The Mantra of Vision: An Overview of Sri Aurobindo’s Aesthetics

There are certainly several critical works available which deal with the poetics/aesthetic theories of Sri Aurobindo. In The Mantra of Vision – An Overview of Sri Aurobindo’s Aesthetics, the author has taken a holistic attitude and stresses on the two aspects of Sri Aurobindo’s darsana – the Mantra and Vision – and centralises on his spiritual aesthetics. The first chapter examines the premises of Sri Aurobindo’s aesthetics and is concerned mainly with his spiritually as the dominant motivating force of his life and work. Chapter 2 deals mainly with his theory of poetry while Chapter 3 focuses attention on what Sri Aurobindo had designated as “overhead poetry” and the author has taken recourse to ancient Indian psychology and philosophy, largely from Vedas and Upanishads to corroborate the idea of the aesthetics. Chapter 4 is a close study of the poetics of the mantra relating to the sphota sastra. Chapter 5 deals with Sri Aurobindo’s poetry. The Sixth chapter centralizes on Savitri and the author has shown that it was the culmination of Aurobindo’s poetic career in which he achieved an integration of gnosis and praxis. This book would be of interest to the general readers as well as scholars / students of Indian aesthetics.