CHAP. III.] THE BHAGAVAT-GÎTA.

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the worship of Siva was still unknown. Still there is much of great interest, which might well tempt one to linger, in the later developments of Brahminism, as will be evident to any one who will peruse the volumes of the Sacred Books containing the collection of Aphorisms of the Sacred Laws, the translation of the Satupatha Brahmana, and the selected episodes from the Mahabharata of which the most striking and noteworthy is the BhagavatGita. The Bhagavat-Gita-the Divine Laymay it not, apart from all theories as to its origin, be considered as the most pure and elevated production of the Hindu mind? Certainly in beauty of form it has no rival; and before I pass away from this part of the subject I must present one extract from it. I do not know that I can do better than select the Ninth Lection entitled, Devotion through the Royal Knowledge and the Royal

1 Hibbert Lectures, p. 145.

2 The date of the Bhagavat-Gita, as I need hardly say, is among the most vexed questions of oriental scholarship. Mr. Telang, in the very learned and ingenious argument which will be found in his Introduction to the eighth volume of the Sacred Books, contends that "the Gita ranges itself as a member of the Upanishad group, so to say, in Sanskrit literature," and thinks it" more than probable that the latest date at which it can have been composed must be earlier than the third century B.C., although it is impossible to say, at present, how much earlier " (p. 34). This view has been controverted with much ability by Mr. Davies, in an Appendix to his translation of the Gita, where, after an elaborate review of the whole subject, he maintains that "the question of date cannot be settled with absolute certainty, but all the evidence we have points to a time not earlier than the third century A.c." (p. 194).

1 Read A.D. for A.G!

Mystery. I borrow Mr. Davies's excellent translation :

THE HOLY ONE SPOKE.

Now will I declare to thee, who dost not cavil, that most mysterious knowledge, divine and human, which when thou knowest, thou wilt be free from evil.

Royal knowledge! royal mystery! the supreme purification, this, comprehensible at sight, holy, easy to practise, and eternal.

The men who receive not by faith this holy doctrine attain not to Me, O destroyer of foes! but return to the ways of this world of death.

All this universe has been spread out by Me, by my unmanifested material nature (Prakriti). All things dwell in Me; I do not dwell in them.

5. And yet these things dwell not in me. See my royal mystery! My spirit, which is the source of all, supports all things but dwells not in them:

As the mighty wind moves everywhere, but is ever contained. within the ether, know that thus all beings are contained in Me.

At the end of a Kalpa, all things, O son of Kunti! go into my material nature; at the beginning of a Kalpa, I send them forth again.

Resting on my material nature (Prakriti), I send forth again and again all this mass of beings, without their will, by the power of Prakriti.

And these works, O destroyer of foes! bind not Me! 2 who sit apart as a stranger and in these works am unattached.

10. Nature (Prakriti), under my surveillance, gives birth to

1 Burnouf translates "Tel est le mystère de la supreme union." 2 All works, except works of devotion, bind the doer, i.e., they connect him with bodily conditions, as their result in a future life. The works of Brahma are not followed by any consequences, because they are done without "attachment." So a perfect Yogin may act, and then attain to nirvāna.

CHAP. III.] "MYSTERY OF THE SUPREME UNION.” 141

everything, moving or fixed (animate or inanimate), and by this means, O son of Kunti! the world revolves.

Fools disregard Me when invested with a human body, not knowing my higher nature, the Supreme Lord of all.

Vain in hope, vain in action, vain in knowledge, and devoid of sense; these partake of the deluding nature of Rākshasas and Asuras (demons: enemies of the gods).

But the great-souled men, O son of Pritha! who partake of the divine nature, worship Me with hearts resting on no other (God), knowing Me as the eternal source of all things.

Evermore glorifying Me, eternally striving (after Me), steadfast in vows and doing Me reverence; they worship Me with a constant devotion (Bhakti).

15. Others also, sacrificing with the sacrifice of knowledge, worship Me, everywhere present in many forms by my oneness and my divisible nature.

I am the offering; I am the sacrifice; I am the offering to forefathers; I am the sacred herb; I am the holy hymn and the sacrificial butter; I am the fire; I am the burnt-offering.

1

I am the father, mother, sustainer, and grandsire of this universe. I am the object of knowledge, the lustration, the syllable OM; I am, too, the Rig-, Sama-, and the Yajur-Veda.

