindo wrote this title inside the cover of the notebook used. On the front of the cover he wrote, and then cancelled, “Hints on Yoga”.
Initial Definitions and Descriptions. Circa 1913. Before the first paragraph Sri Aurobindo wrote the numeral “1”.
The Object of Our Yoga. Circa 1913. This essay is found in the notebook containing the pieces that make up the next group, but seems to go better here. It has no title in the manuscript.
Purna Yoga. Editorial title. The three pieces are headed I, II, III in the manuscript.
I. The Entire Purpose of Yoga. Circa 1913.
II. Parabrahman, Mukti and Human Thought-Systems. Circa 1913.
III. Parabrahman and Parapurusha. Circa 1913. Editorial title.
Natural and Supernatural Man. This title is written on the cover of the notebook that contains all the pieces in this group. The Evolutionary Aim in Yoga. Circa 1913. The Fullness of Yoga — In Condition. Circa 1913. A draft of this and the preceding essay is published as piece 127 of Part Two. The second part of the draft, from the phrase “Yoga in its practice may be either perfect or partial” to the end, was rewritten as 
“The Fullness of Yoga — In Condition”. This essay follows the draft rather closely for two and a half paragraphs; from this point the two are developed on different lines. The significance of the phrase “in condition” in the title is not made clear in the essay; but it is brought out sufficiently well in the draft.
Nature. Circa 1913. This essay was at one point to be entitled “Maya, Lila, Prakriti, Chit-Shakti”. Individual pieces on each of these aspects of the force called Nature were apparently planned, but only “Maya” was written.
Maya. Circa 1913. In the second paragraph Sri Aurobindo writes of his intention to “look at the Cosmos from . . . the stand point ... of... Lila”. Although never able to complete an essay on this theme, he did sketch his view of the subject in two sentences written on the back cover of the notebook. These sentences are given as a footnote.
Section Four (1914-1919)
The four essays making up this section were written independently during the period of publication of the monthly journal Arya (1914-21). They may have been meant for the journal, but were not published there. They have no relationship with each other except that of date.
The Beginning and the End. Circa 1915. Editorial title. In the manuscript this passage is followed by one that was published in the Arya in May 1915 under the title “Thoughts and Glimpses”. Subsequently this second passage was reproduced as three parts of the booklet Thoughts and Glimpses (published in Essays in Philosophy and yoga).
The Hour of God. Circa 1918.
Beyond Good and Evil. Circa 1918. Editorial title.
The Divine Superman. Circa 1918.
Section Five (1927 and after)
The second, third and fourth essays in this section were written in the same notebook around 1930. The other two were 
written at roughly the same time.
The Law of the Way. Circa 1927. The manuscript is untitled; the editors have used a phrase from the last sentence as heading.
Man and the Supermind. Circa 1930. Sri Aurobindo returned to the theme “Man is a transitional being” again and again. See pieces 46, 47, 53, 54, 77, 80, 81 and 82 of Part Two. The present essay is the last of several drafts.
The Involved and Evolving Godhead. Circa 1930. Written immediately after the preceding essay in the same notebook. An earlier draft, written around 1927, is published as piece 51 of Part Two. The Evolution of Consciousness. Circa 1930. Untitled in the manuscript. The Greek sentence at the end of the third paragraph means “God is not but becomes.”
The Path. Circa 1930. This essay is one of several pieces written around 1930 on the supramental yoga. Three others are published as pieces 18, 157 and 159 of Part Two.
PART Two: FROM MAN TO SUPERMAN
The 171 notes, drafts and fragments that make up this part were written by Sri Aurobindo over the course of thirty-five years, from around 1912 to 1947, when failing eyesight obliged him to stop writing by hand.
None of the pieces were revised for publication by the author. It has sometimes been necessary for the editors to make judgments as to what his intentions were. In addition, some of the pieces, particularly those from the 1940s, are quite difficult to read. The editors have been able to decipher all but a few words; doubtful readings and illegible words are indicated in accordance with the Guide to Editorial Notation. Special problems are discussed in the reference volume.
