Sri Aurobindo & The Mother stayed for 50+ years in a block of 4 houses known as the Ashram Main building at Pondicherry. The Samadhi is located here as well.
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother stayed for over half a century in a block of four houses that came to be known as the Ashram main building at Pondicherry. It was the centre of life in the Ashram when they were physically present and will remain so even in their physical absence. Hundreds of people go inside daily to breathe the serene atmosphere and come out spiritually charged. On special occasions, long queues are formed and visitors wait patiently to get a glimpse of their rooms. The building has become a means of contact with their subtle-physical presence. It is this reverence for the House of the Lord that has inspired this book on the Ashram main building.
The symbolic names of rooms in the Ashram main building seem to have been given by the Mother during the years 1928-1932. The period when the names were given can be determined by the change of function of the room called "Communion with the Divine". This room was used by the Mother to distribute soup to the disciples from 1928 to 1931. It became the Reception Room in 1932, after the Mother fell ill in October 1931 and the soup distribution was stopped. The names given to the rooms on the first floor of the New Secretariat - "La Reserve" (Green Room or the Mother's Boudoir) and "Occultism" (Pavitra's bedroom) - provide another clue to the dating as these rooms were completed in 1932.
The symbolic names were related to the functions of the rooms. For example, the Darshan Room was named "Divine Consciousness", and the adjacent hall where the Mother meditated with the disciples was called "Purified Worship". Dr Rajangam's dispensary in the Library House was "Power of Healing" and the room where Champaklal worked was "Orderly Work". Other names were indicative of the persons who occupied the rooms. Sri Aurobindo's room was named "Supreme Manifestation upon earth", while Nolini's study room was "Pure Mind", Amrita's room "Vital Immortality" and Purani's room "Agni".
The names were commonly used in the early thirties. Mrityunjoy, the sadhak then in charge of the Electricity Service, wrote on 21 November 1931 in his report to the Mother, "Library House Silence verandah - bulb fused." Chandulal, head of the Building Service, likewise mentioned the need to repair "the roof above Occultism" in his report of 7 July 1932.
Editor's Note
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When I first came here in April 1921, Sri Aurobindo was living in the Guest House. When I came for good in June 1923, both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were living in Library House. Sri Aurobindo used to see people in the morning in the verandah upstairs. At that time it was an open verandah, covered on three sides (east, west and south) with big curtains;1 the windows you now see on these sides were put in much later. The hall to its north, where Mother distributed Prosperity blessings, was then her Stores. The room to the north of this hall was Mother's room (it was later to be my room). The corner room (to the east of the hall) was Sri Aurobindo's. The room to the left, on the top of the staircase, was Datta's (later Rajangam's).
Champaklal 38
1. See Mother's account of expenses for moving to the Library House on page 10, where the fourth item is "blinds (verandah) - Rs. 13".
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Now regarding the rooms on the ground floor of this house: the room which is at present the office of the Reception Service (where photographs are sold) was Moni's. He had a humorous and happy disposition and his poems reflect this nature. When he left, that room was given to me. The present Reception Hall was Nolini's room and the present reading room was Amrita's. What is now the Publication Department display and sales room was Bijoy's and its office under the terrace leading to Ravindra's rooms in the back courtyard was Barin's room.
When Sri Aurobindo came down to the dining room (the present fruit distribution room) to have his food, he came down the Prosperity stairs, passed through Nolini's room, Bijoy's room and then entered the dining room. (This dining room was only for the inmates of Library House; the inmates of Guest House, where I stayed in the room that Mother had lived in, had a separate dining room.) It is specially interesting to me that everybody receives fruits from the very room where once Sri Aurobindo had his meals.
Champaklal 39
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10. Garage
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Pavitra kept all his tools in his room, which was no larger than the one he had occupied in Rosary House. Evidently its builder had no premonition of its tall new dweller! But however inconvenient, the dweller didn't mind. He had been trained well and had the capacity to adjust to any circumstance. In that little room, the cot occupied almost half the space. Then there was a huge almirah, a shabby deal-wood almirah, and a few boxes that had accompanied him to Japan, Mongolia and China, and are even now lying in his room. These wonderful artefacts covered almost the whole floor. One could somehow manage to negotiate the room through the narrow passage that was left. And through it the Mother passed daily at least twice, in the afternoon and evening. The cot itself, with its mattress rolled back to one side, served as a spacious table, suitable for all purposes. There was also a chair and a small table which Pavitra used for preparing salads for Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. He could make a variety of salads - true French salads. Simply to watch him at work was to learn a chapter of human life. What a clean and orderly arrangement of every detail: the utensils in position, the water in the bowls, the knives and forks and spoons, the apron and towels, the salt and pepper, vinegar and oil, and then the vegetables, some boiled, some raw, some soaked in salt since the day before, and lastly the washing place with a big jug of water - all set up as if in a scientist's laboratory! Pavitra's swiftness, clarity and neatness on the job was a picture. And as he worked, still he could talk to a young disciple sitting on the window-sill!
