Satyavan’s Upbringing, pp. 403-404

Opening Remarks
Satyavan now shares with Savitri his upbringing and early years that have shaped his life.

Nobler kingdom
Great Nature came to her recovered child;
I reigned in a kingdom of a nobler kind
Than men can build upon dull Matter’s soil;
I met the frankness of the primal earth,
I enjoyed the intimacy of infant God.

This reflects how Satyavan looks at life. He is quick to find a blessing in everything. Though he has lost the kingdom he looks at this world of his located in Nature’s wilderness as a nobler kingdom than what man builds. Here he found the frankness of the primal earth and enjoyed the intimacy of the Godhead of delight.

Boundless palace
In the great tapestried chambers of her state,
Free in her boundless palace I have dwelt
Indulged by the warm mother of us all,
Reared with my natural brothers in her house.

He speaks of the vast forest as a boundless palace where he lived with freedom indulged to by mother Nature along with all other living creatures of the jungle.

Embrace of heaven
I lay in the wide bare embrace of heaven,
The sunlight’s radiant blessing clasped my brow,
The moonbeams’ silver ecstasy at night
Kissed my dim lids to sleep. Earth’s morns were mine;
Lured by faint murmurings with the green-robed hours
I wandered lost in woods, prone to the voice
Of winds and waters, partner of the sun’s joy,
A listener to the universal speech:
My spirit satisfied within me knew
Godlike our birthright, luxuried our life
Whose close belongings are the earth and skies.

The skies above were like heavens embracing him bare. The sunlight blessed him and the moonbeams filled him with ecstasy kissing his lids to sleep. Earth’s mornings were his whence he roamed freely amidst the trees and streams with the winds listening to the universal speech of nature. He felt satisfied within and knew Godhead as our birthright and a life filled with the richness of earth and skies a luxury that all can have.

Led by Fate
Before Fate led me into this emerald world,
Aroused by some foreshadowing touch within,
An early prescience in my mind approached
The great dumb animal consciousness of earth
Now grown so close to me who have left old pomps
To live in this grandiose murmur dim and vast.

Though it seemed like fate has led him here, his spirit already had a foreshadow of it and his mind intuitively felt the dumb consciousness of earth and her creatures. Now he has grown conscious of what he knew presciently, as if all this was his soul’s choice.

Spirit’s dream
Already I met her in my spirit’s dream.

He dreamed of mother earth and nature even before he felt her close touch.

Closing Remarks
Satyavan is nurtured amidst the earth’s primaeval state and nature. This has given him an edge rather than been to any disadvantage.