The Bhagavad-Gita.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
Chapter VIII
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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 | |
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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. | |
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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] |