| |
SANJAYA:
HIM, filled with such compassion and such grief, | |
| With eyes tear-dimmed, despondent, in stern words | |
| The Driver, Madhusudan, thus addressed: | |
| |
KRISHNA:
How hath this weakness taken thee? Whence springs | |
| The inglorious trouble, shameful to the brave, | 5 |
| Barring the path of virtue? Nay, Arjun! | |
| Forbid thyself to feebleness! it mars | |
| Thy warrior-name! cast off the coward-fit! | |
| Wake! Be thyself! Arise, Scourge of thy foes! | |
| |
ARJUNA:
How can I, in the battle, shoot with shafts | 10 |
| On Bhishma, or on Drona—oh, thou Chief!— | |
| Both worshipful, both honorable men? | |
| |
| Better to live on beggar’s bread | |
| With those we love alive, | |
| Than taste their blood in rich feasts spread, | 15 |
| And guiltily survive! | |
| Ah! were it worse—who knows?—to be | |
| Victor or vanquished here, | |
| When those confront us angrily | |
| Whose death leaves living drear? | 20 |
| In pity lost, by doubtings tossed, | |
| My thoughts—distracted—turn | |
| To Thee, the Guide I reverence most, | |
| That I may counsel learn: | |
| I know not what would heal the grief | 25 |
| Burned into soul and sense, | |
| If I were earth’s unchallenged chief— | |
| A god—and these gone thence! | |
| |
SANJAYA:
So spake Arjuna to the Lord of Hearts, | |
| And sighing, “I will not fight!” held silence then. | 30 |
| To whom, with tender smile (O Bharata!) | |
| While the Prince wept despairing ’twixt those hosts, | |
| Krishna made answer in divinest verse: | |
| |
KRISHNA:
Thou grievest where no grief should be! thou speak’st | |
| Words lacking wisdom! for the wise in heart | 35 |
| Mourn not for those that live, nor those that die. | |
| Nor I, nor thou, nor any one of these, | |
| Ever was not, nor ever will not be, | |
| For ever and for ever afterwards. | |
| All, that doth live, lives always! To man’s frame | 40 |
| As there come infancy and youth and age, | |
| So come there raisings-up and layings-down | |
| Of other and of other life-abodes, | |
| Which the wise know, and fear not. This that irks— | |
| Thy sense-life, thrilling to the elements— | 45 |
| Bringing thee heat and cold, sorrows and joys, | |
| ’Tis brief and mutable! Bear with it, Prince! | |
| As the wise bear. The soul which is not moved, | |
| The soul that with a strong and constant calm | |
| Takes sorrow and takes joy indifferently, | 50 |
| Lives in the life undying! That which is | |
| Can never cease to be; that which is not | |
| Will not exist. To see this truth of both | |
| Is theirs who part essence from accident, | |
| Substance from shadow. Indestructible, | 55 |
| Learn thou! the Life is, spreading life through all; | |
| It cannot anywhere, by any means, | |
| Be anywise diminished, stayed, or changed. | |
| But for these fleeting frames which it informs | |
| With spirit deathless, endless, infinite, | 60 |
| They perish. Let them perish, Prince! and fight! | |
| He who shall say, “Lo! I have slain a man!” | |
| He who shall think, “Lo! I am slain!” those both | |
| Know naught! Life cannot slay. Life is not slain! | |
| Never the spirit was born; the spirit shall cease to be never; | 65 |
| Never was time it was not; End and Beginning are dreams! | |
| Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the spirit for ever; | |
| Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems! | |
| |
| Who knoweth it exhaustless, self-sustained, | |
| Immortal, indestructible,—shall such | 70 |
| Say, “I have killed a man, or caused to kill?” | |
| |
| Nay, but as when one layeth | |
| His worn-out robes away, | |
| And, taking new ones, sayeth, | |
| “These will I wear to-day!” | 75 |
| So putteth by the spirit | |
| Lightly its garb of flesh, | |
| And passeth to inherit | |
| A residence afresh. | |
| |
| I say to thee weapons reach not the Life, | 80 |
| Flame burns it not, waters cannot o’erwhelm, | |
| Nor dry winds wither it. Impenetrable, | |
| Unentered, unassailed, unharmed, untouched, | |
| Immortal, all-arriving, stable, sure, | |
| Invisible, ineffable, by word | 85 |
| And thought uncompassed, ever all itself, | |
| Thus is the Soul declared! How wilt thou, then, | |
| Knowing it so,—grieve when thou shouldst not grieve? | |
| How, if thou hearest that the man new-dead | |
| Is, like the man new-born, still living man— | 90 |
| One same, existent Spirit—wilt thou weep? | |
