परित्राणाय साधूनां विनाशाय च दुष्कृताम् ।धर्मसंस्थापनार्थाय सम्भवामि युगे युगे ॥
paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ vināśāya ca duṣkṛtāmdharmasaṁsthāpanārthāya sambhavāmi yuge yuge
For the deliverance of the good, for the destruction of the evil-doers, for the enthroning of the Right I am born from age to age.
Compiled rendering · Anilbaran Roy
His translation
KRISHNA Many are my births that are past and gone and thine also, Urjoona; all of them I know but thou knowest not, O scourge of thy foemen. Yea, though I be unborn and imperishable Spirit, though I be the Lord of all creatures, yet I resort to my own nature and am born by the power of my Self-Illusion. For whenever…Read the whole passage · 585 wordsClose the passage
KRISHNA Many are my births that are past and gone and thine also, Urjoona; all of them I know but thou knowest not, O scourge of thy foemen. Yea, though I be unborn and imperishable Spirit, though I be the Lord of all creatures, yet I resort to my own nature and am born by the power of my Self-Illusion. For whenever and whenever righteousness and justice decline & faint upon the earth, O Bharata, and unrighteousness and injustice arise and flourish, then do I put forth myself; for the salvation of the pure and the destruction of evildoers, to raise up justice and righteousness I am born again from age to age. He who in this sort knoweth aright my divine birth and works, cometh not to rebirth when he leaveth the body, to Me he cometh, Urjoona. Many have sought refuge with me and made themselves full of me, who have risen beyond love and wrath and fear, and they made themselves holy by the austere energisms of knowledge, and became even as Myself. In whatsoever way men come to me, in their own way I accept and love them; utterly do men, O son of Pritha, follow in the path in which I tread. Desiring good success of their works men sacrifice to the gods on earth, for very quickly in the world of men cometh the success that is born of works. By me were the four orders created according unto the division of the workings of the stuff of their nature, know me for their maker and yet neither for doer nor maker who am imperishable. On Me actions leave no stain for I have no craving for their fruit; he who really knows this of me, is not bound by his works. Knowing that in this wise works were done by the ancient seekers after salvation, do thou also do works that were done in old time by the men of old. What is action and what is inaction, as to this the very sages are bewildered; therefore I will declare action unto thee by the knowledge whereof thou shalt be delivered out of evil. For of works thou must understand, of miswork thou must understand, and thou must understand also of inaction; very difficult is the way of works and their mystery. He who in action can see inaction and action in inaction, he is the understanding mind among men; he doeth all works, yet is in Yoga. When the imaginations of desire are shut out from all that a man beginneth & undertaketh, and his works have been burned up in the fires of Knowledge, then it is he that the wise call the truly learned. He hath relinquished attachment to the fruit of his works, is ever satisfied of soul and dependeth not on any outward things; such a man though he engage himself deep in works, yet really doeth nothing:—pure of lusts, he is governed in heart and spirit, he has surrendered all sense of belonging, doing actions only with his body he receives no stain of sin:—well-content with the gains that chance & time may bring him, lifted above the plane of the dualities, void of jealousy, receiving success & failure alike as friends, though he do works, yet is he not bound by them:—leaving all heart clingings behind him, a spirit released, a mind safe in its tower of knowledge, performing works for a sacrifice, all his works are swallowed up & vanish.
Essays on the Gita
The rest of Arjuna’s questions and utterances proceed from the same temperament and character.3·35 When he is told that once the soul-state is assured there need be no apparent change in the action, he must act always by the law of his nature, even if the act itself seem faulty and deficient compared with that of another law than his own, he is troubled. The nature! but what of this sense of sin in the action with which he is preoccupied? is it not this very nature which drives men as if by force and even against their better will into sin and guilt? His practical intelligence is baffled by Krishna’s assertion that it was he who in4·1–8 ancient times revealed to Vivasvan this Yoga, since lost, which he is now again revealing to Arjuna, and by his demand for an explanation he provokes the famous and oft-quoted statement of Avatarhood and its mundane purpose. He is again perplexed by the words in which Krishna continues to reconcile action and renunciation of action and asks once again for a decisive statement of that which is the best and highest, not this “mingled” word. When he realises fully the nature of the Yoga which he is bidden to embrace, his pragmatic nature accustomed6·33–34 to act from mental will and preference and desire is appalled by its difficulty and he asks what is the end of the soul which attempts and fails, whether it does not lose both this life of human activity and thought and emotion which it has left behind and the Brahmic consciousness to which it aspires and falling from both perish like a dissolving cloud?
