Sri Aurobindo

Bande Mataram

Political Writings and Speeches. 1890–1908

Publisher’s Note

These volumes include Sri Aurobindo’s surviving political writings and speeches from the years 1890 to 1908. His political writings and speeches from the years after 1908 are published in Karmayogin: Political Writings and Speeches 1909 – 1910, volume 8 of The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo.

The present volumes consist primarily of articles originally published in the nationalist newspaper Bande Mataram between August 1906 and May 1908. None of the articles that Sri Aurobindo and his colleagues contributed to the Bande Mataram were signed. The 353 articles published here have been ascribed to Sri Aurobindo by the editors for a variety of reasons. For 56 of them there exists documentary evidence that establishes his authorship conclusively; 107 others may be assigned to him with considerable confidence; the other 190 are more likely to be by him than by any other Bande Mataram writer. Details on the materials and methodology of the selection are given in the Note on the Texts.

These volumes also include political articles written by Sri Aurobindo before the start of the Bande Mataram, speeches delivered by him between 1907 and 1908, articles from manuscripts of that period that he did not publish during his lifetime, and an interview of 1908. Many of these writings were not prepared by Sri Aurobindo for publication; several were left in an unfinished state. Editorial problems arising from illegibility, etc., are indicated by means of the system explained in the Guide to Editorial Notation on the next page.

Guide to Editorial Notation

Some of the contents of this volume were never prepared by Sri Aurobindo for publication. They have been transcribed from manuscripts or printed texts that present a variety of textual difficulties. As far as possible the editors have indicated these problems by means of the notation shown below.

Notation Textual Problem

[ . . . ] Illegible word(s), one group of three spaced dots for each presumed word.

[.......] Word(s) lost through damage to the manuscript or printed text (at the beginning of a piece, indicates that a page or pages of the original have been lost).

[word] Word(s) omitted by the author or else lost through damage to the manuscript or printed text that are required by grammar or sense; used also to expand abbreviations.

[note] Situations requiring textual explication; all such information is printed in italics.