TRANSLATIONS

 

SRI AUROBINDO

 

Contents 

 

 

I. FROM SANSKRIT

   

 

 

 

BHAGAVAD GITA

 
 

Chapter One

 
 

Chapter Two

 
 

Chapter Three

 
 

Chapter Four

 
 

Chapter Five

 
 

Chapter Six

 

 

 

KALIDASA

 
 

The Birth of the War-God

 Canto One:

 
 

The Birth of the War-God, Canto Two

 
 

Malavica and the King

 
 

The Line of Raghu

 

 

 

 

Sankaracharya

 
 

Bhavani

 

 

 

 

III FROM TAMIL

 

 IV. FROM GREEK AND LATIN

 
 

The Kural

 

Odyssey

 
 

Nammalwar’s Hymn of the Golden Age

 

On A Satyr and Seeping Love

 
 

Love-Mad

 

A Rose of Women

 
 

Refuge

 

To Lesbia

 
 

To the Cuckoo

     
 

I Dreamed a Dream

     
 

Ye Others

     

 

 

 

ON KARMA*

 Action be Man’s God

 

Whom shall men worship ? The high Gods ? But they

        Suffer fate’s masteries, enjoy and rue.

Whom shall men worship ? Fate’s stern godhead ? Nay,

        Fate is no godhead. Many fruits or few

Their actions bring to men, — that settled price

She but deals out, a steward dumb, precise.

Let action be man’s God, o’er whom even Fate

Can rule not, nor his puissance abrogate.

 

The Might of Works

 

Bow ye to Karma who with puissant hand

Like a vast potter all the universe planned,

Shut the Creator in and bade him work

In the dim-glinting womb and luminous murk;

By whom impelled high Vishnu hurled to earth

Travels his tenfold depths and whorls of birth;

Who leading mighty Rudra by the hand

Compels to wander strange from land to land, —

A vagrant begging with a skull for bowl

And suppliant palms, who is yet the world’s high Soul.

Lo, through the skies for ever this great Sun

Wheels circling round and round by Karma spun. 

 

*There is a distinction, not always strictly observed, between Fate and Karma. Karma is the principle of Action in the universe with its stream of cause and infallible effect, and for man the sum of his past actions whose results reveal themselves not at once, but in the dis­pensation of Time, partly in this life, mostly in lives to come. Fate seems a more mysterious power imposing itself on men, despite all their will and endeavour, from outside them and above— daivam, a power from the Gods. 

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Karma

 

It is not beauty’s charm nor lineage high,

It is not virtue, wisdom, industry,

Service, nor careful arduous toil that can

Bring forth the fruits of his desire to man;

Old merit mind’s strong asceticism had stored

Returns to him with blessing or a sword,

His own past deeds that flower soon or late

Each in its season on the tree of Fate.

 

Protection from behind the Veil

 

Safe is the man good deeds forgotten claim,

       In pathless deserts or in dangerous war

Or by armed foes enringed; sea and fierce flame

        May threaten, death’s door waiting swing ajar;

Slumbering or careless though his foemen find,

Yea, though they seize him, though they smite or bind,

On ocean wild or on the cliff’s edge sheer

His deeds walk by his side and guard from fear;

Through death and birth they bore him and are here.

 

The Strength of Simple Goodness

 

Toiler ascetic, who with passionate breath

Swellest huge holinesses, — vain thy faith!

Good act adore, the simple goddess plain,

Who gives the fruit thou seekest with such pain.

Her touch can turn the lewd man into a saint,

Inimitably her quiet magic lent

Change fools to sages and hidden mysteries show

Beyond eye’s reach or brain’s attempt to know,

Fierce enemies become friends and poisons ill

Transform in a moment to nectar at her will.

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Foresight and Violence

 

Good be the act or faulty, its result

        The wise man painfully forecasting first

Then does; who in mere heedless force exult,

         Passionate and violent, taste a fruit accursed.

The Fury keeps till death her baleful course

And blights their life, tormenting with remorse.

 

Misuse of Life

 

This noble earth, this place for glorious deeds

The ill-starred man who reaching nowise heeds,

Nor turns his soul to energy austere,

With little things content or idlesse drear, —

He is like one who gets an emerald pot

To bake him oil-cakes on a fire made hot

With scented woods, or who with golden share

For sorry birthwort ploughs a fertile fair

Sweet soil, or cuts rich camphor piece by piece

To make a hedge for fennel. Not for this

In the high human form he walks great earth

After much labour getting goodliest birth.

 

Fixed Fate

 

Dive if thou wilt into the huge deep sea,

       The inaccessible far mountains climb,

Vanquish thy foes in battle fierily,

        All arts and every science, prose and rhyme,

Tillage and trade in one mind bring to dwell, —

        Yea, rise to highest effort, ways invent

And like a bird the skies immeasurable

        Voyage; all this thou mayst, but not compel

What was not to be, nor what was prevent.

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Flowers from a Hidden Root

 

With store of noble deeds who here arrives,

Finds on this earth his well-earned Paradise.

      The lonely forest grows his kingly town

Of splendour, every man has friendly eyes

      Seeing him, or the wide earth for his crown

Is mined with gems and with rich plenty thrives.

This high fate is his meed of former lives. 

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