Verse 1

¹Krsna, those who speak of Brahman name many highest goods. Does what matters in them lie in the choosing among them, or is one of them the chief? ²Master, you have set out the yoga of devotion, which expects nothing, by which a man throws off his clinging on every side and his mind goes into you. ³Bhagavan said: This speech that is called the Veda was lost by time in the dissolution. At the beginning I spoke it to Brahma, and the dharma in it has me for its very self. ⁴He spoke it to his own son Manu, the firstborn; and from him the seven great sages of Brahman, Bhrgu and the rest, took it up. ⁵From those fathers their sons had it: the gods, the Danavas, the guhyakas, men, the perfected, the gandharvas, with the vidyadharas and the caranas,

⁶the kindevas, the kinnaras, the snakes, the raksasas, the kimpurusas and the rest. Their natures are many, and they are born of passion, clarity and darkness.