Bhagavad Gita- The Elixir of Life (A Set of Essays on Various Topics Discussed in the Bhagavad Gita)

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

There are innumerable translations, commentaries and treatises on Gita in almost al' the major languages of the world. The translations have attempted to bring to light the underlying theme of this Song of the Divine. The commentaries have tried to establish a certain point of view of philosophy or spirituality and are, therefore, largely subjective. Every time we study this song celestial a new meaning dawns on the horizon of the intellect. Gita is a science which gives the theory and the method of its application. It is a document of universal application meant for the humanity at large.

In the present volume the author has culled out material on various topics dealt with in this holy book and scattered in different chapters and analysed and interpreted them under one heading. Consequently it deals with topics as varied as Re- incarnation, Meditation, Knowledge, Sin, Yoga and Renunciation. The book is primarily aimed at the youth of today and intends to in- spire the readers to undertake the mission of raising themselves from animality to divinity.

Born and brought up in Kashmir, T.N. DHAR (b. 1934) is an Hons. graduate from Kashmir University and a qualified ICWA from London. A renowned poet of Kashmiri language, he started his career by writing for Radio Kashmir. He has worked in various capacities in the Audit Department of the Government of India, apex bodies of Sanskrit and Veda-Vidya as also in Shri Lal Bahadur Rashtri Sanskrit Vidyapeetha, a Deemed University. He has authored several books in Hindi, Kashmiri and English including two volumes of his Hindi poems and a book on Education. His book on Indian Culture has been published by the Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan as a part of its Golden Jubilee series. His interests include Indian Philosophy, Culture, Comparative Study of Religions and Education, in addition to his creative writing as a poet. He is at present the Consulting Editor of a journal of 47 years' standing issued from Delhi. He has been contributing his poems and articles to various journals and the Anthologies compiled by the Sahitya Akademi and Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture and Language.

My father did not know Sanskrit but he was a religious person in the true sense of the term. He was a karmayogi, a man of action. In our childhood, I remember, he used to read to us the tenth canto of Shrimad Bhagavatam, 'Dashamskanda'. It was a manuscript in Persian written neatly by someone named Shankara, on handmade paper in black ink. Flowers were drawn on all sides of the margin in colour. These beautiful stories of 'Krishna leela', the sport of Shri Krishna, explained to us in Kashmiri used to fascinate and enthral me. As I grew and started going to school, I would find my revered father read the Persian translation of the Gita - the translation was perhaps that of Faizi, the famous courtier of Akber. Occasionally I would request him to translate a shloka or two for me which he did. The Yoga of knowledge, jnana, action, karma, and devotion, bhakti, which he talked about while. translating various portions of the Gita, were beyond my comprehension. Yet the matter of fact character of these shlokas, which was so obvious to me at that age, was very captivating and inspired me to read the original. Consequently I studied Sanskrit in my school and college. On acquiring reasonably a working knowledge of the language, I studied the Gita in original Sanskrit. Since then I must have read the text a hundred times over. I also studied a number of commentaries from Abhinavaguptapada to Shankara, from Tilak to Sri Aurobindo and Vinobha. I also read translations in various languages, from Abdul Hakim and Dil Mohammad in Urdu to Annie Besant and Juan Mascaro in English, besides some in Kashmiri and many more in Hindi.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages