नैनं छिन्दन्ति शस्त्राणि नैनं दहति पावकः ।न चैनं क्लेदयन्त्यापो न शोषयति मारुतः ॥
nainaṁ chindanti śastrāṇi nainaṁ dahati pāvakaḥna cainaṁ kledayantyāpo na śoṣayati mārutaḥ
Weapons cannot cleave it, nor the fire burn, nor do the waters drench it, nor the wind dry.
Compiled rendering · Anilbaran Roy
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
There is no such thing as death, for it is the body that dies and the body is not the man. That which really is, cannot go out of existence, though it may change the forms through which2·16–25 it appears, just as that which is non-existent cannot come into being. The soul is and cannot cease to be. This opposition of is and is not, this balance of being and becoming which is the mind’s view of existence, finds its end in the realisation of the soul as the one imperishable self by whom all this universe has been extended. Finite bodies have an end, but that which possesses and uses the body, is infinite, illimitable, eternal, indestructible. It casts away old and takes up new bodies as a man changes worn-out raiment for new; and what is there in this to grieve at and recoil and shrink? This is not born, nor does it die, nor is it a thing that comes into being once and passing away will never come into being again. It is unborn, ancient, sempiternal; it is not slain with the slaying of the body. Who can slay the immortal spirit? Weapons cannot cleave it, nor the fire burn, nor do the waters drench it, nor the wind dry. Eternally stable, immobile, all-pervading, it is for ever and for ever. Not manifested like the body, but greater than all manifestation, not to be analysed by the thought, but greater than all mind, not capable of change and modification like the life and its organs and their objects, but beyond the changes of mind and life and body, it is yet the Reality which all these strive to figure.
Other writings
What is this talk of slayer and of slain?
Swords are not sharp to slay nor floods assuage
This flaming soul. Mortality and pain
Are mere conventions of a mightier stage.
As when a hero by his doom pursued
Falls like a pillar of the huge world uptorn
Shaking the hearts of men and awe-imbued,
Silent the audience sits or weeps forlorn,
Meanwhile behind the stage the actor sighs
Deep-lunged relief, puts off what he has been
And talks with friends that waited or from the flies
Watches the quiet of the closing scene,
Even so the unwounded spirits of the slain
Beyond our vision passing live again.
In this grave crisis of our destinies let not our people lose their fortitude or suffer stupefaction and depression to seize upon and unnerve their souls. The fight in which we are engaged is not like the wars of old in which when the King or leader fell, the army fled. The King whom we follow to the wars today, is our own Motherland, the sacred and imperishable; the leader of our onward march is the Almighty himself, that element within and without us whom sword cannot slay, nor water drown, nor fire burn, nor exile divide from us, nor a prison confine. Lajpat Rai is nothing, Tilak is nothing, Bipin Pal is nothing! these are but instruments in the mighty Hand that is shaping our destinies and if these go, do you think that God cannot find others to do His will? Lala Lajpat Rai has gone from us, but doubt not that men stronger and greater than he will take his place. For when a living and rising cause is persecuted, this is the sure result that in the place of those whom persecution strikes down, there arise, like the giants from the blood of Raktabij, men who to their own strength add the strength, doubled and quadrupled by death or persecution, of the martyrs for the cause. It was the exiled of Italy, it was the men who languished in Austrian and Bourbon dungeons, it was Poerio and Silvio Pellico and their fellow-sufferers whose collected strength reincarnated in Mazzini and Garibaldi and Cavour to free their country.
