
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 Auroville Charter
Written by the Mother and read at Auroville’s inauguration on 28 February 1968.
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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.
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II
Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.
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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.
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IV
Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual human unity.

A Dream
From the Mother:
“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.
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.
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.
- The Founders
- August 15, 1872
Sri Aurobindo is born in Kolkata.
- February 21, 1878
Mirra Alfassa, the Mother, is born in Paris.
- March 29, 1914
The Mother first meets Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry.
- November 24, 1926
The Sri Aurobindo Ashram takes shape, with the Mother guiding its life and growth.
- Auroville Begins
- 1954
The Mother writes A Dream, her vision of a place no nation could claim as its own.
- March 1965
The name “Auroville” appears in print for the first time.
- 1966
UNESCO gives Auroville its first unanimous endorsement, followed by more in 1968, 1970, 1983 and 2007.
- Auroville Is BornFebruary 28, 1968
Young people from 124 countries and every Indian state place earth from their homelands in the urn.
- February 21, 1971
The Matrimandir foundation stone is laid at sunrise, on the Mother’s 93rd birthday.
- 1972
Sri Aurobindo’s centenary.
- AVI USA BeginsAugust 8, 1973
The Auroville Association is incorporated in the United States, later renamed Auroville International USA.
Our history →- November 17, 1973
The Matrimandir’s four pillars are concreted. The Mother passes away that evening.
- India Recognizes Auroville
- September 1988
India’s Parliament passes the Auroville Foundation Act, creating the Governing Board, Residents’ Assembly and International Advisory Council.
- October 1991
The Matrimandir Inner Chamber opens.
- 2008
The Matrimandir is completed, 37 years after its foundation stone.
- Today and Tomorrow
- February 2018
Auroville turns 50, marked by an India Post stamp.
- 2021–2022
Auroville holds a yearlong tribute for Sri Aurobindo’s 150th birth anniversary, beginning at dawn on August 15, 2021.
- 2028The 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.








