Indian Antiquary Vol 57

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 93

APRIL, 1928)
BOOK-NOTICES
from the pen of the late lamented Mr. Julian J. God (Edgerton, p. 44). Edgerton translates the Cotton throws many entertaining sidelights upon Bhagavadgitd, XV, 16, 17 thus : "There are two William Knighton's Private Life of an Eastern King. soule here in the world, A perishable and an Mr. H. G. Rawlinson describes some old European imperishable. The perishable is all beinge. The tombs of the 17th century at Surat, Broach and imperishable is called the Uniform. But there is Karwar. John Marshall, whose Notes and Diary another, a Supreme Soul, called the Highest Spirit kept in India in 1668-72 are being published by the the Eternal Lord who enters into the three Oxford University Press, is the subject of an article worlds, and supports them." Barnett here contributed by Dr. Shafaat Ahmad Khan. In
translates (pp. 156, 157): "Two males there Jahangir and the Portuguese the Rev. H. Heras, S.J.,
are in the world a Perishable and an Imperishable. gives a reproduction of a manuscript copy, with the
The Perishable is all born beings; the ImperishPortuguese text and an English translation, of tho
shable is called the One set on high. And there is remarkable treaty concluded between Jahangir and
another and highest Male, called the Supreme Self, the Portuguese on the 7th June 1616, the whole of
the changeless Sovran who enters and supports which had not hitherto been published. Mr.
the threefold world." A. F. M. Abdul Ali presents a brief sketch of the The term here translated by two separate career of Shuja'ud-daula, Nawab Vazir of Oudh competent Sanskritists respectively a soul' (1754-75). A new, and practically unknown, chapter and 'male' is purusha, and in a footnote Edgerton in the history of ancient India is dealt with by Mr. explains : "The word used is purusha, which Mesrovb J. Seth in Hindoos in Armenia 150 Years elsewhere meane strictly 'soul' and is not applied before Christ, in which he quotes from the History to the body or material nature. Yet here the of Taron (a province of Armenia) written by Zenob 'perishable soul' can obviously mean nothing or Zenobias a Syrian and one of the first disciples of but prakriti, material nature. This is an example St. Gregory the Illuminator, where reference is of the loose language which not infrequently made to the history of a Hindu colony that had confuses the expression of the GitA's thoughts, existed in Armenia since the middle of the 2nd and reminds us that we are reading a mystic century B.C. till the beginning of the 4th century poem, not a logical treatise on metaphysins." A.D. As will be clear from this synopsis, the Com. We are reading indeed popular metaphysics, the mission continues to do valuable work.
most confused description of thought in existence, C. E. A. W.O.
and Prof. Edgerton has evidently felt the difficulty of the perishable soul" of all beings as & doctrine,
but Dr. Barnett gets out of it by translating prirusha THE BHAGAVAD CITA, or Song of the Blessed One,
as "male." As a matter of fact, we see in this interpreted by FRANKLIN EDGERTON, Chicago,
passage the great difficulty in getting at the thoughts Open Court Publishing Coy. 1925.
of philosophical Hinduism-correct translation. Here we have yet another version of what Prof.
Both Edgerton and Barnett evidently realise it, Edgerton correctly calls in his Preface the favourite
but one wonders if the teachers of the numerous sacred book of the Hindus as a whole." The
sects in the United States, deriving their doctrinas Gandhi Movement has induced Prof. Edgerton,
from Hinduism, equally realise it. as a competent Sanskrit scholar, to give to his! The above quotations clearly refer to the Hindu countrymen an account of "what the Gita's words (dvaita) doctrine of dualism, and as to that Prof. mean to a professional Indologist." He has another Edgerton (p 44) quotes the Gita, XIII, 1, 2: "This object also in producing this book: "There are body is called the Field : him who knows it, those in this country (United States of America) at who know the truth call the Field Knower. Know present a number of religious sects of recent origin, that I am the Field Knower in all Fields." Here which derive many of their doctrines from Hinduism. Barnett (p. 147) translates: "The Lord spake; Some of these sects revere the Bhagavad Gita 'this body is high and the Dwelling: the Knower of almost or quite as much as do the Hindus them. it is called the Dwelling-Knower by them that selves." In his book, therefore, Prof. Edgerton has have knowledge thereof. Know that the Dwelling. "* tried to let the Gità speak for itself as far as | Knower am I in all Dwellings." Here again it is practicable," and in a footnote he tells us : "Alla question of correct trarslation. quotations in this book have been translated by However Prof. Edgerton's is a very good book me, except in one case, where credit is given to the
and I do not intend to quarrel with it. I merely translater quoted."
wish to draw attention to the intense difficulty Obviously in such a book everything depends of translating such a work as the Bhagavadotta, on the translations from the original and I have though it is not so difficult to get at a correct Accordingly compared them with those of another sense of its meaning. competent translator, Dr. Lionel Bamott, 1906. I Prof. Edgerton has felt also the difficulty that I will here give a specimen on a very abstract the American Sects must have in pronouncing subjeot of the first importance-the Nature of Sanskrit words in their transliterated forms and