Translator’s Preface

In placing before the public this English translation of the GĪTĀ-RAHASYA (the Esoteric Import of the Gītā) by the late Lokamanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the object of the publishers has been to give this Exposition of the Message of the Gītā a far wider circulation than it could have in its original Marathi form. It is true that the work has been translated into some of the Indian vernaculars; but that circulation has necessarily been a limited one.

The late Lokamanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak was a spiritual and intellectual giant. He was a monumental figure in the history of India, and it is a question whether he was more a philosopher than a politician and statesman, in as much as his statesmanship and his political activities would appear to have been based on the Karma-Yoga and the principles of Ethics, which he believed to have been expounded in the Gītā. In fact, the Gītā and its teachings would seem to have been the guiding beacon of his life; and if one considers what he did for India, and compares it with what he has preached in the GītāRahasya, one will come to believe that he has practised what he preached, (which few people do), and that his political activities were a concrete example of that 'universal welfare' (lokasaṃgraha), which according to him, was preached by the Gītā to be the basis of Karma-Yoga. And, one will not be far wide of the mark, if one looks upon him as a maharṣi in an age of National regeneration.

As a result of the various commentaries in ancient times on the Śrīmad Bhagavadgītā, this Divine Book has been considered by some as advocating the Path of Renunciation, whereas, others have interpreted it as advocating the Path of Devotion. Both these being paths of indifference to the world (vairagya), the effect of these commentaries has been to emasculate the devotees of the Gītā, and to fill them with an apathy towards worldly affairs, and towards a spirited and active national existence.

The Lokamanya has, however, shown in this Exposition of the Esoteric Import of the Gītā, that the true path of life taught by the Gītā has been pure, righteous, and moral Action in the affairs of the world (as against Renunciation, or in- difference to the world), based on the Spiritual Realisation of the identity and equality of the Soul or Self (Ātman) in all created beings, and in which intense Devotion to the Almighty is the most important factor. The Author has in effect proved that the Gītā does not support any individual mode of life, such as Renunciation purely, or Action purely, or Devotion purely, but that it preaches a fusion and harmony between all the three modes of life, and declares the best mode of life to be incessant Righteous Action ("na ṛte śrāntasya sakhyāya devāḥ", i.e., "the gods do not like any, except those who labour until they are tired"), based on an Equability of Reason arising from the Spiritual Realisation of the Absolute Self, combined with an intense Devotion to the Parameśvara (Almighty).

At the 18th Session of the Mahārāṣṭra Sahitya Pariṣad (Maharashtra Literary Conference) held at Nagpur in the year 1933, I tabled a Resolution that: "This Conference is of opinion that there should be a Society for translating Marathi literature into English, in order to give international importance to the Marathi language". This Resolution was unanimously passed by the Conference, and pursuant to that Resolution, I framed the draft of a scheme for the establishment and registration of such a literary society.

