United States or United Kingdom ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
To look at his frank, open face one would not have thought him capable of hurting a fly, but how different were the words which came from his mouth. It was clear that the cashier's place in the world meant nothing real to him; it was a mere vacancy, lifeless, feelingless, with only stock phrases from the Gita Who kills the body kills naught! "Whatever do you mean, Amulya?" I exclaimed at length.
"Faithful?" he asked in a low whisper. "What of him?" There was no answer at first; only Foster-father covered his face with his hands. At last he spoke gently. "He was faithful to death. He was going first, as ever, cheering us all with his sayings of Firdoos Gita Makâni.
The Gita Govinda was one of the first Sanskrit poems to be rendered into English Sir William Jones publishing a mellifluous version in Asiatick Researches in 1792. Later in the nineteenth century it was translated into Victorian verse by Sir Edwin Arnold. The present translation from which all the extracts are taken is by George Keyt, the foremost modern artist of Ceylon.
Nothing is said of Krishna's sermon the Bhagavad Gita. No mention is made of Krishna's role as charioteer to Arjuna. Nothing further is said of its deadly outcome. Krishna's career as a warrior, in fact, is ended and with this episode the Purana enters its final phase. As Krishna lives at Dwarka, surrounded by his wives and huge progeny, he wearies of his earthly career.
In another place we are told that the worshipper "who is purified by the penance of knowledge has come into my essence." This is the eschatology of all Hindu Shastras. The peculiar teaching of the Bhagavad Gita concerning action and its emphasis upon a strenuous life in this world would have led us to expect the teaching of a future of some kind of activity.
The Bhagavad Gita was incorporated as a part of this great epic probably as late as the second or third century of our era, and by that time Krishna had come to be regarded as divine, though his full and extravagant deification as the "Adorable One" probably did not appear till the author of "Narada Pancharata" of the eighth century had added whatever he thought the original author should have said five centuries before.
A liberal Hindu he would have been called. In reality, he was one of that unreckoned number, the Nicodemuses of India, who come to Jesus by night, who render Him unspoken homage, but never open confession. A man of broad religious interests, he read the Hindu Gita, the Koran, and the Gospels; and among them all the words of Jesus held pre-eminence in his love and in his life.
His ethical gospel is not devoid of grandeur. It is based mainly on the teachings of Krishna to Arjuna as revealed in the Bhagvad Gita, and I cannot hope to define its moral purpose better than by borrowing the following sentence from Mrs. Besant's introduction to her translation of "The Lord's Song":
Amulya gathered enthusiasm as he talked on. He always warms up when he has me for a listener. "The Gita tells us," he continued, "that no one can kill the soul. Killing is a mere word. So also is the taking away of money. Whose is the money? No one has created it. No one can take it away with him when he departs this life, for it is no part of his soul.
In former times great efficacy was attached to sacrifice and religious austerities, but the objects once accomplished in that way are now compassed by mere faith. In the Baghavat Gita, the text-book of the modern school, the sole essential for salvation is dependence on some particular teacher, which makes up for everything else.
Word Of The Day