There are two complementary aspects of the liberating action of the Divine Grace upon earth among men. These two aspects are equally indispensable, but are not equally appreciated:

The sovereign immutable peace that liberates from anxiety, tension and suffering.

The dynamic all powerful progress that liberates from fetters, bondages and inertia.

The peace is universally appreciated and recognized as divine, but the progress is welcomed only by those whose aspiration is intense and courageous.

Whenever one thinks of Sastriar one invariably thinks of these two messages. Even a superficial reading of the major works of Sastriar would make it clear—especially when we consider their range, clarity and profundity—that he is one of the Vibhutis—'the manifest stress of the power and light of many a divine quality bespeaking the glory of the Divine residing and revealed in the essential, powerful, lovely and luminous aspects of things, men and gods and their kind (Collected Works Volume I, pp. 398-99)—come down to spread Sri Aurobindo's message and insights by relating them to our tradition and freeing it from all those fetters which have been clogging its progress and development. His life itself was emblematic of the role he was to play. It was after the initiation into the immutable peace of the Divine under the guidance of the Maharshi that he came to 'dynamic' Sri Aurobindo and his life in Pondicherry was characterised by the all consuming aspiration, intense and courageous, resulting in his bringing down the Vedic gods once again for us. Such souls are best described in the words of the Master

The labourers in the quarries of the gods
The messengers of the Incommuicable

(Savitri Book 3 Canto 4. 357-8).

It is possible to mistake this unique effort of relating the new to the old—'the work of a pioneer' in assimilating 'Tradition' to the 'Individual talent'—for eclecticism; and the charge was laid at his door. But Sastriar knew the maxim—'that no man was written down but by himself'—and his reply to his critic brings out at once his remarkable firmness and humility. He said

A contemptuous silence would have been the only right reply...had he not used certain terms and thrown ideas which slyly, if not ambiguously extend the attack—using this small treatise as a jumping board—on the system of philosophy and yoga to which I have thoroughly given myself these thirty years and more...

The reply is thus intended not as a defence of himself but as a clear exposition of the teachings of Sri Aurobindo on which his Tattvaprabha was based. It is the spirit in which it is done that is even more significant. The article gives a clear account of Eclecticism as philosophy both in the West and in the East and proceeds to show how

'a system is not built out of a previous non-existence; the system-builder does not start with a nil, tabula rasa, does not evolve a system out of his brain, he takes up the materials that are already there—in this instance the material has come down from the Vedic Age down to modern times—tests them, chooses and selects the substantial element, rejects the outworn forms, develops the latent suggestions, gives the system in a finished form, maintaining the structure intact, but supple not rigid so that it can accommodate, if it is comprehensive enough, fresh ideas and details of experience and truths discovered to fit in with the system and fall into their place in right adjustment.' (Volume II, pp. 101-2)

The need for this long quotation must be obvious. It describes his method. He distinguishes between assimilation/synthesis of the old and the new on the one hand and eclecticism which consists in adopting from all systems the doctrine or doctrines which best pleases one and tying them up together.

If in Tattvaprabha he demonstrates how the different elements in Sri Aurobindo's philosophy such as 'the ladder of Existence', the seven worlds or planes, the concept of Parinama and the ascent and descent, sopana arohana, are all (though they were all arrived at in and by his own sadhana) founded on the spiritual and mystical experience of the Vedic Seers. The discussion of Para prakriti jivabhuta is a happy instance of the use of right kind of scholarship and logic. Sri Aurobindo's interpretation of the text based on his own vision and experience is strictly according to Panini's sutras regarding the use of Taddhita suffix and Sankara's own interpretation of the compound formation in other contexts.

