English
The seventh describes the reality of God, how His nature is often veiled from us by prakrti or the gunas, how one should seek protection from God, the nature of the different kinds of devotees, and the superiority of the truly enlightened person. The eighth describes the lordly power of God and the reality of His nature as the unchanged and the unchangeable; it also describes the duties of those who seek protection in God and the nature of the true wisdom. The ninth describes the glory of God and His superiority even when He incarnates Himself as man, and the nature of devotional com- munion. The tenth describes the infinite number of God’s noble qualities and the dependence of all things on Him, for initiating and increasing devotion. The eleventh describes how the true nature of God can be perceived, and demonstrates that it is only through devotion that God can be known or attained. The twelfth XIV] The Gita Literature 441 describes the superiority of devotion, methods of attaining devotion, and different kinds of devotion; it is also held that God is highly pleased by the devotion of His devotees. The thirteenth describes the nature of the body, the purification of the self for self-realization, |the cause of bondage and right discrimination. The fourteenth | describes how the nature of an action is determined by the ties of guna, how the gunas may be made to cease from influencing us, and how God alone is the root of all the ways of the self’s future destiny. The fifteenth describes how the supreme lord is different from the pure selves, as well as from selves in association with non-selves, on account of his all-pervasiveness and his nature as upholder and lord. The sixteenth describes the division of beings into godly and demoniac and also the privileged position of the scriptures as the authority for laying the solid foundation of knowledge of the true nature of our duties. The seventeenth distinguishes unscriptural things from scriptural. The eighteenth describes how God alone should be regarded as the ultimate agent of all actions, and states the necessity of purity and the nature of the effects of one’s deeds. According to Yamuna karma-yoga, or the path of duties, consists of religious austerities, pilgrimage, gifts and sacrifices; j#ana-yoga, or the path of knowledge, consists of self-control and purity of mind ; bhakti-yoga, or the path of devotion, consists in the meditation of God, inspired by an excess of joy in the communion with the divine. All these three paths mutually lead to one another. All three are essentially of the nature of the worship of God, and, whether regarded as obligatory or occasional, | are helpful for discovering the true nature of one’s self. When by self-realization ignorance is wholly removed, and when a man | attains superior devotion to God, he is received into God. Raméanuja, the celebrated Vaisnava teacher and interpreter 0 of 2 the Brahma-siitra, who is said to have been born in“A.D. 1017, / wrote acommentary on the Gita on visistadvaita lines, viz. monism _ qualified as theism. Venkatanatha, called also Vedantacarya, wrote ~ a sub- -commentary thereon, called Tatparya-candrika. Ramanuja generally followed the lines of interpretation suggested in the brief summary by his teacher Yamuna. On the question of the im- “perativeness of caste duties Ramanuja says that the Gita holds that the duties allotted to each caste must be performed, since the scriptures are the commands of God and no one can transgress His orders; so the duties prescribed by the scriptures as obligatory 442 The Philosophy of the Bhagavad-gita [cH. are compulsory for all. The duties have, therefore, to be performed without desire for their fruits and purely because they are the injunctions of the scriptures (eka-sastrarthataya anustheyam). It is only when duties performed simply to please God, and as | adoration of Him, have destroyed all impurities of the mind, and when the senses have become controlled, that a man becomes fit “for the path of wisdom. A man can never at any stage of his progress forsake the duty of worshipping God, and it is only _ through such adoration of God that the sins accumulating in him from beginningless time are gradually washed away and he can become pure and fit for the path of knowledge. In interpreting 1. 