Chapter 17
Science of Devotion
This chapter of 28 slokas, known as sraddhã traya vibhãga yoga, Threefold Devotion, deals with the spiritual and temporal aptitudes of man. S11-s13 that deal with the virtuous, the passionate and the deluded in ritualistic sense and s 23 -28 concerning Om, Tat, Sat and Asat of the Vedic hymns are clear interpolations for reasons the reader is familiar with.
However, s7 –
s10 that deal with the food habits of the virtuous, the passionate and the deluded would pose a problem in determining whether or not they are interpolations. Can eating habits be linked to the innate nature of man in an infallible manner? Perhaps, some future research and analysis might resolve the universality or otherwise of this averment, and till then, it is appropriate to reserve the judgment on these.
1
Thus spoke Arjuna:
None the regard for scriptures
Who tend to manage life their well
What Thou say of such of beings
Virtuous, passionate or merely deluded.
2
Thus spoke the Lord:
It’s one’s nature that tends him
To be virtuous, passionate, or deluded.
3
Beings all have faith in some
It's one's nature that shapes it.
4
Virtuous seek gods in worship
Opt passionate to humour ghosts
Turn all deluded towards the Hades.
5
Hoping for there all to gain
Indulge vain in austerities
Though not endorsed by scriptures.
6
It’s in delusion they all fast
Emaciating frames of theirs,
Thus in foolishness they all
Famish Mine own Self in them.
7
As with habits so with palates
Come to tend all in three ways.
8
Opt virtuous all recipes fine
Sustain health ’n enhance strength.
9
Hot ’n spicy, and pungent,
Prefer food passionate that ill-suits.
10
Food of deluded is all stale
Long in storage, and impure.
15
Rings with truth ’n laced with warmth
It's speech austere that’s well-meaning.
16
Simple ’n stoic
Kind and candid
It’s mind austere
With self-control.
17
Wanting none
Never in turn,
Done in concern
Deed it’s austere.
18
It’s in pretension passionate live
Eye they have on name ’n fame.
19
With troubled mind all deluded live
Hurt themselves ’n others as well.
20
Virtuous deed is that extends
Helping hand to one in need
Guided by the zeal to serve.
21
Deed passionate is quid pro quo
Ever done with some end in mind.
22
Aiding dubious with disdain
It’s deed deluded that lacks goal.
Ends thus:
Science of Devotion,
The Seventeenth Chapter
Of Bhagavad-Gita,
Treatise of self-help.
It may be noted that this tailpiece is meant to facilitate its seamless publication with the rest of the text
Bhagavad-Gita is the most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue’ – so opined William von Humboldt, who wrote seven-hundred verses in its praise.
All the same, the boon of an oral tradition that kept it alive for over two millennia became its bane with the proliferation of interpolations therein. Besides muddying its pristine philosophy, these insertions affect the sequential conformity and structural economy of the grand discourse. What is worse, to the chagrin of the majority of the Hindus, some of these legitimize the inimical caste system while upholding the priestly perks and prejudices.
This rendition seeks to restore to the Gita, its original character by ridding it of hundred and ten interpolations, which tend to keep the skeptics away from it. And ironically these muddle the understanding of the adherents as well.
