Page:Bhagavad Gita - Annie Besant 4th edition.djvu/8

 by passions and emotions, and in the higher processes of reasoning; Buddhi is the faculty above the ratiocinating mind, and is the Pure Reason, exercising the discriminative faculty of intuition, of spiritual discernment; if these original words are not known to the reader, the loses much of its practical value as a treatise on Yoga, and the would-be learner becomes confused.

The epithets applied to Shrî Krishna and Arjuna—the variety of which is so characteristic of Sanskrit conversation—are for the most part left untranslated, as being musical they thus add to the literary charm, whereas the genius of English is so different from that of Sanskrit, that the many-footed epithets become sometimes almost grotesque in translation. Names derived from that of an ancestor, as Pârtha, meaning the son of Prithâ, Kaunteya, meaning the son of Kuntî, are used in one form or the other, according to the rhythm of the sentence. One other trifling matter, which is yet not trifling, if it aids the student: when Atmâ means the One Self, the of all, it is printed in small capitals; where it means the lower, the personal self, it is printed in ordinary type; this is done because there is sometimes a play on the word, and it is difficult for an untrained reader to follow the meaning without some such assistance. The word Brahman, the, the Supreme, is throughout translated the "." The word "Deva," literally "Shining One," is thus translated throughout. The use of the Western word "God" alike for "Brahman" and for the "Devas" is most misleading; the Hindu