Bg 10.34
mṛtyuḥ sarva-haraś cāham udbhavaś ca bhaviṣyatām
kīrtiḥ śrīr vāk ca nārīṇāṁ smṛtir medhā dhṛtiḥ kṣamā
Bg 10.35
bṛhat-sāma tathā sāmnāṁ gāyatrī chandasām aham
māsānāṁ mārga-śīrṣo ’ham ṛtūnāṁ kusumākaraḥ
Translation
34. And I am all-devouring Death, and the prosperity of those who are to be prosperous; among the feminine qualities (I am) fame, prosperity, speech, memory, intelligence, firmness and forgiveness.
35. Among hymns also I am the 'BRIHAT-SAMAN' ; among metres 'GAYATRI' am I; among months I am parts of December-January (MARGA-SHIRSHA) ; among seasons I am the 'flowery-spring. '
Commentary
I AM THE ALL-CONSUMING DEATH --- Death, the leveller, brings even the sceptre and the crown to the level of the begging bowl and the staff. Every existing thing maintains its separativeness from all others only during its lifetime, due to its individual relationship with things and beings other than itself. After death, the wise and the fool, the good and the bad, the strong and the weak, the ruler and the ruled --- all come to dust, levelled into a uniformity that recognises no distinction within itself.
I AM THE SOURCE OF ALL THAT IS TO BE --- The Supreme is not merely the destroyer of all, reducing them into a lifeless commonality but, He is, certainly, the source of all new creations that are to come in the future. To conceive destruction, without taking into consideration its unavoidable accompaniment, i. e., the new construction, is but to insist upon a partial viewpoint. In a total and complete vision-of-life, taken as a whole, we find that the so called destruction is only a transformation, or modification, of the existing form of an object, or scheme of things, into something dissimilar and varying. Destruction leaves no total blank anywhere. When we view a wave separately, we may say that, after playing for a moment on the bosom of the ocean, it has destroyed itself, but if we view it from the standpoint of the ocean, for each wave which appears to have been destroyed, there are innumerable new waves that rise up, unnoticed by our limited powers of observation.
We find that Krishna is gathering these ideas against the contrast contained in his immediately prior statement, Altogether, the line stresses that the Infinite playing Itself, ceaselessly, and in repeated succession, the game of both destruction and construction, is, in fact, what we call as the finite-Universe.
FAME, FORTUNE, SPEECH, MEMORY, INTELLIGENCE, STEAD-FASTNESS, AND PATIENCE, AM I, OF THE FEMININE QUALITIES --- The Sanskrit terms conveying these abstract nouns are all feminine in gender. Maybe the Lord means that if ever we find these qualities in women, we can perceive a clearer flicker of divinity than anywhere else. Again, the philosophical content of the line is perfect, and beyond all criticism. It is not said that the person having these qualities is divine. Whoever be the person, and whatever be his past, when on occasions he expresses these qualities, we can perceive a clearer vision of Life's glory THROUGH HIM.
In short, these are the qualities which, when manifest, create such adjustments in the inner equipments in man, that we can perceive, through him, more clearly the awesome vitality of Life's surge. As a transferred epithet, Lord the Self declares that among the feminine qualities, "I am any one of these, or all of them put together."
THE LORD AGAIN GIVES FOUR MORE INDICATIONS TO MAKE THE SELF-INTRODUCTION CLEAR TO ARJUNA:
OF THE SAMANS I AM THE BRIHAT-SAMAN --- The songs of the Sama-Veda are called the Samans. These hymns are all in different metres, and they are to be sung in different tunes. It is no easy task, and the students who can sing the Samans well had to spend years of practice at the feet of their Master. Of all the metres that are met with in the volume of the Sama-Veda, the most difficult and complicated is the metre called 'Brihati'; and the Samans composed in; the Brihati-metre are called the 'Brihat-sama.'
OF ALL METRES I AM GAYATRI --- Talking of metres Bhagawan seems to have all of a sudden remembered that there are different varieties of metres and, of them, Gayatri is considered as the most divine and extremely powerful. Gayatri is a metre composed of three lines, each fulfilled in eight syllables. This metre is held in India in great esteem, and with an added sense of divinity, because the most famous hymn, glorifying the Sun (Savitru), chanted by all Brahmins, in their morning and evening ablutions, is composed in this metre.
Of all the metres none has been so uniformly glorified everywhere as "Gayatri," and the mantra has had so far the privilege of being chanted by so many devotees, continuously for such a long number of years, in any other religion in the world.
OF THE MONTHS I AM THE MARGA-SHIRSHA --- This corresponds to parts of the English calender months of December and January which are the months in India, each year, when people do not think of the fatiguing summer which is to arrive soon and they have stopped complaining about the wet monsoon.
OF THE SEASONS I AM THE FLOWER-BEARING SPRING --- Spring, with its colourful message and fragrant songs, gives a thrill to all prospects wherever one may turn in India. Flower-valleys clothe the hills. Crops cover the field. Tanks and pools get strewn with lotus and lilies. The meadows roll out green carpets of grass. There is an air of celebration and festivity in the hearts of all, and in order to crown the joyous spirit in the world, the moon seems to dress herself in more glory than usual.