| The end of birth is death; the end of death | |
| Is birth: this is ordained! and mournest thou, | |
| Chief of the stalwart arm! for what befalls | |
| Which could not otherwise befall? The birth | 95 |
| Of living things comes unperceived; the death | |
| Comes unperceived; between them, beings perceive: | |
| What is there sorrowful herein dear Prince? | |
| Wonderful, wistful, to contemplate! | |
| Difficult, doubtful, to speak upon! | 100 |
| Strange and great for tongue to relate, | |
| Mystical hearing for every one! | |
| Nor wotteth man this, what a marvel it is, | |
| When seeing, and saying, and hearing are done! | |
| |
| This Life within all living things, my Prince! | 105 |
| Hides beyond harm; scorn thou to suffer, then, | |
| For that which cannot suffer. Do thy part! | |
| Be mindful of thy name, and tremble not! | |
| Nought better can betide a martial soul | |
| Than lawful war; happy the warrior | 110 |
| To whom comes joy of battle—comes, as now, | |
| Glorious and fair, unsought; opening for him | |
| A gateway unto Heav’n. But, if thou shunn’st | |
| This honorable field—a Kshattriya— | |
| If, knowing thy duty and thy task, thou bidd’st | 115 |
| Duty and task go by—that shall be sin! | |
| And those to come shall speak thee infamy | |
| From age to age; but infamy is worse | |
| For men of noble blood to bear than death! | |
| The chiefs upon their battle-chariots | 120 |
| Will deem ’twas fear that drove thee from the fray. | |
| Of those who held thee mighty-souled the scorn | |
| Thou must abide, while all thine enemies | |
| Will scatter bitter speech of thee, to mock | |
| The valor which thou hadst; what fate could fall | 125 |
| More grievously than this? Either—being killed— | |
| Thou wilt win Swarga’s safety, or—alive | |
| And victor—thou wilt reign an earthly king. | |
| Therefore, arise, thou Son of Kunti! brace | |
| Thine arm for conflict, nerve thy heart to meet— | 130 |
| As things alike to thee—pleasure or pain, | |
| Profit or ruin, victory or defeat: | |
| So minded, gird thee to the fight, for so | |
| Thou shalt not sin! | |
| |
| Thus far I speak to thee | 135 |
| As from the “Sânkhya”—unspiritually— | |
| Hear now the deeper teaching of the Yôg, | |
| Which holding, understanding, thou shalt burst | |
| Thy Karmabandh, the bondage of wrought deeds. | |
| Here shall no end be hindered, no hope marred | 140 |
| No loss be feared: faith—yea, a little faith— | |
| Shall save thee from the anguish of thy dread. | |
| Here, Glory of the Kurus! shines one rule— | |
| One steadfast rule—while shifting souls have laws | |
| Many and hard. Specious, but wrongful deem | 145 |
| The speech of those ill-taught ones who extol | |
| The letter of their Vedas, saying, “This | |
| Is all we have, or need;” being weak at heart | |
| With wants, seekers of Heaven: which comes—they say— | |
| As “fruit of good deeds done;” promising men | 150 |
| Much profit in new births for works of faith; | |
| In various rites abounding; following whereon | |
| Large merit shall accrue towards wealth and power; | |
| Albeit, who wealth and power do most desire | |
| Least fixity of soul have such, least hold | 155 |
| On heavenly meditation. Much these teach, | |
| From Veds, concerning the “three qualities;” | |
| But thou, be free of the “three qualities,” | |
| Free of the “pairs of opposites,” 1 and free | |
| From that sad righteousness which calculates; | 160 |
| Self-ruled, Arjuna! simple, satisfied! 2 | |
| Look! like as when a tank pours water forth | |
| To suit all needs, so do these Brahmans draw | |
| Texts for all wants from tank of Holy Writ. | |
| But thou, want not! ask not! Find full reward | 165 |
| Of doing right in right! Let right deeds be | |
| Thy motive, not the fruit which comes from them. | |
| And live in action! Labor! Make thine acts | |
| Thy piety, casting all self aside, | |
| Contemning gain and merit; equable | 170 |
| In good or evil: equability | |
| Is Yôg, is piety! | |
| |
| Yet, the right act | |
| Is less, far less, than the right-thinking mind. | |
| Seek refuge in thy soul; have there thy heaven! | 175 |
| Scorn them that follow virtue for her gifts! | |
| The mind of pure devotion—even here— | |
| Casts equally aside good deeds and bad, | |
| Passing above them. Unto pure devotion | |
| Devote thyself: with perfect meditation | 180 |
