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This eternal Supreme Spirit, without beginning, devoid of modes, works not and is not stained, O son of Kunti! even when it is embodied.

As the ether that pervades all things is not stained through its subtlety, so the soul everywhere seated in bodies (m) is not stained.

As one sun alone illumines all this world, so the soul illumines the whole of matter, O son of Bharata!

They who see, by the eye of knowledge, this difference between matter (kshetra) and spirit (kshetrajna, matterknowing), and the deliverance of beings from Nature 1 (Prakriti), these go to the Supreme.

1 By the soul becoming free from all contact with matter in nirvāṇa.

Thus the Bhagavad Gītā, Reading the Thirteenth, whose title is

"DEVOTION BY THE SEPARATION OF MATTER AND SPIRIT."

PHILOLOGICAL NOTES.

(a) In MS. (D) in the Royal Library at Paris, in two MSS. of London, in the Calcutta ed. of the Mahābhārata, and in three MSS. in my possession, the following distich is found at the beginning of the chapter. It is probably of late introduction :

"Arjuna spoke. I desire to learn Nature and spirit-life (purusha), matter and the matter-knowing (soul), science and its objects, O Keśava!"

(b) Kshetra, prim. a plain, a field; and hence matter, as that which is objective to the soul.

(c) Prabhāva. "Its incomprehensible sovereignty" (Srīdhara). "Qualium capax" (Lassen and others). Primarily "birth," its secondary meanings are good family, high rank, power, authority.

(d) Chhandobhis. Chhandas is either metre or a chanted hymn. "Haud dubie," says Lassen, "indicatur pars quædam Vedorum." Sridhara says, "By Vasishtha (a Vedic poet) and the rest." "By the Rig-Veda and the other Vedas” (Ananda). So say the Hindu scholiasts. This is possible, for our author does not discard the Vedas, though their ritual he held to be inferior in effect to pious meditation (yoga).

(e) Brahmasūtrapadais. Pada (foot) is here = metre or verse. The sutras (threads) are the poetical distichs in which many of the Hindu philosophic works are composed. There is a work by Badarāyaṇa called "Brahma-sūtras," but the reference is probably to any hymns in honour of Brahma. Sankara says they were sutras for the making known of Brahma (f) Asaktam, "unattached; " see p. 55. "Affectu immune" (Lassen).

(g) Gunabhoktri "Qualitatibus fruens" (Lassen); "Il perçoit tous les modes" (Burnouf). The root bhuj, to eat,

means also to possess, to enjoy. The meaning is that Brahma can use the modes of Prakriti, though they are not in him.

(h) Jñānam, jñeyam, jñānagamyam. Burnouf has, I think, correctly translated these words: "Science, objet de la science, but de la science." Mr. Thomson's translation is: "It is spiritual knowledge itself, the object of that knowledge to be obtained by spiritual knowledge," and, thinking the first part expresses a very forced idea, would read jnānajneyam. But all the MSS. read jñānam. The aim of all true knowledge is absorption into the Divine nature, according to Patanjali.

(i) Upapadyate. "Is conformed to my nature" (Thomson). Lassen and Burnouf, more correctly, "Comes to my nature," i.e., is absorbed in it. Sridhara's explanation is, "He is fit for union with Brahma."

() Vikārānś cha gunāns cha. "Passions and the (three) qualities" (Thomson); but all passion is from the qualities or modes. The meaning is that all the varieties of existent things and the modes, too, from which they spring, are from Prakriti (Nature). Sridhara's gloss is: "Changes or modifications (pariņāma) of the modes, pleasure, pain, &c., which spring from Prakriti." Telang translates vikara by "emanation;" but this is not the meaning of the word.

(k) Kāryakāranakartritwe. Burnouf has kāya (body), but all the MSS., I believe, have kārya (effect, or thing to be done). The Hindu scholiasts and Lassen refer, however, the word to the body: "In actione ministerii corporalis." The meaning seems to be: "In the activity or actual working of means and end (cause and effect), Nature is called the cause;" both means and end being material. (See Lassen's note, p. 232.)

(1) Bhoktā. "Perceptor" (Lassen); "enjoyer" (Thomson). Brahma is a usufruct of material things by offerings, &c. Sridhara explains the word by palaka (guardian).

(m) Sarvatrāvasthito dehe. "Ubicunque cum corpore congressus (spiritus)" (Lassen); "Present in every (kind of) body" (Thomson). Dr. Lorinser thinks the meaning is that the soul is in every part of the body, but the reference is to soul in the abstract, as everywhere enclosed in bodies. Srīdhara says that the soul everywhere placed is not soiled; it is not connected with the bodily faults of the modes (guna). The soul then has no guilt or pollution of sin upon it.

READING THE FOURTEENTH.

THE HOLY ONE spoke.

Now I will further declare that sublime science, the chief of the sciences, by which all the munis have passed from this world to the highest perfection (nirvana).

Having devoted themselves to this science, and having entered into my nature, they are not born again even in a new creation, and in the dissolution (of the world) they are not disturbed1 (a).

The mighty Brahma is my womb; therein I place the living germ,2 and from this comes the birth of all things. that exist, O son of Bharata!

1 When a kalpa begins and ends; see c. viii. They are born no more under any circumstances.

2 There is a difficulty here. Brahmă, the One Universal Spirit, is said to be the fertilising womb in which all things are formed. Mr. Thomson's explanation is that "as Brahmā [Brahmă as Creator] is the mythological personification of a Vedic or semi-mythological Supreme Being, so is Brahma here the philosophical type of the creative principle of the philosophical Supreme Being." But the only philosophy we have to consider here is the Hindu philosophy, and Brahmă is not, in any Hindu system, the direct source of material forms. The true explanation seems to be that Krishņa, as the repre

sentative of Vishņu or Brahmā, is the material source of created things, as containing Prakriti or Nature, of which they are the development, and Brahmă is the animating, vivifying power. Krishna then may be considered as the material, and Brahmă the efficient, cause of creation. Humboldt offers nearly the same explanation: "Krishna is the same as Brahmă, is the highest Brahmă himself. But we must not reverse the proposition, and herein lies the difference. Brahma is the divine original power (urkraft), but reposing in his eternity; as God, here Krishna, the divine personality (persönlichkeit), comes forth" (Essay on the B. G., p. 21). As Brahmā, Krishna gives the material germ (garbha)

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