We have had occasion already, when speaking of the divine Teacher, to state briefly the doctrine of Avatarhood as it appears to us in the light of Vedanta, the light in which the Gita presents it to us. We must now look a little more closely at this Avatarhood and at the significance of the divine Birth of which it is the outward expression; for that is a link of considerable importance in the integral teaching of the Gita. And we may first translate the words of the Teacher himself in which the nature and purpose of Avatarhood are given summarily and remind ourselves also of other passages or references which bear upon it. “Many are my lives that are past, and thine also, O Arjuna; all of them I know,4·5–11 but thou knowest not, O scourge of the foe. Though I am the unborn, though I am imperishable in my self-existence, though I am the Lord of all existences, yet I stand upon my own Nature and I come into birth by my self-Maya. For whensoever there is the fading of the Dharma and the uprising of unrighteousness, then I loose myself forth into birth. For the deliverance of the good, for the destruction of the evil-doers, for the enthroning of the Right I am born from age to age. He who knoweth thus in its right principles my divine birth and my divine work, when he abandons his body, comes not to rebirth, he comes to Me, O Arjuna. Delivered from liking and fear and wrath, full of me, taking refuge in me, many purified by austerity of knowledge have arrived at my nature of being (madbhāvam, the divine nature of the Purushottama). As men approach me, so I accept them to my love (bhajāmi); men follow in every way my path, O son of Pritha.”
But it is to assist that ascent or evolution the descent is made or accepted; that the Gita makes very clear. It is, we might say, to exemplify the possibility of the Divine manifest in the human being, so that man may see what that is and take courage to grow into it. It is also to leave the influence of that manifestation vibrating in the earth-nature and the soul of that manifestation presiding over its upward endeavour. It is to give a spiritual mould of divine manhood into which the seeking4·7–8 soul of the human being can cast itself. It is to give a dharma, a religion,—not a mere creed, but a method of inner and outer living,—a way, a rule and law of self-moulding by which he can grow towards divinity. It is too, since this growth, this ascent is no mere isolated and individual phenomenon, but like all in the divine world-activities a collective business, a work3·20–25 and the work for the race, to assist the human march, to hold it together in its great crises, to break the forces of the downward gravitation when they grow too insistent, to uphold or restore the great dharma of the Godward law in man’s nature, to prepare even, however far off, the kingdom of God, the victory of the seekers of light and perfection, sādhūnām, and the overthrow of those who fight for the continuance of the evil and the darkness. All these are recognised objects of the descent of the Avatar, and it is usually by his work that the mass of men seek to distinguish him and for that that they are ready to worship him. It is only the spiritual who see that this external Avatarhood is a sign, in the symbol of a human life, of the eternal inner Godhead making himself manifest in the field of their own human mentality and corporeality so that they can grow into unity with that and be possessed by it. The divine manifestation of a Christ, Krishna, Buddha in external humanity has for its inner truth the same manifestation of the eternal Avatar within in our own inner humanity. That which has been done in the outer human life of earth, may be repeated in the inner life of all human beings.
