Auroville, the City the Earth Needs


Auroville,
the City the Earth Needs

Auroville wants to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities.

The purpose of Auroville is to realise human unity.



Auroville is the world’s largest intentional community, located in Tamil Nadu, southeast India, with about 3,000 residents from over 70 nationalities living together with a non-hierarchical governance system. It is a place of experimentation and innovation, where creativity is encouraged and hundreds of cutting edge projects are building bridges between the past and the future.

3,000

RESIDENTS

70+

NATIONALITIES


The inauguration ceremony of Auroville, 28 February 1968
Founding Ideals

The Auroville Charter

Written by the Mother and read at Auroville’s inauguration on 28 February 1968.

  1. I

    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.

  2. II

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

  3. III

    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.

  4. IV

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

The inauguration ceremony, 28 February 1968 — representatives of 24 Indian states and 124 countries placed soil from their homelands in the urn. Photograph courtesy of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram archives.

Browse the 1968 Archive →

A Dream

From the Mother:

The Auroville galaxy plan
Light inside the Matrimandir

“There should be somewhere on earth a place which no nation could claim as its own, where all human beings of goodwill who have a sincere aspiration could live freely as citizens of the world and obey one single authority, that of the supreme Truth; a place of peace, concord and harmony where all the fighting instincts of man would be used exclusively to conquer the causes of his sufferings and miseries, to surmount his weaknesses and ignorance, to triumph over his limitations and incapacities; a place where the needs of the spirit and the concern for progress would take precedence over the satisfaction of desires and passions, the search for pleasure and material enjoyment.

The Auroville inauguration, 1968
The Auroville inauguration

In this place, children would be able to grow and develop integrally without losing contact with their souls; education would be given not for passing examinations or obtaining certificates and posts but to enrich existing faculties and bring forth new ones. In this place, titles and positions would be replaced by opportunities to serve and organise; the bodily needs of each one would be equally provided for, and intellectual, moral and spiritual superiority would be expressed in the general organisation not by an increase in the pleasures and powers of life but by increased duties and responsibilities.

Auroville children at school, 1970s
Future School, Auroville

Beauty in all its artistic forms, painting, sculpture, music, literature, would be equally accessible to all; the ability to share in the joy it brings would be limited only by the capacities of each one and not by social or financial position.

For in this ideal place money would no longer be the sovereign lord; individual worth would have a far greater importance than that of material wealth and social standing. There, work would not be a way to earn one’s living but a way to express oneself and to develop one’s capacities and possibilities while being of service to the community as a whole, which, for its own part, would provide for each individual’s subsistence and sphere of action.

In short, it would be a place where human relationships, which are normally based almost exclusively on competition and strife, would be replaced by relationships of emulation in doing well, of collaboration and real brotherhood.

The earth is certainly not ready to realize such an ideal, for mankind does not yet possess the necessary knowledge to understand and accept it nor the indispensable conscious force to execute it. That is why I call it a dream. Yet, this dream is on the way of becoming a reality. That is exactly what we are doing on a small scale, in proportion to our modest means. The achievement is indeed far from being perfect, it is progressive; little by little we advance towards our goal, which, we hope, one day we shall be able to hold before the world as a practical and effective means of coming out of the present chaos in order to be born into a more true, more harmonious new life.”


Auroville through the years

From a dream to a living township, and the moments that shaped it.

  1. The Founders
  2. August 15, 1872

    Sri Aurobindo is born in Kolkata.

  3. February 21, 1878

    Mirra Alfassa, the Mother, is born in Paris.

  4. March 29, 1914

    The Mother first meets Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry.

  5. November 24, 1926

    The Sri Aurobindo Ashram takes shape, with the Mother guiding its life and growth.

  6. Auroville Begins
  7. 1954

    The Mother writes A Dream, her vision of a place no nation could claim as its own.

  8. March 1965

    The name “Auroville” appears in print for the first time.

  9. 1966

    UNESCO gives Auroville its first unanimous endorsement, followed by more in 1968, 1970, 1983 and 2007.

  10. Auroville Is BornFebruary 28, 1968
  11. Young people from 124 countries and every Indian state place earth from their homelands in the urn.

  12. February 21, 1971

    The Matrimandir foundation stone is laid at sunrise, on the Mother’s 93rd birthday.

  13. 1972

    Sri Aurobindo’s centenary.

  14. AVI USA BeginsAugust 8, 1973
  15. The Auroville Association is incorporated in the United States, later renamed Auroville International USA.

    Our history →
  16. November 17, 1973

    The Matrimandir’s four pillars are concreted. The Mother passes away that evening.

  17. India Recognizes Auroville
  18. September 1988

    India’s Parliament passes the Auroville Foundation Act, creating the Governing Board, Residents’ Assembly and International Advisory Council.

  19. October 1991

    The Matrimandir Inner Chamber opens.

  20. 2008

    The Matrimandir is completed, 37 years after its foundation stone.

  21. Today and Tomorrow
  22. February 2018

    Auroville turns 50, marked by an India Post stamp.

  23. 2021–2022

    Auroville holds a yearlong tribute for Sri Aurobindo’s 150th birth anniversary, beginning at dawn on August 15, 2021.

  24. 2028
    The next chapter

    Auroville turns 60 on February 28, one week after the Mother’s 150th birth anniversary.

    Be part of the next chapter

AUROVILLE RESOURCES

EXPLORE AUROVILLE

OFFICIAL WEBSITE

Auroville.org

News, residency information, and the township’s own account of it’s work.

THE ONLINE STORE

Auroville.com

Crafts, incense, textiles, books, and food made by Auroville units.

THE MATRIMANDIR

The Matrimandir

Learn about the Matrimandir, how to visit the Matrimandir Gardens and Inner Chamber.