I am the way, the sustainer, the Lord, the witness, the dwelling, refuge, and friend, the source, and the destroyer (of life), the place, the depository, and the eternal seed.

I cause heat; I withhold and I send forth the rain. I am also immortality and death, Arjuna! I am sat (formal existence) and asat (abstract, undeveloped being).3

1 Cf. Plato in the Timæus (s. 24): "For the present then we must conceive three kinds of things; that which is made, and that after the likeness of which it is made; and of these we may liken the recipient (the matter) to the Mother: that after which it is made to the Father; and that produced between the two to the offspring."

2 The grandsire as the source of Prakriti, from whom all things emanate.

3 Mr. Thomson explains these words as spirit and matter. They

20. They who follow the three Vedas, who drink the somajuice and are purified from sin, who offer sacrifices, ask of me a passage to Heaven. These attain to the holy world of Indra and eat in Heaven the divine food of the gods.

These men, when they have enjoyed this vast heavenly world. and their merit is exhausted, return to this world of death. Following the three holy books (the Vedas), and desiring the objects of the senses, they obtain that which comes and goes.

A full assurance (of blessedness) I bring to those who worship Me and never seek refuge in another (god), who are ever united (to Me) in devotion.

Even those who worship other gods and are endowed with faith sacrifice to me, O son of Kunti! when they sacrifice, but not according to ancient rule:

For I am the enjoyer and the Lord also of all sacrifices, but these men know Me not in truth, and therefore they fall.

25. They who are devoted by vows to gods, go to gods; they who devote themselves to Pitris (ancestral manes), go to Pitris; they who sacrifice to Bhūtas (malignant goblins), go to Bhūtas ; they who worship Me alone, come to Me.

When any one offers to me in devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit, or water, I accept this pious offering of one who is devout in mind.

Whatever thou doest, whatever thou eatest, whatever thou offerest in sacrifice or givest (to others), whatever austerity thou practisest, do it as an offering to Me.

Thus shalt thou be free from the bonds of works producing

mean the world of visible things (sat), and the invisible, undeveloped, Prakriti (asat), See Sānkha Kārikā p. 27. Cf. Rig-Veda x. 72, 2: “Devānām pūrvye yuge asatah sadajāyata—in the first age of the gods the Manifested (sat) was born from the Unmanifested (asat)." In the same Veda (1. 96, 7), Agni is called satas gopa, the guardian of the existent world. The phraseology is much like Hegel's: (1) Das Absolute is das Seyn; (2) das Absolute ist das Nichts Das reine Seyn ist nun die reine Abstraction, damit das absolut-negative, welches gleichfalls unmittelbar genommen, das Nichts ist." (Die Lehre v. Seyn, s. 99.)

CHAP. III.]

THE DOCTRINE OF THE GÎTA.

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good or evil fortune; united to me in soul by devotion and renunciation (of worldly good), thou, when freed (from the body), shalt come to Me.

I am the same to all beings; to Me none is hateful, and none is dear; but they who worship me devoutly are in Me and I also am in them.

30. Even if one of evil life worships Me with exclusive worship, he must be accounted as a good man, for he has judged rightly.

Soon he becomes a pious man and attains to eternal peace. Be well assured, O son of Kunti! that he who worships Me does not perish.

For they who find refuge in Me, O son of Pritha! though they have been conceived in sin, women, too, Vaisyas, and even Sūdras, these go to the highest way.

How much more, then, holy Brahmans and pious Rajarshis? 1 Since thou hast come into this fleeting and unhappy world, worship Me.

Fix thy heart (manas) on Me: worship Me: offer to Me sacrifice bow down before Me: united thus in soul (to Me), making Me the spereum object, thou shalt come to Me.

The doctrine of the Bhagavat-Gita, while closely connected, in some respects, with the Vedanta, is, in others, far removed from it. Upon this matter let me cite the very accurate and perspicuous observations of Mr. Davies :

In the view (of the author of the Gita) the Supreme Being is One, without a rival, without such attributes as were assigned to the gods in the popular belief, and unstained by any of their passions or vices. From whatever source his ideas were derived, whether from some knowledge which came from a system lying wholly apart from the Hindu creed, or from the working of his own mind, he

1 The Rajarshis (royal Rishes) united the characters of king and saint.