मात्रास्पर्शास्तु कौन्तेय शीतोष्णसुखदुःखदाः ।आगमापायिनोऽनित्यास् तांस्तितिक्षस्व भारत ॥
mātrāsparśāstu kaunteya śītoṣṇasukhaduḥkhadāḥāgamāpāyino’nityās tāṁstitikṣasva bhārata
The material touches, O son of Kunti, giving cold and heat, pleasure and pain, things transient which come and go, these learn to endure, O Bharata.
Compiled rendering · Anilbaran Roy
AI translation
His translation
KRISHNA Thou grievest for whom thou shouldst not grieve and yet speakest wise-seeming words, but the wise grieve not whether for the dead or for the living. It is not that I was not before, nor thou nor these lords of the folk, nor yet that we all shall not be again hereafter. Even as the embodied spirit passes in this body to boyhood and youth and age, so also it passes away from this body to another; the strong man suffers not his soul to be clouded by this. But the things of material touch, O son of Coonty, which bring cold and warmth, pleasure and pain, they come and they pass; transient are they, these seek to abandon, O Bharata. The man whom these vex not, O lion of men, who is strong and receiveth sorrow & bliss as one, that man is ready for immortality. For that which is not, there is no coming into being and for that which is, there is no ceasing to be; yea of both of these the lookers into truth have seen an end. But That in which all this universe is extended, know to be imperishable; none hath force to bring to nought the One who decays not neither passes away. Finite and transient are these bodies called of the eternal, imperishable and immeasurable embodied Spirit; arise therefore and fight, O seed of Bharat. Who knoweth the Spirit as slayer and who deemeth Him to be slain, both of these discern not: He slayeth not neither is He slain. “He is not born nor dieth ever, nor having once been shall He not be again; He is unborn for ever and perpetual, He is the Ancient One who is not slain with the slaying of the body.” He who knoweth Him to be imperishable, eternal, unborn and undecaying, whom doth that man, O Partha, slay or cause to be slain? As a man casteth from him his worn out robes and taketh to him other & new raiment, so the embodied Spirit casteth away its worn out bodies and goeth to other & new casings. Him the sword cleaveth not, Him the fire cannot burn, Him water wetteth not and the hot wind withereth not away; indivisible, unconsumable, unmergible, unwitherable is He. He is for ever & everywhere, constant and moveth not, He is the One Sempiternal Being. If thou knowest Him as such, thou hast no cause to grieve.
Essays on the Gita
The Gita, making its call on the warrior nature of Arjuna, starts with this heroic movement. It calls on him to turn on the great enemy desire and slay it. Its first description of equality is that of the Stoic philosopher. “He whose mind is undisturbed2·56–57 in the midst of sorrows and amid pleasures is free from desire, from whom liking and fear and wrath have passed away, is the sage of settled understanding. Who in all things is without affection though visited by this good or that evil and neither hates nor rejoices, his intelligence sits firmly founded in wisdom.” If one abstains from food, it says, giving a physical example, the2·59 object of sense ceases to affect, but the affection itself of the sense, the rasa, remains; it is only when, even in the exercise of the sense, it can keep back from seeking its sensuous aim in the object, artha, and abandon the affection, the desire for the pleasure of taste, that the highest level of the soul is reached. It is by using the mental organs on the objects, “ranging over them with the2·64 senses,” viṣayān indriyaiś caran, but with senses subject to the self, freed from liking and disliking, that one gets into a large and sweet clearness of soul and temperament in which passion and grief find no place. All desires have to enter into the soul, as waters into the sea, and yet it has to remain immovable, filled but not disturbed: so in the end all desires can be abandoned. To be freed from wrath and passion and fear and attraction is repeatedly stressed as a necessary condition of the liberated status, and for this we must learn to bear their shocks, which cannot be done without exposing ourselves to their causes.5·23 “He who can bear here in the body the velocity of wrath and desire, is the Yogin, the happy man.” Titikṣā, the will and power to endure, is the means. “The material touches which cause heat and cold, happiness and pain, things transient which come and go,2·14–15 these learn to endure. For the man whom these do not trouble nor pain, the firm and wise who is equal in pleasure and suffering, makes himself apt for immortality.” The equal-souled has to bear suffering and not hate, to receive pleasure and not rejoice. Even the physical affections are to be mastered by endurance and this too is part of the Stoic discipline. Age, death, suffering, pain are not fled from, but accepted and vanquished by a high indifference.* Not to flee appalled from Nature in her lower masks, but to meet and conquer her is the true instinct of the strong nature, puruṣarṣabha, the leonine soul among men. Thus compelled, she throws aside her mask and reveals to him his true nature as the free soul, not her subject but her king and lord, svarāṭ, samrāṭ.
