Index

Book Five Canto II: Satyavan

This day the road turns towards some human homes.

A single path shoots forth in the wide green forest.

Here Savitri first meets him for whom she has come so far. He appears against a forest edge, erect and lofty like a spear of God. Noble, peaceful, beautiful, joyous is his figure.

The wisdom of a hostile Fate had brought him here to the very abode of Mother-Nature where he has grown in wisdom, identified with the workings of Nature.

This morning impelled by the Guide within he has turned from his accustomed paths to this spot.

At first his figure appears to Savitri's eyes as part of the general forest-scene. Then suddenly something wells up from within and her vision settles. Her heart looks out at him and knows him closer than its own strings. She is surprised and seized. All in her being rushes towards him. She comes under the spell of the face she sees. She cries out. The chariot comes to a stop. Satyavan looks up and hears her enchanting voice, beholds her perfect face. His being is overwhelmed.

His gaze meets her gaze and the eyes cling. He becomes conscious of his future regarding him in her person. He sees his dream coming to life.

Verily in these two, Love has brought down power from eternity to firmly establish himself in life on earth.

Men seem to meet each other as if by accident.

But in fact it is all by some secret design of Providence.

The soul recognises its mate-soul and with the first breath of love responds to it in joy.

Love is a power and a glory from eternity. He is disfigured and misused here in the lower creation. Yet he is the one God who can change all. Love dwells in all like an unopened flower and blooms at the right soul-moment. Till he gets a signal by a look, a touch, or a face, he plays about in thought, in Imagination, in dream.

Love strives to realise the underlying unity in all.

Indeed the cup that can hold the rare nectar-wine of love is unique, but there do come by such receptacles of the power and bliss of love.

Both Savitri and Satyavan recognise each other.

All their past rushes up in memory. Forms have changed, but not the Spirit of either. The distance between them crumbles and heart turns to heart in close affinity.

A new time begins in that long moment.