Auroville

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

Aurobindo Ghose, a revolutionary of the Bengal independence movement, withdrew to French-ruled Pondicherry in 1910 and devoted himself to philosophy and spiritual practice, developing a system he called integral yoga, aimed at the transformation of human nature and the evolution of consciousness. Mirra Alfassa, born in Paris, came to Pondicherry in 1914 and settled there in 1920. She became his close collaborator and, from 1926, the head of the ashram that grew around him, known to its members as the Mother. Aurobindo died in 1950.

Foundation

In the 1960s the Mother proposed a universal township where people from all countries could live together beyond divisions of nation, creed and politics. Auroville was inaugurated on 28 February 1968 on a barren plateau north of Pondicherry, when young people representing 124 countries and Indian states placed soil from their homelands in an urn. The Mother wrote a short charter declaring that Auroville belonged to nobody in particular but to humanity as a whole. The French architect Roger Anger drew up a plan for a city in the shape of a galaxy, for an eventual population of fifty thousand. UNESCO passed resolutions supporting the project.

Growth and the Matrimandir

The early settlers planted forests on the eroded land, and the township's reforestation, water management and work in alternative architecture and renewable energy became well known. At its centre is the Matrimandir, a large golden sphere set in gardens, containing a white meditation chamber with a crystal globe lit by a ray of sunlight. It was begun in 1971 and completed in 2008. Auroville's population is around three thousand people from many countries, a large share of them Indian, alongside workers from neighbouring Tamil villages.

Governance and disputes

After the Mother's death in 1973, a dispute arose between the residents and the Sri Aurobindo Society, which held the township's assets. The Government of India intervened, first by ordinance in 1980 and then by the Auroville Foundation Act of 1988, which placed the township under a foundation with a governing board appointed by the government and a residents' assembly. In the 2020s attempts by the foundation's administration to speed up construction according to the original galaxy plan, including clearing forest for a ring road, led to protests and court cases, and to disputes over the residents' role in governance.