Sri Aurobindo
Archives and Research
a biannual journal
April 1977
Volume I; No 1
Archival Notes
A Revised Edition of
Thoughts and Aphorisms
In preparing the revised edition of Sri Aurobindo's Thoughts and Aphorisms which has recently been issued, the editors checked the entire text against the author's handwritten manuscript. This notebook dates from the early years of Sri Aurobindo's stay in Pondicherry; various evidence suggests that it should be assigned to the first months of the year 1915. The manuscript appears to be a fair copy and is thus easily legible, although certain words and phrases admit some doubt and others, although clear, seem to have been reproduced incorrectly in earlier editions of the book. We give below a list of important corrections introduced in the new edition. Minor errors of capitalisation, punctuation, spelling, articles, etc. have been omitted from this list.
ERRATA
| Aphorism Number | SABCL Page | Opening Words | For | Read |
| 5 | 79 | "If mankind..." | less | her |
| 7 | 79 | "What men call..." | After the second sentence the text should read: "Reason divides, fixes details and contrasts them; Wisdom unifies, marries contrasts in a single harmony." | |
| 12 | 80 | "They proved..." | does | did |
| 14 | 80 | "Hallucination is..." | touches of the artist, — in | touches of artist in |
| 15 | 80 | "That which men..." | perception and superstition | perceptions. Superstition |
| 18 | 81 | "Chance is not..." | that did not conceal and disfigure a truth. | that was not the concealing and disfigurement of a truth. |
| 43 | 83 | "If God draw..." | upwards. | upward. |
| 53 | 84 | "The quarrels..." | obtain | attain |
| 54 | 84 | "You say..." | enters | alters |
| 90 | 88 | "This world was built by Ignorance..." | effulgent reason. | effulgent exceeding of reason, (deleting the footnote) |
| 98 | 89 | "Revelation is..." | is direct or inspired | is the direct or the inspired |
| 100 | 90 | "Shun all..." | than the highest Kanchanjungha, profounder | than highest Kanchanjungha, be profounder |
| 119 | 92 | "If when thou..." | on | from |
| 131 | 93 | "Because God has..." | circumstance-instrument | circumstance, instrument |
| 137 | 94 | "There is no..." | thy | the |
| 142 | 95 | "Be to..." | on | in |
| 145 | 96 | "O Poet..." | eternal | external |
| 151 | 96 | "A man came..." | this instructor | his instructor |
| 152 | 97 | "When our minds..." | alone having | alone as having |
| 160 | 98 | "Shun the barren..." | snares | snare |
| 160 | 98 | of unfertile | of an unfertile | |
| 180 | 101 | "There are lesser..." | really | secretly |
| 183 | 101-2 | "In the Buddhists'..." | is greater | is a greater |
| 193 | 103 | "The existence of..." | awakening of | awakening in |
| 198 | 103 | "Do not dream..." | ever | even |
| 200 | 104 | "Religion and ..." | are best | seek |
| 204 | 104 | "Animal man..." | After "the present" the aphorism should read: "natural man the varied and tangled mid-road..." | |
| 205 | 104 | The aphorism should read: "Life and action culminate and are eternally crowned for thee when thou bast attained the power of symbolising and manifesting in every thought and act, in art, literature and life, in wealth-getting, wealth-having or wealth-spending, in home, government and society, the One Immortal in His lower mortal being." | ||
| 206 | 105 | "God leads man..." | After "stumblings" the aphorism should read: "of his lower mortality; this is the tangle and contradiction out of which we have to escape into the self-unity1 to which alone is possible a clear knowledge and a faultless action." | |
| 219 | 106 | "Hatred is a..." | Kriya | Kritya |
| 230 | 107 | "Men slay..." | The last sentence should read: "If thou slay, first let thy soul have known death for a reality and seen God in the smitten, the stroke and the striker." | |
| 238 | 108 | "Break the moulds... | ." genius | gains |
| 252 | 109 | "If thou think..." | for the fight | forth to fight |
| 273 | 111 | "Fight, while thy..." | thy enemy's | the enemy's |
| 280 | 112 | "Do thy lower..." | them | thee |
| 294 | 114 | "There is very..." | more self-deceit | more of self-deceit |
| 296 | 114 | "Be not repelled..." | crookedness | crookednesses |
| 301 | 115 | "Private dispute..." | appreciate | appropriate2 |
| 311 | 116 | "Fix not..." | thy | the |
| 313 | 116 | "Each one..." | one | man |
| 316 | 116 | "Fix thy soul..." | create the | create its |
| 327 | 118 | "India had three..." | order | orders |
| 333 | 118 | "A nation ... | by common | by a common |
| 345 | 120 | "Be always vigilant..." | reality while | reality even while |
| 347 | 120 | "So many strive..." | So | The |
| 354 | 121 | "By altruism..." | the perdition of thy brother. | his perdition thy brother. |
| 357 | 121 | "The Brahmin first... | " governs by | governs us by |
| 361 | 122 | "Men seek laboriously..." | the bounded little being | the little bounded being |
| 366 | 123 | "Thou mayst be..." | wisely even | wisely and lovingly even |
| 369 | 123 | "The Vedanta is..." | the eternal sunlight. | a high and eternal sunlight. |
| 378 | 124 | "God made the..." | consent | assent |
| 382 | 125 | "For nearly forty..." | The first sentence should read: "For nearly forty years behind the wholly good3 I was weakly in constitution; I suffered constantly from the smaller and the greater ailments and mistook this curse for a burden that Nature had laid upon me." | |
| in the body | in this body | |||
| 398 | 127 | "God within is..." | Unaffected | Unappalled |
| 398 | 127 | experiment, but with | experiment, with | |
| 407 | 128 | "Drugs cure..." | Drugs cure | Drugs often cure |
| 410 | 129 | "If thou pursuest..." | pursuest God | pursuest after God |
| 410 | 129 | (This aphorism and the one that precedes it should be read as one aphorism.) | ||
| 422 | 130 | "There are four..." | fierce | fiercer |
| 432 | 131 | "For my part..." | away | to me |
| 441 | 132 | "I did my..." | command destroyer | commands disturber |
| 469 | 136 | "Because thou wert..." | not the | not thee the |
| 472 | 136 | "Even the atheist..." | deniest the | deny it the |
| 477 | 137 | "When will the world..." | garden | gardens |
| 487 | 139 | "Love of man..." | To love and | So love and |
| 493 | 139 | "Canst thou see..." | Him in seizable | Him seated in sensible |
| 494 | 140 | "Divine Love has..." | perennial might | personal height |
| 495 | 140 | "I used to..." | not suffered | not so suffered |
| 505 | 141 | "Service is chiefly..." | Service | Science |
| 506 | 141 | "O Aristophanes..." | thou watchest thyself. But wilt | thou who watchest thyself, wilt |
| 533 | 145 | "See God everywhere..." | a truth | truth |
| 535 | 145 | "The rejection of..." | utter has | after lies |
| 536 | 145 | "The whole truth..." | the only | the one and only |
| 539 | 146 | "Atheism is the..." | form | frame |
1 "The self-unity" is a somewhat doubtful reading.
2 The manuscript clearly reads "appropriate", but this is probably a slip of the pen "Appreciate", which is apparently what was meant, is given in the new edition as a possible alternative
3 Nole that the reading of "behind the wholly good", a practically illegible phrase written between two lines, is rather doubtful. In addition "depart" in the next sentence is uncertain.