The third thing, which is again another name for faith and selflessness, is courage. When you believe in God, when you believe that God is guiding you, believe that God is doing all and that you are doing nothing, what is there to fear? How can you fear when it is your creed, when it is your religion, to throw…Read the whole passage · 703 wordsClose the passage
The third thing, which is again another name for faith and selflessness, is courage. When you believe in God, when you believe that God is guiding you, believe that God is doing all and that you are doing nothing, what is there to fear? How can you fear when it is your creed, when it is your religion, to throw yourself away, to throw your money, your body, your life and all that you have, away for others? What is it that you have to fear? There is nothing to fear. Even when you are called before the tribunals of this world, you can face them with courage. Because your very religion means that you have courage. Because it is not you, it is something within you. What can all these tribunals, what can all the powers of the world do to that which is within you, that Immortal, that Unborn and Undying One, whom the sword cannot pierce, whom the fire cannot burn, whom the water cannot drown? Him the jail cannot confine and the gallows cannot end. What is there that you can fear when you are conscious of Him who is within you? Courage is then a necessity, courage is natural and courage is inevitable. If you rely upon other forces, supposing that you are a Nationalist in the European sense, meaning in a purely materialistic sense, that is to say, if you want to replace the dominion of the foreigner by the dominion of somebody else, it is a purely material change; it is not a religion, it is not that you feel for the three hundred millions of your countrymen, that you want to raise them up, that you want to make them all free and happy. It is not that, but you have got some idea that your nation is different from another nation and that these people are outsiders and that you ought to be ruling in their place. What you want is not freedom for your countrymen, but you want to replace the rule of others by yours. If you go in that spirit, what will happen when a time of trial comes? Will you have courage? Will you face it? You will see that is merely an intellectual conviction that you have, that is merely a reason which your outer mind suggests to you. Well, when it comes to be put to the test, what will your mind say to you? What will your intellect say to you? It will tell you, It is all very well to work for the country, but, in the meanwhile, I am going to die, or at least to be given a great deal of trouble, and when the fruit is reaped, I shall not be there to enjoy it. How can I bear all this suffering for a dream? You have this house of yours, you have this property, you have so many things which will be attacked, and so you say, That is not the way for me. If you have not the divine strength of faith and unselfishness, you will not be able to escape from other attachments, you will not like to bear affliction simply for the sake of a change by which you will not profit. How can courage come from such a source? But when you have a higher idea, when you have realised that you have nothing, that you are nothing and that the three hundred millions of people of this country are God in the nation, something which cannot be measured by so much land, or by so much money, or by so many lives, you will then realise that it is something immortal, that the idea for which you are working is something immortal and that it is an immortal power which is working in you. All other attachments are nothing. Every other consideration disappears from your mind, and, as I said, there is no need to cultivate courage. You are led on by that power. You are protected through life and death by One who survives. In the very hour of death, you feel your immortality. In the hour of your worst sufferings, you feel you are invincible.
It is described in the Christian Bible how the cult of the true faith was almost extinguished by persecution and all Israel turned from Jehovah to foreign idols, and even the chief prophet of the faith thought himself alone and hid his head. God called to him to go forth and strive with the priests of Baal. “Always,” He said, “in the nation I have chosen there are some who confess me and now too in this nation there are seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So always in this Bengal which God had chosen there would always be several thousands who would be true to the faith and never bow the knee to false gods. If the voices that proclaimed it were silenced, if the organisers were taken away, others would rise in their place; if those were taken, still others would come, if few, yet faithful. Some would always be left who would not be afraid to utter the name of their Mother. Some would still preserve the faith and preach the Gospel; theirs was the blood of Raktabij. (Laughter and cheers) For their action sprang from no passing or material interest but from something that was imperishable and perennial. It was something which the fire could not burn and the sword could not kill, the winds of repression could not wither and all the waters could not drown. For all that there was a great importance in the nation’s response on the 7th of August. On our action now it depended whether salvation came swiftly or were put off and the struggle and suffering prolonged for decades.
