Sources, images & copyright
Where every word and picture comes from
A library that asks for your trust owes you its sources. This page states, for each master and text, what we used, what its copyright status is, and how we handle it.
Principles
- Short excerpts, always attributed, always linked. We reproduce brief quotations for study and comment under fair dealing (India, s. 52) and fair use (US), and link every one to the page it came from so that you can read it in context, on the rights-holder's own site.
- No full texts, no recordings, unless free. We host no copyrighted books, chapters, PDFs or audio. Where a text is in the public domain we say so and link to free copies.
- Four levels of provenance, marked on every quotation: verified, reported, traditional, in our words.
- No affiliation. Aumidhra is independent. We do not use the names or emblems of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham, Self-Realization Fellowship, the Shree Saibaba Sansthan Trust, the Love Serve Remember Foundation or the Neem Karoli Baba Ashram as our own, and nothing here is endorsed by them.
- Images. We use only photographs that are in the public domain or under a Creative Commons licence, credited below, and never AI-generated or retouched images of any master. Historic portraits are shown in a uniform warm duotone, which does not alter the photograph's content. Where no free photograph of a master exists (Neem Karoli Baba), we show a place associated with him instead and say so.
- Take-down. If you hold rights in something here and object, write to hello@aumidhra.com and we will remove it promptly.
Portraits
| Master | Photograph and licence |
|---|---|
| Sri Aurobindo | Sri Aurobindo, c. 1900. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. |
| The Mother | Mirra Alfassa — the Mother — in Japan, June 1916, photographed with Rabindranath Tagore and Paul Richard. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. |
| Sri Ramakrishna | Sri Ramakrishna at Dakshineswar, October 1885. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. |
| Sri Sarada Devi | Sri Sarada Devi. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. |
| Swami Vivekananda | Swami Vivekananda in Chicago, September 1893, with his inscription: “One infinite pure and holy — beyond thought beyond qualities I bow down to thee.” Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. |
| Kanchi Maha Periyava | The young Shankaracharya in 1933, from Paul Brunton's A Search in Secret India (1934). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. |
| Mahakavi Bharathiyar | Subramania Bharati, from the Bharathi Memorial House. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. |
| Neem Karoli Baba | Kainchi Dham, the ashram he built near Nainital in 1964. Photo: Nickk Bisht, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. (All photographs of Maharaj-ji are held in copyright by the Hanuman Foundation; we are seeking permission.) |
| Shirdi Sai Baba | Sai Baba of Shirdi, before 1918. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. |
| Paramahansa Yogananda | Paramahansa Yogananda, the “standard pose”, before 1946. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. |
Places and objects
| Image | Author and licence |
|---|---|
| Boats on the Ganges at sunrise | Ilya Mauter, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons |
| A lamp | Subharnab Majumdar, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons |
| 18th-century palm-leaf manuscript of the Tevaram | Ms Sarah Welch, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons |
| Kailasanathar temple, Kanchipuram | Pinakpani, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons |
| Dakshineswar temple complex | xiquinhosilva, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons |
| The Matrimandir, Auroville | Anne Roberts, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons |
| Auroville from the air | unknown, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons |
| Belur Math on the Hooghly | unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons |
| Kainchi Dham | Nickk Bisht, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons |
By master — texts
| Master | Sources and status |
|---|---|
| Sri Aurobindo | All quotations are from the Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo as published online by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry, and each links to the chapter it comes from. Works published in his lifetime are in the public domain in India; later-published works and the edited Complete Works remain the Trust's copyright. We reproduce only short attributed excerpts and link to the Ashram's own library for the rest. This site is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. |
| The Mother | All quotations are from the Collected Works of the Mother, in the Ashram's English translation, as published online by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust. The Mother's works remain in copyright (in India until 2034, and later for posthumously published and translated material). We reproduce only short attributed excerpts, link every one to its chapter, and do not host any full text or audio. The Ashram makes her organ music and readings freely available for personal listening on its own site; see our Listen page. This site is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. |