These 171 pieces were never intended to form a single work. The compilation, arrangement and numbering is the responsibility of the editors. They have chosen to arrange the pieces by subject rather than date because a strict chronological arrangement, even if possible, would have resulted in thematic in 
coherence. A table in the reference volume shows the approximate chronological sequence of the pieces.
The material falls into three broad categories, which have been made the main sections of the compilation: philosophy (the principles of things), psychology (the study of consciousness), and yoga. The pieces in each section have been divided into subsections and sub-subsections.
A number of the pieces have headings in the manuscript. Some apparently were intended to be the titles of the essays or books that the pieces would have introduced. Since Sri Aurobindo frequently abandoned the pieces before the subject given in the title was reached, all headings have been omitted from the texts. They are given in the notes on individual pieces below. Some headings have been made the titles of subdivisions. One heading used twice by Sri Aurobindo, “From Man to Superman”, has been used as the title of this part.
Sri Aurobindo usually placed some sort of sign (asterisk, group of asterisks, bar, etc.) to mark his own division of pieces into sections. The editors have represented his sign uniformly by a single asterisk.
Notes on Individual Pieces in Part Two
1. Circa 1927. Heading: “God, Nature and Man” (used as the subtitle of this section; cf. the heading of piece 14). The text of the piece is cancelled in the manuscript.
2. Circa 1936.
3. Late 1920s to early 1930s. Heading: “The Divine”.
4. Late 1920s to early 1930s.
5. Circa 1912. Heading: “Ishavasyam”. On the next two pages of the same notebook is written a fragmentary commentary on the Isha Upanishad. The present piece clearly is related to that commentary.
6. Arya period (1914-21).
7. Circa 1928-29.
8. Late 1920s to early 1930s. Pieces 8-15 are fragmentary treatments of a theme taken up by Sri Aurobindo recurrently over 
a period of ten to twenty years. Pieces 8-11 all were written in the same notebook. Cf. also piece 55 and piece 128.
9. Late 1920s to early 1930s.
10. Late 1920s to early 1930s.
11. Late 1920s to early 1930s.
12. Circa 1942. The phrase “Ekam evadvitiyam” was written at the end of the first paragraph, then cancelled.
13. 1930s.
14. Circa 1945. Heading: “God, Nature and Soul./God/I” (cf. the subtitle of this section).
15. 1930s.
16. Circa 1927.
17. Circa 1927. This piece was not included in the 1994 edition of Essays Divine and Human.
18. Circa 1930. Heading: “2. The Fundamental Knowledge”. Preceded in the same notebook by “The Path” (Part One, Section Five).
19. Circa 1927. The piece clearly is a fragment.
20. 17 June 1914. Heading: “The Tablet of Vedanta.” The opening sentence was written above the title in the manuscript, evidently after some or all of the rest had been written.
21. 1930s.
22. Circa 1913.
23. Circa 1942. Heading: “Note on a criticism in the Modern Review”. Written in or shortly after August 1942, when The Modern Review (Calcutta) published an adverse review of a Sanskrit-Bengali edition of the Gita edited by Anilbaran Roy, a disciple of Sri Aurobindo. The reviewer charged that the Sanskrit phrase para prakrtir jivabhuta (cf. Gita 7.5), translated by Anilbaran according to Sri Aurobindo's interpretation as presented in Essays on the Gita (see CWSA vol. 19, pp. 266, 269 and 519), could not bear the meaning given it, viz., the supreme Nature which has become the jiva (individual soul). Sri Aurobindo never published his note. His disciple Kapali Shastri answered the reviewer from a purely grammatical point of view in an article published in the Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual of 1943 (no. 2, pp. 236-42).
24. Circa 1913.
25. Late 1920s to early 1930s. Headed “(2)”; the unmarked “(1)” presumably is one of the “Ekam evadvitiyam” pieces written in the same notebook (cf. pieces 8-11), probably piece 10. Cf. also piece 92.
26. Circa 1940.
27. June 1914 (probably between 3 and 17 June).
28. Circa 1927.
29. Circa 1927. This piece is the third of three drafts, written within a short time of one another, of the opening of the revised version of The Synthesis of Yoga, Part I, Chapter 11. The first of these drafts bears an obvious relation to the printed version, the second an obvious relation to the first, and the third to the second; but almost nothing of the third draft appears in the printed version. It has therefore been printed here as a separate piece.