| Comes perfect act, and the right-hearted rise— | |
| More certainly because they seek no gain— | |
| Forth from the bands of body, step by step, | |
| To highest seats of bliss. When thy firm soul | |
| Hath shaken off those tangled oracles | 185 |
| Which ignorantly guide, then shall it soar | |
| To high neglect of what’s denied or said, | |
| This way or that way, in doctrinal writ. | |
| Troubled no longer by the priestly lore | |
| Safe shall it live, and sure; steadfastly bent | 190 |
| On meditation. This is Yôg—and Peace! | |
| |
ARJUNA:
What is his mark who hath that steadfast heart, | |
| Confirmed in holy meditation? How | |
| Know we his speech, Kesava? Sits he, moves he | |
| Like other men? | 195 |
| |
KRISHNA:
When one, O Prithâ’s Son!— | |
| Abandoning desires which shake the mind— | |
| Finds in his soul full comfort for his soul, | |
| He hath attained the Yôg—that man is such! | |
| In sorrows not rejected, and in joys | 200 |
| Not overjoyed; dwelling outside the stress | |
| Of passion, fear, and anger; fixed in calms | |
| Of lofty contemplation;—such an one | |
| Is Muni, is the Sage, the true Recluse! | |
| He, who to none and nowhere overbound | 205 |
| By ties of flesh, takes evil things and good | |
| Neither desponding nor exulting, such | |
| Bears wisdom’s plainest mark! He who shall draw, | |
| As the wise tortoise draws its four feet safe | |
| Under its shield, his five frail senses back | 210 |
| Under the spirit’s buckler from the world | |
| Which else assails them, such an one, my Prince! | |
| Hath wisdom’s mark! Things that solicit sense | |
| Hold off from the self-governed; nay, it comes, | |
| The appetites of him who lives beyond | 215 |
| Depart,—aroused no more. Yet may it chance | |
| O Son of Kunti! that a governed mind | |
| Shall some time feel the sense-storms sweep, and wrest | |
| Strong self-control by the roots. Let him regain | |
| His kingdom! let him conquer this, and sit | 220 |
| On Me intent. That man alone is wise | |
| Who keeps the mastery of himself! If one | |
| Ponders on objects of the sense, there springs | |
| Attraction; from attraction grows desire, | |
| Desire flames to fierce passion, passion breeds | 225 |
| Recklessness; then the memory—all betrayed— | |
| Lets noble purpose go, and saps the mind, | |
| Till purpose, mind, and man are all undone. | |
| But, if one deals with objects of the sense | |
| Not loving and not hating, making them | 230 |
| Serve his free soul, which rests serenely lord, | |
| Lo, such a man comes to tranquillity; | |
| And out of that tranquillity shall rise | |
| The end and healing of his earthly pains, | |
| Since the will governed sets the soul at peace. | 235 |
| The soul of the ungoverned is not his, | |
| Nor hath he knowledge of himself; which lacked, | |
| How grows serenity? and, wanting that, | |
| Whence shall he hope for happiness? | |
| The mind | 240 |
| That gives itself to follow shows of sense | |
| Seeth its helm of wisdom rent away, | |
| And, like a ship in waves of whirlwind, drives | |
| To wreck and death. Only with him, great Prince! | |
| Whose sense are not swayed by things of sense— | 245 |
| Only with him who holds his mastery, | |
| Shows wisdom perfect. What is midnight-gloom | |
| To unenlightened souls shines wakeful day | |
| Is known for night, thick night of ignorance, | |
| To his true-seeing eyes. Such is the Saint! | 250 |
| |
| And like the ocean, day by day receiving | |
| Floods from all lands, which never overflows; | |
| Its boundary-line not leaping, and not leaving, | |
| Fed by the rivers, but unswelled by those;— | |
| |
| So is the perfect one! to his soul’s ocean | 255 |
| The world of sense pours streams of witchery; | |
| They leave him as they find, without commotion, | |
| Taking their tribute, but remaining sea. | |
| |
| Yea! whoso, shaking off the yoke of flesh, | |
| Lives lord, not servant, of his lusts; set free | 260 |
| From pride, from passion, from the sin of “Self,” | |
| Toucheth tranquillity! O Prithâ’s son! | |
| That is the state of Brahm! There rests no dread | |
| When that last step is reached! Live where he will, | |
| Die when he may, such passeth from all ’plaining, | 265 |
| To blest Nirvâna, with the Gods, attaining. | |
| |
Here endeth Chapter II. of the Bhagavad-Gîtâ, | |
entitled “Sânkhya-Yôg,” or “The Book of | |
Doctrines” | |
