REVIEW

Dr Reddy’s contributions to the corpus of literature on the interconnections between the Veda and Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri occur in the last volume we are dealing with, The Creative Word. Once again, this volume is divided into two parts. The first contains some of the author’s essays on the Veda and Savitri that deal with the parallels between them that concern, among other things, the use and power of the creative word. Dr Reddy uses the concepts of sphota, vak, and mantra to link the Veda to Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri. Both works, he avers, are similar because they were the result of revelation and intuition; both have a similar vision, for they “describe the evolutionary march of humanity towards its Origin”. Part Two is replete with essays on what the Creative Word is all about. Both the Veda and Savitri were created in similar ways, and this similarity is documented in these essays. Several of these essays fall broadly under what we would call in current literature the philosophy of language.

In a valuable final chapter in this part, “Fine Arts: Perceptible Mediation between the Visible and the Invisible”, the reader is given an Aurobindonian introduction to the nature of true art. In this last article, Dr. Reddy says that “[t]rue art creation is the result of a suprarational influx of light and power from above.” The true artist who produces superior art always works by vision and inspiration rather than relying on reason as an instrument of creation. In a brief space, Dr Reddy discusses several other art forms such as literature, architecture, and sculpture.

One appreciates in these volumes not only the explication of Aurobindonian concepts and theses, but the way the author seamlessly juxtaposes his own originality in relation to these concepts and theses. It is true that, with perhaps the exception of Two Who Are One, the intended audience is an intellectually attuned one. Such an audience, though it may object that there is practically no argumentation from Dr Reddy in support of his own views, will doubtless find sufficient justification from the works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, especially the former. These volumes are handsome companions to those in search of original contributions to Aurobindonian literature.