30. Early 1913.
31. Circa 1942. Heading: “Psychology”.
32. Circa 1942. In the manuscript this piece comes after a passage consisting of quotations from a book dealing with Bergson's “philosophy of change”, and two sentences written by Sri Aurobindo that are reproduced as piece 71.
33. Late 1920s to early 1930s. Written at the top of a page used otherwise for what is printed as the second footnote to piece 56. The present piece seems to have some textual relation to pieces 56 and 57.
34. Arya period (1914-21). The edge of the manuscript is damaged and several words partly or wholly lost. The piece may have been intended for the Arya, but was never published there.
35. Circa 1912. Heading: “Life”.
36. Circa 1912. Heading: “Vedantic Suggestions / The Secret of Life — Ananda”.
37. Middle to late 1940s.
38. Circa 1929.
39. Circa 1927.
40. Circa 1942.
41. Circa 1929. 
42. Circa 1918. Possibly intended for the Arya, perhaps as part of a chapter of The Life Divine, but not used even in a modified form in any Arya article.
43. Middle to late 1940s. The piece is the second section of a fragment headed “Man and Superman”; the first section is printed as piece 80. In the manuscript three asterisks divide the two sections; the editors have treated them as separate pieces.
44. Circa 1927. The manuscript of the piece occurs amid drafts of “Man and the Supermind” (Part One, Section Five).
45. Circa 1927.
46. Late 1920s to early 1930s.
47. Circa 1947. Heading: “From Man to Superman” (used as the title of this part, cf. piece 53).
48. Circa 1917-18.
49. Circa 1928-29.
50. 1930s.
51. Circa 1927. The piece is a partial draft of “The Involved and Evolving Godhead” (Part One, Section Five).
52. Circa 1942.
53. Middle to late 1940s. Heading: “From Man to Superman/I” (used as the title of this part, cf. piece 47).
54. Middle to late 1940s. Heading: “Superman”.
55. Circa 1942. Heading: “The Secret of Consciousness”. Note the phrase “Ekam evadvitiyam” (cf. pieces 8-15).
56. Late 1920s to early 1930s.
57. Late 1920s to early 1930s.
58. Late 1920s to early 1930s.
59. Circa 1927.
60. Middle to late 1940s. Heading: “Mat[t]er”.
61. Circa 1927. Heading: “Jottings”.
62. Circa 1913.
63. Circa 1927.
64. Circa 1927.
65. 1930s, probably 1934.
66. Circa 1927. Written as part of a draft of “Man and the Supermind” (Part One, Section Five).
67. Circa 1927. 
68. Circa 1927.
69. Late 1920s to early 1930s.
70. Circa 1927.
71. Circa 1942. Written below the quotations from a book on Bergson mentioned in the note to piece 32. The present piece is headed by the numeral 2, which separates it from the notes. Unlike the notes, the piece is not enclosed in inverted commas and so has been considered to be a writing of Sri Aurobindo's.
72. Late 1930s to early 1940s. Heading: “Intuition”.
73. Circa 1927-29.
74. Circa 1928-29.
75. Circa 1928-29. Heading: “On the Supermind.”
76. Arya period (1914-21), probably towards the end of the period. Pieces 76-82, as well as pieces 46, 47 and 53 are treatments of a single theme taken up by Sri Aurobindo recurrently over a period of more than twenty-five years (or thirty-five if Aphorism 162 in Part Four is taken into consideration). Pieces 64, 66 and 68 are on a related theme. Sri Aurobindo's most complete essay on the subject is “Man and the Supermind” (Part One, Section Five).
77. Circa 1928-29.
78. Circa 1928-29.
79. Circa 1928-29.
80. Middle to late 1940s. Heading: “Man and Superman”. This piece was written along with what is published as piece 43.
81. Circa 1942. Heading: “Man and Superman”.
82. 1940-42.
83. 1940-42.
84. 1940-42.
85. Late 1930s to early 1940s. Heading: “Consciousness”.
86. Middle to late 1940s. Heading: “Is Consciousness Real”.
87. 1940-42.
