This publication aspires to dip into Gita wisdom - the original smriti - from its history to its timelessness.

Arjun uvaach means Arjuna said ...

Arjuna was a life-long friend and student of Krishna. His voice stands for the questions we mortals have when tested and confused. And also the magical discernment once Krishna unveiled knowledge unto him. Their conversation, amidst the battlefield, is among the most potent narratives ever penned down - Bhagvad Gita - gods' song! At the end of this conversation, Arjuna said :

Nashto Moha , Smritir Labdha !

[I am] devoid of illusions, [I] attained wisdom !

It is not uncommon to experience a momentary relief from cyclic illusions (Moha). Such instances - normally a deep loss - often lead to depression. They leave the disillusioned in a vacuum. Gita on the other hand, spotlights truth through wisdom embedded in our intelligence (Smriti). Instead of a run to exit (sanyasa), Gita welcomes the precious gift we all are endowed with - human experience. In doing that, it provisions lasting peace and worldly success - a win-win.

Gita is for everyone - it is not religion, race, profession or place specific.

  • cheeseburger on top left toggles the chapters' sidebar. On mobile devices, you may swap right.
  • search the publication using the magnifying glass:
  • turn pages by clicking the left and right angles: . On mobile devices, the angles show up at the bottom of page.
  • you can also navigate with left and right arrows on keyboard.

Content:

If you toggle the sidebar, this web app has three main sections :

Mathura (work in progress)

The first section is a historical narrative. It discovers a period some five thousand years back - around the city of Mathura. It ventures into the time when we first adopted written word as primary medium for information storage.

Text was a profound discovery. With it, we learnt to send information to distant places - and to future generations. Gita was the first written message preserved for the future. It was encapsulated in a large carrier narrative - Mahabharata. The carrier narrative went through multiple iterations - for around six hundred years - but Gita stayed immutable. The reason is simple - there is only one version of truth.

Gita defined Karm yoga as a path to accumulate value - Daivvy Sampad. And gradually merge into the most valuable - one immutable and inexpressible knowledge. Despite scholarly attempts to decipher, it stays a mystery as to how someone could articulate a message so pristine - unless it was a divine intervention -> hence the name gods' song !

Mathura was the hotspot of writing revolution - our move from speech to text as store of information. Mahabharata was written down and unveiled here in series of eighteen books. In addition to immutable truth in Gita, the written word laid the foundations for spread of gold - as a portable store of value - somewhat like what internet is doing to spread of bitcoin.

Value exchange must follow the properties of information exchange. If information could be sent to distant places, value must do the same in space and time !

Gita

The second section is original English translation of Bhagvad Gita - by Kiasri Mohan Ganguly circa 1896.

Bhagvad Gita is the source code of Karm Yoga. While Karm Yoga is proven means to exit sufferings, it also benchmarks value-exchange. It establishes the spiritual framework for selfless pursuits (Nishkaam Yazna).

Open pursuits, without desires of personal gains, enable society adopt work (Karma) as primary measure of value.

Work done under influence of desires - to seek preferred outcomes - skews the measure of effort involved. For example if you were seeking money, you may unknowingly inflate the quantum of effort; if you were seeking recognition, you may end up investing time in publicity and assume it as necessary part of work - it is not.

Working without expectations of monetary gains or fame is hard - for example the open source contributions of our time - but that is only the start. Gita goes a step further. It advocates to stay put on Nishkaam path even in the face of imminent adversity - stay defiant to seek truth. Prime example is Arjuna - a warrior par excellence but trapped in Moha. At the prospect of fighting his clan, Arjuna wanted to shun his responsibilities. Through Gita, Krishna advised him to stick to his Karma.

The translation is followed by essays discovering core concepts of Gita. They may be useful to readers who are predisposed to see Gita in prevailing rationale of popular science.

Mahabharata

Divine author Krishna Dwaipayana, by design placed Gita center-folded in a highly immersive narrative - Mahabharata. Even after thousands of years, the epic is as interesting a read as the day it was written.

