The 'Coiled Serpent' In 'Savitri' And Lalita Sahasranama

(This is the sixth article in Aravindan Neelakandan's series on Sri Aurobindo's 'Savitri' and the Sri Lalita Sahasranama. The earlier parts are here: one, two, three, four, and five).

Across diverse civilizations, the serpent emerges as a potent and multivalent archetype, a symbol of primordial energy and esoteric knowledge.

In the vast spiritual landscape of Hindu Dharma, this universal symbol finds its most profound and systematised expression in the concept of Kuṇḍalini, the 'Coiled Power'. Described in the Tantras as a luminous serpent sleeping at the base of the human spine, She is the immanent, kinetic aspect of the Divine, the latent cosmic energy that, when awakened, initiates a radical transformation of consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo's epic poem, Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol, stands as a monumental work of twentieth-century literature and a comprehensive functional map of the evolutionary ascent of the consciousness.

He described it not as a poem to be merely written and finished, but as a 'field of experimentation' to explore the creative possibilities of yogic consciousness.

Within this epic framework, the imagery is never merely ornamental; it is a precise, phenomenological rendering of spiritual states and processes.

The appearance of the serpent, therefore, particularly in the crucial 'Book of Yoga', is not a simple literary metaphor for power but a direct and deliberate depiction of the Kundalini awakening, a key event in the involuted Avataric soul's spiritual journey.

An Exegesis of the Awakening (Book VII, Canto V)

The process begins not in action, but in profound stillness. Before the dynamic force can be unleashed, Savitri enters a state of deep inwardness, passing through inner worlds until she reaches the core of her being.

This pre-awakening state is one of "sealed identity," a quiescent potential where the immense power lies dormant, waiting for the command to act. It is from this absolute silence and seeming emptiness that the cataclysmic event of the awakening occurs.

Sri Aurobindo's depiction of the awakening itself is unambiguous in its symbolism:

A flaming serpent rose released from sleep.

It rose billowing its coils and stood erect

And climbing mightily stormily on its way

It touched her centres with its flaming mouth...

Each phrase here is laden with specific Tantric-Yogic significance. The 'flaming serpent' directly evokes the fiery nature of the awakened Kundalini.

Yogic traditions consistently describe the experience as one of intense, purifying heat, the manifestation of the Agni Tattva (fire principle) that consumes impurities as it ascends.

The description of the serpent as being 'released from sleep' is a direct poetic translation of the Tantric understanding of Kundalini as a dormant power, a static potential residing in the lowest psychic centre, the Muladhara-chakra. Her awakening signifies the fundamental shift from static to kinetic energy, the uncoiling of the universe's creative potential within the individual microcosm.  

The serpent's upward journey is a clear portrayal of the process of the piercing of the six centers. The line, 'It touched her centres with its flaming mouth', describes the systematic activation of the chakras, or lotuses of the subtle body. Each 'fiery kiss' is the infusion of divine energy that breaks the seal of a specific psycho-spiritual centre, causing it to open or 'bloom':

As if a fiery kiss had broken their sleep,

They bloomed and laughed surcharged with light and bliss...  

This blooming signifies the release of the specific powers (siddhis) and modes of consciousness associated with each centre—from the primal life-force of the lower centres to the expressive power of the throat and the direct will and vision of the centre between the brows.

The culmination of this ascent is the union of the two poles of consciousness within the seeker.

The serpent's journey concludes when, 'at the crown it joined the Eternal’s space'. This is the classic yogic goal: the union of Shakti, the ascending serpent power, with Siva, the principle of pure, static consciousness that resides in the highest cerebral centre, the Sahasrara-padma, or the thousand-petalled lotus.

This union is the state of samadhi, where the duality of power and consciousness is resolved into a unified, blissful state of being.

Transformation of Cognition and Being

In Sri Aurobindo's vision, this yogic event is not merely a transient state of ecstasy but a permanent and fundamental restructuring of the entire being. The result of the serpent's ascent is that 'All underwent a high celestial change'.

This is not an escape from the world but a conquest over its foundational limitations.

A silent flame-eyed mass of living force.

All underwent a high celestial change:

Breaking the black Inconscient’s blind mute wall,

Effacing the circles of the Ignorance,

Powers and divinities burst flaming forth;

Each part of the being trembling with delight

Lay overwhelmed with tides of happiness

And saw her hand in every circumstance

And felt her touch in every limb and cell.

