2

Of the snakes I am Ananta,1 and among beings of the waters, Varuna. Of the Pitris (ancestral manes) I am Aryama, and of judges I am Yama.*

30 Of the Daityas 5 I am Prahlada, and of things that measure (h) I am Time. Of wild beasts I am the Tiger, and Vainateya7 of birds.

Of purifiers I am the wind, and of those who bear weapons Rāma.8 Of fishes I am the Makara, and of rivers I am the Ganges.

Of emanations (creations) (i) I am the beginning and the end, and I am also the middle, Arjuna! Of the kinds of knowledge I am the knowledge of the Supreme Spirit (Adhyatman); of those who speak I am the Speech.

I am the letter A among letters, the dwandwa 10 in

coiled round the mountain Mandara by the gods and Asuras at the churning of the ocean.

1 Ananta, the thousand-headed snake on which Vishnu rests. He is mentioned in the Vishnu Purāņa as the king of the mythological snakes who have the face of a man.

2 Varuna was at an early period one of the chief gods of the Hindu Pantheon; a personification of the sky as all-embracing, the maker of heaven and earth. At a later period he ranked only as chief of the Adityas, and now is considered as lord of the waters. His sign is a fish.

3 The chief of the ancient fathers (pitris), whose heaven is next below Brahma's.

India, opposed to the Aryans and their gods. Prahlāda was a king among them, and from his pious austerities he attained to much repute. He is said to have become a worshipper of Vishņu.

6 The Indra (king) of the beasts of chase; referred to both the lion and the tiger.

7 Vainateya is the sacred bird on which Vishņu rides. In the Rāmāyana he is called a god. "The snakedevouring god, the strong Vainateya, he will deliver you from the dreadful bonds of the serpents" (Sans. T. iv. 453).

8 Rāma, the hero of the epic poem the Rāmāyaṇa, supposed to be the seventh avatara (incarnation) of

4 Yama, the judge of the dead, Vishņu. the Hindu Minos.

5 The Daityas are represented as a demoniac and impious race, probably the aborigines of Northern

9 A marine monster on which Varuna rides. At present the Hindū name for the shark.

10 The aggregative form of San

compound words (j); I am also Eternal Time; I am the Sustainer whose presence is on every side.

I am Death that seizes all, and the Source of all that are to come. Of feminine words I am Fame, Fortune, and Speech, Memory, Intelligence, Constancy, and Patience. 35 Among the songs of the Sama-Veda I am the Vrihatsaman, and the Gayatri 2 among metrical forms. Of months I am the Margaśirsha,3 and of seasons the flowery Spring.

I am the Dice-play of the fraudulent and the Splendour of the splendid. I am Victory, I am Enterprise (k), I am the Goodness of the good.

Of the sons of Vrishni I am Vasudeva, of the Pandavas the Subduer of wealth (Arjuna). Of the munis I am Vyasa, and of sages Uśana the wise.

Of things that subdue I am the Rod, and the Polity of those who seek to conquer. Of secret things I am Silence, and the Knowledge of those who know.

skrit compounds. Such a compound as sea-shore is shore of the sea; as a dwandwa compound the sea and the shore. The duandwa is selected, says Śrīdhara, because all the parts are co-ordinate with each other.

1 A part of the Sama-Veda supposed to have a peculiar sanctity.

2 Gayatri, a kind of metre, consisting of three divisions of eight syllables each. It has the place of honour because the holiest of all the verses of the Vedas (R. V. iii. 62, 10), daily repeated by the Brahmans, is written in this metre.

3 Part of November and December; called also Agrahāyana (summit of the year).

from that of his father, Vasudeva, one of the sons of Sura, a chief of an Aryan tribe called Yadhavas, and father to Krishna in his human form.

5 See supra, 1. 26.

6 Uśana is described as a teacher of the Asuras or demons, who were the aboriginal races of India. In the Bhag. Purāṇa he is called "chief of the wise," and is said to be the tutor of Bali, a king of the Asuras (Muir iv. 143).

7 Meaning either that silence is one of the most mysterious things, or (as seems preferable) that it denotes what cannot be expressed in words, but must be meditated on in

4 Vasudeva, a name of Krishņa, silence, as the Supreme Brahmă.

40

And whatever is of living things the seed, I am That, Arjuna! There is nothing, whether moving or fixed, that can exist without Me.

