The Bhagavad Gita by Franklin Edgerton

Author:Franklin Edgerton [Edgerton, Franklin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: philosophy, General
ISBN: 9780674069251
Google: tZuwadXj-F0C
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 1972-11-15T00:35:14.147551+00:00

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1 At least the older and more genuine ones are that; we may ignore for our present purpose the numerous late and secondary works which call themselves Upaniá¹£ads.

2 Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.8.7, etc.

3 Bṛhad Āraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.4.10, etc.

4 Ibid., 3.4.1.

5 Ibid., 3.7.15.

6 Ibid., 4.3.10. According to several Upaniṣad passages the soul performs this creative act by a sort of mystic, quasi-magic power, sometimes called māyā, that is, “artifice”; it is a word sometimes applied to sorcery, and to tricks and stratagems of various kinds. The Bhagavad Gītā similarly speaks of the Deity as appearing in material nature by His māyā, His mystic power. This does not mean (in my opinion; some scholars take the contrary view) that the world outside of the self is illusory, without real existence, as the later Vedānta philosophy maintains; māyā, I think, is not used in the Vedāntic sense of “world-illusion” until many centuries later.

7 Thus foreshadowing the later dualistic systems, such as classical Sāṃkhya and Yoga, which recognize matter and soul as two eternal and eternally independent principles — a doctrine which is familiarly accepted in the Bhagavad Gītā.

8 Journal of the American Oriental Society, 49.118.

9 ii. 13.

10 ii. 22.

11 Bṛhad Āraṇyaka Upaniṣad, 4.4.3.

12 Ibid., 4:4–5.

13 Ibid., 4.4.5.

14 Ibid., 3.4.2.

15 These include, typically, sensual desires of all kinds, and desire for continued existence in rebirths.

16 Bṛhad Āraṇyaka Upaniṣad, 4.4.6; 4.3.22.

17 Ibid., 4.5.15; 4–3–23 ff.

18 Ibid., 4.3.19

19 Ibid., 4.5–13.

20 Ibid., 4.3–32,33-–n 15–6.

22 Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad, 3.2.9; Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad, 1. 4.

23 Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad, 1.4; compare Bṛhad Āraṇyaka Upaniṣad, 4.3.22, etc,

24 Kaá¹­ha Upaniá¹£ad, 2.24.

25 “By a rare chance may a man see him (the Soul); by a rare chance likewise may another declare him; and by a rare chance may another hear (of) him. But even when he has heard (of) him, no one whatsoever knows him.” Bhagavad Gītā, ii. 29; quoted from Katha Upaniṣad, 2.7.

26 Praśna Upaniṣad, 5.5.

27 This is certainly a reasonable statement in dealing with a work in which the principal speaker is represented as an incarnation of the Supreme Deity; altho there are not wanting in the Gītā, as we shall see in Chapter VI, passages in which the First Principle seems to be spoken of in impersonal, monistic terms.

28 śvetāśvatara Upani§ad, 6.21, 23. This is a comparatively late Upaniṣad, probably not much older than the Gītā; there are various good reasons for believing that it was known to the Gītā’s author.

29 Katha Upaniṣad, 2.20. The Gītā has several verbal quotations from this Upaniṣad.

30 Ibid., 2.23.

31 In popular belief ascetic practices came to be regarded as a means of acquiring all sorts of supernatural or magic powers; just as knowledge (the acquisition of which was the theoretical object of ascetic practices) was understood by the vulgar in terms ot magic power. Some of the later systems of philosophy which, attach great importance to austerities are not free from this degradation of the principle.

32 Taittirīya Upaniṣad, 3.2 ff.

33 See Chapter VII.

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