The power released is potent enough to break 'the black Inconscient's blind mute wall', the barrier of nescience that underpins material existence and is the ultimate source of separation and hence mortality.  

Crucially, this transformation is integral; it does not reject the physical form but permeates and divinises it. This emphasis on the divinisation of matter is a cornerstone of Sri Aurobindo's Darshana.  

The precision of Sri Aurobindo's language reveals that his use of the serpent symbol is not merely metaphorical but phenomenological. A comparison between the poetic narrative of Savitri and the technical descriptions found in classic Tantric texts shows almost a direct, one-to-one correspondence.

Terms like 'coiled' (kundala), 'sleep', 'serpent' (bhujangi), the upward 'ascent', and the culmination at the 'crown' are not generic poetic devices but the established vocabulary of the science of Kundalini.

This correlation makes it clear that Savitri is operating on multiple levels simultaneously: as an epic poem, as a spiritual map for the seeker, and as a treatise on Integral Yoga.

Evolutionary Process

Many a time, the soul is imagined as a static one. A static soul would have no need to evolve; its task would simply be to extricate itself from the illusion of involvement. But the Jeevatman is however, a process - 'growing godhead', and requires an organic process for its growth, a power to overcome the immense resistance of the material Inconscience.

The Kundalini-shakti is precisely this process potential pulsating for pathways. It is the 'creatrix' of becoming.

It is the force that, once awakened, provides the evolving soul with the divine energy needed to accelerate its own development, and by extension, the evolution of the world it inhabits.

The dynamic concept of the soul and the dynamic spiritual power of the serpent are thus inextricably linked. They form the core of Sri Aurobindo's synthesis, which integrates the transcendental goal of unity with the immanent goal of divine manifestation in the world.

Sri Lalita Sahasranama : Goddess as the Indwelling Serpent

Sri Lalita Sahasranama is not only a central text of the Sri Vidya school, but also has become a popular devotional litany.

It identifies the Supreme Goddess, Sri Lalita Tripurasundari, with the totality of cosmic and individual shakti. The text is also more than a devotional litany; it is a Mantric landscape of the divine, detailing the Goddess's transcendent nature, Her cosmic functions, and Her immanent, transformative presence within the subtle body of the human being.

The hundred and tenth Name in the Sahasranama is 'Kundalini'. Bhaskararaya explains: 'Kundala means coiled hence Kundalini - what is coiled.'

On the authority of Tantraraja, he explains 'Kundalini' as 'the shining (Tejas) vital energy (Jivasakti), which is the manifestation of life (Prana) which resides in the centre of the flames of the Muladhara.'

She sleeps like a serpent having three and half coils. She is radiant and ever hissing.

Bhaskararaya also points out that according to the Devi Purana, the Goddess is 'Kundalini' because She has the triangle form, which in turn is explained in Yoginihridya as having the three angles, Ichcha, Kriya and Jnana.

The very next Name in Sahasranama also relates to Kundalini: Bisa-tantu-taniyasi (Name 111). She who is as Slender as a Lotus Fibre.

This name describes the extreme subtlety of the sushumna nadi, the central, luminous channel within the spinal column through which Kundalini ascends. It is the 'narrow path' and the 'frail thread' by which the soul in Savitri climbs to its high source.  

Bhaskararaya cites Taitriya Upanishad revealing this fine aspect of the inner Goddess: 'fine as the point of an ear of rice, saffron coloured, radiant and like an atom.'

Then on the authority of Vamakesvara Tantra he states that the Shakti called Kundalini is a serpentine and beautiful and is as fine as the lotus fibre. It resides in Muladhara which is like the pericarp of a lotus with its tail in its mouth and connected with the Brahmarandhra.

When the seeker is seated in lotus posture by the compression of the breath - through the effort made by the seeker- the fire blazes up. By the force of breath fire, the serpent breaks through the knots of Brahma, Vishnu and Rudragranthis as well as the six lotuses: this energy unites with Siva in the thousand petalled lotus.

Sri Aurobindo ends the Canto with the following lines. The individual Sadhana is not limited to the individual. It is a transformative step for the species. The Divine Marriage within the individual Sadhana thus becomes a conscious movement towards the higher evolution:

One man’s perfection still can save the world.

There is won a new proximity to the skies,

A first betrothal of the Earth to Heaven,

A deep concordat between Truth and Life:

A camp of God is pitched in human time.