Edwin Arnold Quotes

Sweetest smile is made saddest tear-drop!

Ye suffer from yourselves. None else compels, None other holds you that ye live and die, And whirl upon the wheel, and hug and kiss Its spokes of agony, Its tire of tears, its nave of nothingness.

Shall any gazer see with mortal eyes, Or any searcher know by mortal mind, Veil after veil will lift--but there must be Veil upon veil behind.

Then, O King! the God, so saying, Stood, to Pritha's Son displaying All the splendour, wonder, dread Of His vast Almighty-head. Out of countless eyes beholding, Out of countless mouths commanding, Countless mystic forms enfolding In one Form: supremely standing Countless radiant glories wearing, Countless heavenly weapons bearing, Crowned with garlands of star-clusters, Robed in garb of woven lustres, Breathing from His perfect Presence Breaths of every subtle essence Of all heavenly odours; shedding Blinding brilliance; overspreading- Boundless, beautiful- all spaces With His all-regarding faces; So He showed! If there should rise Suddenly within the skies Sunburst of a thousand suns Flooding earth with beams undeemed-of, Then might be that Holy One's Majesty and radiance dreamed of!

Steadfast a lamp burns sheltered from the wind; Such is the likeness of the Yogi's mind Shut from sense-storms and burning bright to Heaven.

By Me the whole vast Universe of things Is spread abroad;—by Me, the Unmanifest! In Me are all existences contained; Not I in them! Yet they are not contained, Those visible things! Receive and strive to embrace The mystery majestical! My Being— Creating all, sustaining all—still dwells Outside of all! See! as the shoreless airs Move in the measureless space, but are not space, [And space were space without the moving airs]; So all things are in Me, but are not I.

Yet such abstraction, Chief! Is hard to win without much holiness.

Man hath no fate except past deeds, No Hell but what he makes, no Heaven too high For those to reach whose passions sleep subdued.

Fearlessness, singleness of soul, the will Always to strive for wisdom; opened hand And governed appetites; and piety, And love of lonely study; humbleness, Uprightness, heed to injure nought which lives, Truthfulness, slowness unto wrath, a mind That lightly letteth go what others prize; And equanimity, and charity Which spieth no man's faults; and tenderness Towards all that suffer; a contented heart, Fluttered by no desires; a bearing mild, Modest, and grave, with manhood nobly mixed, With patience, fortitude, and purity; An unrevengeful spirit, never given To rate itself too high;--such be the signs, O Indian Prince! of him whose feet are set On that fair path which leads to heavenly birth! Deceitfulness, and arrogance, and pride, Quickness to anger, harsh and evil speech, And ignorance, to its own darkness blind,-- These be the signs, My Prince! of him whose birth Is fated for the regions of the vile.

But you will cease to feel isolated when you recognize, for example, that you do not have a sensation of the sky: you are that sensation. For all purposes of feeling, your sensation of the sky is the sky, and there is no “you” apart from what you sense, feel, and know. This is why the mystics and many of the poets give frequent utterance to the feeling that they are “one with the All,” or “united with God,” or, as Sir Edwin Arnold expressed it— Foregoing self, the universe grows I.

Sir Edwin Chadwick, whose Sanitary Report proved to be a bestseller for the Stationery Office in 1842, confirmed that, every year, 20,000 adults and 30,000 youths and children were ‘imperfectly interred’ in less than 218 acres of burial ground, ‘closely surrounded by the abodes of the living’.2

Thou seest Me as Time who kills, Time who brings all to doom, The Slayer Time, Ancient of Days, come hither to consume; Excepting thee, of all these hosts of hostile chiefs arrayed, There shines not one shall leave alive the battlefield! Dismayed No longer be! Arise! obtain renown! destroy thy foes! Fight for the kingdom waiting thee when thou hast vanquished those. By Me they fall—not thee! the stroke of death is dealt them now, Even as they stand thus gallantly; My instrument art thou! Strike, strong-armed Prince! at Drona! at Bhishma strike! deal death To Karna, Jyadratha; stay all this warlike breath! ’Tis I who bid them perish! Thou wilt but slay the slain. Fight! they must fall, and thou must live, victor upon this plain!

Yet not by Vedas, nor from sacrifice, Nor penance, nor gift-giving, nor with prayer Shall any so behold, as thou hast seen! Only by fullest service, perfect faith, And uttermost surrender am I known And seen, and entered into, Indian Prince! Who doeth all for Me; who findeth Me In all; adoreth always; loveth all Which I have made, and Me, for Love’s sole end That man, Arjuna! unto Me doth wend.

When ye come where I have stepped Ye will wonder why ye wept;

insight vast to spheres unnamed, System on system, countless worlds and suns Moving in splendid measures, band by band Linked in division, one yet separate, The silver islands of a sapphire sea With waves which roll in restless tides of change.

By wordless edict; having none to bid, None to forbid; for this is past all gods Immutable, unspeakable, supreme, A Power which builds, unbuilds and builds again,

There hath been a slaughter for the sacrifice And slaying for the meat, but henceforth none Shall spill the blood of life, nor taste of flesh, Seeing that knowledge grows, and life is one, And mercy cometh to the merciful.

The daylight lingered past its time In rose-leaf radiance on the watching peaks, So it seemed Night listened in the glens And Noon upon the mountains.

He goes Unto NIRVÂNA. He is one with Life, Yet lives not. He is blest, ceasing to be. OM, MANI PADME, OM! the Dewprop slips Into the shining sea!

If any teach NIRVÂNA is to cease, Say unto such they lie. If any teach NIRVÂNA is to live, Say unto such they err.

I TAKE MY REFUGE IN THY NAME AND THEE! I TAKE MY REFUGE IN THY LAW OF GOOD! I TAKE MY REFUGE IN THY ORDER! OM! THE DEW IS ON THE LOTUS! - RISE, GREAT SUN! AND LIFT MY LEAF AND MIX ME WITH THE WAVE OM MANI PADME HUM, THE SUNRISE COMES! THE DEWPROP SLIPS INTO THE SHINING SEA!

A great tree grows from two soft leaves To spread its shade afar.

The first is the wonderful poetic masterpiece by Sir Edwin Arnold, and the second is my independent prose adaptation. The Sir Edwin Arnold's translation is remarkable, not just because he was the first Westerner to translate it, but because he treated the Bhagavad Gita like the rousing epic poem that it truly is.