SOURCE: "The Legacy of Sri Aurobindo," in Cross Currents, Vol. XXII, No. 1, Winter, 1972, pp. 2-8.

In the following excerpt, McDermott compares Aurobindo's career with those of Rabindranath Tagore, Mohandes Gandhi, and others in an effort to determine his place in the modern Indian philosophical tradition.

Of the four great exponents of modern Indian ideals, Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, S. Radhakrishnan, and Sri Aurobindo, the least understood in both India and the West is surely the political revolutionary, poet and philosopher of Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo (Ghose), 1872-1950. If the first half of the century belonged to the first three of these figures, the last half (dating from his death in 1950)—or, more certainly, the last quarter (dating from the centenary of his birth, August 15, 1972)—will belong to Sri Aurobindo. This belated recognition of Sri Aurobindo's unique importance is not surprising: his radical political activities during the first decade of...