The question then arises, and it is the sole real difficulty, for here the intellect falters and stumbles over its own limits, how is this human mind and body assumed? For they were not created suddenly and all of a piece, but by some kind of evolution, physical or spiritual or both. No doubt, the descent of the Avatar, like the divine birth from the other side, is essentially a spiritual4·6 phenomenon, as is shown by the Gita’s ātmānaṁ sṛjāmi, it is a soul-birth; but still there is here an attendant physical birth. How then were this human mind and body of the Avatar created? If we suppose that the body is always created by the hereditary evolution, by inconscient Nature and its immanent Life-spirit without the intervention of the individual soul, the matter becomes simple. A physical and mental body is prepared fit for the divine incarnation by a pure or great heredity and the descending Godhead takes possession of it. But the Gita in this very passage applies the doctrine of reincarnation, boldly enough, to the Avatar himself, and in the usual theory of reincarnation the reincarnating soul by its past spiritual and psychological evolution itself determines and in a way prepares its own mental and physical body. The soul prepares its own body, the body is not prepared for it without any reference to the soul. Are we then to suppose an eternal or continual Avatar himself evolving, we might say, his own fit mental and physical body according to the needs and pace of the human evolution and so appearing from age to age, yuge yuge? In some such spirit some would interpret the ten incarnations of Vishnu, first in animal forms, then in the animal man, then in the dwarf man-soul, Vamana, the violent Asuric man, Rama of the axe, the divinely-natured man, a greater Rama, the awakened spiritual man, Buddha, and, preceding him in time, but final in place, the complete divine manhood, Krishna,—for the last Avatar, Kalki, only accomplishes the work Krishna began,—he fulfils in power the great struggle which the previous Avatars prepared in all its potentialities. It is a difficult assumption to our modern mentality, but the language of the Gita seems to demand it. Or, since the Gita does not expressly solve the problem, we may solve it in some other way of our own, as that the body is prepared by the Jiva but assumed from birth by the Godhead or that it is prepared by one of the four Manus,10·6 catvāro manavaḥ, of the Gita, the spiritual Fathers of every human mind and body. This is going far into the mystic field from which the modern reason is still averse; but once we admit Avatarhood, we have already entered into it and, once entered, may as well tread in it with firm footsteps.
The outward action of the Avatar is described in the Gita as the restoration of the Dharma; when from age to age the Dharma fades, languishes, loses force and its opposite arises,4·7–8 strong and oppressive, then the Avatar comes and raises it again to power; and as these things in idea are always represented by things in action and by human beings who obey their impulsion, his mission is, in its most human and outward terms, to relieve the seekers of the Dharma who are oppressed by the reign of the reactionary darkness and to destroy the wrong-doers who seek to maintain the denial of the Dharma. But the language used can easily be given a poor and insufficient connotation which would deprive Avatarhood of all its spiritual depth of meaning. Dharma is a word which has an ethical and practical, a natural and philosophical and a religious and spiritual significance, and it may be used in any of these senses exclusive of the others, in a purely ethical, a purely philosophical or a purely religious sense. Ethically it means the law of righteousness, the moral rule of conduct, or in a still more outward and practical significance social and political justice, or even simply the observation of the social law. If used in this sense we shall have to understand that when unrighteousness, injustice and oppression prevail, the Avatar descends to deliver the good and destroy the wicked, to break down injustice and oppression and restore the ethical balance of mankind.
Other writings
JAYSINGH Let Him come down Himself, then, as He promised. Then alone would rebellion be justified.
These are the conceptions we find expressed in the Puranic symbols familiar to our imagination. There is the Kalpa of a thousand ages with its term of fourteen Manwantaras dividing a sub-cycle of a hundred chaturyugas; there is the dharma, the well-harmonised law of being, perfect in the golden period of the Satya, impaired progressively in bronze Treta and copper Dwapara, collapsing in the iron Kali only to open the way by its disintegration to the manifestation in the next Satya of the old law, truth or natural principle of existence arranged in a new harmony. There is throughout this zigzag, this rhythm of rise and fall and rise again brought about by the struggle of upward, downward and stationary forces. There are the alternate triumphs of deva and daitya, helping god and opposing or too violently forward-striving Titan;—the dharmasya glani and abhyutthanam adharmasya, when harmony is denied and discord or wrong harmony established, and then the Avatara and the dharmasya sansthapanam, eternal Light and Force descending, restoring, effecting a new temporary adjustment of the world’s ways to the truth of things and of man.