THE GURU It does not; and yet the impossible repeatedly happens. At any rate, if you must have an ideal, of the far-off event to which humanity moves, cherish this. Distrust all Utopias that seek to destroy sin or scrape away part of the soil in which it grows while preserving intact the very roots of sin, Ahankar…Read the whole passage · 740 wordsClose the passage
THE GURU It does not; and yet the impossible repeatedly happens. At any rate, if you must have an ideal, of the far-off event to which humanity moves, cherish this. Distrust all Utopias that seek to destroy sin or scrape away part of the soil in which it grows while preserving intact the very roots of sin, Ahankar born of Ignorance & Desire. For once Ahankar is there, likes and dislikes are born, रागद्वेषौ the primal couple of dualities, liking for what farthers the satisfaction of desire, dislike for what hinders it, the sense of possession, the sense of loss, attraction, repulsion, charm, repugnance, love, hatred, pity, cruelty, kindness, wrath,—the infinite and eternal procession of the dualities. Admit but one pair, and all the others come tumbling in in its wake. But the man who sees himself in all creatures, cannot hate; he shrinks from none, he has neither repulsion nor fear. ततो न विजुगुप्सते. Yonder leper whom all men shun—but shall I shun him, who know that from this strange disguise the Brahman looks out with smiling eyes? This foeman who comes with a sword to pierce me through the heart,—I look beyond the sharp threatening sword, beyond the scowling brow and the eyes of hate, and I recognize the mask of my Self; thereafter I shall neither fear the sword nor hate the bearer. O myself who foolishly callest thyself mine enemy, how canst thou be my enemy unless I choose; friend & enemy are but creations of the Mind that myriad-working magician, that great dreamer & artist; and if I will not to regard thee as my enemy, thou canst no more be such than a dream or shadow can, as indeed thy flashing sword is but a dream and thy scowling brow but a shadow. But thou wilt divide me with thy sword, thou wilt slay me, pierce me with bullets, torture me with fire, blow me from the mouth of thy cannon? Me thou canst not pierce, for I am unslayable, unpierceable, indivisible, unburnable, immovable. Thou canst but tear this dress of me, this foodsheath or multiplied protoplasm which I wear—I am what I was before. I will not be angry with thee even, for who would trouble himself to be angry with a child because in its play or little childish wrath it has torn his dress? Perhaps I valued the dress and would not so soon have parted with it; I will try then to save it, if I may, and even punish thee without anger so that thou mayst not tear more dresses; but if I cannot—well, it was but a cloth and another can soon be had from the merchant; nay, have I not already paid the purchase-money? O my judge, thou who sittest pronouncing that I be hanged by the neck till I be dead, because I have broken thy laws perchance to give bread to starving thousands, perchance to help the men of my country whom thou wouldst keep as slaves for thy pleasure—Me wilt thou hang? When thou canst shake the sun from heaven or wrap up the skies like a garment, then shall power be given thee to hang me. Who or what is this thou deemest will die by hanging? A bundle of animalculae, no more. This outward thou & I are but stage masks; behind them is One who neither slayeth nor is slain. Mask called a judge, play thou thy part; I have played mine. O son of the ancient Yoga, realise thy Self in all things; fear nothing, loathe nothing; dread none, hate none, but do thy part with strength and courage; so shalt thou be what thou truly art, God in thy victory, God in thy defeat, God in thy very death & torture,—God who will not be defeated & who cannot die. Shall God fear any? shall He despair? shall He tremble & shake? Nay ‘tis the insects that form thy body & brain which shake & tremble; Thou within them sittest looking with calm eyes at their pain & terror; for they are but shadows that dream of themselves as a reality. Realise the Self in all creatures, realise all creatures in the Self; then in the end terror shall flee from thee in terror, pain shall not touch thee, lest itself be tortured by thy touch; death shall not dare to come near to thee lest he be slain.
Writings in Bengali
nainaṁ chindanti śastrāṇi nainaṁ dahati pāvakaḥ
na cainaṁ kledayantyāpo na śoṣayati mārutaḥ (23)Weapons cannot cleave it, nor the fire burn, nor do the waters drench it, nor the wind dry.
নৈনং ছিন্দন্তি শস্ত্রাণি, নৈনং দহতি পাবকঃ।
ন চৈনং ক্লেদয়ন্ত্যাপো ন শোষয়তি মারুতঃ॥২৩॥
The Arya — text not in the CWSA
* Gita II. 1–38.
