This book is an exploration of Satyavan, a central character in Sri Aurobindo's epic Savitri. Drawing on passages from Savitri, insights from the Mother (Agenda, Questions & Answers, and Prayers & Meditations), and other writings of Sri Aurobindo, it follows the deepening significance of a refrain that returns at decisive moments in the epic: "This was the day when Satyavan must die."
Although the poem bears Savitri's name, this study approaches Savitri through Satyavan's presence and significance, from the cryptic announcement in the opening canto to his return in a transformed form at the end. Across a sequence of connected chapters, including Earth's Flowering, Death's Tremendous Hour, Fourfold Growth of Earth, Dyumatsena's Lineage, Earth's Savitri, Immortality and Magic Order, and more, the book traces the architecture of change surrounding Satyavan and the evolutionary passage his "death" implies.
This work invites readers of Savitri to contemplate Satyavan more deeply as the soul of the Earth, as the golden tower, and as the holder of new statuses animated by the flame-child, engendering even brighter rays in Savitri's continuing Dawn.