Bhagavad Gita Sapta-shloki Verse 7

Gītā sapta-ślokī 7

|| 9.34 ||

मन्मना भव मद्भक्तो मद्याजी मां नमस्कुरु।
मामेवैष्यसि युक्त्वैवमात्मानं मत्परायणः॥

man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru |
mām evaiṣyasi yuktvaivam ātmānaṁ mat-parāyaṇaḥ ||

bhava man-manāḥ. bhava mad-bhaktaḥ. bhava mad-yājī. māṁ namaskuru. mat-parāyaṇaḥ [bhūtvā], evaṁ ātmānaṁ yuktvā, mām eva eṣyasi. OR evaṁ yuktvā, ātmānam mām eva eṣyasi. [ahaṁ hi sarveṣāṁ bhūtānām ātmā.]

  • man-manāḥ = “Me-minded.” (manas is a neuter noun, nom. sing. is manaḥ. Here it is turned into a bahu-vrīhi samāsa refering to Arjuna, so it has to be changed into its equivalent masculine form. The masculine will be the same as neuter in everything except the nominative and accusative. The nom. sing. here is manāḥ -- but only in such compounds! (Masc. declension: manāḥ, manasau, manasaḥ/manasaṁ, manasau, manasaḥ)

  • mad-bhaktaḥ = “My devotee”

  • mad-yājī = “My worshiper.” (nom. sing. of yājin) mad-yajana-śīlo bhava.

  • namaskuru = “bow down to me.” (2nd pers. sing. imperative)

  • eṣyasi = “you will come” (2nd pers. sing. future of ā√i) āgamiṣyasi.

  • yuktvā = connected, having attained yoga (gerund of √yuj) samādhāya cittam.

  • mat-parāyaṇaḥ = “[having] Me as the final end or aim”


Be one whose mind is fixed on me. Be my devotee. Be one who sacrifices for me. Bow down to me. Thus connected, you will come to me, the Self, [for you will have] made me your supreme destination.

Of the seven verses selected by the unknown collector, this is the only one that I would really say is "essential." But I would have chosen that section from Gita 18.60-66 as being more indicative of the Gita's message. The seven verses in this selection seem fairly arbitrary. Not that even an arbitrary selection of verses from the Gita is not bound to be significant.

Swami Veda Bharati writes the following:
There is an ancient tradition of mini-texts that condense the knowledge of a larger text into a small number of verses. There is a one-verse Rāmāyaṇa, the Bhāgavata-purāṇa in four verses, the Durgā-saptaśatī in seven verses. If one does not have the time to do the recitation of the larger text, one may use the mini-text version. Also, the mini-text provides the essentials of the philosophy of the complete text. The Gītā of the seven verses, Sapta-ślokī Gītā, follows in the same tradition. Who first condensed the Gītā into seven verses and in which century cannot be determined without looking into a large body of scholarly apparatus. It is now for the highly trained minds to contemplate and determine the reason for the sequence of the verses and how they are supposed to condense the entire text of the 700 verses of the Gītā.

At any rate, for comparison's sake, I will start posting the Gita's four verse "mini-text" as selected by Vishwanath Chakravarti from tomorrow. 

Comments

Anonymous said…

Thank you for beautifully translating the Gītā of the seven verses, truth indeed:

1. One who dies, leaving his body while chanting the one-letter Brahman OM, remembering Me, will go to the supreme destination.

2. O Hrishikesh! It is right that the world derives intense joy and becomes attached by your extraordinary fame, and that the rakshasas, stricken with fear, run in all directions, and that all the groups of Siddhas bow down to you.

3. That should be known, which has hands and feet everywhere, which has eyes, heads and mouths everywhere, which has ears everywhere, which dwells covering everything.

4. One who always thinks of Him as the Omniscient One (kavi), as the Ancient One, the Ruler, as smaller than the smallest, as the ordainer of everything, as possessing inconceivable form, as having the colour of the sun, beyond darkness.

5. The Aśvattha tree of this world has its roots upwards and its branches downward. Its leaves are the Vedic hymns. One who knows this knows the Veda.

6. I am situated in the heart of all. From me come remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness. By all the Vedas I am to be known. I am the maker of the Vedanta, and verily I am the knower of the Veda.

7. Be one whose mind is fixed on me. Be my devotee. Be one who sacrifices for me. Bow down to me. Thus connected, you will come to me, the Self, [for you will have] made me your supreme destination.
Tuesday, 28 April, 2015
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