88. Late 1930s to early 1940s.
89. Circa 1927. Heading “Prolegomena”.
90. Circa 1937.
91. Middle to late 1940s.
92. Late 1920s to early 1930s.
93. Late 1920s to early 1930s. The piece is the incomplete second part of an untitled essay, the first part of which is published as “The Evolution of Consciousness” (Part One, Section Five). Sri Aurobindo abandoned the piece without examining the question from the second of the two “vision-bases” spoken of in the first sentence.
94. Middle to late 1940s. Heading: “The Conscient in unconscious things”.
95. Middle to late 1940s (written immediately after piece 94). Heading: “The Consciousness below the Surface”.
96. Middle to late 1940s.
97. Middle to late 1940s.
98. Circa 1942. Heading: “1 The Inconscient Energy”.
99. Circa 1942.
100. 1940-42.
101. Circa 1928-29.
102. Circa 1917-18. A half-page blank separates the present piece from piece 103. Heading: “Psychological Maxims”.
103. Circa 1917-18. A half-page blank separates the present piece from piece 104.
104. Circa 1917-18.
105. Early 1917. Heading: “The Psychology of Social Development / VII”; this is the title under which the book later published as The Human Cycle appeared in theArya; the seventh instalment of the work, unrelated to the present piece, was published in the issue of February 1917.
106. 1912-13.
107. 1912-13. Faces piece 106 in the manuscript.
108. Circa 1927.
109. Late 1940s. Heading: “The Psychology of Integral Yoga”.
110. Circa 1942. Heading: “Notes on Consciousness”; the piece is preceded by “1.” (no further notes were written).
111. 1 September 1947. Heading: “Consciousness”.
112. Circa 1936.
113. 1930s.
114. Circa 1928-29.
115. Late 1940s.
116. Middle to late 1940s.
117. Late 1920s to early 1930s.
118. Late 1920s to early 1930s.
119. Circa 1942. Heading: “Yoga”.
120. Circa 1930.
121. Circa 1917-18.
122. Circa 1913.
123. Circa 1917-18. Heading: “The Web of Yoga.”
124. Circa 1913. Heading: “The Evolutionary Aim of Yoga.” The piece apparently is related to “The Evolutionary Aim in Yoga” (Part One, Section Three), and so to piece 127.
125. 1930s.
126. Circa 1920. Heading: “An Introduction to Yoga. /1 / The Meaning of Yoga”.
127. Circa 1913. This long piece can be considered a draft of what, differently developed, became two essays, “The Evolutionary Aim in Yoga” and “The Fullness of Yoga — In Condition” (Part One, Section Three). The sense of the second of these titles is explained better in the last two paragraphs of the present piece than in the revised essay.
128. Late 1920s to early 1930s.
129. Circa 1915. Heading: “Essays in Yoga. / The Seeds of Yoga.”
130. Circa 1915.
131. Circa 1927.
132. 1930s.
133. Circa 1927.
134. Circa 1928-29. This piece and piece 135 were written in the same notebook; it is possible that they are passages intended for insertion in a larger work, perhaps the revised version of The Synthesis of Yoga. (Note, in the first sentence of both pieces, the antecedentless “this”.)
135. Circa 1928-29.
136. Middle to late 1940s. Heading: “Yoga of Devotion”.
137. Circa 1945. Heading: “The Yoga of Devotion”.
138. 1930s.
139. Circa 1926-27. Heading: “The Way of Works”.
140. Circa 1927.
141. Circa 1927.
142. Circa 1927. The manuscript of this piece comes between two drafts of “The Law of the Way” (Part One, Section Five), and parts of the present piece are reminiscent of that essay.
143. Circa 1927.
144. Circa 1912.
145. Circa 1938.
146. Late 1920s to early 1930s.
147. 1930s. Pieces 147-51 were written in this order in a single notebook.
148. 1930s.
149. 1930s.
150. 1930s.
151. 1930s. This piece includes what was published as piece 17 in the 1994 edition of Essays Divine and Human.
152. Circa 1928-29. Heading: “The Aim of the Integral Yoga”.
153. Circa 1913. The piece breaks off abruptly; it is likely that Sri Aurobindo intended to write about more than two aims of the sadhana (cf. piece 154).