There is no end of my divine perfections, O slayer of foes! but this recital of my glory has been uttered by Me by way of instances thereof.

Whatever thing is pre-eminent, glorious, or strong, know that all is the issue of a part of my power.

But what hast thou to do with this vast extent of knowledge, Arjuna? I have established in continuance all this universe by one part of myself.1

1 This is the conclusion of the whole matter. The Supreme is not these things, but he is the animating Soul which gives to each its power or excellence. "It is not," says

Rajendra-lala, "the absorption of the Infinite in the Finite, of God in Nature, but of the Finite in the Infinite, of Nature in God" (Introd. Chhand. Upanishad).

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

"DEVOTION BY THE DIVINE PERFECTIONS."

PHILOLOGICAL NOTES.

(a) Priyamāṇāya. "Tibi amanti" (Lassen); "whom I love" (Thomson). The word is translated "freundlich" in the Peters. Dict. Cf. vāchā prīyamāṇayā, by a friendly discourse (Rāmāyaṇa iii. 20, 2). Ananda glosses the word by prītikurvat, causing joy or affection.

(b) Vibhuti, excellence, pre-eminence; here used for the manifestation of the divine nature in some form of power or grandeur. Sridhara's gloss is aiswaryalakshanam, sign of sovereignty. Telang has "emanations," but incorrectly.

(c) Bhāvasamanwitās. "Contemplandi facultate præditi" (Lassen); "Participants de l'essence suprême" (Burnouf). Dr. Lorinser, following the Peters. Dict., translates it by "Die mir Liebe weihen," and this rendering Telang adopts. In the absence of any conclusive example of such an usage, I prefer Burnouf's version. Sridhara's explanation is prītiyuktāh, joined or devoted by love. Ananda says, "They whose nature is wholly Brahma." Sankara has, "United together (samyukta) by inclination to the truth that relates to the Supreme."

(d) Madgataprānā. "Me quasi spirantes" (Lassen); "Dead in me" (Thomson); "Offering their lives to me" (Telang). Gata, with a noun, often expresses the absence or destruction of what is denoted by the noun, but sometimes it is used in the sense of "devoted to," as in the episode of Nala, mām gatasankalpā, "with resolves or purposes fixed on me." Sankara says, "Whose acts or whose life is absorbed

in me," i.e., by yoga.

(e) Atmabhāvasṭho. "Sans sortir de mon unité" (Burnouf). Lassen's version is similar: "In mea ipsius conditione permanens," which Thomson, as usual, follows. The passage is translated by Galanos, "Being seated in their hearts," with which Telang agrees. Sridhara's gloss is, "Being placed in the office or function (vritti) of the intellect." Sankara says, "Resting in the inner sense (antaḥkarana) of the being of the soul."

(f) Vyaktim, manifestation, act of becoming visible; here, as Telang translates it, "incarnation."

(g) Vyapya tishṭhasi. "Permeans consistis" (Lassen). The verb stha (to stand), when joined to an indefinite participle, has generally, as Mr. Thomson has stated, the meaning of persistency or continuance. Cf. yā sthitā vyāpya viśwam, that which perpetually pervades all space (ether) (Sakuntala, i. 2).

(h) Kalayatām. "Of those things that make account or reckoning" (Sankara). The verb means to number, count, regard, measure. Lassen's version is, "numeros modulan.

tium."

(i) Sargānām, of emanations.

"Naturarum" (Lassen)

"Dans les choses créées" (Burnouf). Every creation is an emanation in Hindu systems of cosmogony. Sankara says that the term bhūtānām (v. 20) applies only to animate beings, but sargānām to everything.

(j) Duandwah sāmāsikasya, the dwandwa form of com pound words. "Copulatio inter verba composita" (Lassen), as if it implied only the union of words; but no doubt the Hindu scholiasts are right in regarding it as the particular kind of composite words called dwandwa.

(k) Vyavasaya. "Perseverantia" (Lassen); "conseil" (Burnouf); "industry" (Telang). It means effort and plan or design; hence we may translate it, "Action directed by thought or purpose." Sridhara explains it as the action of those who toil or make effort.