While I was busy with this project, my friend and my office client, Mr. R. B. Tilak, the surviving son of the late Lokamanya Tilak, who had seen my English translations of some Marathi poems which had been published in certain Magazines, and who also knew of the Resolution passed at the Nagpur Conference, approached me with a request that I should undertake the translation into English of the Gītā-Rahasya, which is one of the most brilliant gems of Marathi literature, and thus place before the public a concrete example of the usefulness of the Resolution adopted at my instance by the Mahārāṣṭra Sahitya Pariṣad. As the task set before me was a stupendous one, both on account of its volume and the labour involved, as also on account of the extremely difficult and involved style of the author, I was at first doubtful whether or not I should undertake the work. In fact, the task of getting this work translated into English had at first been attempted in the life-time of the late Lokamanya Tilak, and again after his death, by his sons, as has been mentioned by Mr. R. B. Tilak, in the Publisher's Foreword. Being inspired, however, by the "spiritual power of this wonderful and well-known work", which saw the sale of ten thousand copies of the first Marathi edition of it "within a few months of its being published" (as stated in the Publisher's Foreword), and being further inspired by the advice of Vidulā to her son that, "muhūrtaṃ jvalitaṃ śreyo na ca dhūmāyitaṃ ciram" (Ma. Bhā. U. 132.15), that is, "it is better to shine like a flame for a little while, than to perpetually smoulder", I resolved that I would see this work through at any cost. In forming this resolve, I wanted to place before the Mahārāṣṭra public a concrete example of the usefulness of the Resolution. which I had tabled at the Mahārāṣṭra Sahitya Pariṣad, as also to place the real message of the Gītā according to one of the most brilliant Indian philosophers as stated in the beginning of this. Preface, before the world, which, to me, seems sadly in need of it at the present moment. Having regard to the hold which the English language has on the world, no better medium could be found for sending this message of the Gītā to every home in every corner of the world. There was a time when Indians considered it a sacrilege to put religious and philosophical lore into the hands of the unregenerate classes, and more so, into the hands of foreigners who would, of course, be far beyond the pale of these classes; but, in my humble opinion, it is the sacred duty of any one who possesses any kind of Knowledge, to place such Knowledge at the disposal of those who are inclined to purify themselves in the Flame of Knowledge; for, "asaṃskṛtās tu saṃskāryāḥ bhratṛbhīḥ pūrvasaṃskṛtaiḥ", i.e., "it is the duty of those who have been previously initiated, to initiate their brethren, who are uninitiated". And, if this Message of the Gītā, which the late Lokamanya Tilak, placed before his Maharashtrian compatriots through this book, and which his sons circulated further into India itself through the medium of its vernacular translations, goes round the world, on the River of Time, spreading the inspiration given by the original text, I shall feel that I have discharged to a certain extent my obligations to my mother-land, and to my mother-tongue, by advancing to a certain extent the spiritual regeneration of the world. To enable the reader to understand the method followed by me in this translation, I would like to draw his attention to the rules, printed immediately after this preface at p. xxxix, which I have attempted to follow.

As will be seen from the details about the original work which are given at p. xxviii, the whole book was written by the Author in the Mandalay jail within the period of about five months from 2nd November 1910 to 30th March 1911. So great has been my anxiety to place this wonderful interpretation of the philosophy of the Gītā before the world at large, that I have translated the whole of the book within about the same time, that is, from 20th May to 14th November 1934, by devoting every spare moment to the translation in spite of my other work. This was, of course, the first draft of the work which I prepared; and the same has been subsequently revised, recast, and even re-written by me in some places, as the printing was going on.

The translation of the first six chapters (about 147 pages of the original), had been prepared by another gentleman, and the type-written copy of it was placed by the publishers in my hands; but I have not made any use of it whatsoever, as I have preferred to have a homogeneous, and consistent style and method of translation for the whole text, which would be entirely mine.

In translating, I have attempted to be as faithful to the text as possible, as I have thought that in the case of a philosophical and technical book written by a genius like the late Lokamanya, it would be extremely wrong to take any liberty whatsoever with the text. The late Lokamanya, besides being a great philosopher, and a great statesman, was also a master of the Marathi language; and even an apparently insignificant word used by him has an immense modifying or limiting value, and the omission sf even a small conjunction; or the translation of an 'and' as an 'or,' would considerably injure the sense intended to be conveyed by the author. I have, therefore, not changed the text at all, but only altered the garb or the medium of expression; for, a translation is no translation, if it is not faithful. I have not even broken up long and involved sentences; for, though a sentence may be long and involved, each portion of it has a bearing and a limiting value on the remaining portions of the sentence;and breaking up such a sentence into several small sentences, would make it lose its cumulative force, and to that extent the meaning intended to be conveyed by the author would be disabled. In following this procedure, I have satisfied myself by thinking, that if there are persons in India, who can without difficulty understand the long and involved sentences in the original Marathi text, there cannot be a dearth of intelligent persons in the world, who will be able to understand the same sentences, with their long and involved construction, in the garb of the English language and character. Some readers will possibly find the sense being continually interrupted by the Sanskrit quotations. But the rendering of those quotations has been made in such a way, that if the reader reads only the English rendering without reading the quotation, he will find that the rendering fits into the sentence and that the sense runs on without any interruption.

