>I ask the following question: read the verses 38-42 in the first chapter
>(arjuna vishada yogam) and interpret them for me.
Many were such debates in the past about the referred interpretations. Gita is
essentially a spiritual manual to help the confused Arjuna within us to face
our outer and inner situations with equipoise. Its purpose and purport is the
nature of Self or Conscience itself. To the extent it touched the hearts
of us and to the degree it rang bells within ourselves about the Truths it
echoes, to that degree it becomes clear and certain to us, that however many
such interpretations seem possible or valid, they atleast have nothing to do
with the main message or goal of the Gita. Calling it Divine, does not mean
accepting blindly or not even questioning it. Arjuna himself questioned Krishna
until he was totally satisfied. It merely means the theme and thrust of it
transcends the issues of external details like gender,society or its
classification and the ensuing ills or merits. It certainly is no loss to Gita,
when it is being accused more than what it says, and when more emphasis is laid
on the very issues which it asks us to transcend. Another remarkable thing is
that it certainly made impact on some of the greatest minds and hearts
over many generations.
Sri VEnu gaaru asked about the propriety of using some words. To decide
anything about that, we need to take into account the amount of wool-gathering
those words did over so many centuries, which the author cannot be held
responsible for.
>As to someone who compared reading gita with a sanskrit dictionary with
>reading the principia with an English Dictionary, I might add that I did just
>that. And, I had no problems following it.
Is that so? That certainly shows your remarkable mathematical ability, but
nothing could be farther from Truth than saying that Principia of Mathematica
could be understood with the aid of dictionary with no background in Analytic
Geometry first, particularly when even its style is so different. Famous
philosophers John Locke, Voltaire acknowledged the difficulty. Newton himself
told Rev. Dr. Derham:
"To avoid being baited by little smatterers in mathematics, I designedly made
the Principia abstruse; but yet so as to be understood by able mathematicians,
who, I imagine, by comprehending my demonstrations would concur with my theory"
>Except that it made me understand how many mistaken routes did Newton take.
>For example, his (Newton's) original approach to compute the differential of
>x^n involves binomial theorem, and then he got a wrong proof for it
>(Gauss fixed it -- much later).
Also there is nothing wrong with the integral Calculus Newton developed, largely
without the aid of limits of sums. (Later fruitful theoretical developments in
multiple integrals was inspired by Leibnitz only in 17th Century. Later in 19th
Century, Cauchy gave clear-cut definition of definite integrals for continuous
functions and proof of its existence. Later Riemann discussed integral for
discontinuous functions and gave necessary and sufficient conditions for its
existence.) And Binomial theorem, which is his first major discovery, is also
as valid now, as it was then. Gauss gave proof to D'Alembert's theorem,
which D'Alembert never proved, and Euler gave only a partial proof, which made
Gauss famous.
>To give a modern time example, read the celebrated declaration of independence.
>After saying "all men are created equal" in one para, the authors, including
>my favourite (Jefferson),goes on to refer to the native americans as "savages".
>To somehow stretch "savages" to mean "not-all-bad people" is ludicrous.
>Jefferson and co messed up and messed up real well.
I completely agree. But that seems minor compared to the careful omission of
any mention of inhuman slave trade! Jefferson himself owned slaves and seems to
have thought that all men are equal, except slaves! However great a political
classic it may be, it is just that - political.
If accepting something blindly is illogical, having contempt blindly for
something as "insanity" is equally illogical.
With best regards
-Srinivas Nagulapalli
Apology:
********
It is not truthful to talk about Truth of Gita, when this thread truthfully,
does not belong to this forum. Henceforth, I will try to respond to SCIT only,
and leave TELUSA for what it was meant for truthfully!