HinduismChapter 2HOLYMAP · SACRED TEXTS
Bhagavad GitaChapter 2

Bhagavad Gita

Chapter 2

1
English · Annie Besant

Sanjaya said:

To him thus with pity overcome, with smarting brimming eyes, despondent, Madhusûdana spake these words:

2
English · Annie Besant

The Blessed Lord said:

Whence hath this dejection befallen thee in this perilous strait, ignoble, heaven-closing, infamous, O Arjuna?

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English · Annie Besant

Yield not to impotence, O Partha! it doth not befit thee. Shake off this paltry faint-heartedness! Stand up, Parantapa!

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English · Annie Besant

Arjuna said:

How, O Madhusûdana, shall I attack Bhîshma and Drona with arrows in battle, they who are worthy of reverence, O slayer of foes?

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English · Annie Besant

Better in this world to eat even the beggar's crust than to slay these most noble Gurus. Slaying these Gurus, our well-wishers, I should taste of blood-besprinkled feasts.

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English · Annie Besant

Nor know I which for us be the better, that we conquer them or they conquer us—these, whom having slain we should not care to live, even these arrayed against us, the sons of Dhritarâshtra.

7
English · Annie Besant

My heart is weighed down with the vice of faintness; my mind is confused as to duty. I ask thee which may be the better—that tell me decisively. I am thy disciple, suppliant to Thee; teach me.

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English · Annie Besant

For I see not that it would drive away this anguish that withers up my senses, if I should attain unrivalled monarchy on earth, or even the sovereignty of the Shining Ones.

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English · Annie Besant

Sanjaya said:

Gudâkesha, conqueror of his foes, having thus addressed Hrishîkesha and said to Govinda, "I will not fight!", became silent.

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English · Annie Besant

Then Hrishîkesha, smiling, as it were, O Bhârata, spake these words to him, despondent, in the midst of the two armies:

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English · Annie Besant

The Blessed Lord said:

Thou grievest for those that should not be griev- ed for, yet speakest words of wisdom. The wise grieve neither for the living nor for the dead.

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English · Annie Besant

Nor at any time verily was I not, nor thou, nor these princes of men, nor verily shall we ever cease to be, hereafter.

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English · Annie Besant

As the dweller in the body experienceth in the body childhood, youth, old age, so passeth he on to another body; the steadfast one grieveth not thereat.

14
English · Annie Besant

The contacts of matter, O son of Kuntî, giving cold and heat, pleasure and pain, they come and go, impermanent; endure them bravely, O Bhârata.

15
English · Annie Besant

The man whom these torment not, O chief of men, balanced in pain and pleasure, steadfast, he is fitted for immortality.

16
English · Annie Besant

The unreal hath no being; the real never ceaseth to be; the truth about both hath been perceived by the seers of the essence of things.

17
English · Annie Besant

Know That to be indestructible by whom all this is pervaded. Nor can any work the destruction of that imperishable One.

18
English · Annie Besant

These bodies of the embodied One, who is eternal, indestructible and immeasurable, are known as finite. Therefore fight, O Bhârata.

19
English · Annie Besant

He who regardeth this as a slayer, and he who thinketh he is slain, both of them are ignorant. He slayeth not, nor is he slain.

20
English · Annie Besant

He is not born, nor doth he die; nor having been, ceaseth he any more to be; unborn, perpetual, eternal and ancient, he is not slain when the body is slaughtered.

21
English · Annie Besant

Who knoweth him indestructible, perpetual, unborn, undiminishing, how can that man slay, O Pârtha, or cause to be slain?

22
English · Annie Besant

As a man, casting off worn-out garments, taketh new ones, so the dweller in the body, casting off worn-out bodies, entereth into others that are new.

23
English · Annie Besant

Weapons cleave him not, nor fire burneth him, nor waters wet him, nor wind drieth him away.

