Meaning in the story of Savitri

नारायणं नमस्कृत्य नरं चैव नरोत्तमम्

 देवीं सरस्वतीं चैव ततो जयम् उदीरयेत्

महाभरत

Mahābharata

As retold by

Michael Dolan, B.V. MahāyogiThe Story of Savitri

Some Considerations on Meaning

Savitri/Gayatri

While apparently the story of Savitri is  nothing more than the tale of a chaste wife who delivers her husband by confronting Death Himself, there is much more to be read between the lines. 

The Story of Savitri in Mahābhārata has been retold many times, notably by Edwin Arnold in his “Idylls” in the 19^th Century and by Sri Aurobindo in the 20^th Century. 

But it was Sri Aurobindo who brought the poem to public attention with his Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol. His work, an epic poem in blank verse, runs some 24,000 lines. He revised the book over a lifetime. It took him almost 50 years to complete the 12 books and 49 Cantos of Savitri: A Legend and a symbol. (You can find the poem online in its entirety, here. http://savitrithepoem.com )

Aurobindo’s author’s note on the work is brief but instructive and gives the skeleton of the story as well as his version of its allegorical meaning. He writes:

"The tale of Satyavan and Savitri is  Satyavan is recited in the Mahabharata as a story of conjugal love conquering death. But this legend is, as shown by many features of the human tale, one of the many symbolic myths of the Vedic cycle. Satyavan is the soul carrying the divine truth of being within itself but descended into the grip of death and ignorance; Savitri is the Divine Word, daughter of the Sun, goddess of the supreme Truth who comes down and is born to save; Aswapati, the Lord of the Horse, her human father, is the Lord of Tapasya, the concentrated energy of spiritual endeavour that helps us to rise from the mortal to the immortal planes; Dyumatsena, Lord of the Shining Hosts, father of Satyavan, is the Divine Mind here fallen blind, losing its celestial kingdom of vision, and through that loss its kingdom of glory. Still this is not a mere allegory, the characters are not personified qualities, but incarnations or emanations of living and conscious Forces with whom we can enter into concrete touch and they take human bodies in order to help man and show him the way from his mortal state to a divine consciousness and immortal life."

Of course, Aurobindo transforms the original version of Mahābhārata to suit the needs of his own yoga school with its neo-Shaivite focus; a fact which hardly endears him to fundamentalists. Since the Mahābhārata is demonstrably a Vaishnava document, his Shaivite interpretation of Savitri seems forced. It is unusual that while he praises Vyāsa for his economy of style he spends 50 years trying to surpass him with florid language and symbolism. The original Savitri myth in Mahābhārt is charged with its own deep trancendental ideas, which we shall explore here.

Etymology of Names

The heroine in the story is named for Savitri, since her kingly father and his queen were blessed by the goddess to bear a child. So Savitri, the heroine is the daughter of Savitri the goddess.

So, Savitri is the daughter of the goddess Savitri, herself an emanation or manifestation of Saraswati, the goddess of wisdom and consort to Lord Brahma the creator of the universe.  Savitri is considered to be the Gayatri mantra personified. In some Puranas Saraswati is  Brahma’s consort, where in others Savitri or Gayatri is named.  

The Gayatri mantra begins Om bhur bhuvah svah tat savitur… The word savitur  is a reference to the sun, but metaphorically refers to divine light. The gayatri mantra of savitri reveals divine light, savitur.  The word Savitur overtly revers to the sun-god, and yet the idea of light and knowledge are linked. The word Savior in Engish and sabiduria, or “knowledge” in Spanish are related to the Sanskrit savitur and Latin salvare to save. Savitri, then is “one who brings the light,” or “one who saves the soul.” Savitur  can mean “the Divine Creator, or the god of illumination and creation.”  Gayatri is a meditation on what is Savitur, what is light-giving, the source of illumination and knowledge. Physically, it is the sun which illuminates our universe. Metaphysically, it is soul.

And while the individual soul gives light to her own subjective world, there is a higher plane, the super-subjective world.  God gives light to the soul. 

The super-subjective world of divine reality shines spiritual light on us all. Bhaktas meditate on the flute-song of Shri Krishna as Gayatri, the divine sound whose meaning gives light and invites us to participate in the joyful stately dance of Vrindaban.

Satyavan: the word “satyavan” means “truth-seeker,” or  “truthful.” 

The most obvious allegorical meaning here is that a truthseeker (satyavan) is saved or illuminated by gayatri (savitri) who liberates his soul from death.

Savitri and Satyavan embody the struggle for truth faced by the embodied soul and his redemption through austerity, chastity, devotion, and truth-seeking informed by divine mantra.

Born with the blessings of the goddess of illumination, Savitri is a ray of sunshine for her parents; after her argument with Death she cures her father-in-law of his blindness. 

A common prayer offered to one’s guru or spiritual mentor goes like this:

ॐ अज्ञान-तिमिरान्धस्य

ज्ञानाञ्जन-शलाकया

चक्षुर् उन्मीलितं येन

तस्मै श्री-गुरवे नमः

oṁ ajñāna-timirāndhasya

jñānāñjana-śalākayā

cakṣur unmīlitaṁ yena

tasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ

"I was born in the darkness of ignorance, but my eyes were washed with the balm of knowledge and I was given sight by my guru. He illuminated me with knowledge and so I offer him all respects."

Savitri saves her father-in-law from blindness and her husband’s soul from the hand of death.  No other heroine in history captivates our attention quite like Savitri. Dante had his Beatrice, whose angelic chastity guides him from the depths of hell to the highest realms of heaven. But Satyavan has Savitri who rescues him from the shadow of death. Savitri then, is not only representative of the gayatri mantra, but also of the guru principle. The whole poem has a cosmic dimension that makes it one of the most transcendental episodes of the Mahābhārata.