Sri Aurobindo
Autobiographical Notes
and Other Writings of Historical Interest
Part One. Autobiographical Notes
2. Sri Aurobindo’s corrections of statements in a proposed biography
Life in Baroda, 1893–1906
Meetings with His Grandfather at Deoghar [3]
[Sri Aurobindo owed his views on Indian Nationalism to the influence of Rajnarayan Bose. His turn towards philosophy may be attributed to the same influence.]
I don’t think my grandfather was much of a philosopher;
at any rate he never talked to me on that subject. My politics were shaped
before I came to India; he talked to me of his Nationalist activities in the
past, but I learned nothing new from them. I admired my grandfather and liked
his writings “Hindu Dharmer [Sresthata]1” and “Se
Kal ar E Kal”; but it is a mistake to think that he exercised any influence on
me. I had gone in England far beyond his stock
of ideas which belonged to an earlier period. He never spoke to me of
Ramakrishna and Vivekananda.
1 MS Sreshtatwa