Bhagavad Gītā
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Attributed (authorship debated)
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~22,900 words · 109 passages
Cite this work
- APABhagavad Gita. (n.d.). Bhagavad Gītā. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/bhagavad-gita/bhagavad-gita-the-song-celestial
- MLABhagavad Gita. "Bhagavad Gītā." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/bhagavad-gita/bhagavad-gita-the-song-celestial.
- ChicagoBhagavad Gita. Bhagavad Gītā. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/bhagavad-gita/bhagavad-gita-the-song-celestial.
What it is about
The English verse rendering Edwin Arnold published in 1885, the one that made the Gita known in the West.
Context and history
The 'Bhagavad Gita' is seven hundred verses inside the 'Mahabharata': just before the battle, Arjuna sees kinsmen on both sides and lets his bow fall, and Krishna answers him with the dialogue that has become the most read text of Hinduism. The answer is that duty must be done without clinging to the fruit of the action, and out of this come the three ways — of knowledge, of works and of devotion — which have been commented on ever since. This translation is in English blank verse and is, like all of that moment, more beautiful than literal: it is the one Gandhi read as a young man — in English before Sanskrit, as he himself recounted — and the one that reached the transcendentalists. For the letter one should go to the original; for understanding how the Gita entered the English-speaking world, this is the text.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
So have I read this wonderful and spirit-thrilling speech, By Krishna and Prince Arjun held, discoursing each with each; So have I writ its wisdom here,--its hidden mystery, For England; O our India! as dear to me as She! EDWIN ARNOLD PREFACE PREFACE This famous and marvellous Sanskrit poem occurs as an episode of the Mahabharata, in the sixth--or "Bhishma"--Parva of the great Hindoo epic. It enjoys immense popularity and authority in India, where it is reckoned as one of the ``Five Jewels,"--pancharatnani--of Devanagiri literature. In plain but noble language it unfolds a philosophical system which remains to this day the prevailing Brahmanic belief, blending as it does the doctrines of Kapila, Patanjali, and the Vedas. So lofty are many of its declarations, so sublime its aspirations, so pure and tender its piety, that Schlegel, after his study of the poem, breaks forth into this outburst of delight and praise towards its unknown author: "Magistrorum reverentia a Brachmanis inter sanctissima pietatis officia refertur. Ergo te primum, Vates sanctissime, Numinisque hypopheta! quisquis tandem inter mortales dictus tu fueris, carminis bujus auctor,, cujus oraculis mens ad excelsa quaeque,quaeque,, aeterna atque divina, cum inenarraoih quddam delectatione rapitur-te primum, inquam, salvere jubeo, et vestigia tua semper adore." Lassen re-echoes this splendid tribute; and indeed, so striking are some of the moralities here inculcated, and so close the parallelism--ofttimes actually verbal--between its teachings and those of the New Testament, that a controversy has arisen between Pandits and Missionaries on the point whether the author borrowed from Chri