The Bhagavat-Geeta, or dialogues of Krishna and Arjoon ... Sanscrit, Canarese, and English ... / The Sanscrit text from Schlegel's edition ; the Canarese newly translated from the Sanscrit ; the English translation by Sir C. Wilkins, with his preface and notes ... and the introduction, by ... Warren Hastings ... With ... additional notes from Prof. Wilson, Rev. H. Milman, etc. ; and an Essay ... by Baron W. von Humboldt, translated ... by ... G.H. Weigle : the second ed. of Schlegel's Latin version ... with the Sanscrit text revised by Prof. Lassen, etc. Edited by ... J. Garrett.

Date:: 1849

Credit: The Bhagavat-Geeta, or dialogues of Krishna and Arjoon ... Sanscrit, Canarese, and English ... / The Sanscrit text from Schlegel's edition ; the Canarese newly translated from the Sanscrit ; the English translation by Sir C. Wilkins, with his preface and notes ... and the introduction, by ... Warren Hastings ... With ... additional notes from Prof. Wilson, Rev. H. Milman, etc. ; and an Essay ... by Baron W. von Humboldt, translated ... by ... G.H. Weigle : the second ed. of Schlegel's Latin version ... with the Sanscrit text revised by Prof. Lassen, etc. Edited by ... J. Garrett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$the suspicion, that the ancient Hindoo sages, must have had immediate or traditional access to some Hebrew record, not enrolled with our canonical books, or even to some multilated and stray frag- ments of the canonical scriptures themselves. The highly sublimated Pantheism which the Geeta contains has its counterpart only in the divine teachings of our two Testaments, especially in the Gospels and Epistles of the seraphic John, who was permitted to rest on the bosom of the Re- deemer—into whose ear were poured the unconfes- sed yearnings of the Son of God—that John to whom was confided the apocalypse of eternity—the foresight of the working of the mystery of iniquity —the doom of the damned and the final supremacy of Jehovah. “ Vasoodeva is the universe.” VII. 20. “ I am O Arjoona, that which is the seed of all things* in nature and there is not any thing, whether animate or inanimate, that is without me.” X. 39. “ Behold O Arjoona, my million forms divine of various species and diverse shapes and colors.” “ Behold in this my body the whole world animate and inanimate, and all things else thou hast a mind to see.” “ But as thou art unable to see with these thy natural eyes, I will give thee a heavenly eye with which behold my divine connec- tion.” XI. 5,7, 8. “ The Son of Pandoo then beheld within the body of the God of Gods standing together the whole universe divided forth into its vast variety.” XI. 13. “The actual impersonation of the Deity, com- prehending the whole universe within his visible form, is (says Milman) unquestionably the most extraordinary flight of poetic daring, in the range of poetry. It is the whole essence of symbolical religion embodied in language—a highly abstract metaphysical creed represented as reality—the most subtle fiction of the reason arrayed in form and substance.” (supra, 118 p.) We regard it however as more than an imaginary illustration of the pan- theistic creed—it is its doctrinal exposition. On this account, some philosophers have suppos- ed that that in which bodies are placed—which is immoveable, immutable, prior in existence to all body, is God himself. The following passages are quoted by Mosheim in his notes on Cudworth, *In one Place Krishna is denominated the Father and Mother of the world. IX. 17. In like manner Jupiter is called the Father and Mother of all things. “tuivtcHiv /uev erv Ttartip, fj.r)Tnp* —— Orphic vesses. Indeed the Greek poets use the word deoq for God, or Goddess. So the Latins, e.g. “ Descendo ac ducente Deo, flammam inter et hostes, Expedior.” Lib. II. 632. In which Virgil applies the masculine to Venus. (III. 242.) “God himself is called place, (t ottos) because he contains all things and is contained by nothing whatever, and because he is himself a re- fuge for all things, and is contained and filled by himself alone.” “ God contains all things in his bosom, and passes through all the parts of the uni- verse” (Philo.) This learned Jew, says in another passage “ God is every where and nowhere.” “ God holds the whole world in his hand like a nest, whose throne is heaven, and footstool earth, and he is not in place, being the extreme limit of the universe.” (Tertullian.) The reader can scarcely fail to remember a similar passage in Paul’s discourse to the Athenians. “ In him (eV aortL) we live and move and have our being.” Acts, xvii. 28. The foundational and all pervading relationship of God to the universe is signified by other expres- ses—e. g. “Amongst letters I am A.” X. 38. This symbol is probably derived from some mys- tical properties assigned to the Alphabet—Tiruvu- luver employs the same metaphor. s\ a rr(Lp,$6\)G6ij(i;p<i C^oMamin n<§ . uaaisor^^rbGpiLia)^. grpefr. a.—a. “ As ranked in every alphabet the first The self-same vowel stands, so in all worlds Th’ Eternal God is chief.” Ellis. In the Tamil translation of the Yedam this be- lief is more fully expanded. a? 655T l£ <§ (5 u u n til lo 3su G lo 6cf> p u n iii a l_ 60 G a (T6ii n iu Ln6iOTi^^ip6h6nrTii?6npiD]CTrC6rrfEi(a, L06i5)fDih^j65)fD 6nmij. 6T 61OT LU 651P L| poj orer n G IU 651^ n 61?. LL| 655T l£<5 itl$- ll] 0 a a mi l_ rrG^ G iu ri6iP u u nG oj it. “ Thou art in the heavens, thou art above the mountains, thou dwellest in the ocean. *• Thou revolvest in the earth, but among all these though every where present, thou art every where hid. “ Thou art among other worlds, among systems beyond the reach of thought. “ And thou sportest also in my soul—wilt thou ever there remain concealed without manifesting thy form.” The Hebrew cabbalists had a similar formula to express the whole compass of a thing, e. g. “Adam transgressed the whole law from Aleph to Taw”— i. e. from beginning to end. “ When the holy God blessed the Israelites he did it from Aleph to Taw e. g. perfectly. In like manner the Greeks signified the all pervading agency of Him “ by whom all things consist” by the first and last letters of the$

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