154. Circa 1930. . 155. Circa 1930.
156. Late 1930s to early 1940s.
157. Circa 1930. Closely related to “The Path” (Part One, Section Five).
158. Circa 1930.
159. Circa 1930. Heading: “The Path”. This piece is the first draft of what is published in Part One, Section Five as “The Path” (the heading of the present piece is used as the title of that essay).
160. Circa 1928-29.
161. Circa 1928-29.
162. Circa 1928-29.
163. 1930s. The piece evidently is incomplete; only one of the four elements mentioned in the first paragraph was taken up.
164. Late 1930s to early 1940s. The piece evidently is incomplete; only one of the three transformations mentioned was taken up.
165. Late 1920s to early 1930s.
166. Late 1930s to early 1940s.
167. Circa 1936.
168. Circa 1927.
169. Circa 1927.
170. Circa 1927. These lines were written (and later bracketed) at the top of an incomplete draft of what is published in Part One, Section Five as “The Law of the Way”.
171. Circa 1926-27.
PART THREE: NOTES AND FRAGMENTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS
The pieces in this part were written between 1910 and the late 1940s. They have been arranged by subject.
The Marbles of Time. 1910-14. Editorial title. Cancelled heading: “Marbles”.
A Theory of the Human Being. 1912-14.
A Cyclical Theory of Evolution. 1910-13. This piece probably was written around the same time as the preceding one. The opening page or pages (and so also the title) are missing.
A Misunderstanding of Continents. Circa 1918.
Towards Unification. Circa 1912. In the manuscript written beneath the heading: “Studies in the Mahabharat — / The Book of the Woman.” Evidently the passage printed here was meant to be an introduction to a discussion of the eleventh book of the Mahabharata, the Stri-Parva or Book of the Woman. Sri Aurobindo broke off work on the piece without reaching the proposed subject. The title has been supplied by the editors.
China, Japan and India. Circa 1912.
Renascent India. 1916-18. Editorial title.
Where We Stand in Literature. Circa 1916-18. Draft B was written after Draft A in the same notebook.
The Origin of Genius. 1910-14.
Poetic Genius. Circa 1912. Editorial title. In the manuscript the heading is “The Genius of Valmekie” (see the next piece).
The Voices of the Poets. Circa 1912. Editorial title. The text of this piece, like the preceding one, was written under the heading “The Genius of Valmekie”. There is no explicit mention of Valmiki in either piece.
Pensées. Circa 1912.
A Dream. 1910-14. Editorial title. Written under the heading “Srevian [?Srevina]/ A Tale of Prehistoric Times — Preface.” This introductory fragment is all that exists of a proposed story.
The Beauty of a Crow's Wings. 1910-12. Editorial title.
Science. 1914-21. Editorial title.
Religion. Circa 1927. Editorial title.
Reason and Society. Late 1930s or 1940s. Editorial title. The piece seems to be related to The Human Cycle. Published here for the first time.
Justice. Late 1940s. Editorial title.
PART FOUR: THOUGHTS AND APHORISMS
Thoughts and Aphorisms. In or around 1913, Sri Aurobindo wrote 552 aphorisms in a single notebook. In May 1915 and May 1916 he published ten of them in the monthly reviewArya. (These ten have not been reproduced here. They form part of Thoughts and Glimpses, included in Essays in Philosophy and Yoga.) Of the 542 aphorisms that remain, two have been classed with the “Additional Aphorisms” (see below). This leaves 540 aphorisms forming the main series of Thoughts and Aphorisms.
In the notebook, the aphorisms were written in nine groupings, three of which are headed Jnana, three Karma and three Bhakti. The groupings occur in this order: Jnana, Karma, Bhakti,
Karma, Jnana, Bhakti, Karma, Bhakti, Jnana. The editors have placed the three groupings of Jnana, the three groupings of Karma and the three groupings of Bhakti together. Sri Aurobindo numbered all the aphorisms in Jnana and Karma, none of those in Bhakti. Since it appears that he intended the numbers to form part of the text, the editors have placed a number before each aphorism. These numbers do not correspond to those in the manuscript because the three groupings of each section have been placed together and the unnumbered Bhakti section included.
