Place · ashram · India
Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Puducherry
The ashram at Puducherry (French Pondicherry) where Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950) settled in April 1910 after fleeing British political prosecution for his Alipore bomb case activities, and where he remained for forty years until his death. The ashram, formally organised in 1926 under Aurobindo and the French-born Mirra Alfassa (The Mother, 1878-1973), developed integral yoga — the attempt to transform matter through conscious effort. The ashram's international membership and its publishing programme (Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo in 36 volumes) made Pondicherry a global centre of yoga. The adjoining Auroville international community was Alfassa's 1968 extension of the ashram's ideals.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Tradition
- Integral Yoga tradition
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 11.934, 79.836
Connections (4)
- Journey legVadodara / Baroda
Aurobindo taught and studied Sanskrit at Baroda for thirteen years, went to Bengal for the Swadeshi agitation, was tried for the Alipore bomb conspiracy and acquitted, and crossed to French Pondicherry in 1910 ahead of a second prosecution. He never left. The move from a princely-state college to a colonial enclave beyond British warrant is the hinge of the life: a revolutionary in 1908, a writer of thirty volumes on yoga by 1950.
- Institutional successionAuroville
Auroville was founded in 1968 by the Mother, Aurobindo's collaborator, on land a few kilometres from the ashram — laid out as a galaxy plan around the spherical Matrimandir, intended for fifty thousand people of no nationality. It is a twentieth-century attempt to build a mandala town from nothing, and its governance has been disputed between residents and the Indian state for most of its existence.
- Succession in timePuducherry (Pondicherry)
Aurobindo Ghose left British India in 1910 while facing sedition proceedings and settled at Pondicherry because French territory was beyond the reach of a British warrant. He never left, turning from revolutionary politics to yoga and writing, and the ashram grew around him; Auroville followed in 1968. The town's political usefulness and its later spiritual reputation are the same fact about it.
- RanMira Alfassa (The Mother)
Mira Alfassa ran the Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry from 1926 to 1973 — the forty-seven years during which it grew from a small circle of disciples to the subcontinent's largest spiritual community, with publications, workshops, schools, international education and in 1968 the Auroville township. Her daily work ran from 6 a.m. meditation to late-evening meetings with disciples; her Agenda — the dictated spiritual diary of her last thirteen years — fills thirteen volumes and remains unpublished in parts.
Sources
Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Puducherry
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