Sources: vedabase.com; The Holy Geeta
mṛtyuḥ sarva-haraś cāham udbhavaś ca bhaviṣyatām
kīrtiḥ śrīr vāk ca nārīṇāṁ smṛtir medhā dhṛtiḥ kṣamā
Bg 10.35
bṛhat-sāma tathā sāmnāṁ gāyatrī chandasām aham
māsānāṁ mārga-śīrṣo ’ham ṛtūnāṁ kusumākaraḥ
Translation
34. And I am all-devouring Death, and the prosperity of those who are to be prosperous; among the feminine qualities (I am) fame, prosperity, speech, memory, intelligence, firmness and forgiveness.
35. Among hymns also I am the 'BRIHAT-SAMAN' ; among metres 'GAYATRI' am I; among months I am parts of December-January (MARGA-SHIRSHA) ; among seasons I am the 'flowery-spring. '
Commentary
I AM THE ALL-CONSUMING DEATH --- Death, the leveller, brings even the sceptre and the crown to the level of the begging bowl and the staff. Every existing thing maintains its separativeness from all others only during its lifetime, due to its individual relationship with things and beings other than itself. After death, the wise and the fool, the good and the bad, the strong and the weak, the ruler and the ruled --- all come to dust, levelled into a uniformity that recognises no distinction within itself.
I AM THE SOURCE OF ALL THAT IS TO BE --- The Supreme is not merely the destroyer of all, reducing them into a lifeless commonality but, He is, certainly, the source of all new creations that are to come in the future. To conceive destruction, without taking into consideration its unavoidable accompaniment, i. e., the new construction, is but to insist upon a partial viewpoint. In a total and complete vision-of-life, taken as a whole, we find that the so called destruction is only a transformation, or modification, of the existing form of an object, or scheme of things, into something dissimilar and varying. Destruction leaves no total blank anywhere. When we view a wave separately, we may say that, after playing for a moment on the bosom of the ocean, it has destroyed itself, but if we view it from the standpoint of the ocean, for each wave which appears to have been destroyed, there are innumerable new waves that rise up, unnoticed by our limited powers of observation.
We find that Krishna is gathering these ideas against the contrast contained in his immediately prior statement, Altogether, the line stresses that the Infinite playing Itself, ceaselessly, and in repeated succession, the game of both destruction and construction, is, in fact, what we call as the finite-Universe.
FAME, FORTUNE, SPEECH, MEMORY, INTELLIGENCE, STEAD-FASTNESS, AND PATIENCE, AM I, OF THE FEMININE QUALITIES --- The Sanskrit terms conveying these abstract nouns are all feminine in gender. Maybe the Lord means that if ever we find these qualities in women, we can perceive a clearer flicker of divinity than anywhere else. Again, the philosophical content of the line is perfect, and beyond all criticism. It is not said that the person having these qualities is divine. Whoever be the person, and whatever be his past, when on occasions he expresses these qualities, we can perceive a clearer vision of Life's glory THROUGH HIM.
In short, these are the qualities which, when manifest, create such adjustments in the inner equipments in man, that we can perceive, through him, more clearly the awesome vitality of Life's surge. As a transferred epithet, Lord the Self declares that among the feminine qualities, "I am any one of these, or all of them put together."
THE LORD AGAIN GIVES FOUR MORE INDICATIONS TO MAKE THE SELF-INTRODUCTION CLEAR TO ARJUNA:
OF THE SAMANS I AM THE BRIHAT-SAMAN --- The songs of the Sama-Veda are called the Samans. These hymns are all in different metres, and they are to be sung in different tunes. It is no easy task, and the students who can sing the Samans well had to spend years of practice at the feet of their Master. Of all the metres that are met with in the volume of the Sama-Veda, the most difficult and complicated is the metre called 'Brihati'; and the Samans composed in; the Brihati-metre are called the 'Brihat-sama.'
OF ALL METRES I AM GAYATRI --- Talking of metres Bhagawan seems to have all of a sudden remembered that there are different varieties of metres and, of them, Gayatri is considered as the most divine and extremely powerful. Gayatri is a metre composed of three lines, each fulfilled in eight syllables. This metre is held in India in great esteem, and with an added sense of divinity, because the most famous hymn, glorifying the Sun (Savitru), chanted by all Brahmins, in their morning and evening ablutions, is composed in this metre.
Of all the metres none has been so uniformly glorified everywhere as "Gayatri," and the mantra has had so far the privilege of being chanted by so many devotees, continuously for such a long number of years, in any other religion in the world.
OF THE MONTHS I AM THE MARGA-SHIRSHA --- This corresponds to parts of the English calender months of December and January which are the months in India, each year, when people do not think of the fatiguing summer which is to arrive soon and they have stopped complaining about the wet monsoon.
OF THE SEASONS I AM THE FLOWER-BEARING SPRING --- Spring, with its colourful message and fragrant songs, gives a thrill to all prospects wherever one may turn in India. Flower-valleys clothe the hills. Crops cover the field. Tanks and pools get strewn with lotus and lilies. The meadows roll out green carpets of grass. There is an air of celebration and festivity in the hearts of all, and in order to crown the joyous spirit in the world, the moon seems to dress herself in more glory than usual.
Sources: vedabase.com; The Holy Geeta
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