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Thoughts
and Aphorisms
by
Sri Aurobindo
In
or around 1913, Sri Aurobindo wrote 552 aphorisms in a single
notebook. In May 1915 and May 1916 he published ten of them in
the monthly review Arya. (These ten have not been reproduced here.
They form part of Thoughts and Glimpses) Of the 542 aphorisms
that remain, two have been classed with the "Additional Aphorisms"
(see below). This leaves 540 aphorisms forming the main series
of Thoughts and Aphorisms.
In
the notebook, the aphorisms were written in nine groupings, three
of which are headed Jnana, three Karma and three Bhakti. The groupings
occur in this order: Jnana, Karma, Bhakti, Karma, Jnana, Bhakti,
Karma, Bhakti, Jnana. The editors have placed the three groupings
of Jnana, the three groupings of Karma and the three groupings
of Bhakti together. Sri Aurobindo numbered all the aphorisms in
Jnana and Karma, none of those in Bhakti. Since it appears that
he intended the numbers to form part of the text, the editors
have placed a number before each aphorism. These numbers do not
correspond to those in the manuscript because the three groupings
of each section have been placed together and the unnumbered Bhakti
section included.
Sri
Aurobindo left indications in the manuscript that certain aphorisms
were to be moved to a different part or position. For example,
he seems to have wanted present aphorisms 240 and 241 to be placed
after present aphorism 98. But since some of these manuscript
indications are not clear, the editors have followed the original
notebook order.
The
manuscript, entirely handwritten, was revised once or twice by
Sri Aurobindo. The original writing is mostly clear, but the revision
is sometimes cramped and difficult to read.
"Additional
Aphorisms". The last two aphorisms (541) in the notebook
containing the main series were not clearly intended for inclusion
in the Karma, Jnana or Bhakti sections. The editors have placed
them in a separate section along with five other aphorisms (543–47)
that were written in a different notebook. The handwriting of
these last five indicates that they were written somewhat later
than 1913—possibly as late as 1919.
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