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Note on the Texts
Note on the Texts
The thirty-two essays that make up this volume were first published in the monthly journal Arya between August 1918 and January 1921. Each essay was written immediately before its publication.
The Renaissance in India. Four essays appeared in the Arya between August and November 1918 under the title The Renaissance in India. In September 1920 they were published under the same title by the Prabartak Publishing House, Chandernagore, after being revised lightly by Sri Aurobindo. The publisher’s note to this edition stated: “The subject matter of the book was written in a way of appreciation of Mr. James H. Cousins’ book of the same name.” Cousins’ Renaissance in India, a series of articles on contemporary Indian art and other subjects, was published by Ganesh & Co., Madras, with a preface dated June 1918. New editions of Sri Aurobindo’s Renaissance in India were published in 1927, 1937, 1946, 1951 and 1966. The 1966 edition has been frequently reprinted. In 1971 and 1972 The Renaissance in India was published along with The Foundations of Indian Culture (see below) as volume 14 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library (de luxe and popular editions).
Indian Culture and External Influence. This essay, published in March 1919, was written in answer to a comment in the Bengali journal Narayan on Sri Aurobindo’s series, The Renaissance in India. In 1953 the essay was included in The Foundations of Indian Culture as an appendix.
“Is India Civilised?” Three essays appeared in the Arya under this title between December 1918 and February 1919. They were written in response to a book by Sir John Woodroffe entitled Is India Civilized? Essays on Indian Culture (Madras: Ganesh & Co., foreword dated 4 October 1918). Woodroffe’s book was itself a response to a book by
Page – 447 William Archer, India and the Future (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1917).
A Defence of Indian Culture. In the issue of the Arya in which he concluded “Is India Civilised?”, Sri Aurobindo began another series dealing in more detail with William Archer’s criticisms of Indian culture, taken to represent a typical Western attitude at that time. Six essays were published under the title “A Rationalistic Critic on Indian Culture” between February and July 1919. In the August 1919 issue of the Arya the title “A Defence of Indian Culture” appeared for the first time with this note: “As these articles have extended beyond their original intention, a more suitable title is substituted for the original heading.” The next eighteen articles appeared under the new title. The twenty-four instalments of the series were numbered I-XXIV (actually XXIII due to an error). The series was discontinued with the termination of the Arya in January 1921.
Revision of “Is India Civilised?” and A Defence of Indian Culture. Sometime in the 1920s or 1930s Sri Aurobindo revised the three instalments of “Is India Civilised?” and the first eight and a half instalments of A Defence of Indian Culture (including the six entitled “A Rationalistic Critic on Indian Culture”). When the eight essays on art and polity referred to in the next paragraph were republished in 1947, Sri Aurobindo revised them slightly. He also made a few changes to the essays on literature. The rest of A Defence of Indian Culture was not revised.
Separate booklets. In February 1947 the four instalments on Indian art from A Defence of Indian Culture were published by Sri Aurobindo Circle, Bombay, under the title The Significance of Indian Art. New editions of this booklet were published in 1953 and 1964. In 1947, sometime after February, the four instalments on Indian polity were published by the Arya Publishing House, Calcutta, under the title The Spirit and Form of Indian Polity. A new edition of this booklet was brought out in 1966. The publisher’s note to The Significance of Indian Art, seen and approved by Sri Aurobindo, is reproduced below in full:
These chapters have been abstracted from Sri Aurobindo’s work left unfinished in the Arya, — A Defence of Indian
Page – 448 Culture (1918-1921). This was undertaken as a reply to a considerable work by Mr. William Archer criticising and attacking Indian civilisation and culture in all its domains: at that time this critic’s views were typical of a very general attitude of the European mind towards the Indian civilisation and its special character, forms and creations and to combat the self-depreciation awakened in the Indian mind by this hostile impact and to explain to it the meaning of its own civilisation and past achievements was the main object of Sri Aurobindo. Since then, there has been a radical change and Mr. Archer’s strictures and the answer to them might have been omitted and only the positive part of the work retained in this publication but there is a historical interest in the comparison or contrast drawn and otherwise also it may still have its value. The four chapters have therefore been reprinted in their entirety.
In 1949, a year before Sri Aurobindo’s passing, he was asked about the possibility of bringing out the whole of A Defence of Indian Culture. At this time, in a statement reproduced in the Publisher’s Note to the present volume, he indicated that he did not feel that the book as it then stood was ready for publication.
The Foundations of Indian Culture. In 1953 the three essays of “Is India Civilised?”, the twenty-four chapters making up A Defence of Indian Culture and, as an appendix, Indian Culture and External Influence (but not The Renaissance in India) were published by The Sri Aurobindo Library, New York, as The Foundations of Indian Culture. This title was provided by the editors of the volume. The editors divided the last eighteen chapters of A Defence into four sections for which they provided headings: “Religion and Spirituality”, “Indian Art”, “Indian Literature”, “Indian Polity”. The same material identically arranged was published under the same title by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, in 1959. A new edition of this book was brought out in 1968. The Foundations of Indian Culture and The Renaissance in India were published together in 1971 and 1972 as the de luxe and popular editions of volume 14 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library. The SABCL edition of The Foundations, without The Renaissance,
Page – 449 was reprinted in reduced facsimile in 1975 and five more times between 1980 and 1995.
The present edition. This volume contains, under another title and in a different order, the same writings as volume 14 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library. The book is now published as The Renaissance in India with A Defence of Indian Culture, using the titles Sri Aurobindo himself gave to the two principal sets of essays. The Renaissance in India formed the starting-point and was the only series brought out as a book during Sri Aurobindo’s lifetime. Its title has been given priority over that of the longer but unfinished series, A Defence of Indian Culture. “Is India Civilised?” and Indian Culture and External Influence have been put in their appropriate places. With the exception of the last-named piece, the essays appear in the order in which they were published in the Arya. The present editors have kept the original sequential numbering of the twenty-four essays of A Defence of Indian Culture. In addition they have retained the Arya heading “A Rationalistic Critic on Indian Culture” for the first six chapters. They have also used the headings given in 1953 to the four editorial divisions of the remainder of the work, with one change, the replacement of “Religion and Spirituality” by “Indian Spirituality and Life”. The editors have carefully checked the text of each of the essays against the Arya text and, where appropriate, the revised versions.
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