At any moment the Mother will come. He has to hurry up. The time is 1:00 p.m. Yes, here is the Mother, surprised to see a novice here at this hour, but, all gracious, she allows him to remain. It is time to go. Crossing the terrace, Pavitra accompanies the Mother through her bathroom door, carrying four or five bowls, one above the other, covered with saucers; they contain Sri Aurobindo's lunch.
Mrityunjoy Mukherjee 40
The reader might wonder why Sri Aurobindo's lunch had to be carried through the "bathroom door", but this door provided a connection between the Meditation House and the Old Secretariat. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's bathroom on the first floor of the Meditation House was adjacent to the terrace of the Old Secretariat where Pavitra stayed. It was thus convenient to add a door on the west wall of the bathroom and link it to the terrace of the Old Secretariat in order to have direct access from one house to the other. Incidentally, Sri Aurobindo's bathroom already had (and even now has) two other doors, one to the east opening into his own room, and one to the south opening in front of the staircase landing. When the New Secretariat was built in 1932, the door to the west was connected to the corridor leading to Pavitra's new room on the first floor of the New Secretariat. See the drawings on pages 168-169 for a more graphic representation.
The drawing on the opposite page shows the courtyard of the Old Secretariat with the present location of the Samadhi. The building on the right is the Old Secretariat which was demolished in 1931. The structure on the left is the kitchen in the Rosary House demolished in 1942. The passage of the Mother as described in Mrityunjoy's story is drawn in red.
Page 164
Inside view facing east, 1929
Page 165
By [1929], the small old houses on the plot adjoining Library House were being bought. They have all been demolished now to make the big courtyards of the Ashram. Pavitra was shifted to one of them, a little two-storeyed house in the centre of the small courtyard near the Mother's first room in Meditation House. Pavitra's house had only one small room upstairs, with a door facing an open terrace that led to the Mother's bathroom. Crossing that terrace, the Mother would come to Pavitra's room. When she went down to the car for her afternoon drive, or in the evening when she went to the Prosperity room, she would always pass through Pavitra's room. Descending his staircase, she would walk a few steps across the courtyard, go up the staircase at the foot of the present Samadhi, and pass through Champaklal's or Anilbaran's room in order to enter "Prosperity"; there she spent a while looking into the accounts of the daily expenditure for the garden, kitchen, general stores, and so on. During all these activities, Pavitra followed her like a shadow.
Mrityunjoy Mukherjee 41
Many interconnections were made for the Mother to move freely through the four houses of the Ashram main building. Apart from the bathroom door linking the Meditation House with the Old Secretariat, a small link-staircase "at the foot of the present Samadhi" gave her access to the Library House from the courtyard of the Old Secretariat. The original staircase of the Library House leading to Champaklal's room on the first floor started only from the south, that is, from the courtyard in front of the present Notice Board verandah. The covered passage (Item 11 on page 168) was another connection between the Library House and the Rosary House through which the Mother came back to the Meditation House in the evening after distributing soup to the sadhaks.
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When the Secretariat was rebuilt in 1932, the Mother did not have to climb up and down the two staircases to go to the Prosperity Stores in the Library House. She could now simply walk through the corridor connecting the Meditation House with the New Secretariat, go through Pavitra's room, cross Champaklal's terrace and enter either Anilbaran or Champaklal's room to reach the Prosperity Stores on the first floor of the Library House.
The corresponding drawings of these two pages describing the Mother's passage in the Ashram main building before and after the construction of the New Secretariat are on the next two pages.
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Rooms and their Significances
A. Sri Aurobindo's Room (Supreme Manifestation upon Earth)
B. Central Hall (Perfect Creation)
C. Meditation Hall upstairs (Purified Worship)
D. Darshan Room (Divine Consciousness)
E. The Mother's Dressing Room (Divine's Love)
F. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's Sitting Room (Krishna's Ananda)
Furniture used by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother
1. Sri Aurobindo's chair (November 1946 -1950)
2. Sri Aurobindo's bed (November 1946 -1950)
3. Chair used by Sri Aurobindo for writing (1940's)
4. The Mother's Darshan chair (1951-1962)
5. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's Darshan seat (1927-1928) Also used by the Mother for collective meditation (1927-1928)
6. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's Darshan seat (1928-1950)
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A. Front verandah (Spiritual Aspiration)
B. Nolini's study (Pure Mind)
C. Nolini's bedroom (Transformation)
D. Amrita's room (Vital Immortality)
E. Meditation Hall downstairs (Matter consenting to be spiritualised)
F. Staircase leading to the first floor - first flight (Spiritual Ascension)
G. Staircase leading to the first floor - second flight (Spiritual Intensity)
H. The Mother's Salon on the first floor
I. Corridor leading to Pavitra's room and office
J. Green Room - The Mother's Dressing Room (La Reserve)
1. Seat used by the Mother for Pranam (1931-1938)
2. The Mother's chair placed here on 29.2.1960 (first anniversary of the Supramental Manifestation)
3. The Mother's bed placed here after 17.11.1973
4. Chair used by the Mother for blessings (1944 - 1962)
5. The Mother's chair in the Salon
6. Sri Aurobindo's correspondence chair and table in the Salon (1930's)
7. The Mother's sofa in the Salon
8. The Mother's couch in the Salon
9. The Mother's chair in the corridor upstairs
10. The Mother's dressing table
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