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Sri Aurobindo

Archives and Research

a biannual journal

April 1977

Volume I; No 1

Archival Notes

A Revised Edition of
Thoughts and Aphorisms

In preparing the revised edition of Sri Aurobindo's Thoughts and Aphorisms which has recently been issued, the editors checked the entire text against the author's handwritten manuscript. This notebook dates from the early years of Sri Aurobindo's stay in Pondicherry; various evidence suggests that it should be assigned to the first months of the year 1915. The manuscript appears to be a fair copy and is thus easily legible, although certain words and phrases admit some doubt and others, although clear, seem to have been reproduced incorrectly in earlier editions of the book. We give below a list of important corrections introduced in the new edition. Minor errors of capitalisation, punctuation, spelling, articles, etc. have been omitted from this list.

ERRATA

Aphorism Number SABCL Page Opening Words For Read
5 79"If mankind..." lessher
7 79"What men call..." After the second sentence the text should read: "Reason divides, fixes details and contrasts them; Wisdom unifies, marries contrasts in a single harmony."
12 80"They proved..." doesdid
14 80"Hallucination is..." touches of the artist, — intouches of artist in
15 80"That which men..." perception and superstitionperceptions. Superstition
18 81"Chance is not..." that did not conceal and disfigure a truth. that was not the concealing and disfigurement of a truth.
43 83"If God draw..." upwards.upward.
53 84"The quarrels..." obtainattain
54 84"You say..." entersalters
90 88"This world was built by Ignorance..." effulgent reason.effulgent exceeding of reason, (deleting the footnote)
98 89"Revelation is..." is direct or inspiredis the direct or the inspired
100 90"Shun all..." than the highest Kanchanjungha, profounder than highest Kanchanjungha, be profounder
119 92"If when thou..." onfrom
131 93"Because God has..." circumstance-instrumentcircumstance, instrument
137 94"There is no..." thythe
142 95"Be to..." onin
145 96"O Poet..." eternalexternal
151 96"A man came..." this instructorhis instructor
152 97"When our minds..." alone havingalone as having
160 98"Shun the barren..." snaressnare
160 98  of unfertileof an unfertile
180 101"There are lesser..." reallysecretly
183 101-2"In the Buddhists'..." is greateris a greater
193 103"The existence of..." awakening ofawakening in
198 103"Do not dream..." evereven
200 104"Religion and ..." are bestseek
204 104"Animal man..." After "the present" the aphorism should read: "natural man the varied and tangled mid-road..."
205 104 The aphorism should read: "Life and action culminate and are eternally crowned for thee when thou bast attained the power of symbolising and manifesting in every thought and act, in art, literature and life, in wealth-getting, wealth-having or wealth-spending, in home, government and society, the One Immortal in His lower mortal being."
206 105"God leads man..." After "stumblings" the aphorism should read: "of his lower mortality; this is the tangle and contradiction out of which we have to escape into the self-unity1 to which alone is possible a clear knowledge and a faultless action."
219 106"Hatred is a..." KriyaKritya
230 107"Men slay..." The last sentence should read: "If thou slay, first let thy soul have known death for a reality and seen God in the smitten, the stroke and the striker."
238 108"Break the moulds... ." geniusgains
252 109"If thou think..." for the fightforth to fight
273 111"Fight, while thy..." thy enemy'sthe enemy's
280 112"Do thy lower..." themthee
294 114"There is very..." more self-deceit more of self-deceit
296 114"Be not repelled..." crookednesscrookednesses
301 115"Private dispute..." appreciateappropriate2
311 116"Fix not..." thythe
313 116"Each one..." oneman
316 116"Fix thy soul..." create thecreate its
327 118"India had three..." orderorders
333 118"A nation ... by commonby a common
345 120"Be always vigilant..." reality whilereality even while
347 120"So many strive..." SoThe
354 121"By altruism..." the perdition of thy brother.his perdition thy brother.
357 121"The Brahmin first... " governs bygoverns us by
361 122"Men seek laboriously..." the bounded little beingthe little bounded being
366 123"Thou mayst be..." wisely evenwisely and lovingly even
369 123"The Vedanta is..." the eternal sunlight.a high and eternal sunlight.
378 124"God made the..." consentassent
382 125 "For nearly forty..." The first sentence should read: "For nearly forty years behind the wholly good3 I was weakly in constitution; I suffered constantly from the smaller and the greater ailments and mistook this curse for a burden that Nature had laid upon me."
in the bodyin this body
398 127"God within is..." UnaffectedUnappalled
398 127  experiment, but withexperiment, with
407 128"Drugs cure..." Drugs cureDrugs often cure
410 129"If thou pursuest..." pursuest Godpursuest after God
410 129 (This aphorism and the one that precedes it should be read as one aphorism.)
422 130"There are four..." fiercefiercer
432 131"For my part..." awayto me
441 132"I did my..." command destroyercommands disturber
469 136"Because thou wert..." not thenot thee the
472 136"Even the atheist..." deniest thedeny it the
477 137"When will the world..." gardengardens
487 139"Love of man..." To love andSo love and
493 139"Canst thou see..." Him in seizableHim seated in sensible
494 140"Divine Love has..." perennial mightpersonal height
495 140"I used to..." not sufferednot so suffered
505 141"Service is chiefly..." ServiceScience
506 141"O Aristophanes..." thou watchest thyself. But wiltthou who watchest thyself, wilt
533 145"See God everywhere..." a truthtruth
535 145"The rejection of..." utter hasafter lies
536 145"The whole truth..." the onlythe one and only
539 146"Atheism is the..." formframe

 

1 "The self-unity" is a somewhat doubtful reading.

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2 The manuscript clearly reads "appropriate", but this is probably a slip of the pen "Appreciate", which is apparently what was meant, is given in the new edition as a possible alternative

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3 Nole that the reading of "behind the wholly good", a practically illegible phrase written between two lines, is rather doubtful. In addition "depart" in the next sentence is uncertain.

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