Judge on the First Seven Chapters of the Gita

Krishna Dvaipayana, William Quan Judge · Higher Ethics and Devotion Series · 63 pages

William Quan Judge's essays on the first seven chapters of the Bhagavad Gita, first published in The Path between 1887 and 1895 under the nom de plume “William Brehon,” with an introduction and a note by the series editor. Sixty-three pages, with a contents page giving each chapter its starting page. The series editor notes that these essays, together with notes on the remaining chapters by Robert Crosbie, are available in print from the Theosophy Company. Judge's own translation of the Gita and the selections arranged as protreptics are both held elsewhere in this section.

The essays follow the poem chapter by chapter and take their headings from it. The first treats the despondency of Arjuna — the situation the whole dialogue arises from, and the longest of the seven at some fifteen pages. The second turns to the application of the argument to the speculative doctrines. The third takes the right performance of action, the fourth spiritual knowledge, the fifth the renunciation of action, the sixth self-restraint and the seventh spiritual discernment. Because they were written as periodical articles over eight years rather than as a book, each essay stands on its own and assumes little from the ones before it, which makes the file usable a chapter at a time. Judge's approach throughout is to treat the Gita as a manual for conduct rather than as a text to be construed, and the commentary is addressed to a reader who is expected to act on it rather than only to follow it.

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