Sri Sastriar's theme in all his major works is the philosophy and practice of a divine life for man—not pure speculative philosophy—but a philosophy which is an attempt by the highest faculty of man namely reason at an intellectual translation of ultimate truths arrived at, experienced and felt by a deeper and higher consciousness of man. Hence his Lights on the Veda concentrates on the Riks as mantras and the Rishis as mantra drastarah. The words have a power all their own and it is this faith in the power of the Mantra 'that has left its impress on and taken deep roots in the soul of the race from the Vedic times to our days...' The fact that the mantra was regarded as an extraordinary means of achieving worldly ends also not merely the otherworldly or spiritual and inner experiences—has helped him to show the validity of Sri Aurobindo's interpretation of the secret of the Veda.

The task he took upon himself in presenting Sri Aurobindo's interpretation to the 'orthodox ritualistic Brahmin was indeed formidable. He alone could take it up. It is easy for the young to accept and realize Sri Aurobindo's interpretations, realize their significance. But to convince the traditionalist it is not so easy. Sastriar is aware of the helpfulness of Sayana. He grants the merits of his commentary. But he also shows that Sayana was quite aware of the fact that the ritualists were just one of the three main interpreters of the Vedas...when he gives us alternative meanings...it is obvious he does so as a scholar...and speaking of the tradition inherited by Sayana he is careful to point out that it is a jumble of traditions that we find registered in his commentary...It is this spirit that inspires the scholarly introduction to Siddhanjana and the extent to which he has identified his consciousness with that of his Master is seen in many of his English translations of the Riks.

One of his friends and devoted admirers observed that Sri Sastriar could be loyal to Sri Aurobindo without being disloyal to Maharshi or Vasishta Ganapati Muni. May it be said that it was largely because it was Kavyakantha who led him to Maharshi; and it was his devotion toMaharshi that guided him to the Master and the Divine Mother in whose Ashram he found the needed atmosphere for a full development of his many-sided genius.

Kavyakantha's new light on the Veda prepared him for the new approach outlined bySri Aurobindo. Satdarsana Bhashya written in the manner of Acharya Sankara provided for him that foundation of immutable Peace on which alone the 'progressive harmony' could be built.

It is perhaps this background that helped him to talk with so much sympathy and understanding to orthodox brahmins on subjects like Srāddha, Bāhyapūja, Prānapratishtha and aspects of Tantra sadhana. He had practised them for years and the concepts were living ones for him. That explains the authenticity of his explanations. And where he knows that the orthodox or traditional interpretation distorts the text he says so. The first example is his interpretation of Kathopanishad where after showing the organic nature of the whole text and interpreting it in the light of parallel references from Kāthaka sections of Taittirya Brahmana and the hymn in the Rik Samhita ascribed to the Rishi Kumara. Yamayana, he draws our attention to Indian commentators who alter the text; and in a footnote he says

...Shankara changes the sense of the verse into r its opposite by introducing words which are not there. The teacher of Dwaita school reads Svargeshu in place of Sargesu... Sri Aurobindo reads the text as come down to us for centuries; in following him I have followed the text as it is known to the orthodox Pandits.

Sastriar's personality was essentially, artistic and particularly 'poetic'; that was why he could so readily understand the 'poetic approach' to the Vedas and the Upanishads—a purely Sri Aurobindonian approach to these scriptures—and work it out in his commentaries on Upanishads. His division of the Upanishads into Vidyas/disciplines or sadhana mārga has been suggested by this poetic response to the texts; and the identification of the Vidyas with the guru only confirms the view repeatedly stressed that the guru is the mantradrṣta. And all the time and attempt is towards tracing the key words and metaphors of the upanishadic text to their Vēdic riks, the vedic originals.