- Dhīras tatra na muhyati, says the Gita; the strong and wise soul is not perplexed, troubled or moved by them. But still they are accepted only to be conquered, jarā-maraṇa-mokṣāya yatanti.
The Synthesis of Yoga
This equality cannot come except by a protracted ordeal and patient self-discipline; so long as desire is strong, equality cannot come at all except in periods of quiescence and the fatigue of desire, and it is then more likely to be an inert indifference or desire’s recoil from itself than the true calm and the positive spiritual oneness. Moreover, this discipline or this growth into equality of spirit has its necessary epochs and stages. Ordinarily we have to begin with a period of endurance; for we must learn to confront, to suffer and to assimilate all contacts. Each fibre in us must be taught not to wince away from that which pains and repels and not to run eagerly towards that which pleases and attracts, but rather to accept, to face, to bear and to conquer. All touches we must be strong to bear, not only those that are proper and personal to us but those born of our sympathy or our conflict with the worlds around, above or below us and with their peoples. We shall endure tranquilly the action and impact on us of men and things and forces, the pressure of the Gods and the assaults of Titans; we shall face and engulf in the unstirred seas of our spirit all that can possibly come to us down the ways of the soul’s infinite experience. This is the stoical period of the preparation of equality, its most elementary and yet its heroic age. But this steadfast endurance of the flesh and heart and mind must be reinforced by a sustained sense of spiritual submission to a divine Will: this living clay must yield not only with a stern or courageous acquiescence, but with knowledge or with resignation, even in suffering, to the touch of the divine Hand that is preparing its perfection. A sage, a devout or even a tender stoicism of the God-lover is possible, and these are better than the merely pagan self-reliant endurance which may lend itself to a too great hardening of the vessel of God: for this kind prepares the strength that is capable of wisdom and of love; its tranquillity is a deeply moved calm that passes easily into bliss. The gain of this period of resignation and endurance is the soul’s strength equal to all shocks and contacts.
Writings in Bengali
mātrāsparśāstu kaunteya śītoṣṇasukhaduḥkhadāḥ
āgamāpāyino’nityāstāṁstitikṣasva bhārata (14)Death is nothing. The material touches, O Son of Kunti, giving cold and heat, pleasure and pain, things transient which come and go, these learn to endure, O Bharata.
মাত্রাস্পর্শাস্তু কৌন্তেয় শীতোষ্ণসুখদুঃখদাঃ।
আগমাপায়িনোঽনিত্যাস্তাংস্তিতিক্ষস্ব ভারত॥১৪॥
পুরুষ অচল, প্রকৃতি চল। চল প্রকৃতির মধ্যে অচল পুরুষ অবস্থিত। প্রকৃতিস্থ পুরুষ পঞ্চেন্দ্রিয় দ্বারা যাহা দেখে, শোনে, আঘ্রাণ করে, আস্বাদ করে, স্পর্শ করে, তাহাই ভোগ করিবার জন্য প্রকৃতিকে আশ্রয় করে। আমরা দেখি রূপ, শুনি শব্দ, আঘ্রাণ করি গন্ধ, আস্বাদ করি রস, অনুভব করি স্পর্শ। শব্দ, স্পর্শ, রূপ, রস, গন্ধ, এই পঞ্চ তন্মাত্রই ইন্দ্রিয়ভোগের বিষয়। ষষ্ঠ ইন্দ্রিয় মনের বিশেষ বিষয় সংস্কার। বুদ্ধির বিষয় চিন্তা। পঞ্চ তন্মাত্র এবং সংস্কার ও চিন্তা অনুভব ও ভোগ করিবার জন্য পুরুষ-প্রকৃতির পরস্পর সম্ভোগ ও অনন্ত ক্রীড়া। এই ভোগ দ্বিবিধ, শুদ্ধ ও অশুদ্ধ। শুদ্ধ ভোগে সুখ-দুঃখ নাই, পুরুষের চিরন্তন স্বভাবসিদ্ধ ধর্ম্ম আনন্দই আছে। অশুদ্ধ ভোগে সুখ-দুঃখ আছে, শীতোষ্ণ, ক্ষুৎপিপাসা, হর্ষশোক ইত্যাদি দ্বন্দ্ব অশুদ্ধ ভোগীকে বিচলিত ও বিক্ষুব্ধ করে। কামনা অশুদ্ধতার কারণ। কামীমাত্রই অশুদ্ধ, যে নিষ্কাম, সে শুদ্ধ। কামনায় রাগ ও দ্বেষ সৃষ্ট হয়, রাগদ্বেষের বশে পুরুষ বিষয়ে আসক্ত হয়, আসক্তির
The Arya — text not in the CWSA
* Gita II. 1–38.
