EVOLUTION OF ‘ARBITRARINESS’ IN ‘SIGN’ IN LANGUAGE TO ‘REVELATION’ IN ‘SIGN’ IN MANTRIC POETRY (WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO SRI AUROBINDO’S MANTRIC POETRY)

Abstract

‘Sign’ in language, is, admittedly, arbitrary in nature. Having studied in the light of yogic revelations made by Sri Aurobindo of the hierarchy of consciousness, arbitrariness is found to be operative on the intellectual plane of Mind and the planes below it. The intellectual plane of Mind and all the planes below it are under the gravitational pull of the separative principle of consciousness operating on the plane of Mind as revealed by him. It is on account of the pull that the sign comes to be arbitrary. As one evolves, as a result of the realisation of the existence of the One Transcendent Divine, to the spiritual plane of Mind, the separative principle of consciousness operating on the plane of Mind tends decisively to decay, hence, the arbitrariness, too, in sign tends to decay, with the rise of a new movement on the plane of Mind, the movement towards the integrality of the Consciousness of the One Transcendent Divine. Here, one enters into the realm of spiritual consciousness. Sri Aurobindo reveals four planes of spiritual consciousness on the plane of Mind. On the two uppermost planes of the spiritual consciousness, the ‘Intuitive Mind’ and the ‘Overmind’, as he terms them, the separative principle decays to the extent that the poetry written from these planes, the poetry which, according to Sri Aurobindo, is ‘Mantra’ or Mantric Poetry, comes to be revelatory. Hence, the ‘sign’ in it comes to be revelatory.