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Monday, December 7, 2020

On The Anu-Gita

The Anu-Gita, a treatise on Dharma (morality, ethics, righteousness), is embedded in the Mahabharata’s Ashvamedhika Parva. The Sanskrit term “Anu” is translated as "continuation, alongside, subordinate to”—thus, the title “Anu-Gita” can be regarded as a continuation to the Gita (the Bhagavad Gita) which is embedded in the Bhishma Parva of the Mahabharata. Here’s a passage from the Anu-Gita which asserts that knowledge is the only value that is endless:

Days end with the sun’s setting, and nights with the sun’s rising;
the end of pleasure is always sorrow, and the end of sorrow is always pleasure.
All associations have dissociations for their end, and life has death for its end;
All action ends in destruction, and all that is born certainly dies.
Everything is transient, everything ends;
Only of knowledge, there is no end.

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