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Prajapati created sacrifices along with the creation of men and said, “The sacrifices will be for your good—you should help the gods by your sacrifices, and the gods will in their 1 Vyavasadyatmika buddhih samddhau na vidhiyate. Gita, 11. 44. The word samdadhau is explained by Sridhara as follows: samddhi$ cittaikagryam, para- mesvarabhimukhatvam iti yadvat; tasmin niscayatmika buddhis tu na vidhiyate. Samadhi is thus used here to mean one-pointedness of mind to God. But Sankara gives a very curious interpretation of the word samadhi, as meaning mind (antahkarana or buddht), which is hardly justifiable. Thus he says, samd- dhiyate ’smin purusopabhogaya sarvam iti samadhir antahkaranam buddhih. The werd vyavasdyatmika is interpreted by commentators on I. 41 and II. 44 as meaning niscayatmikd (involving correct decision through proper pramdnas or proof). I prefer, however, to take the word to mean “right resolution.” xIv]_ Conception of Sacrificial Duties in the Gita 485 turn help you to grow and prosper. He who lives for himself without offering oblations to the gods and supporting them thereby is misappropriating the share that belongs to the gods.” This view of the Gitd is different from that of the later Mimamsa, which probably had a much earlier tradition. Thus Kumirila held that the final justification of Vedic sacrifices or of dharma was that it satisfied our needs and produced happiness— it was artha. The sacrifices were, no doubt, performed out’ of regard for the law of Vedic commands; but that represented only the psychological side of the question. The external ground for the performance of Vedic sacrifices was that it produced happiness for the performer and satisfied his desires by securing for him the objects of desire. It was in dependence on such a view that the Nyaya sought to settle the motive of all Vedic sacrifices. The Naiyayikas believed that the Vedic observances not only secured for us all desired objects, but that this was also the motive for which the sacrifices were performed. The Gita was well aware of this view, which it denounces. The Gita admitted that the sacrifices produced the good of the world, but its whole outlook was different; for the Gita looked upon the sacrifices as being bonds of union between gods and men. The sacrifices improved the mutual good-will, and it was by the sacrifices that the gods were helped, and they in their turn helped men, and so both men and the gods prospered. Through sacrifices there was rain, and by rain the food-grains grew and men lived on the food- grains. So the sacrifices were looked upon as being sources not so much of individual good as of public good. He who looks to the sacrifices as leading to the satisfaction of his selfish interests is surely an inferior person. But those who do not perform the sacrifices are equally wicked. The Vedas have sprung forth from the deathless eternal, and sacrifices spring from the Vedas, and it is thus that the deathless, all-pervading Brahman is established in the sacrifices!. The implied belief of the Gita was that the prosperity of the people depended on the fertility of the soil, and that this again depended upon the falling of rains, and that the rains depended on the grace of gods, and that the gods could live prosperously only if the sacrifices were performed; the sacrifices were derived from the Vedas, the Vedas from the all-pervading ‘Brahman, and the Brahman again forms the main content of the 1 Gitd, U1. 15. 486 The Philosophy of the Bhagavad-gita [cH. Vedas. Thus there was a complete cycle from Brahman to sacri- _ fices, from sacrifices to the good of the gods and from the good of the gods to the good and prosperity of the people. Everyone is bound to continue the process of this cycle, and he who breaks it is a sinful and selfish man, who is not worth the life he leads!. Thus the ideal of the Gita is to be distinguished from the ideal of the Mimamsa in this, that, while the latter aimed at indi- vidual good, the former aimed at common good, and, while the latter conceived the Vedic commands to be the motives of their action, the former valued the ideal of performing the sacrifices in obedience to the law of continuing the process of the cycle of sacrifices, by which the world of gods and of men was maintained in its proper state of prosperity. When a man works for the sacrifices, such works cannot bind him to their fruits; it is only when works are performed from motives of self-interest that they can bind people to their good and bad fruits?. The word dharma in the Gita does not mean what Jaimini understood by the term, viz. a desirable end or good enjoined by the sacrifices (codana-laksano ’rtho dharmah). 