The Bhagavad Gita by Eknath Easwaran

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in many ancient cultures. Here the Gita uses the image of the
tree as “upside down,” drawing on the fact that the pipal sends
out aerial roots, making “branches above and below.” The image
illustrates the phenomenal world, rooted in Brahman, complete
unity, and branching out into the apparent diversity of life.
13 Rasatmaka soma is here translated as “life-giving fluid,” the
nourishment of plants. In Hindu mythology it is the moon,
sometimes called Soma, that nourishes plants, as the source
of the life-giving nectar called Soma. In the Vedas, soma is an
intoxicating, invigorating drink distilled from a plant grown
high in the mountains and drunk by participants in a sacred ritual.
Scholars have tried to discover what the soma plant might
have been, but so far no conclusive identification has been made.
Soma also appears as an important god in the Vedas.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
27–28 Sat means that which is real or true and that which is good;
it derives from the Sanskrit verb as, to be, and is directly related
to our English word is . It is noteworthy that this word sat links
reality and goodness, reflecting the idea that good is eternal; it
is merely covered from time to time by asat, evil, which is temporary
and in that sense unreal. Asat is formed from sat by the
addition of the prefix a “without,” very much the way English
forms words like amoral .
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
1 Sannyasa and tyaga both mean renunciation, sannyasa from the
root as “to cast aside” and tyaga from tyaj “to give up.” The distinction
between these two is clarified in the introduction to this
chapter.
14 “The divine will” is a translation of daivam, which comes from
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