This takes us to the very revolutionary view of Sri Aurobindo on the nature of language. Sastriar's articles on The Vak of the Veda and the Throb of the Tantra, Sphota and the spoken word and the note on Chatvari Vak while relating Sri Aurobindo's views to the concept of Vak in the Vedas and the Tantra anticipate a number of discoveries made by modern linguistic scholars. The most noticeable difference between the Western philologists and linguists on the one hand and the ancient Indian Epistemologists on the other is that whereas in the West they started the study of language from without—that is from its Vaikhari form, the Vedic seers started their study from 'within'

'In all things that are expressed by Vak (speech) there are two factors we have to distinguish clearly in order to avoid confusion and arrive at the real character of Sabda. There is, first the external aspect, the audibility, the mere sound; the other factor is the subtler which is the essential sound element, vibrant with the meaning natural to it not audible to the physical hearing but clothed in the audible sound through which it expresses itself. The physical and the instrumental aspect is the normal sound dhvani, which is a quality of the essential inner sound sabda, which is itself sensible, carries sense with it, and is manifested every time a word is heard or uttered. The essential factor in speech is the real sphota and the outwardly audible sound is dhvani.'

This Vedic account of sabda establishes once and for all two things: (1) the need to go beyond and behind the articulated sound to get at the meaning and the development of the inner ear for it; and (2) Sphota as a manifestation of Brahman—leading to the idea that the Universe (Arthaprapancha) itself as a manifestation of Sabda, born of Chhandas. Sri Sastriar's account of Bhartrhari's definition of sphota on the basis of this Vedic theory is valuable in many ways. We have here striking anticipations of the theories of modern structuralists and language philosophers. The sentence to a structuralist is a linguistic unit. It may be made up of an ordered set of smaller units which may be called words which can be combined according to certain rules (of grammar) to form sentences. The meaning of a sentence is a function of all the words of which it is constituted and of the inter-relation between them. Language itself has been defined as a system of a finite number of minimal units (called words) and a set of rules imposing combinational restraints on these units. Compare again the concluding lines on Sphota—

Sphota, then, is the vak, the, subtle voice which is the basis of all speech in mind-form, vaci pratisthitam manah; it is not the vāk, speech, of which mind is the mainstay, manasi pratisthita vak. Sphota is not fanciful concept, but a fact of psychological experience, a truth of our spiritual being in evolution. It is the expressional aspect of the soul; it receives the local sound-vibrations, takes in their sound-essence and sense-values and assimilates them into the subtle sound-stuff of its indivisible being. In its responses, it breaks forth surcharged with intelligence, sphutati, and raises subtle vibrations that are later vocalised. In short, it is the inner being, not the soul that is immersed in the unspeakable silence, but the soul that is emergent with a purpose—the purpose of discovering its own being in expression, vyaktaye sva-svarupasya. Here, in the inner depths in the etheric rigions of the Heart, it is the antaro jnata of Bhartrhari, the one indivisible permanent sabdha of Patanjali; there, in the Immutable supreme akasa, it is the sabda brahman of the Scriptures, the nitya Vak of the Rig Veda. (Volume I, p. 149)

with Chomsky's crucial distinction between competence in language and performance. We see how close the sphota vadins are to the modern grammarian who says that linguistic structures are 'innately programmed in the human mind and operate both as a constraint upon language and as a means of shared understanding.'

It has been said that the opening lines of Srimad Ramayana give us an adequate description of the epic hero—the avatar that has become human,—Even more impressive is the description of the ideal scholar, soldier, statesman and the devoted disciple by the avatar himself. To have seen and listened to Sastriar is to understand the full import of that graphic account of Hanuman Sri Rama gives to Lakshmana:

The passage emphasises not only the qualities expected of a scholar-messenger but how these qualities are acquired. A study of the Rig Veda helps to cultivate vingya, humility and modesty. Yajurveda endows us with a controlled memory. Samaveda gives the voice culture and eloquence. Vyakarana helps to be 'precise', relevant and speak to the point.

There is again a reference to the pleasing gestures and the manner of delivery. A sensitive scholar in brief, clear and prompt but never in a hurry. He has what is called trikarana shuddhi. The words come from the heart, articulated in Madhyama Swara (neither high-pitched nor inaudibly low). The words themselves are well ordered (each in its place), pleasing to hear—almost charming. The harmony is such that it can quieten even the enemy who has raised arms to strike you down with his sword.

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