Bhagavad Gita of Lord Krishna (An Old and Rare Book)

About The Author Dr. Trikha was born in 1916. He was educated in Hindu College, Amritsar, and Forman Christian College, Lahore. After doing his M.A. in English in 1939, he chose to work in his home town itself and joined his Alma Mater, the Hindu College, Amritsar where he continued till his retirement in 1976 as the Head of the English Department. From the beginning he was interested in the sacred literature of Ancient India. In his quest for knowledge, he did his M.A. in Sanskrit in 1945 and was awarded Ph.D. in Sanskrit in 1P50 for his research on Turiya or Transcendence.

Dr. Trikha contributed articles on the various lores of India. His first book Guru Nanak as the National Saint of India was well received. His other books are Rig Veda, A Scientific and Intellectual Analysis of the Hymns of Somaiya Publications and A Study of the Ramayana of Valmiki, a Bhavan's Publication.

In the present book Bhagavad Gita of Lord Krishna, the author attempts to trace the development of thought in the Gita by chapter by chapter commentary and translation.

Preface In its growth as a treatise, the Gita is a documentary on what constituted the Great India - Maha Bharata -of Lord Krishna's days. Speaking of the Himalayas among Mountains, and of the Ganga among rivers as manifestations of the Supreme Divinity, in Chapter X and reflecting on the Arabian Sea in Chapter II and speaking of Kapila Muni as related to pre-historic (close of Sat-yoga) when the sage's anger destroyed king Sagara's armies in a far off island in the Bay of Bengal, the Gita gives a map of India, as it were, from North to South and from West to East.

In identifying Himself with Rishis like Bhrigu, Narada and Vashishta, the Lord projects the remotest ages as having been a real scene of the dynamic activities of those Vedic seers whom even in Krishna's own days the people had begun to look upon as mythical. In declaring Shankara among Rudras, and Mirichi among Maruts as His own self, Krishna accepts the authenticity of the Vedic Revelations in unequivocal words. Mentioning the Sankhya, the Yajna cults of the Mimamsa, the beautiful wordings of the Brahma Sutras, His own Karmayoga as the revived version of the Vedic Karmayoga and by arguments like "That which is born must die" 'That which exists not, shall never be existent', the Lord records the Nyaya or the logic of thought preserved since the earliest ages, along with the Schools of philosophies of the times.

Recounting units of Time as the bright and the dark fortnights, the earthly year and the year of the Devas and Asuras; the age of Manu, and the Day and Night of Brahma, and finally Himself as the Supreme unit of time, `Kala' which annihilates all world-systems from the world of the Creator or down to the world of the living beings; the Lord sanctifies the achievements in the scientific thought which had been popular through the educative curriculum of those early ages.

Foreword The Bhagavad Gita is Perhaps the world's most timeless conversation. The teacher and his disciple, Sri Krishna and Arjuna, stand at the centre of the battlefield. Arjuna's 'failure of nerve' inspires Sri Krishna to give him an advice that has reverberated down the centuries. Vyasa has provided in immortal verse the words spoken by Sri Krishna, Arjuna's charioteer in the field of battle. The Gitacharya's words have served as a lodestar guiding man through doubts, despondency and conflict. The Gita's statement about duty and the fruits thereof, about duty and detachment, has become one of the most relevant messages ever received by man. There lurks in every human mind an Arjuna. Doubts as to the right or wrong of actions, as to the advisability of particular steps, and even as to the appropriateness of certain views, assail our minds. The human being must involve himself unceasingly in his work but must yet remain unattached to its fruit. Can there be a more abiding insurance against doubt or disappointment?

Sir Edwin Arnold, in his memorable rendering of the Bhagavad Gita in English verse, called it The Song Celestial. It can equally be called The Song Eternal. For generations, the Gita has been read, re-read and commented upon. Each time a sensitive mind reads it, some new facet is lighted up. Sri Aurobindo, Lokmanya Tilak and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan have, through their invaluable commentaries, helped India ---to refresh their perceptions of the Gita.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages