Anukramaṇa

“ The translation of .this highly obscure verse is only mechanical, and as literal as possible. Ppp. has only the first half. The definition of the Anukr. is a strange one; the verse is only a bhurig anuṣṭubh (in virtue of the iva, which properly is to be reduced to va, making a regular anuṣṭubh) .
22. Where both the Ādityas and the Rudras and the Vasus are set together; where both what is and what is to be, [and] all the worlds are established—that Skambha tell [me] : which forsooth is he? ”

“ Kṛishṇa stands to Arjuna in very much the same relation as Rāma [101] to his brother Lakshmaṇa—a greater and a lesser hero, growing into an incarnate god and his chief follower. This is thoroughly in harmony with Hindu ideas, which regularly conceive the teacher as accompanied by his disciple and abhor the notion of a voice crying in the wilderness; indeed we may almost venture to suspect that this symmetry in the epics is not altogether uninfluenced by this ideal. ”

“ Muir ascribes the verse to Atharvan; Roth, better, to Varuṇa; the god asserts that it is he himself to whom wisdom and possession belong; his worshiper is comparatively nothing. Ppp. begins with satvasaṁ and reads mahitvaṁ in c, and haniṣya at the end. The Prāt. (iv. 96) establishes the long ī of mīmāya as a pada-reading. The Anukr. absurdly calls the verse a pan̄kti, although it is an evident triṣṭubh, not less regular than a great proportion of the verses so called. ⌊The me in c is easier rendered in German than in English.⌋
4. ”

“ Ppp. reads, in a, rūras for yas; its c, d are aruṇāya babhrave tapurmaghavāya namo ‘stu takmane. The comm. understands ványāya in d as gerundive of root van = saṁsevyāya: perhaps 'of the forest,' i.e., having no business in the village. The verse (9 + 11: 9 + 12) is too irregular for the metrical definition given ⌊cf. viii. 2. 21⌋.
The second anuvāka ends here, having 10 hymns and 32 verses, and the quotation from the old Anukr. is simply dvitīyāu, which ought to combine with the prathama of the first anuvāka—only one does not see how, as the two are not equal in number of verses. ”

“ The verse has a triṣṭubh-pāda (a) , of which the Anukr. makes no account.
16. What sufficient (udbhú) triply-guarding defense thou hast, O Kāma, worship (bráhman) as extended protection (várman) , made unpierceable, with that do thou avoid them that are my rivals; let breath, cattle, life avoid them.
The last half-verse is ⌊nearly⌋ identical with 5 c, d above, and O. again reads eṇān in d. Ppp. puts the verse next before our 12. The description of the meter by the Anukr. is unintelligible, since we have (12 + 14: 12 + 14) 52 syllables, or an atijagatī ”

“ And when Arjuna was following the Açvamedha steed, he was pierced in the van of the battle by an arrow from his own son Babhruvāhana, and a Nāga maiden, Ulūpā, brought him back to life. When Parīkshit, Abhimanyu’s son, was consumed by Açvatthāma’s fiery dart, though he had already died at birth, Kṛishṇa, filled with pity by Uttarā’s lament, restored his precious life. And at Ujjayinī, he whose steps are honoured by the three worlds, carried off from the city of death the son of Sandīpani the Brahman, and brought him back.254 And in thy case, too, the same will somehow come to pass. ”

“ In order to invent a leading motive for his teaching, the poet represents Arjuna as suddenly stricken with overwhelming remorse at the prospect of the fratricidal strife which he is about to begin. "I will not fight," he cries in anguish. Then Kṛishṇa begins a long series of arguments to stimulate him for the coming battle. He points out, with quotations from the Upanishads, that killing men in battle does not destroy their souls; for the soul is indestructible, migrating from body to body according to its own deserts. The duty of the man born in the Warrior-caste is to fight ”

“ No MS. of the Devatānukramaṇī or “Index of gods” exists, but ten quotations from it have been preserved by the commentator Shaḍguruçishya. It must have been superseded by the Bṛihaddevatā, an index of the “many gods,” a much more extensive work than any of the other Anukramaṇīs, as it contains about 1200 çlokas interspersed with occasional trishṭubhs. It is divided into eight adhyāyas corresponding to the ashṭakas of the Rigveda. Following [273] the order of the Rigveda, its main object is to state the deity for each verse. ”

