Sri Aurobindo

Autobiographical Notes

and Other Writings of Historical Interest

Part Two. Letters of Historical Interest

1. Letters on Personal, Practical and Political Matters (1890–1926)

Letters and Telegrams to Political and Professional Associates 1906–1926

To Motilal Roy [8]¹

[c. 1913]

Dear M.

I send the proofs. Your Rs 50 for Narayan etc.’s travelling expenses reached duly and were by him duly spent. He has promised to repay the sum, but I don’t know when he will be able to do so. He will see you, he told me, when he first goes to Calcutta from his place; as his mother was ill, he would not stop to see you on the way. But perhaps other reasons prevented him just then, for I believe he did stop a day or two in Calcutta.

Biren is all right, I believe; he said nothing to anybody about that matter. There were some legitimate doubts in some quarters owing to his unsteady nature and other defects of character. I thought it right to give them as much value for practical purposes as was reasonable; therefore I wrote to you.

I do not write to you this time about the despatch of the books, because that is a long matter and would delay the proofs which have already been too long delayed. But I shall write a separate letter on that subject. I have also to write about your Tantric Yoga, but I think I shall await what else you have to tell me on that subject before doing so.

Kali

P.S. Don’t delay long in sending the money.

¹ In February 1910, Sri Aurobindo left Calcutta and took temporary refuge in Chandernagore, a small French enclave on the river Hooghly about thirty kilometres north of Calcutta. There he was looked after by Motilal Roy (1882–1959), a young member of a revolutionary secret society. After leaving Chandernagore for Pondicherry in April, Sri Aurobindo kept in touch with Motilal by letter. It was primarily to Motilal that he was referring when he wrote in the “General Note on Sri Aurobindo’s Political Life” (p. 64 of this volume): “For some years he kept up some private communication with the revolutionary forces he had led through one or two individuals.” In these letters, which were subject to interception by the police, he could not of course write openly about revolutionary matters. He developed a code in which “tantra” meant revolutionary activities, and things connected with tantra (yogini chakras, tantric books, etc.) referred to revolutionary implements like guns (see Arun Chandra Dutt, ed., Light to Superlight [Calcutta: Prabartak Publishers, 1972], pp. 27–30). The code sometimes got rather complicated (see the note to letter [3] below). Sri Aurobindo did not use his normal signature or initials in the first 22 letters. Instead he signed as Kali, K., A. K. or G. He often referred to other people by initials or pseudonyms. Parthasarathi Aiyangar, for example, became “P. S.” or “the Psalmodist”.

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