Sri Aurobindo
1872 CE–1950 CE · Modern · Calcutta (Kolkata)
1872–1950 CE (born 15 August 1872, Calcutta; died 5 December 1950, Pondicherry)
Aurobindo Ghose was born in Calcutta and educated largely in England — at St Paul's School and King's College, Cambridge — returning to India in 1893 to serve for thirteen years in the administration and college of the princely state of Baroda, where he immersed himself in Sanskrit and Indian civilization. In the 1900s he became a prominent and radical figure in the Bengal independence movement; arrested in connection with revolutionary activity, he experienced a turn to spiritual practice during his imprisonment. In 1910 he withdrew from politics to the French colony of Pondicherry, where for the next forty years he lived as a yogi and philosopher, developing his 'Integral Yoga' and a distinctive philosophy of the evolutionary descent of a 'Supermind' into matter. His major works — 'The Life Divine,' 'The Synthesis of Yoga,' and the long visionary poem 'Savitri' — are widely studied. With his collaborator Mirra Alfassa ('the Mother') he founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. He died at Pondicherry in 1950. His life is fully documented.
Did you know?
A Cambridge-educated revolutionary who spent 40 years in a French colonial town
Sri Aurobindo was sent to England at age 7 and educated there, including at King's College, Cambridge. After returning to India he became a nationalist and was tried in the 1908 Alipore Bomb Case, then released for lack of evidence; in 1910 he moved to Pondicherry, then a French territory, and remained there for the last 40 years of his life until his death in 1950.
How we know
Born 15 Aug 1872; sent to England 1879 (age 7); St. Paul's School then King's College, Cambridge; Alipore Bomb Case 1908 (released for lack of evidence, May 1909); reached Pondicherry 4 Apr 1910; died 5 Dec 1950 (1950−1910 = 40 years).
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Calcutta (Kolkata)
What they did here
Birthplace; born 15 August 1872, then sent as a child to England for schooling.
About Calcutta (Kolkata)
Calcutta (Kolkata) is the capital of West Bengal, on the Hooghly River in eastern India, and was the capital of British India until 1911. It was a focus of the 19th–20th-century Hindu renaissance: Swami Vivekananda was born there, and Sri Aurobindo and A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda were active in the city.
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