PHILOLOGICAL NOTES. (a) Nishtha. Telang translates it by "path." Sankara's gloss is "two kinds of fixed rule." Lassen's version is “vitæ institutum." (b) Prajapati, Lord of creatures, a title of Brahma as the creative power; comparatively of late introduction. It is found only once in the Rig-Veda, but often in later works. "This adorable and gracious God, Lord of all creatures, is known as Brahmā, S'iva, Rudra, Varuna, Agni, Prajapati" (Mahābh. Anuś.-parvan, 4112). "Prajapati created living beings. From his upper vital airs he created the gods; from his lower vital airs, mortal creatures. Afterwards he created death, the destroyer of creatures" (Sat. Brāh. x. 1; Sans. T. iv. 55). (c) Kāmaduk. Compounds of which the last member is the root of a verb have always an active force (Lassen). It means "that which causes (the object of) desire to issue." (d) Vyapaśraya, lit. the act of taking refuge. "Auxilii ullius expectatio" (Lassen); "object of use" (Thomson); "son secours" (Burnouf). The meaning is, that he need not seek for refuge or help among any of mankind, because he is independent of all human aid. The Peters. Dict. renders it by "zuflucht," "zufluchtsstätte." (e) Asakta, "unattached," i.e., free from the entanglements of sensuous things, and therefore unconcerned whatever may befall him, or in any course of action. (f) Param. "Summum bonum" (Lassen); "the highest region" (Thomson). It means absorption into the divine. nature by nirvāṇa. (g) Lōkasangraha, from loka, world, and sangraha (from grah, to hold), which here means assemblage. "Genus hu manum " (Lassen); "l'ensemble des choses humaines " (Burnouf); but the reference is more to men than to things. (h) Joshayet, a causative form of jush, to receive or regard with favour. Lassen and Thomson translate the passage, "The wise man should fulfil all actions ;" but this does not express the causative action implied in the verb. Burnouf, more correctly, renders it thus: "Il leur fasse aimer leur travail." Telang has "Should set them to action." (i) Ahankāra, self-consciousness, that which forms the ego; hence vanity or self-exaltation. (j) Guņā guṇeshu vartanta. This passage has been variously interpreted. "Qualitates in qualitatibus versantur" (Lassen); "les attributs (de l'ame) se rapportent aux attributs (de la nature" (Burnouf). This is certainly incorrect. "He who knows the truth of the difference between the qualities and actions, believing that they revolve in the qualities" (Thomson). Dr. Lorinser has accurately rendered it by "kräfte in kräften wirken nur;" the kräfte (guṇās) being the modes or constituent elements of Prakriti (Nature). All action is confined within them. The soul stands apart, and is not affected by them. Sridhara explains the word "modes" (gunas) by the senses and the outward objects to which they are related and with which they act. Both the senses and their objects are formed from the modes or constituent elements of Nature (Prakriti). Sankara's gloss is, "The modes which have the nature of an organ deal with modes that have the nature of objects of sense." (k) Adyatman, the Supreme Soul, Brahmă. Lassen's version is, "Cogitatione in intimam conscientiam conversâ,” but this seems to be an error. "Der hochste Geist" (Peters. Dict.); "l'Ame Supreme" (Burnouf). (1) Viguna, lit. wanting in (good) qualities, weak and erring. "Etsi deficientibus viribus" (Lassen); "devoid of excellence" (Thomson). Sankara's gloss is that it is a work in which qualities are lost or absent (vigata). (m) Jnāna, spiritual knowledge; vijnāna, separate or worldly knowledge. "Spiritual knowledge" and "spiritual discernment" (Thomson). "Knowledge is that learned from books or teachers; experience (vijnāna) is that which is acquired by personal perception and so forth" (Telang). (n) Durasadam, difficult of approach, and therefore difficult to affect or control. "Intractable" (Lassen and Thomson); "à l'abord difficile" (Burnouf); "hard to tame” (Telang); "dem schwer zu nahen, dem zu nahe zu kommen Gefahr bringt" (Peters. Dict.) READING THE FOURTH. THE HOLY ONE spoke. This eternal (doctrine of) yoga I taught of old to Vivaswat;1 Vivaswat taught it to Manu; Manu told it to Ikshwāku. This, being handed down from one to another, the royal sages (Rajarshis) knew. This yoga (doctrine) was lost in this world by length of time, O destroyer of foes! This same ancient doctrine is now declared to thee by me, who have said, "Thou art my worshipper and friend," for it is a supreme mystery. ARJUNA spoke. The birth of my Lord was later; 2 the birth of Vivaswat 1 The author of the Bhagavad Gītā, in order to give a divine sanction to the Yoga system, ascribes it in the first place to Krishna, as a personification of Vishnu. He taught it to Vivaswat-that is, according to Madhusudana, "to Aditya (the Sun), who was the source of the whole Kshatriya race." Manu, the son of Vivaswat, is the last of the seven Manus of Hindu mythology which have already appeared. He presides over the present manwantara (age of a Manu = 4,320,000 years), and is presumed to be the author of the Institutes of Law which bears his name. Ikshwāku, his son, was the first king of the Solar dynasty, and one of the Rajarshis, or royal saints. 2 Krishna, in his present incarnate form, was born after Vivaswat, but as a form of Vishnu he had had many previous incarnations or avatāras. They are generally reckoned as ten in number, but sometimes as twenty-two, and even as numberless, because all things spring from him. The first was in the form of a fish, which grew to a vast extent, by which he saved Manu, one of the progenitors of mankind, from an universal deluge, bidding him to build for himself and the seven Rishis an ark, which was fastened to the horn of the fish, and finally brought 5 was prior (to thine). How then may I understand this saying of thine, "I taught it in the beginning?" THE HOLY ONE spoke. Many have been in past time the births of me and of thee also,1 Arjuna! All these I know, but thou knowest them not, O slayer of foes! Though I am unborn, and my nature is eternal, and I am the Lord also of all creatures, yet taking control of my Nature-form (Prakriti) (a), I am born by my illusive power (māyā).2 For whenever piety decays, O son of Bharata! and impiety is in the ascendant, then I produce myself. For the protection of good men, for the destruction of evil-doers, for the re-establishment of piety, I am born from age to age.3 by it to a peak of Himavat (Sans. T. i. 183, 200). The last, in the person of Kalkin, has yet to be made. He will appear at the end of the present age (Kali-yuga) seated on a white horse, with a drawn sword blazing like a comet, to destroy the wicked and to form a righteous age. 1 By transmigration in the case of Arjuna. 2 By mystic power (māyā, illusion). There is here a trace of the later Mīmānsă or Vedāntist doctrine. It is the mysterious power by which Brahma caused a seeming world to issue from himself. The world has no real existence, according to the Vedantists, for the only real existence is the One Universal Soul. Kapila taught that the external world was as real and as selfexistent as soul, and Patanjali that the world of existing things (sat) is 3 The first four avatāras (incarnations) are said to have been in the first yuga, or age of the world (Krita), the three following in the second (Tretā), the eighth in the third (Dwapara), the ninth in the present (Kali) age. The tenth has yet to come. |