8 Ramanuja says that the path of duties (karma-yoga) is superior to the path of knowledge (jfdana-yoga). The path of duties naturally leads to self-knowledge; so self-knowledge is also included within its scope. The path of knowledge alone cannot lead us anywhere; for without work even the body cannot be made to live. Even those who adhere to the path of knowledge must perform the obligatory and occasional (nitya-naimittika) duties, and it is through the development of this course that one can attain self-realization by duty alone. The path of duties is to be followed until self-realization (atmavalokana) and, through it, emancipation are obtained. But the chief duty of a man is to be attached to God with supreme devotion. fis Madhvacarya, or Anandatirtha, who lived in the first three- quarters of the thirteenth century, wrote a commentary on the Bhagavad-gita, called Gita-bhasya, commented on by Jayatirtha in his Prameya-dipika, and also a separate monograph interpreting the main purport of the Gita, called Bhagavad-gita-tatparya-nirnaya, / commented on by Jayatirtha in his Nya@ya-dipika. His main em- \ phasis was on the fact that God is different from everything else, ) and that the only way of attaining our highest goal is through ( devotion (bhakti) as love and attachment (sneha). In the course of his interpretation he also introduced long discussions in refutation of the monistic theory of Sankara. Since everything is dominated by the will of Hari the Lord, no one ought to feel any attachment to mundane things. Duties are to be per- formed by all. Krsnabhatta Vidyadhiraja, the sixth disciple from Anabhisamhita-phalena kevala-parama-purusaradhana-riipendnusthitena kar- manda vidhvasta-mano-malo ’vyakulendriyo jfidna-nisthayam adhikaroti. Rama- nuja’s commentary on the Gitd, 111. 3. See also ibid. 11. 4. Gujarati Press, Bombay, 1908. XIV] Gita and Yoga 443 Madhva, who lived in the first quarter of the fourteenth century, wrote a commentary on the Gita, called Gita-tika. Raghavendra Svamin, who lived in the seventeenth century and was a pupil of Sudhindra Yati, wrote three works on the Gita, called Gita- vivrit, Gitartha-samgraha and Gitartha-vivarana. Commentaries were also written by Vallabhacarya, Vijfiianabhiksu, Keéava Bhatta of the Nimbarka school (called Gita-tattva-prakasika), Aitjaneya (called Hanumad-bhasya), Kalyana Bhatta (called Rasika-ranjini), Jagaddhara (called Bhagavad-gita-pradipa), Jayarama (called Gita- sarartha-samgraha), Baladeva Vidyabhisana (called Gita-bhiisana- bhasya), Madhusiidana (called Gadhartha-dipika), Brahmananda Giri, Mathuranatha (called Bhagavad-gita-prakasa), Dattatreya (called Prabodha-candrika), Ramakrsna, Mukundadasa, Rama- narayana, Visvegvara, Sankarananda, Sivadayalu Sridharasvamin (called Subodhini), Sadananda Vyasa (called Bhava-prakdsa), Siiryapandita (Paramartha-prapa), Nilakantha (called Bhava- dipika), and also from the Saiva point of view by Rajanaka and Ramakantha (called Sarvato-bhadra). Many other works were also written on the general purport of the Gita, such as Bhagavad- gitartha-samgraha by Abhinavagupta and Nrsimha Thakkura, Bhagavad-gitartha-sara by Gokulacandra, Bhagavad-gita-lak- sabharana by Vadiraja, Bhagavad-gita-sara by Kaivalyananda Sarasvati, Bhagavad-gita-sara-samgraha by Narahari and Bha- /gavad-gita-hetu-nirnaya by Vitthala Diksita. Most of these com- \ mentaries are written either from the point of view of Sankara’s / bhasya, repeating the same ideas in other language, or from the Bee Vaisnava point of view, approving of the hold of normal duties -<_ ) of men in all stages of life and sometimes differing only in the ( conception of God and His relation with men. These can claim __¢ but little originality either of argument or of opinions, and so may \ well be left out of detailed consideration for our present purposes. Gita and Yoga. Whoever may have written the Gita, it seems very probable — that he was not acquainted with the technical sense of yoga as the — ‘cessation of mental states (citta-vrtti-nirodha), as used by Patafijali in his-Yoga-sutra, 1. 1. I have elsewhere shown that there are . three roots, yujir yoge and yuj samadhau, i.e. the root yujzr, to join, and the root yuj in the sense of cessation of mental states or one- 444 The Philosophy of the Bhagavad-gita [cH. pointedness, and yuj samyamane, i.e. yuj in the sense of controlling. In the Gita the word yoga appears to have been used in many senses, which may seem to be unconnected with one another; yet it may not be quite impossible to discover relations among them. The primary sense of the word yoga in the Gita is derived from the root yujir yoge or yuj, to join, with which is connected in a negative way the root yj in the sense of controlling or restricting anything to that to which it is joined. Joining, as it means contact with something, also implies disjunction from some other thing. When a particular type of mental outlook or scheme of action is recommended, we find the word buddhi-yoga used, which simply means that one has intimately to associate oneself with a particular type of wisdom or mental outlook. Similarly, when the word karma-yoga is used, it simply means that one has to associate oneself with the obligatoriness of the performance of duties. Again, _ the word yoga is used in the sense of fixing one’s mind either on the self (atman) or on God.