From sattwa springs the characteristic indestructibility which Chinese and Indian society, alone of historic civilizations, have evinced under the pressure of the ages and the shocks of repeated, even incessant national disaster. Sattwa is the principle of conservation. The passive tamasic organism perishes by decay of its unrepaired tissues or disintegrates under the shock of outward forces against which it has not sufficient elasticity to react. The restless rajasic organism dies by exhaustion of its too rapidly expended vitality and vigour. But sattwic spirit in the rajaso-tamasic body is the nectar of the gods which makes for immortality. China and India have suffered much for their premature evolution of the sattwic element; they have repeatedly undergone defeat and subjugation by the more restless and aggressive communities of the world, while Japan by keeping its rajasic energy intact has victoriously repelled the aggressor. At present both these great countries are under temporary obscuration, they seem to be overweighted with tamas and passing through a process of disintegration and decay. In India especially long continuation of foreign subjection, a condition abhorred by Nature and accursed by Heaven, has brought about disastrous deterioration. Conquering Europe on the other hand, for the first time flooded with sattwa as a distinct social influence by the liberating outburst of the French Revolution, has moved forward. The sattwic impulse of the 18th century, though sorely abused and pressed into the service of rajasic selfishness and tamasic materialism, has yet been so powerful an agent to humanize and illuminate that it has given the world’s lead to the European. But these two great Oriental civilizations are not likely to perish; always they have conquered their conquerors, asserted their free individuality and resumed their just place in the forefront of the nations, nor is the future likely to differ materially from the past. So long as the sattwic ideal is not renounced, it is always there to renew itself in extremity and to save. Preeminently sattwic is the Universal Self in man which if realized and held fast to, answers unfailingly the call for help and incarnating in its full season brings with it light, strength and healing. “For the deliverance of the good and the destruction of evil doers, for the restoration of righteousness I am born from age to age.”
But when the hour of the Divine draws near
The Mighty Mother shall take birth in Time
And God be born into the human clay
In forms made ready by your human lives.
Writings in Bengali
কলিযুগে ভারতের অবনতি হইয়াছে, তাহা কেহ অস্বীকার করিতে পারে না। কিন্তু অবনতি আনয়ন করিবার জন্য ভগবান কখন অবতীর্ণ হন নাই। ধর্ম্মরক্ষা, বিশ্বরক্ষা, লোকরক্ষার জন্য অবতার। বিশেষতঃ কলিযুগেই ভগবান পূর্ণভাবে অবতীর্ণ হন, তাহার কারণ, কলিতে মানুষের অবনতির অধিক ভয়, অধর্ম্মবৃদ্ধি স্বাভাবিক, অতএব মানবজাতির রক্ষার জন্য, অধর্ম্মনাশ ও ধর্ম্মস্থাপনের জন্য, কলির গতি রুদ্ধ করিবার জন্য এই যুগে পুনঃ পুনঃ অবতার হয়। শ্রীকৃষ্ণ যখন অবতীর্ণ হইলেন, কলির রাজ্য আরম্ভ হইবার সময় হইয়াছিল, তাঁহারই আবির্ভাবে ভীত হইয়া কলি নিজের রাজ্যে পদস্থাপন করিতে পারেন নাই, তাঁহারই প্রসাদে পরীক্ষিত কলিকে পঞ্চ গ্রাম দান করিয়া তাঁহারই যুগে তাঁহার একাধিপত্য স্থগিত করিয়া রাখিলেন। যে কলিযুগের আদি হইতে শেষ পর্য্যন্ত কলির সঙ্গে মানবের ঘোর সংগ্রাম চলিতেছে ও চলিবে, সেই সংগ্রামের সহায় ও নায়করূপে ভগবানের অবতার ও বিভূতি কলিতে ঘন ঘন আসেন, সেই সংগ্রামের উপযোগী ব্রহ্মতেজ, জ্ঞান, ভক্তি, নিষ্কাম কর্ম্মের শিক্ষা ও রক্ষা করিতে ভগবান কলির মুখে মানবশরীর ধারণ করিয়াছিলেন। ভারতের রক্ষা মানবকল্যাণের ভিত্তি ও আশাস্থল। ভগবান কুরুক্ষেত্রে ভারতের রক্ষা করিয়াছেন। সেই রক্তসমুদ্রে নূতন জগতের লীলাপদ্মে কালরূপী বিরাটপুরুষ বিহার করিতে আরম্ভ করিলেন।
