Sri Aurobindo

Autobiographical Notes

and Other Writings of Historical Interest

Part One. Autobiographical Notes

1. Life Sketches and Other Autobiographical Notes

Incomplete Life Sketch in Outline Form¹

Born 1872.

Sent to England for education 1879.

Studied at St Paul’s School, London, and King’s College, Cambridge.

Returned to India. February, 1893.

Life of preparation at Baroda 1893–1906

Political life – 1902–1910

[The “Swadeshi” movement prepared from 1902–5 and started definitely by Sri Aurobindo, Tilak, Lajpatrai and others in 1905. A movement for Indian independence, by non-cooperation and passive resistance and the organisation (under a national Council or Executive, but this did not materialise,) of arbitration, national education, economic independence, (especially handloom industry including the spinning-wheel, but also the opening of mills, factories and Swadeshi business concerns under Indian management and with Indian capital,) boycott of British goods, British law-courts, and all Government institutions, offices, honours etc. Mahatma Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement was a repetition of the “Swadeshi”, but with an exclusive emphasis on the spinning-wheel and the transformation of passive resistance, (“Satyagraha”) from a political means into a moral and religious dogma of soul-force and conquest by suffering. The running of the daily paper, “Bande Mataram”, was only one of Sri Aurobindo’s political activities.]²

Imprisonment –

Thrice prosecuted; first for sedition and acquitted

then in 1908 along with his brother Barindra, (one of the chief leaders of the revolutionary movement) on a charge of conspiracy to wage war against the established Government. Acquitted after a year’s detention as an under-trial prisoner, mostly in a solitary cell

last; in his absence in 1910, for sedition. This case also failed on appeal.

. . . . . . . . .

After 1909 carried on the political (Swadeshi) movement alone (the other leaders being in prison or in exile) for one year. Afterwards on receiving an inner intimation left politics for spiritual lifework. The intimation was that the Swadeshi movement must now end and would be followed later on by a Home Rule movement and a Non-cooperation movement of the Gandhi type, under other leaders.

Came to Pondicherry 1910.

Started the “Arya”. 1914

c. 1922

¹ Sri Aurobindo wrote this outline of his life up to 1914 sometime during the early 1920s. (The non-cooperation movement, mentioned in the text, began in August 1920 and ended in February 1922.)

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² The square brackets are Sri Aurobindo’s. – Ed.

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