| Sri Ramakrishna | Quotations are from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (Swami Nikhilananda's 1942 translation of M.'s Bengali Kathāmṛta) and from Tales and Parables of Sri Ramakrishna, as hosted at ramakrishnavivekananda.info, and from Belur Math's official site. The Bengali original is in the public domain; the Nikhilananda translation is not, and we reproduce only short attributed excerpts from it. The name and emblem of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission are legally protected and are not used here. This site is not affiliated with the Ramakrishna Math or Mission. |
| Sri Sarada Devi | Her recorded sayings survive in Bengali collections compiled by disciples and in English compilations published by the Ramakrishna Order, which remain in copyright. We quote briefly with attribution and link to official and affiliated sources. This site is not affiliated with the Ramakrishna Math or Mission, whose name and emblem are legally protected. |
| Swami Vivekananda | Swami Vivekananda's own words are in the public domain in India and the United States. Quotations are from the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda as hosted at ramakrishnavivekananda.info, and from Belur Math's official site. The name and emblem of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission are legally protected and are not used here; this site is not affiliated with them. |
| Kanchi Maha Periyava | Periyava's discourses were spoken in Tamil and published as Deivathin Kural (Vanathi Pathippagam), which is in copyright; the Kanchi Math's English rendering, Hindu Dharma, is published on kamakoti.org. We could not verify verbatim excerpts against the source during research, so the teachings on this page are given in our own words, clearly labelled, summarised from those works. We link to the Math's own site for the full text and will replace paraphrases with verified quotations as we are able. This site is not affiliated with the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham. |
| Mahakavi Bharathiyar | Bharathiyar's works were nationalised by the Government of Madras in 1949 and are in the public domain. The Tamil texts here follow the standard editions; the full corpus is available free from Project Madurai and the Tamil Virtual Academy. English renderings on this page are our own, made to be plain rather than poetic, and we welcome corrections. |
| Neem Karoli Baba | Maharaj-ji left no writings. Every saying here is a devotee's recollection, and we mark them all as reported rather than verified. Sources are the sections of Ram Dass's Miracle of Love that the Hanuman Foundation itself publishes free online, and the pages of the Neem Karoli Baba Ashram, Taos, and the Love Serve Remember Foundation. Those texts and all photographs of Maharaj-ji are in copyright; we quote briefly with attribution and link to the rights holders. Many sayings circulating online under his name cannot be traced to any source; we do not use them. |
| Shirdi Sai Baba | Quotations are from the Shri Sai Satcharitra (Hemadpant's Marathi, 1930, in N. V. Gunaji's English adaptation, 1944) as hosted at saibaba.org, and from the official site of the Shree Saibaba Sansthan Trust, Shirdi. The Marathi original is in the public domain; the English adaptation is public domain in India but may remain in copyright elsewhere, so we quote briefly and link. Photographs of Baba taken between 1903 and 1918 are in the public domain; the tradition records that he asked that his image not be sold, and we honour that. This site is not affiliated with the Sansthan. |
| Paramahansa Yogananda | Quotations from Autobiography of a Yogi are from the 1946 first edition, which is in the public domain in the United States and which Crystal Clarity Publishers and Project Gutenberg reproduce in full; later SRF editions are in copyright. Other quotations are as published by Self-Realization Fellowship and Yogoda Satsanga Society on their own websites, which cite the source books only collectively, and we reproduce them briefly under fair use with attribution. Kriya Yoga and SRF's meditation techniques are taught only through their Lessons, and we do not describe them. This site is not affiliated with SRF or YSS. |
Scriptures and translations
The Sanskrit, Tamil, Pali, Chinese and Persian originals are ancient and uncopyrightable. Public-domain English translations we rely on and name where used: K. T. Telang (Gita, 1882), R. E. Hume (Upanishads, 1921), R. T. H. Griffith (Rigveda, 1896), F. Max Müller (Dhammapada, 1881), James Legge (Tao Te Ching, 1891), George Long (Marcus Aurelius, 1862), R. A. Nicholson and E. H. Whinfield (Rumi), the King James Bible (1611), Swami Madhavananda (Vivekachudamani, 1921), G. U. Pope (Thirukkural, 1886; Thiruvasagam, 1900). Where a verse is marked “Aumidhra”, the English is our own plain rendering from the original; we release it under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 and welcome corrections.
Our own text
Introductions, frames, practices as we have worded them, and our translations are © Aumidhra and offered under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.