24
English · Annie Besant

Uncleavable he, incombustible he, and indeed neither to be wetted nor dried away; perpetual, all-pervasive, stable, immovable, ancient.

25
English · Annie Besant

Unmanifest, unthinkable, immutable, he is called; therefore knowing him as such, thou shouldst not grieve.

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English · Annie Besant

Or if thou thinkest of him as being constantly born and constantly dying, even then, O mighty-armed, thou shouldst not grieve.

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English · Annie Besant

For certain is death for the born, and certain is birth for the dead; therefore over the inevitable thou shouldst not grieve.

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English · Annie Besant

Beings are unmanifest in their origin, manifest in their midmost state, O Bhârata, unmanifest likewise are they in dissolution. What room then for lamentation?

29
English · Annie Besant

As marvellous one regardeth him; as marvellous another speaketh thereof; as marvellous another heareth thereof; yet having heard none indeed understandeth.

30
English · Annie Besant

This dweller in the body of everyone is ever invulnerable, O Bhârata; therefore thou shouldst not grieve for any creature.

31
English · Annie Besant

Further, looking to thine own duty thou shouldst not tremble; for there is nothing more welcome to a Kshattriya than righteous war.

32
English · Annie Besant

Happy the Kshattriyas, O Pârtha, who obtain such a fight, offered unsought as an open door to heaven.

33
English · Annie Besant

But if thou wilt not carry on this righteous warfare, then casting away thine own duty and thine honour, thou wilt incur sin.

34
English · Annie Besant

Men will recount thy perpetual dishonour, and, to one highly esteemed, dishonour exceedeth death.

35
English · Annie Besant

The great car-warriors will think thee fled from the battle from fear, and thou, that wast highly thought of by them, wilt be lightly held.

36
English · Annie Besant

Many unseemly words will be spoken by thine enemies, slandering thy strength; what more painful than that?

37
English · Annie Besant

Slain, thou wilt obtain heaven; victorious, thou wilt enjoy the earth; therefore stand up, O son of Kuntî, resolute to fight.

38
English · Annie Besant

Taking as equal pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat, gird thee for the battle; thus thou shalt not incur sin.

39
English · Annie Besant

This teaching set forth to thee is in accordance with the Sâñkhya; hear it now according to the Yoga, imbued with which teaching, O Pârtha, thou shalt cast away the bonds of action.

40
English · Annie Besant

In this there is no loss of effort, nor is there transgression. Even a little of this knowledge protects from great fear.

41
English · Annie Besant

The determinate Reason is but one-pointed, O joy of the Kurus; many-branched and endless are the thoughts of the irresolute.

42
English · Annie Besant

Flowery speech is uttered by the foolish, rejoicing in the letter of the Vedas, O Pârtha, saying: "There is naught but this";

43
English · Annie Besant

With desire for self, with heaven for goal, they offer birth as the fruit of action, and prescribe many and various ceremonies for the attainment of pleasure and lordship.

44
English · Annie Besant

For them who cling to pleasure and lordship, whose minds are captivated by such teaching, is not designed this determinate Reason, on contemplation steadily bent.

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English · Annie Besant

The Vedas deal with the three attributes; be thou above these three attributes, O Arjuna; beyond the pairs of opposites, ever steadfast in purity, careless of possessions, full of the Self.

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English · Annie Besant

All the Vedas are as useful to an enlightened Brâhmana as is a tank in a place covered all over with water.

47
English · Annie Besant

Thy business is with the action only, never with its fruits; so let not the fruit of action be thy motive, nor be thou to inaction attached.

48
English · Annie Besant

Perform action, O Dhananjaya, dwelling in union with the divine, renouncing attachments and balanced evenly in success and failure: equilibrium is called yoga.

49
English · Annie Besant

Far lower than the Yoga of Discrimination is action, O Dhananjaya. Take thou refuge in the Pure Reason; pitiable are they who work for fruit.

50
English · Annie Besant

United to the Pure Reason one abandoneth here both good and evil deeds; therefore cleave thou to yoga; yoga is skill in action.

