Svabavikasutra - the Roots of the Bhagavad Gita

Although originally trained in thermodynamics, the author has devoted many years to the study of the Gita and has published two previous books on it. These new ones are a valuable scholarly resource to the specialist. The text is set out in great detail, so that readers can see the detail makes up the elements of the translation, and thus gain a better understanding of the terms. Yoga is characterised as striving for oneness by means of many different paths and modes including action, knowledge, self restraint, contemplation of form and renunciation. The second part of the first book is a Sanskrit-English dictionary that also serves as a glossary of terms such as ananda and guna. Volume 2 examines the dating of the text, the frequency of key terms and devotes a chapter to scholarly research on the origins of the Gita, going back as far as von Humboldt in 1826. The text is then reproduced in Dutch and English with even more grammatical detail. A further fascinating outcome of this study is that the caste system was only introduced 70 generations ago and that there is no justification of it from the original Gita. The attentive reader will certainly find their knowledge of the text and its background greatly deepened by these works.