Purāṇa / Uddhava Gītā / Haṃsa Gītā

Haṃsa Gītā (हंसगीता)

A story nested inside the Uddhava Gītā. In Bhāgavata 11.13, Kṛṣṇa tells Uddhava what happened when the four Kumāras, Sanaka and his brothers, asked their father Brahmā a question he could not answer: how the mind binds. Viṣṇu appears as a haṃsa (हंस), a swan, and teaches. The mind is the cause of bondage and the cause of freedom. The self is the witness of the mind, and the self is other than a mood the mind is having. Kṛṣṇa then turns the lesson back onto Uddhava. What the swan told the sages is what he is telling his friend.

The numeral 11.13 is the numeral of the received Bhāgavata, which this shelf follows for that purāṇa. The whole of the eleventh skandha is the last talk. This chapter is one door in it. The verse sat on the Uddhava page is earlier, the contents of the twenty-four teachers. No śloka is supplied from memory to look like the text.

The swan's point

• Brahmā, who built a world, still has a question he hands upward. The teacher of the teacher is the swan.
• Bondage is a turn of attention. The same mind, turned the other way, is the freedom.
• The witness is not improved by the turning. The witness was already free of the mood it watches.
• Uddhava's use of the story is the use of every nested tale in this talk. Kṛṣṇa is leaving. The friend has to be able to hear a teaching when the teacher is gone.

नेपालीमा

हंसगीता उद्धवगीताभित्र बसेको कथा हो। भागवत ११.१३ मा कृष्णले उद्धवलाई भन्छन्, चार कुमार, सनक र उनका दाजुभाइ, ले पिता ब्रह्मालाई उनले उत्तर दिन नसकेको प्रश्न सोधे: मन कसरी बाँध्छ। विष्णु हंसका रूपमा आउँछन् र सिकाउँछन्। मन बन्धनको कारण हो र मुक्तिको कारण पनि। आत्मा मनको साक्षी हो, र आत्मा मनले लिइरहेको भावभन्दा अर्को हो। अनि कृष्णले पाठ उद्धवतिर फर्काउँछन्। हंसले ऋषिहरूलाई भनेको कुरा उनले साथीलाई भन्दै छन्।

अङ्क ११.१३ प्राप्त भागवतको अङ्क हो, र यो तहले त्यो पुराणमा त्यही अङ्क मान्छ। एघारौँ स्कन्ध पूरै अन्तिम कुराकानी हो। यो अध्याय त्यसभित्रको एउटा ढोका हो। उद्धव पृष्ठमा राखिएको श्लोक अघिको हो, चौबीस गुरुको सूची। पाठजस्तो देखाउन सम्झनाबाट कुनै श्लोक हालिएको छैन।

Where it sits

The Bhikṣu Gītā is the other story Kṛṣṇa tells in the same stretch, a brāhmaṇa of Avanti whose losses teach him the same thing about the mind. The sixth chapter of the Gītā says, on the field, that the mind is the friend and the mind is the enemy. The swan says it to the Kumāras. Kṛṣṇa says it, by way of the swan, to Uddhava.