“ Of the eclectic movement combining Sānkhya, Yoga, and Vedānta doctrines, the oldest literary representative is the Çvetāçvatara Upanishad. More famous is the Bhagavadgītā in which the Supreme Being incarnate as Kṛishṇa expounds to Arjuna his doctrines in this sense. The burden of his teaching is that the zealous performance of his duty is a man’s most important task, to whatever caste he may belong. The beauty and the power of the language in which this doctrine is inculcated, is unsurpassed in any other work of Indian literature. ”

“ And because his intellect and wisdom were in no way clouded by this association with a human soul, he says he can recollect all his previous incarnations, while Arjuna, not yet having fully received the light of the Logos, is not in a position to understand all that took place in connection with his former births. He says that it is his object to look after the welfare of humanity, and that whenever a special incarnation is necessary, he unites himself with the soul of a particular individual ”

“ The Anukr. notes no irregularity in the verse, although d is clearly jagatī-pada, and to resolve vidhia in c is contrary to all analogy.
4. Wholly conquering the fighters, shrill-crying, do thou, seizing those that are to be seized, look abroad on many sides; respond (? ā-gur) , O drum, devout, to the voice of the gods; bring the possession of our foes.
Vedhā́s is as superfluous to the sense in c as it is redundant in meter. The Anukr. takes no notice of the irregularity, nor of the deficiency in a (ūrdhua- being very harsh, and not found in RV.) . The pada-text reads gṛ́hyāḥ in b ”

“ The verse is very ill named jagatī by the Anukr.; the treatment of iva in d as only one syllable makes a regular triṣṭubh of it.
22. Thee that art earth I make enter into earth; this like body of thee [is] separated; whatever of thee is burnt (? dyuttá) , [or] scratched by driving (árpaṇa) ; with that do not leak; I cover that over by a spell (bráhman) .
Ppp. reads, for a, bhūmyāṁ bhūmim adhi dhārayāmi; in c, arpaṇaṁ ca; in d, çuçror apa tad, thus restoring the meter. The verse (12 + 11: 11 + 13 = 47) is very ill defined simply as a jagatī. In Kāuç. ”

“ Whatever, O Varuṇa, that is hateful to the people of the gods human beings practise here, if without intention we have obstructed thine ordinances (dhármān) , do not, O god, harm us for that sin.
The verse is RV. vii. 89. 5, which, however, reads at end of b cárāmasi, and at beginning of c ácittī yát táva etc. TS. (iii. 4. 116) and MS. (iv. 12. 6) agree precisely with RV.
The fifth anuvāka, 10 hymns with 30 verses, ends here; the Anukr. quotation, pan̄cama, has to be combined with that to the next anuvāka. ”

“ That is (b) , made of wood and bound and headed with cowhide. The mss. make awkward work of writing kṣṇuvānás; nearly all have kṣuṇu-, only Bp.2 kṛṇuv-, and E. kṣuv-; but there cannot well be any question as to the true reading. In d, also, most of the mss. have the obviously wrong jyeṣyán, only H.E. jeṣ-. The Anukr. strangely reckons the verse (though it is a perfectly regular triṣṭubh) as a jagatī, apparently only on account of the unnecessary full reading iva (for ’va) in d: or can it perhaps count also kṣuṇuvāno as four syllables? Ppp. has khaṇvāno ”

“ The next morning, when Arjuna, from his chariot, beheld the immense army, he was appalled at the thought of the bloodshed to follow, and hesitated to advance. Krishna insisted that it was unnecessary for him to lament, setting forth his reasons in what is known as the Bhagavat-gita, the divine song, in which he said it was no sin to slay a foe, since death is but a transmigration from one form to another. The soul can never cease to be; who then can destroy it? Therefore, when Arjuna slew his cousins he would merely remove their offensive bodies ”

“ The Anukramaṇī of the White Yajurveda in the Mādhyaṃdina recension, attributed to Kātyāyana, consists of five sections. The first four are an index of authors, deities, and metres. The authors of verses taken from the Rigveda generally agree with those in the Sarvānukramaṇī. There are, however, a good many exceptions, several new names belonging to a later period, some even to that of the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa. The fifth section gives a summary account of the metres occurring in the text. ”

“ It also gives the verse after our vs. 3. The metrical definition of the Anukr. is wrong, since a fair triṣṭubh is restorable by a little resolution (viçu-a, pṛ-āṇas) .
3. Men, manifoldly meditating (mimāṅs-) severally see its movement (caritá) on the earth; verily from fire, from wind was born the honey-whip, the formidable daughter (naptí) of the Maruts.
Pāda c is identical with 1 b, pādas c, d with 10 c, d. ”

