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* Cf. the Gita, v1. 19, yatha dipo nivata-sthah, etc. XIV] Sdmkhya and Yoga in the Gita 459 as the dedication of the fruits of actions to God and communion with Him, is absent here. h ea “It is needless to point out here that the yoga of the Gita is in ; no way connected with the yoga of Buddhism. In Buddhism the | Sage first practises sila, or sense-control and mind-control, and thus | prepares himself for a course of stabilization or fixation of the _ mind (samadhana, upadharana, patittha). This samadhi means the | concentration of the mind on right endeavours and of its states | upon one particular object (ekarammana), so that they may com- pletely cease to shift and change (samma ca avikkhippamana). The sage has first to train his mind to view with disgust the appetitive desires for food and drink and their ultimate loathsome trans- formations as various nauseating bodily elements. When a man habituates himself to emphasizing the disgusting associations of food and drink, he ceases to have any attachment to them and simply takes them as an unavoidable evil, only awaiting the day when the final dissolution of all sorrows will come. Secondly, the sage has to habituate his mind to the idea that all his members are made up of the four elements, earth, water, fire and wind, like the carcass of a cow at the butcher’s shop. Thirdly, he has to habituate his mind to thinking again and again (anussati) about the virtues or greatness of the Buddha, the Sangha, the gods and the law of the Buddha, about the good effects of sila and the making of gifts (cdganussatt), about the nature of death (marandanussati) and about the deep nature and qualities of the final extinction of all phenomena (upasamanussati). He has also to pass through various purificatory processes. He has to go to the cremation grounds and notice the diverse horrifying changes of human carcasses and think how nauseating, loathsome, unsightly and impure they are; from this he will turn his mind to living human bodies and con- vince himself that they, being in essence the same as dead car- casses, are as loathsome as the latter. He should think of the anatomical parts and constituents of the body as well as of their processes, and this will help him to enter into the first jhana, or meditation, by leading his mind away from his body. As an aid to concentration the sage should sit in a quiet place and fix his mind on the inhaling (passdasa) and the exhaling (assasa) of his breath, so that, instead of breathing in a more or less unconscious manner, . he may be aware whether he is breathing quickly or slowly; he ought to mark this definitely by counting numbers, so that by 460 The Philosophy of the Bhagavad-gita [cH. fixing his mind on the numbers counted he may realize the whole process of inhalation and exhalation in all stages of its course. Next to this we come to brahma-vihara, the fourfold medi- tation of metta (universal friendship), karuna (universal pity), mudita (happiness in the prosperity and happiness of all) and upekkha (indifference to any kind of preferment of oneself, one’s friend, enemy or a third party). In order to habituate himself to meditation on universal friendship, a man should start with thinking how he would himself like to root out all misery and become happy, how he would himself like to avoid death and live cheerfully, and then pass over to the idea that other beings would also have the same desires. He should thus habituate himself to thinking that his friends, his enemies and all those with whom he is not connected might all live and become happy. He should fix himself to such an extent in this meditation that he should not find any difference between the happiness or safety of himself and that of others. Coming to jhanas, we find that the objects of concentration may be earth, water, fire, wind, colours, etc. In the first stage of concentration on an object there is compre- hension of the name and form of the object; at the next stage the relational movement ceases, and the mind penetrates into the object without any quivering. In the next two stages there is a buoyant exaltation and a steady inward bliss, and, as a result of the one- pointedness which is the culminating effect of the progressive meditation, there is the final release of the mind (ceto-vimutti)— the Nibbana. It is easy to see that, though Patajfijali’s yoga is under a deep debt of obligation to this Buddhist yoga, the yoga of the Gita is unacquainted therewith. The pessimism which fills the Buddhist yoga is seen to affect not only the outlook of Patafijali’s yoga, but also most of the later Hindu modes of thought, in the form of the advisability of refiecting on the repulsive sides of things (pratipaksa-bhavana) which are seemingly attractive!. The ideas of universal friendship, etc. were also taken over by Patafijali and later on passed into Hindu works. The methods of concen- tration on various ordinary objects also seem to be quite unlike what we find in the Gita. The Gita is devoid of any tinge of pessimism such as we find in the Buddhist yoga. It does not anywhere recommend the habit of brooding over the repulsive 1 See Nyaya-mafjari, Vairdgya-sataka, Santi-éataka. XIV] Sdmkhya Philosophy in the Gita 461 aspects of all things, so as to fill our minds with a feeling of disgust for all worldly things. It does not rise to the ideal of regarding all beings as friends or to that of universal compassion. Its sole aim is to teach the way of reaching the state of equanimity, in which the saint has no preferences, likes and dislikes—where the difference between the sinner and the virtuous, the self and the not-self has vanished. The idea of yoga as self-surrendering union with God and self-surrendering performance of one’s duties is the special feature which is absent in Buddhism. This self- surrender in God, however, occurs in Patafijali’s yoga, but it is hardly in keeping with the technical meaning of the word yoga, as the suspension of all mental states. The idea appears only once in. Patafijali’s si#tras,and the entire method of yoga practices, as de- scribed in the later chapters, seems to take no notice of it. It seems highly probable, therefore, that in Patafijali’s satras the idea was borrowed from the Gita, where this self-surrender to God and union with Him is defined as yoga and is the central idea which the Gita is not tired of repeating again and again. We have thus completely failed to trace the idea of the Gita to any of the different sources where the subject of yoga is dealt with, such as the Yoga Upanisads, Patafijali’s Yoga-siitras, Buddhist Yoga, or the Maka-bharata. It is only in the Pafica-ratra works that the Gita meaning of yoga as self-surrender to God is found. Thus Ahirbudhnya-samhita describes yoga as the worship of the heart (hrdayaradhana), the offering of an oblation (havih) of oneself to God or self-surrender to God (bhagavate atma-samarpanam), and yoga is defined as the linking up (samyoga) of the lower self (jivatman) with the higher self (paramatman)’. It seems, therefore, safe to suggest that the idea of yoga in the Gita has the same traditional source as in the Pafica-ratra works. or Samkhya Philosophy in the Gita. fe It has been said before that there is no proof that the word samkhya in the Gita means the traditional Samkhya philosophy ; | yet the old philosophy of prakyt: and purusa forms the basis of the philosophy of the Gita. This philosophy may be summarized be 4 as follows: 1 The Ahirbudhnya-samhita, of course, introduces many observations about the nerves (nadi) and the vayus, which probably became associated with the Pafica-ratra tradition in later times. 462 The Philosophy of the Bhagavad-gita [cH. Prakrti is called mahad brahma (the great Brahma or the great multiplier as procreatress) in the Gita, xiv. 31. It is said there that this prakrti is described as being like the female part, which God charges with His energy for the creation of the universe. Wherever any living beings may be born, the great Brahman or prakrti is to be considered as the female part and God as the father and fertilizer. Three types of qualities are supposed to be produced from prakrti (gunah prakrti-sambhavah)*. ‘These are sattva, rajas and tamas, which bind the immortal self in its corporeal body. Of these, sattva, on account of its purity, is illuminating and untroubling (an@mayam, which Sridhara explains as nirupadravam or santam), and consequently, on account of these two qualities, binds the self with the attachment for knowledge (jfiana-sangena) and the attachment for pleasure (sukha-sangena). It is said that there are no living beings on earth, or gods in the heavens, who are not pervaded by the three gunas produced from the prakrti®. Since the gunas are produced from the prakrti through the fertilization of God’s energy in prakrti, they may be said to be produced by God, though God always transcends them. The quality of sattva, as has been said above, associates the self with the attachments for pleasure and knowledge. The quality of rajas moves to action and arises from desire and attachment (érsna- sanga-samudbhavam), through which it binds the self with ego- istic attachments for action. The quality of tamas overcomes the illumination of knowledge and leads to many errors. Tamas, being a product of ignorance, blinds all living beings and binds them down with carelessness, idleness and sleep. These three qualities predominate differently at different times.