The third section is the original translation of Mahabharata - the longest poem, ever written in any language. I recommend reading Ganguly's preface before you take a plunge - to appreciate the guiding motivations of translation work.

Clean internet

Just the way oceans are filled up with plastics, the internet is infected with countless cookies and trackers. Some of them useful for the functions of websites - but most to profile the users - to serve them pesky ads. Put together, they have turned the internet into a surveillance apparatus.

An immune response is the rise of freedom tech - privacy tools - VPNs, ad-blockers, encrypted chats, and scramblers. These tools are not only complicated, they make internet slow. My aspiration is to provide a reading experience as it was meant to be - Cookies free , Trackers free, Advertising free - without the reader having to use privacy crutches.

A publisher may infest webpages sometimes unknowingly. Plug and play code such as Google Analytics are easy to install if not pre-installed. They however breach the sacred trust between a reader and publisher. A good reading experience is not only a readers' right, it is also a good design choice - it makes pages load faster.

We know, in order to keep their services free - email, search, social - likes of Google and Facebook turned the internet into an advertising platform. Every click is analysed at the perils of reading experience - to place clickbaits. But If you thought they were the only culprits, you would be surprised ! CNN uses as many as 21 trackers! And most other trusted names are equally bad.

cnnTrackers

As a reader, you have options to block cookies through browser settings. But most of the time such choices are binary - yes or no. If you chose "No", you won't be able to load most of the websites. In effect, they are useless to an average user.

A better compromise is to use duckduck go privacy extension. It stops trackers (and cookies) that are there for the sole purpose of profiling, but it allows those needed for the application functions. Not an ideal case but still the best among available options.

As a rule, and design imperative, I don't use any trackers or cookies whatsoever. You can test it through "duckduck go" privacy extension. It should show up as below ..

duck

The goal is NOT to fight ! Internet is too big to change and all models of content delivery may co-exist! It is only to do my part as a digital native - leave the place as clean as I found it.

Open source tools

Since web-browser is a general purpose application, fine-tuning it for readability is somewhat a necessity. I use an open source publishing tool mdBook to bind these pages into a book-like reading experience. The web-app thus created has many features :

  • It handles layout and responsive design, so my mind stays on the content - instead of technology.
  • It keeps the essential book experience intact - even on a tablet or smartphone.
  • Website may be installed like an app. Browser based apps are called progressive web apps. They can be installed on computers or smart devices for offline reading.
  • The app comes with three tier search - probably the least appreciated feature ! For example - if I search for Siva, it gives me the name of the book, chapter, and section heading. When I click on the search result , it highlights the 'search term' in blue color.

Search mdBook

Content is written in Markdown on Vim - both open and time tested. I mostly use Debian - a fully open distribution of Linux.

Theme

The theme is a custom design. A golden background with black Kalam fonts form "Indian Fonts Foundry". I have restricted other standard themes 1, such as rust, ayu or navy because this custom theme is the (only) one I test from readability standpoint.

Favicon

The favicon 2 for this web-app is a Trefoil Knot. Trefoil is the first non-trivial knot - it can't be simplified into an "unknot" (a circle). In Vaidik thought trefoil (triguna) is the fundamental Karm Bandhan. The three colors indicate the three basic potencies of creation - the color charges of particle physics or the three gunas of Vaidik science.

Cover photo

The cover picture is a pencil sketch of Ganesa by Madan Maholvi.

In Hindu mythology, Ganesa is the embodiment of superior intelligence. Ganesa being the mind child of Siva represents the supreme consciousness. As per Vaidik science, the evolution (rise of consciousness) takes place to answer the question - "who am I?" The limitation, however, is Ganesa can't suggest the questions, he can only provide the answers. Framing the right set of questions is thus left to the evolution.

One who has all the answers doesn't know of any question!

