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1.2    ORIGIN OF THE TOWNSHIP:
          THE VISION

 
     

     
 

1.2.1    In 1954 the Mother had envisioned that "There should be somewhere upon earth a place that no nation could claim as its sole property, a place where all human beings of goodwill, sincere in their aspiration, could live freely as citizens of the world, obeying one single authority, that of the supreme Truth; a place of peace, concord, harmony, where all the fighting instincts of man would be used exclusively to conquer the causes of his suffering and misery, to surmount his weakness and ignorance, to triumph over his limitations and incapacities; a place where the needs of the spirit and the care for progress would get precedence over the satisfaction of desires and passions, the seeking for pleasures and material enjoyments.

Sri Aurobindo

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1.2.2      In this place, children would be able to grow and develop integrally without losing contact with their soul. Education would be given, not with a view to passing examinations and getting certificates and posts, but for enriching the existing faculties and bringing forth new ones. In this place, titles and positions would be supplanted by opportunities to serve and organize. The needs of the body will be provided for equally in the case of each and everyone. In general, intellectual, moral and spiritual superiority will find expression not in the enhancement of the pleasures and powers of life but in the increase of duties and responsibilities.

 
 

 

1.2.3       Artistic beauty in all forms, painting, sculpture, music, literature, will be available equally to all, the opportunity to share in the joys they bring being limited solely by each one's capacities and not by social or financial position. In this ideal place money would be no more the sovereign lord. Individual merit will have a greater importance than the value of material wealth and social position. Work would not be there as the means of gaining one's livelihood, it would be the means whereby to express oneself, develop one's capacities and possibilities, while doing at the same time service to the whole group, which on its side would provide for each one's subsistence and for the field of his work. In brief, it would be a place where the relations among human beings, usually based almost exclusively upon competition and strife, would be replaced by relations of emulation for doing better, for collaboration, relations of real brotherhood".

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1.2.4       It was in the mid 1960s, however, that the City was concretised when the Mother said, "India is the representation of all human difficulties on earth and it is in India that there will be cure, and it is for that I had to create Auroville" because "from the spiritual point of view, India is the foremost country in the world. Her mission is to set the example of spirituality. Sri Aurobindo came on earth to teach this to the world".

 
 

 

1.2.5       Based on the work and inspiration of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Auroville is intended as a site for the manifestation of human unity in diversity. As such, it offers itself as a testing ground and laboratory for the next step in human evolution. Auroville took root when the Mother identified the Banyan tree to be the physical centre of the City. The site is bounded by the sea to the east, the Kaluveli tank to the north, the Tindivanam Road to the west and Pondicherry to the south.


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Auroville`s Inauguration

1.2.6       The Universal Township of Auroville was inaugurated on 28th February 1968 in the presence of 5000 people. Representatives of 124 countries and all the Indian states placed a handful of earth from their homelands in a marble-clad urn near the site of the Matrimandir at the centre of Auroville. This symbolised the creation of the city dedicated to human unity and international understanding. The Mother announced the Auroville Charter.

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1.2.7       AUROVILLE CHARTER

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Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville, one must be a willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.

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Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.

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Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations.

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Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.

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1.2.8       The Mother envisaged to develop Auroville as a township for 50,000 inhabitants with a circular form, covering an area of about 20 sq. km. Auroville received the unanimous endorsement of the General Conference of UNESCO in 1966, 1968, 1970 and 1983. It is now administered under the Auroville Foundation Act (Government of India Act no. 54, dated 29 Sept. 1988) which provides for the preparation of a Master Plan.

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1.2.9       The Act also provides for the acquisition and transfer of the undertakings of Auroville and to vest such undertakings in a foundation established for the purpose with a view to making long-term arrangements for better management and further development of Auroville in accordance with its original Charter and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.

 
 

 

1.2.10       The relevance of Auroville to the country as a whole is to use all the researches carried out here diligently and with commitment, individually and collectively, in order to raise the overall quality of life. While conceiving the town, the Mother also evolved a form for the township; subdivided into four principal zones namely the Residential Zone, International Zone, Industrial Zone and Cultural Zone. The original sketch drawn by the Mother in her own hand is the basis for further development of the Auroville township.

 


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