The Bhagavad-Gita.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
Chapter VIII
ARJUNA:
WHO is that BRAHMA? What that Soul of Souls, |
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The ADHYATMAN? What, Thou Best of All! | |
Thy work, the KARMA? Tell me what it is | |
Thou namest ADHIBHUTA? What again | |
Means ADHIDAIVA? Yea, and how it comes | 5 |
Thou canst be ADHIYAJNA in thy flesh? | |
Slayer of Madhu! Further, make me know | |
How good men find thee in the hour of death?f | |
KRISHNA:
I BRAHMA am! the One Eternal God, |
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And ADHYATMAN is My Being’s name, | 10 |
The Soul of Souls! What goeth forth from Me, | |
Causing all life to live, is KARMA called: | |
And, Manifested in divided forms, | |
I am the ADHIBHUTA, Lord of Lives; | |
And ADHIDAIVA, Lord of all the Gods, | 15 |
Because I am PURUSHA, who begets. | |
And ADHIYAJNA, Lord of Sacrifice, | |
I—speaking with thee in this body here— | |
Am, thou embodied one! (for all the shrines | |
Flame unto Me!) And, at the hour of death, | 20 |
He that hath meditated Me alone, | |
In putting off his flesh, comes forth to Me, | |
Enters into My Being—doubt thou not! | |
But, if he meditated otherwise | |
At hour of death, in putting off the flesh, | 25 |
He goes to what he looked for, Kunti’s Son! | |
Because the Soul is fashioned to its like. | |
Have Me, then, in thy heart always! and fight! | |
Thou too, when heart and mind are fixed on Me, | |
Shalt surely come to Me! All come who cleave | 30 |
With never-wavering will of firmest faith, | |
Owning none other Gods: all come to Me, | |
The Uttermost, Purusha, Holiest! | |
Whoso hath known Me, Lord of sage and singer, | |
Ancient of days; of all the Three Worlds Stay, | 35 |
Boundless,—but unto every atom Bringer | |
Of that which quickens it: whoso, I say, | |
Hath known My form, which passeth mortal knowing; | |
Seen my effulgence—which no eye hath seen— | |
Than the sun’s burning gold more brightly glowing, | 40 |
Dispering darkness,—unto him hath been | |
Right life! And, in the hour when life is ending, | |
With mind set fast and trustful piety, | |
Drawing still breath beneath calm brows unbending, | |
In happy peace that faithful one doth die,— | 45 |
In glad peace passeth to Purusha’s heaven, | |
The place which they who read the Vedas name | |
AKSHARAM, “Ultimate;” whereto have striven | |
Saints and ascetics—their road is the same. | |
That way—the highest way—goes he who shuts | 50 |
The gates of all his sense, locks desire | |
Safe in his heart, centres the vital airs | |
Upon his parting thought, steadfastly set; | |
And, murmuring OM, the sacred syllable— | |
Emblem of BRAHM—dies, meditating Me. | 55 |
For who, none other Gods regarding, looks | |
Ever to Me, easily am I gained | |
By such a Yôgi; and, attaining Me, | |
They fall not—those Mahatmas—back to birth, | |
To life, which is the place of pain, which ends, | 60 |
But take the way of utmost blessedness. | |
The worlds, Arjuna!—even Brahma’s world— | |
Roll back again from Death to Life’s unrest; | |
But they, O Kunti’s Son! that reach to Me, | |
Taste birth no more. If ye know Brahma’s Day | 65 |
Which is a thousand Yugas; if ye know | |
The thousand Yugas making Brahma’s Night, | |
Then know ye Day and Night as He doth know! | |
When that vast Dawn doth break, th’ Invisible | |
Is brought anew into the Visible; | 70 |
When that deep Night doth darken, all which is | |
Fades back again to Him Who sent it forth; | |
Yea! this vast company of living things— | |
Again and yet again produced—expires | |
At Brahma’s Nightfall; and, at Brahma’s Dawn, | 75 |
Riseth, without its will, to life new-born. | |
But—higher, deeper, innermost—abides | |
Another Life, not like the life of sense, | |
Escaping sight, unchanging. This endures | |
When all created things have passed away: | 80 |
This is that Life named the Unmanifest, | |
The Infinite! the All! the Uttermost. | |
Thither arriving none return. That Life | |
Is Mine, and I am there! And, Prince! by faith | |
Which wanders not, there is a way to come | 85 |
Thither. I, the PURUSHA, I Who spread | |
The Universe around me—in Whom dwell | |
All living Things—may so be reached and seen! 1 | |
Richer than holy fruit on Vedas growing, | |
Greater than gifts, better than prayer or fast, | 90 |
Such wisdom is! The Yôgi, this way knowing, | |
Comes to the Utmost Perfect Peace at last. | |
Here endeth Chapter VIII. of the Bhagavad-Gîtâ, entitled |
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“Aksharaparabrahmayôg,” or “The Book of |
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Religion by Devotion to the One Supreme God” |
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Note 1. I have discarded ten lines of Sanskrit text here as an undoubted interpolation by some Vedantist. [back] |