Sri Aurobindo left indications in the manuscript that certain aphorisms were to be moved to a different part or position. For example, he seems to have wanted present aphorisms 240 and 241 to be placed after present aphorism 98. But since some of these manuscript indications are not clear, the editors have followed the original notebook order.
The manuscript, entirely handwritten, was revised once or twice by Sri Aurobindo. The original writing is mostly clear, but the revision is sometimes cramped and difficult to read.
“Additional Aphorisms”. The last two aphorisms (541-42) in the notebook containing the main series were not clearly intended for inclusion in the Karma, Jnana or Bhakti sections. The editors have placed them in a separate section along with five other aphorisms (543-47) that were written in a different notebook. The handwriting of these last five indicates that they were written somewhat later than 1913 — possibly as late as 1919.
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Some of the material published in this volume was brought out in The Hour of God (Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Ashram) in 1959. This booklet was reprinted in 1964, 1970 and 1973. In 1982 a new, reorganised edition was published. This was reprinted in 1986, 1991 and 1993.
Thoughts and Aphorisms was first published by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1958. A second impression of the first edition was issued the next year. New editions textually identical to the first came out in 1968 and 1971. The texts of the fourth (1977) and fifth (1982) editions each contained corrections of transcription errors. The fifth edition was reprinted in 1988, 1992 and 1996.
In 1971 the contents of the original edition of The Hour of God, along with Thoughts and Aphorisms and other material, were brought out as The Hour of God and Other Writings, volume 17 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library.
In 1994 those parts of The Hour of God and Other Writings that had not been published during Sri Aurobindo's lifetime, along with other material of the same nature that had not yet been published in a book, were brought out as Essays Divine and Human. The texts of all the pieces were checked against the manuscripts. The present volume is for the most part a reprint of that edition.
Publisher's Note
Essays Divine and Human consists of short prose pieces written by Sri Aurobindo after his arrival in Pondicherry in 1910 but not published before his passing in 1950. Short prose works written during the same period and published during his lifetime appear in Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, volume 13 of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO.
There are indications in Sri Aurobindo's Pondicherry notebooks that he intended to bring out a collection of essays on yoga and other subjects. The headings written above two pieces, “Essays Divine and Human” and “Essays — Human and Divine”, seem to have been intended as possible titles for this proposed book. The editors have chosen the first of these to be the title of the present volume.
The material has been arranged in four parts:
I. Essays Divine and Human — complete essays on yoga and related subjects, arranged in five chronological sections.
II. From Man to Superman: Notes and Fragments on Philosophy, Psychology and Yoga, arranged in three thematic sections.
III. Notes and Fragments on Various Subjects, arranged in five thematic sections.
IV. Thoughts and Aphorisms, as arranged by the author in three sections, with a section of additional aphorisms.
All the writings in this book have been reproduced from Sri Aurobindo's manuscripts. He did not prepare any of them for publication and left many in an unfinished state. Simple editorial problems arising from illegibility, incomplete revision, etc. are indicated by means of the system explained in the Guide to Editorial Notation on the next page. More complex problems are discussed in the reference volume.
Guide to Editorial Notation
The contents of this volume were never prepared by Sri Aurobindo for publication. They have been transcribed from manu¬scripts that present a variety of textual difficulties. As far as possible the editors have indicated these problems by means of the notation shown below.
Notation Textual Problem
[?word] Doubtful reading
[ . . . ] Illegible word(s), one group of three spaced dots
for each presumed word
[.......] Word(s) lost by mutilation of the manuscript (at the beginning of a piece, indicates that a page or pages of the manuscript have been lost)
[word] Word(s) omitted by the author or lost through damage to the manuscript that are required by grammar or sense, and that could be supplied by the editors
[? ] Word(s) omitted by the author that could not be supplied by the editors
[ ] Blank left by the author to be filled in later but left unfilled, which the editors were not able to fill
[note] Situations requiring textual explication; all such information is printed in italics
Some textual situations requiring editorial intervention could not be handled by the above system. Such cases are discussed or tabulated in the reference volume (volume 35).