Auroville – The city of the future

Auroville is a universal township in the making for a population of up to 50,000 people from around the world.

Auroville was founded on 28th February 1968 by the Mother as an international project.
It is located in south India, mostly in the State of Tamil Nadu (some parts are in the State of Pondicherry), a few kilometres landwards from the Coromandel Coast, approx 160 kms south of Chennai (previously Madras) and 10 kms north of the town of Pondicherry.

The concept of Auroville - an ideal township devoted to an experiment in human unity - came to the Mother's mind as early as the 1930s. In the mid 1960s the Sri Aurobindo Society in Pondicherry proposed to Her that such a township should be started. She gave her blessings. The concept was then put before the Govt. of India, who gave their backing and presented it to the General Assembly of UNESCO. In 1966 UNESCO passed a unanimous resolution recommending it as an important project for the future of humanity, thereby affirming their full support.

The purpose of Auroville is to realise human unity – in diversity. Today Auroville is recognised as the first and only international experiment in human unity and transformation of consciousness, investigating the conditions of sustainability and the cultural, architectural, technological, social and spiritual needs of the future mankind in present and every day life.

People of 35 nations live in Auroville, of all age groups, from all social classes, backgrounds and cultures. The population of the township is constantly growing, but currently stands at about 1,700 people, of whom approximately one-third are Indian.

The Mother on Auroville:
"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...."


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