I had at one time thought of omitting the quotations, and giving only the English rendering, but I realized that I would thereby be destroying the characteristic feature of the style of the Author, though it would have made reading easy.

As stated above, I have made this translation both as a national duty which I owe to my mother-tongue, as also with the idea of placing the immortal Spiritual Knowledge contained in the Gītā-Rahasya within the grasp of everyone, whose Destiny inspires him to study it with attention;and, I have no doubt that every reader who goes through these pages conscientiously and sincerely, and with an unbiassed, impartial, and Truth-seeking mind will be spiritually benefited by doing so.

Before concluding this foreword, I must express my appreciation of the sincere pains taken by the Manager and the staff of the Bombay Vaibhava Press for ensuring the correct printing of the press copy, which has been considerably troublesome on account of the Sanskrit quotations and words, which are printed in a transliterated form; and I have even been allowed, as an exceptional case, to make corrections when the form was on the machine ready for printing. My gratitude is due to my brother Dr. V. S. Sukthankar, the Chief Editor of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in charge of the Critical edition of the Mahābhārata, who has for some time looked into the transliterated portions and made very valuable suggestions regarding the translation. My thanks are similarly due to Professor A. B. Gajendragadkar of the Elphinstone College, Nyāya-Ratna Dhundiraj G. Vinod M. A., and Mr. S. A. Sabnis, Solicitor, for the suggestions occasionally made by them, and the encouragement I have received from them. My thanks are lastly due to Mr. P. B. Gothaskar, retired Librarian of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, who on account of having been in touch with the publication of the Journal of that Society, was of great use to me in correcting the earlier proofs and who, in carefully revising those proofs, also drew my attention to such sundry inaccuracies, as he thought, had remained in the translation, so as to enable me to correct them, if necessary. The final proofs were corrected by me. Apart from the printer's devils which have inevitably crept in, it is necessary to mention the mistake in the heading of Chapter XII, in which the word 'Siddha-Vyavahārā' is wrong, and the correct word, as in the original, is only 'Vyavahāra.'

In concluding this Preface, I cannot but follow the injunction of the Blessed Lord that, "yat karoṣi yad aśnāsi yaj juhoṣi … …... tat kuruṣva mad arpaṇam", (Gī. 9.27), which has also been carried out by the Author himself (see foot-note to; Author's Dedication); and I humbly dedicate this compilation to the Parameśvara in the shape of the Eternal Trinity of (i) Śrī Mahā Lakṣmī Indirā, the Goddess of Wealth, the consort of Śrī Viṣṇu, Who claimed my Devotion, and was the cause of my taking this work in hand and completing it, (ii) Śrī Mahā Kālī Pārvatī, the Goddess of Destruction, Who destroyed the Knot of Ignorance in my heart ("ājñāna-hṛdaya-granthi"–Śiva-Gītā, 13.32), and opened my eyes to the Realities of Life, and kept my footsteps continually on the Path of Knowledge, and (iii) Śrī Mahā Sarasvati Vidyā, the Goddess of Learning, Who has now claimed me for Her own, and compelled me to cast this Fruit of my Action (karmaṇy evādhikāras te mā phaleṣu kadā ca na–Gī. 2.47), in the shape of this translation, on the River of Time, which circumscribes and goes round the whole world, and Who is verily my Mother (for I am a Sārasvat by birth!).

OM-TAT-SAT.

आतां प्रार्थना ऐका कमलापति। तुझे नामीं राहो माझी मती।
हेंचि मागणे पुढता पुढती। परंज्योति व्यंकटेशा॥

ātāṃ prārthanā aikā kamalāpati | tujhe nāmīṃ rāho mājhī matī |
heṃci māgaṇe puḍhatā puḍhatī | paraṃjyoti vyaṃkaṭeśā ||

— B. S. SUKTHANKAR.
Bombay, 12th June 1935.