“ I was not only to understand intellectually but to realise what Sri Krishna demanded of Arjuna and what He demands of those who aspire to do His work, to be free from repulsion and desire, to do work for Him without the demand for fruit, to renounce self-will and become a passive and faithful instrument in His hands, to have an equal heart for high and low, friend and opponent, success and failure, yet not to do His work negligently.
I realised what the Hindu religion meant. We speak often of the Hindu religion, of the Sanatan Dharma, but few of us really know what that religion is. ”

“ The beginnings of the religion of Kṛishṇa are thus very uncertain. But as we travel down the ages we find it growing and spreading. We see Kṛishṇa himself regarded as a half-divine hero and teacher, and worshipped under the name of Bhagavān, "the Lord," in association with other half-divine heroes. We see him becoming identified with old gods, and finally rising to the rank of the Supreme Deity whose worship he had himself taught in his lifetime, the Brahma of the philosophers and the Most High God of the theists. As has happened many a time, the teacher has become the God of his Church. ”

“ An unlimited offering does he obtain, an unlimited world does he take possession of (ava-rudh) , who gives a goat with five rice-dishes, with the light of sacrificial gifts.
Wanting in Ppp., as noted above.
23. He should not split its bones; he should not suck out its marrow; taking it all together, he should cause it to enter here and here.
Or, 'should cause this and this to enter'; the sense is obscure. Ppp. reads in c sarvāṇi for sarvam enam. By calling the verse a purauṣṇih, the Anukr. intends that its first two pādas be read as one, of 12 syllables. The Kāuç. ”

“ According to this, Nārāyaṇa has four forms, called mūrtis or vyūhas. The first of these is Vāsudēva, who is the highest soul and creator and inwardly [85] controls all individual souls. From him arose Saṃkarshaṇa, who corresponds to the individual soul; from Saṃkarshaṇa issued Pradyumna, to whom corresponds the organ of mind, and from Pradyumna came forth Aniruddha, representing the element of self-consciousness. Observe in passing that these are all names of heroes of legend: Saṃkarshaṇa is Vāsudēva's brother Bala-rāma, Pradyumna was the son and Aniruddha the grandson of Vāsudēva. ”

“ Of far greater importance is the Bālacarita,12 which presents us with a lively and vivid picture of the feats of Kṛṣṇa, culminating in the slaying of Kaṅsa, a brilliant exemplification of the value of Patañjali’s evidence as to the growth of drama. The director enters, pronounces a verse of benediction asking the favour of the god, who is Nārāyaṇa, Viṣṇu, Rāma, and Kṛṣṇa in the four ages of the world; he announces the advent of the sage Nārada and retires. ”

“ One of SPP's mss. has bhūyāsta. In 87, most of the mss. insert an avasāna after smaḥ, and SPP. follows them; it is of course senseless, unless we use one also after stha in 86†; nor does the Anukr. appear to acknowledge it, since it notes no difference of division as between the two verses; but our ⌊printed⌋ text at any rate blunders in not reading either smo asmā́n or smo ‘smā́n since it has omitted the avasāna-mark. The metrical definitions of the Anukr. are worthless, as there is no trace of meter in the two passages; they can by violence be read into the number of syllables called for. ”

“ To it no eye can penetrate, Nor speech nor thought can ever reach: It rests unknown; we cannot see How any one may teach it us. The various Upanishads of the Black Yajurveda all bear the stamp of lateness. The Maitrāyaṇa is a prose work of considerable extent, in which occasional stanzas are interspersed. It consists of seven chapters, the seventh and the concluding eight sections of the sixth forming a supplement. The fact that it retains the orthographical and euphonic peculiarities of the Maitrāyaṇa school, gives this Upanishad an archaic appearance. ”

“ MS. makes nearly good meter of it, reading páre ’tana pitaraḥ somyāso gambhīrébhiḥ pathíbhiḥ pūrvébhiḥ (which should evidently be emended to pūrvyébhis) ; AÇS. differs from this only by having at the end pūrviṇebhis (with K. and Kap.S., as pointed out by Schröder) . Prāt. iii. 83 quotes the word pūryāṇa. Kaug. uses the verse in the piṇḍapitṛyajña (88. 28) , next after vs. 61, in dismissing the Fathers after their feast of piṇḍas. The metrical description of the Anukr. is very poor: ⌊it is probable that the verse originally was 11 + 11: 12 + 11 ”