Licence

The publication is under creatives common v1.0. Which means everything is under public domain. Mahabharata and it's translation by Kisari Mohan Ganguli is also in public domain

The net of this license is as below

license

Style

  • I normally use maroon color for Hindi or Sanskrit.
  • Hyperlinks are in "blue" color.
  • Mathura is a historical "narrative". The focus is on "narrative" rather than historical accuracy.
  • I avoid citations as much as possible. It is not a narrative chasing accuracy. The goal is to imagine scenario before we adopted written word as primary store of information. There is obviously no written history to refer to.
  • Instead of building one concept, or one character, in a single chapter ; I rather try to visit the ideas in subsequent chapters. Thus, order is important — each chapter builds on previous. Simple words, say for example "knowledge" , might take a different definition as you progress along. In absence of sequential reading, the article would still make sense, but it might lose the punch.
  • The goal is not to impart Gita. And for a good reason — no one may ever tell it better than Dwaipayana. The purpose of this narrative is to seek the information that writer withheld to avoid "stating the obvious". After thousands of years, we now crave for that information - events that led to scribing.
  • Footnotes are used to improve the reader flow. They do carry useful information. If you happen to skip-over, I suggest running by them after finishing the chapter.

Tips and Donations:

Tips normally mean you are happy with your worker. Donations are something that show you support a cause. I may be wrong in my definitions - but you can't go wrong in supporting this work - either "tips" or "donations" - both are welcome. You can use the donation box below to send money in Satoshies - commonly called Sats. Sats are convenient because there is no credit card involved or computations for the exchange rates - it is one simple global money for the internet.

To send Sats with above widget, you will need a "lighning wallet" . I normally use Alby as a browser extension on desktops. On mobile phones, the choices are endless. Depending upon your jurisdiction - a simple "lightning wallet" search in your app store, would show you all the options.

You can leave a small note with lightning payments though all transactions are practically private. Which means I can't know who sent the money unless you leave a clue in the message.

notes and other stuff:

3

This publication aspires to adhere the original promise of the internet. A universally accessible, anonymous and clutter-free way to communicate. Free internet is beautiful. It is the biggest library and the web-browser is the most used app. Some benefits of reading on the internet are

  • Truly decentralized and open system - There are hundreds of web browsers - offered by the biggest of corporations to the lone developers working off their garages.
  • Open source alternatives - many browsers are fully open sourced such as Firefox.
  • Omnipresent - Browsers are available for every platform. For popular graphical platforms such as Mac, Windows, iOS or Android, the choices are practically limitless. Even for pure terminal users there are many choices - w3m, lynx, elink to name a few.
  • For writers, advantages are many. Prime among them is shaking off intermediary publishers and content aggregators. In addition, simple HTML allows infinite customizability. For tech-savvy writers, markdown offers easy scribing. And the best is that publishing direct to the web is 100% free.
  • The content published directly to the web is future-proof in the sense no matter the evolution of devices from desktops to smartphones to AR/VR headsets, the open internet content will always be available. The content locked in platforms such as Wikipedia or Facebook will always be subject to the policies of aggregators. It may go behind a paywall at a short notice, as happened in case of Medium.
  • Universally accessible - Nation states may ban big platforms such as Twitter in China and TikTok in the USA, it is almost impossible to censor individual websites published directly to the internet. Even if that happens, changing the url isn't complicated. Nostr protocol is all about censorship resistant perpetual content!

Browsers are particularly suitable for the long text ..