'The word seems to be used in the Gita primarily in the sense of an unalterable cus- tomary order of class-duties or caste-duties and the general approved course of conduct for the people, and also in the sense of prescribed schemes of conduct. This meaning of dharma as *‘old customary order”’ is probably the oldest meaning of the word, as it is also found in the Atharva-Veda, 18.3. 1 (dharmam pura- nam anupalayantz)*. Macdonell, in referring to Maitrayana, 1v.1 9, Kathaka, xxx1. 7 and Taittiriya, 111. 2. 8. 11, points out that bodily defects (bad nails and discoloured teeth) and marrying a younger daughter while her elder sister is unmarried are coupled with murder, though not treated as equal to it, and that there is no dis- tinction in principle between real crimes and what are now regarded as fanciful bodily defects or infringements of merely conventional practices. In the Satapatha-brahmana, xiv. 4. 2. 26, also we find dharma for a Ksattriya‘ is illustrated as being the characteristic duties of a Ksattriya. The central meaning of the word dharma in the Gita is therefore the oldest Vedic meaning of the word, which is 1 Gitd, 111. 16. ® Thid. 11. 9. * dharma, dharman are the regular words, the latter in the Rg-veda and both later, for “law” or “custom.”’ See Macdonell’s Vedic Index, p. 390. * tad etat ksattrasya ksattram yad dharmah tasmad dharmat param nasti. Dr Albrecht Weber’s edition, Leipzig, 1924. xIv]_ Conception of Sacrificial Duties in the Gita 487 a much earlier meaning than the latter-day technical meaning of the word as it is found in Mimamsa. Dharma does not in the Gita mean sacrifices (yajfia) or external advantages, as it does in Mimamsa, but the order of conventional practices involving specific caste- divisions and caste-duties. Accordingly, the performance of sacrifices is dharma for those whose allotted duties are sacrifices. Adultery is in the Vedas a vice, as being transgression of dharma, and this is also referred to as such (dharme naste, 1. 39) in the Gita. In the Gita, 11. 7, Arjuna is said to be puzzled and con- fused regarding his duty as a Ksattriya and the sinful course of injuring the lives of his relations (dharma-sammiidha-cetah). The confusion of dharma and adharma is also referred to in xv1i1. 31 and 32. In the Gita, 1v. 7 and 8, the word dharma is used in the sense of the established order of things and conventionally accepted customs and practices. In 11. 40 the way of performing one’s duties without regard to pleasures or sorrows is described as a particular and specific kind of dharma (asya dharmasya), distinguished from dharma in general. The yajfia (sacrifice) is said to be of various kinds, e.g. that in which oblations are offered to the gods is called daiva-yajna; this is distinguished from brahma-yajna, in which one dedicates oneself to Brahman, where Brahman is the offerer, offering and the fire of oblations, and in which, by dedicating oneself to Brahman, one is lost in Brahman!. Then sense-control, again, is described as a kind of yajfa, and it is said that in the fire of the senses the sense-objects are offered as libations and the senses themselves are offered as libations in the fire of sense-control; all the sense- functions and vital functions are also offered as libations in the fire of sense-control lighted up by reason. Five kinds of sacrifices (yajfa) are distinguished, viz. the yajfa with actual materials of libation, called dravya-yajfia, the yajfia of asceticism or self-control, called tapo-yajfa, the yajfa of union or communion, called yoga-yajfia, the yajfa of scriptural studies, called suadhyaya- yajna, and the yajna of knowledge or wisdom, called jrana-yajna?. It is easy to see that the extension of the application of the term yajha from the actual material sacrifice to other widely divergent methods of self-advancement is a natural result of the extension of the concept of sacrifice to whatever tended towards self-advance- -ment. The term yajfa had high and holy associations, and the 1 Gitd, Iv. 24 and 25. 2 Ibid. 1v. 26-28; see also 29 and 30. 488 The Philosophy of the Bhagavad-gita [cH. newly discovered systems of religious éndeavours and endeavours for self-advancement came to be regarded as but a new kind of yajna, just as the substitution-meditations (pratikopdsana) were also regarded as being but new forms of yajfia. Thus, while thought advanced and newer modes of self-realization began to develop, the older term of yajfia came to be extended to these new types of religious discipline on account of the high veneration in which the older institution was held. But, whatever may be the different senses in which the term yajfa is used in the Gita, the word dharma has not here the technical sense of the Mimamsa. The Gita recommends the per- formance of sacrifices to the Brahmins and fighting to the Ksat- triyas, and thus aims at continuity of conventional practices which it regards as dharma. But at the same time it denounces the performance of actions from desire, or passions or any kind of selfish interest.