Karma Yoga Sastra -Tilak
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
That is :— " All the Upanisads are, so to say, cows, the Blessed Lord Sri Krsna is Himself the drawer of the milk (milk-man), the intelligent Arjuna is the drinker, the calf (which causes the flow of the milk in the cows), and (when these unprecedented circumstances have come about) the milk which has been drawn, is the Gita-nectar of the highest order. " It cannot, therefore, be a matter of surprise that any number of translations, commentaries, or expositions of this work have appeared in all the vernacular languages of India ; but, after the Westerners have got acquainted with Sanskrit, there have been made any number of translations of the Gita into Greek, Latin, German, French, English etc., and this wonderful work has now come to be known throughout the world. Not only does this work contain the quintessence of all the Upanisads, but the full name of this work is "Srimad Bhagavad- gita Upanisat ". The enunciative words, convoying that the chapter is closed, which are used at the end of each chapter of the Gita contain the words "iti srimad Bhagavadgitasu- Upanisatsu Brahmavidyayam. yogasastre sri-Krsnarjuna-samvade" etc. i.e., " thus the conversation between Sri-Krsna and Arjuna on the Karma-yoga science, (that is to say, on the science of the yoga based on the knowledge of the Brahman) in the Upanisad sung by the Blessed Lord. " Although these enunciative words are not to be found in the original Bharata, yet as we find them in all the editions of the Gita, one may draw the inference that, that mode of enunciation must have come into vogue, when the Gita was for the first time separated from the Mahabharata for daily recital, that is to say, before any commentary was written on it ; and I shall explain later on the importance of these words in determining the import of the Gita from this point of view. For the present, it is necessary for us to consider only the words " Bhagavadgitasu Upanisatsu. " Although the word " Upanisat " is of the neuter gender in the Marathi language, yet as it is of the feminine gender in Sanskrit, so the idea " the Upanisad sung, that is, told by the Blessed Lord " is conveyed, in Sanskrit, by the expression " Srimad Bhagavadgita Upanisat ", a compound of an adjective and a noun in the feminine gender ; and although the work is singular in number, yet as it has become customary to refer to it in the plural number by way of respect, one comes across the plural seventh-case-ended form of " Srimad Bhagavadgitasupanisatsu". |
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