  • Easily reach the embedded links for references and jump back in at your reading point. You may laugh off this point as "obvious", but if you are reading on apps or devices such as a "kindle", this feature may not be as easily accessible. You will need to anyway fire up a browser.
  • With text to speech plugins, most major browsers offer AI based reading. Which means you can listen to a page on demand and possibly in many voices. With onset of AI revolution, this feature is going to further improve. Days are nit far that every web page would sound like a well crafted podcast.
  • Offline reading - Yes, a page once loaded, can be viewed as long as it isn't refreshed. You can always save a page as a file on your computer with a single press of ctrl+s on most browsers.
  • Notes and bookmarks - One of the most interesting thing on the web-browser is to take and save your notes on the note-taking app that you regularly use. For example on Android, I normally use "Google Keep" for my notes. Simply select a piece of text on the page and share it with Keep. Google will not only save store and let you edit your notes later, it will also bookmark the exact place on the webpage where you picked up the note - again, it's not only a link to the webpage , it is to the exact lines your selected on the page. I use this feature not only to take a note but also to store my bookmarks in one place. For example if I am reading say five different long posts on blogs or news sites, I just share a line with my Keep to remind me where I left the page
  • Word meanings and pronunciations - simply select a word or phrase, right click and most of the browsers take you to a dictionary. "Safari" makes it even more intuitive with a little dialog box that pops on the word. On Chrome, you can install "Google Dictionary" extension and Firefox's most recommended add-on for the spell is "dictionary anywhere" among hundreds others.
  • If you are into keyboards and shortcuts, then browser is something you already love. There may be some nuances for different browsers may implement different key bindings for the same shortcut. Or the shortcuts may be different on Windows v/s a Mac. One of the way to circumvent this problem is to use plug-ins such as "Vimium". Vimium or similar plugins are available for the big threes - Chrome, Firefox and Safari. Vimium implements uniform bindings based on "vi" that is almost like a universal standard, available for not only browsers but many editors, spreadsheets, photo galleries and countless other applications.
  • You can save a snapshot of a webpage as a legal proof with open archive's "wayback machine". wayback machine allows you to catalog web pages even if the site is totally removed from the internet.

That said, the reading experience on Browsers is compromised! You don't think of a web browser when you indulge yourself into a four hundred-page book! This is partly because great content is NOT carefully "webbitized" but more because being the most open and used application, browsers are targets of prying eyes. Advertisers want to track your eye movements with trackers and cookies :-) Search engines and most content providers clutter the page with clickbaits. Instead of starting a twitter campaign, I thought why not create an ideal online resource (myself). And that morphed into kinda mission for this work.

4

mdBook takes the written words in "markdown" format and churns out a fully deployable webApp.

  • markDown is a "translation engine" that translates a piece of simple written text into HTML that is easily understood and parsed by web browsers. You still need to follow markdown notations. It is not a bad deal because markdown notations are lot easier than typing HTML tags.
  • markDown is pre-built into mdbook. It thus takes the text written in Markdown format and converts it into a static website that looks and feels like a book. You still need a server to deploy this website. And you still need to connect it with a domain name.
  • a static website is something that doesn't change its content till a new version is deployed.
  • Since static websites put minimal load on the web-servers, places like GitHub or Gitlab allow free hosting and publishing. They also allow connection to your own domain name if you have one.
  • If you are a Nostrich you already know you can publish text to any number of nostr relays - a much better option for the writers because you are not tied to one walled garden, and you can possibly monetize your work.
1

Theme

  • Modern web-apps, offer a multitude of 'Themes' - the fonts, color combinations, and the font sizes.
  • Though choice is a good thing, it is almost impossible to review the text though all the possible combinations. Thus, a lone writer-editor must choose one to preview the write-ups (:- . It was much easier in older times when all books had the same white-ish color and all words were mostly a shade of black :-)
2

Favicon

  • The little picture right in front of your browser's url bar (where you type the address of the website such as https://gita.shutri.com) is called a favicon.
5

Because of limited resources, I only use ‘Firefox’ for testing. Expectation is it should work on all browsers but all the features may not be available on older ones such as w3m or links that don't support JavaScript natively.

6

This content is “designed” for ‘in-browser’ reading experience on a laptop or a desktop. It should work pretty well on Tablets and Smartphones, even on a Kindle browser (if you want to read it in the bright sunlight), but the mainstream browsers ( Safari and Chrome ) are purposefully kept dumbed down on smart devices. For one, you can't install extensions or "add-ons" on most of the browsers on smart(er) devices :-) I prefer Kiwi Browser just because it allows me the ability to add extensions. Kiwi uses open source Chromium project as the base along with web kit. Highly recommend.