51
English · Annie Besant

The Sages, united to the Pure Reason, renounce the fruit which action yieldeth, and, liberated from the bonds of birth, they go to the blissful seat.

52
English · Annie Besant

When thy mind shall escape from this tangle of delusion, then thou shalt rise to indifference as to what has been heard and shall be heard.

53
English · Annie Besant

When thy mind, bewildered by the Scriptures, shall stand immovable, fixed in contemplation, then shalt thou attain unto yoga.

54
English · Annie Besant

Arjuna said:

What the mark, of him who is stable of mind, steadfast in contemplation, O Keshava? How doth the stable-minded talk, how doth he sit, how walk?

55
English · Annie Besant

The Blessed Lord said:

When a man abandoneth, O Pârtha, all the desires of the heart, and is satisfied in the Self by the Self, then is he called stable in mind.

56
English · Annie Besant

He whose mind is free from anxiety amid pains, indifferent amid pleasures, loosed from passion, fear and anger, is called a sage of stable mind.

57
English · Annie Besant

He who on every side is without attachments, whatever hap of fair and foul, who neither likes nor dislikes, of such a one the understanding is well poised.

58
English · Annie Besant

When, again, as a tortoise draws in on all sides its limbs, he withdraws his senses from the objects of sense, then is his understanding well poised.

59
English · Annie Besant

The objects of sense, but not the relish for them, turn away from an abstemious dweller in the body; and even relish turneth away from him after the Supreme is seen.

60
English · Annie Besant

O son of Kuntî, the excited senses of even a wise man, though he be striving, impetuously carry away his mind.

61
English · Annie Besant

Having restrained them all, he should sit harmonised, I his supreme goal; for, whose senses are mastered, of him the understanding is well poised.

62
English · Annie Besant

Man, musing on the objects of sense, conceiveth an attachment to these; from attachment ariseth desire; from desire anger cometh forth;

63
English · Annie Besant

From anger proceedeth delusion; from delusion confused memory; from confused memory the destruction of Reason; from destruction of Reason he perishes.

64
English · Annie Besant

But the disciplined self, moving among sense-objects with senses free from attraction and repulsion, mastered by the Self, goeth to peace.

65
English · Annie Besant

In that Peace the extinction of all pains ariseth for him, for of him whose heart is peaceful the Reason soon attaineth equilibrium.

66
English · Annie Besant

There is no Pure Reason for the non-harmonised, nor for the non-harmonised is there concentration; for him without concentration there is no peace, and for the unpeaceful how can there be happiness?

67
English · Annie Besant

Such of the roving senses as the mind yieldeth to, that hurries away the understanding, just as the gale hurries away a ship upon the waters.

68
English · Annie Besant

Therefore, O mighty-armed, whose senses are all completely restrained from the objects of sense, of him the understanding is well poised.

69
English · Annie Besant

That which is the night of all beings, for the disciplined man is the time of waking; when other beings are waking, then is it night for the sage who seeth.

70
English · Annie Besant

He attaineth Peace, into whom all desires flow as rivers flow into the ocean, which is filled with water, but remaineth unmoved—not he who desireth desires.

71
English · Annie Besant

Whoso forsaketh all desires and goeth onwards free from yearnings, selfless and without egoism—he goeth to Peace.

72
English · Annie Besant

This is the Eternal state, O son of Prithâ. Having attained thereto, none is bewildered. Who, even at the death-hour, is established therein, he goeth to the Nirvâna of the Eternal.

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Sanskrit text and English translation from The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant, 4th edition (Madras: G. A. Natesan, 1922). Public domain. Transcribed and proofread by English Wikisource volunteers. · Source ↗

Sanskrit text and English translation from The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant, 4th edition (Madras: G. A. Natesan, 1922). Public domain. Transcribed and proofread by English Wikisource volunteers. · Source ↗

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