Arabian Nights

Collected Plays and Stories
“The Viziers of Bassora: A Romantic Comedy”

PDF (183 pages)

(Ashram Archives:) “The source of the plot of The Viziers of Bassora is “Nur al-Din Ali and the Damsel Anis al-Jalis”, a story told in the Arabian Nights (thirty-fourth to thirty-eighth nights). Sri Aurobindo owned in Baroda a multi-volume edition of Richard Burton’s translation of the Arabic text (London, 1894), which he considered ‘as much a classic as the original’.”

(Dinendra Kumar Roy:) “After passing the Cambridge University examinations, Aurobindo received many books as prizes; among them I saw in his library a beautiful edition of the Arabian Nights published by the Kama Shastra Society of England; the 18-chapter Mahabharata or the Shabda-kalpadruma were nothing next to it! I had never seen such a voluminous edition of the Arabian Nights — like the sixteen volumes of Webster’s dictionary! It contained innumerable illustrations too.”

(Sri Aurobindo in Bande Mataram, 1906:) “We are assured by the Hindu Patriot which has always played the part of a demi-official organ of Sir Andrew Fraser’s Government, that Sir Andrew “has not the remotest idea of laying down the reins of his office before time” — and like the old man in the Arabian Nights he will, in spite of the repeated snubs he has received from his official superiors, continue to embarrass us for two more years.”

(Sri Aurobindo in A Defence of Indian Culture, 1920:) “It is true that while many European writers who have studied the history of the land and the people, have expressed strongly their appreciation of the vividness and interesting fullness, colour and beauty of life in India before the present period, — that unhappily exists no longer except in the pages of history and literature and the broken or crumbling fragments of the past, — those who see only from a distance or fix their eyes only on one aspect, speak of it often as a land of metaphysics, philosophies, dreams and brooding imaginations, and certain artists and writers are apt to write in a strain as if it were a country of the Arabian Nights, a mere glitter of strange hues and fancies and marvels. But on the contrary India has been as much a home of serious and solid realities, of a firm grappling with the problems of thought and life, of measured and wise organisation and great action as any other considerable centre of civilisation.”

(Mother:) “All right. Imagine that in a dark room you have put an oil lamp, one which burns oil, as we used to have fifty years ago — we had oil lamps in the rooms, as now there are lanterns; they were a little better but it was the same thing. So you were lighting your room with that, and then suddenly somebody invented the means of lighting it by electricity. So your oil lamp is replaced by a beautiful electric lamp which gives ten times more light.
         ...
         You have always had a light to illumine your room — your inner room — but instead of an oil lamp it has become an electric lamp [the Supermind]. That’s all. …

(Student:) How to enter the room?

You take a key and open the door!
         You must find the key.
         Or you sit down in front of the door until you have found the word, the idea or the force which opens it — as in the Arabian Nights tales.
         It is not a joke, it is very serious. You must sit down in front of the door and then concentrate until you have found the key or the word or the power to open it.
         If one doesn’t try, it doesn’t open by itself.”

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See also

• The Viziers of Bassora