Sri Aurobindo
Autobiographical Notes
and Other Writings of Historical Interest
Part Two. Letters of Historical Interest
1. Letters on Personal, Practical and Political Matters (1890–1926)
Open Letters. Published in Newspapers 1909–1925
To the Editor of the Bengalee1
To the Editor of the “Bengalee”,
Sir,– Will you kindly allow me to express through your columns my deep sense of gratitude to all who have helped me in my hour of trial? Of the innumerable friends known and unknown, who have contributed each his mite to swell my defence fund, it is impossible for me now even to learn the names, and I must ask them to accept this public expression of my feeling in place of a private2 gratitude. Since my acquittal many telegrams and letters have reached me and they are too numerous to reply to individually. The love which my countrymen have heaped upon me in return for the little I have been able to do for them, amply repays any apparent trouble or misfortune my public activity may have brought upon me. I attribute my escape to no human agency, but first of all to the protection of the Mother of us all who has never been absent from me but always held me in Her arms and shielded me from grief and disaster, and secondarily to the prayers of thousands which have been going up to Her on my behalf ever since I was arrested. If it is the love of my country which led me into danger, it is also the love of my countrymen which has brought me safe through it.
published 18 May 1909
1 14 May 1909. Sri Aurobindo wrote this letter eight days after his acquittal from the charges brought against him in the Alipore Bomb Case. It was published in the Bengalee on 18 May 1909. The “defence fund” mentioned was set up by his uncle Krishna Kumar Mitra in the name of Sri Aurobindo’s sister Sarojini.
2 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.2: of private