দেবসম সেই জাতি। লুপ্ত মহাযশ বিস্মৃতির সর্ব্বগ্রাসী ভীম অন্ধকারে। কত মহাজাতি উঠে গ্রাসিতে পৃথিবী; কত মহাজাতি গেল অনন্ত তিমিরে। শেখে না অল্পায়ু জেতা। ভাবে আমারেই বরিয়াছে জগদেব, আমিই অমর, সমস্ত পৃথিবী ছেয়ে রহিব চিরায়ু। কাল জিজ্ঞাসিবে সূর্য্য কোথা সেই বলী। এক সে পবিত্র জাতি যে চিনেছে লীলা, জানে ঈশ্বরের ক্রীড়া সুখদুঃখ মম, হইয়াছে চিরজীবী। রৌরব-তিমিরে যদি ফেলে বিশ্বজেতা, দলি লৌহপদে যদি ভাঙ্গে, যদি পেষে, নির্ধন করিয়া মনুষ্যত্ব লয় শুষি নির্ঘৃণ মানসে, পাপের অগাধ পঙ্কে ডুবায় গোলামে, মরিবে না তবু। অন্ধতম সে নরকে যাইব নামিয়া আমি উদ্ধার করিতে, যুগে যুগে আর্য্যত্রাতা নারায়ণ জিষ্ণু। নিশ্চিন্ত চালাও রথ শোণিত-নগরে বাসব। আসিব কৃষ্ণ যদুকুল নেতা, ঘূর্ণবায়ু যেন ঘোষি দৈত্যবিভীষিকা চূর্ণ করি উড়াইব পূরব গগনে।” ফিরিল সভায় শৌরি। দ্বারিকা ত্যজিয়া ধরিল পর্ব্বতের মার্গ আখণ্ডল বজ্রী, কুয়াশা মহৎ শৈলে। কুয়াশায় গূঢ় ধরিল প্রদ্যুম্নপুত্রে মহৎ দেবতা অর্দ্ধপথে। সুগন্ধিত দেবদারু বনে, অগাধ কন্দরে ভাসি উঠে দেবরাট ধাবমান কুয়াশায়, যেন ছায়াশৃঙ্গে, প্রকাণ্ড, মায়াবী, হেরি পথিক যাহারে
शक्तिः परा कोटिषु मानवानां समन्यूनां त्वं भवसि प्रबुद्धा । आर्यान्विपन्नानवतीर्य पासि युगे युगे युध्यस आर्यमातः ॥ ५८ ॥
Letters
Yuge yuge* may be used in a general sense, as in English “from age to age” and not refer technically to the yuga proper according to the Puranic computation. But the bahūni has an air of referring to very numerous lives especially when coupled with tava ca. In that case all these many births could not be full incarnations,—many may have been merely Vibhuti births carrying on the thread from incarnation to incarnation. About Arjuna’s accompanying him in each and every birth, nothing is said, but it would not be likely—many, of course.
- In the Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna, “Many are my lives that are past” (4.5) and again, “I am born from age to age.” (4.8) The correspondent asked how Krishna’s past lives could be many (bahūni) if he was born only from age to age (yuge yuge).—Ed.
Evening talks
The Devas and Asuras manifest in man to effect a new principle in earth-life. With them come the hierarchical beings associated with them. The Avatar comes to uphold the Dharma, and he has also his associate beings who have their manifestations. There was, for instance, a being behind Buddha. Other great figures have also had such beings. Sometimes something goes wrong behind these figures. Then from the very beginning the hostile forces use the new teaching and there is also persecution and bloodshed. It is not necessarily an Asura who is here at work: there can be what we may call a warrior of the vital world who brings about persecution and bloodshed. There are warriors of the mental world as well as of the vital. There can be supramental warriors too. But they are different. The other warriors seize only aspects of the Truth.
Sri Aurobindo: It is not necessary that you should regard Ramakrishna as an Avatar. When I wrote about Avatarhood in the _Essays_, I tried to express the idea of the Gita about it. Avatar may be understood in many senses. The term is so loosely used now-a-days that it has almost become meaningless. X once asked me whether I was an Avatar; I replied to him, “Avatarhood is too small for my ambition.” (_laughter_)
Disciple: _In Gita’s dharmasamsthāpanāya, dharma does not mean religion._
The Avatar does not come to do that kind of work, i.e., the work of the Gods. He comes to uphold the Dharma. Some beings also come with him for the purpose.
