śrīgītecī āratī

A Marathi arati to the Bhagavad Gita, addressed to the book as a goddess and as the mother of the Veda. Its praise is partly by measurement, which is what these bibliographic aratis do: seven hundred verses, the essence of what Vyasa said, eighteen chapters and no more than that, and the claim that pronouncing even half a quarter of one verse dissolves the round of birth at the mere remembering. The middle verse is the good one and states a paradox rather than a statistic: you were lying absorbed and quiet in brahman, in your own place, and it was by Arjuna's feeling that you became manifest out of a mouth. Its last verse asks to be taken in and made secure, and carries the signature of the Jnaneshvar line, the one that names the giver of boons to Rukmini's father.