English
Since the actions themselves are neither good nor bad, the per- formance of even apparently sinful actions, such as the killing of one’s kinsmen on the battle-field, cannot be regarded as sinful, if they are done from a sense of duty; but the same actions would be regarded as sinful, if they were performed through attachments or desires. Looked at from this point of view, the idea of morality in the Gita is essentially of a subjective character. But though morality, virtue and vice, can be regarded from this point of view as subjective, it is not wholly subjective. For morality does not depend upon mere subjective conscience or the subjective notions of good and bad. The caste-duties and other duties of customary morality are definitely fixed, and no one should transgress them. The subjectivity of virtue and vice consists in the fact that they depend entirely on our good or bad actions. If actions are per- formed from a sense of obedience to scriptural commands, caste- / ] / / / / XIV] God and Man 523 duties or duties of customary morality, then such actions, in spite of their bad consequences, would not be regarded as bad. Apart from these courses of rebirth and ascent to heaven, the last and best and ultimate course is described as being libera- tien, which transcends all that can be achieved by all kinds of merits attained by sacrifices, gifts or tapas. He who attains this highest achievement lives in God and is never born again!. The highest realization thus consists in being one with God, by which one escapes all sorrows. In the Gita liberation (moksa) means liberation from old age and death. This liberation can be attained by true philosophic knowledge of the nature of ksetra, or the mind-body whole, and the ksetra-jva, the perceiving selves, or the nature of what is truly spiritual and what is non-spiritual, and by clinging to God as one’s nearest and dearest*. This liberation from old age and death also means liberation from the ties of karma associated with us through the bonds of attachment, desires, etc. It does not come of itself, as the natural result of philosophic knowledge or of devotion to God; but God, as the liberator, grants it to the wise and to those who cling to Him through devotion?. But whether it be achieved as the result of philosophic knowledge or as the result of devotion to God, the moral elevation, con- sisting of dissociation from attachment and the right performance of duties in an unattached manner, is indispensable. God and Man. The earliest and most recondite treatment regarding the nature and existence of God and His relation to man is to be found in the Gita. The starting-point of the Gita theism may be traced as ~~ far back as the Purusa-sikta, where it is said that the one quarter of the purusa has spread out as the cosmic universe and its living beings, while its other three-quarters are in the immortal heavens‘. This passage is repeated in Chandogya, 111. 12.6 and in Maitrayani, v1. 4, where it is said that the three-quarter Brahman sits root upward above (ardhva-miilam tripad Brahma). 'This idea, in a slightly modified form, appears in the Katha Upanisad, VI. 1, where it is said that this universe is the eternal Agvattha 1 Gitd, vit. 28; IX. 4. ® Ibid. vil. 29; XIII. 34. 3 Tbid. xvitt. 66. ic pado ’sya visva bhiitan tripad asyamrtam divi. Purusa-sitkta. 524 The Philosophy of the Bhagavad-gita [CH. tree which has its root high up and its branches downwards (ardhva-miilo ’vak-sakhah). The Gita borrows this idea and says, ‘This is called the eternal Agvattha (pipul tree) with its roots high up and branches downwards, the leaves of which are the Vedas; and he who knows this, he knows the Vedas” (xv. 1). Again it is said, ‘Its branches spread high and low, its leaves of sense-objects are nourished by the gunas, its roots are spread downwards, tied with the knots of karma, the human world” (xv. 2); and in the next verse, it is said, ‘‘ In this world its true nature is not perceived ; its beginning, its end, and the nature of its subsistence, remain unknown; it is only by cutting this firmly rooted Asvattha tree with the strong axe of unattachment (asariga-Sastrena) that one has to seek that state from which, when once achieved, no one returns.” It is clear from the above three passages that the Gita has elabo- rated here the simile of the Asvattha tree of the Katha Upanisad. The Gita accepts this simile of God, but elaborates it by supposing that these branches have further leaves and other roots, which take their sap from the ground of human beings, to which they are attached by the knots of karma. This means a duplication of the Aésvattha tree, the main and the subsidiary. The subsidiary one is an overgrowth, which has proceeded out of the main one and as to be cut into pieces before one can reach that. The principal (ise underlying this simile throws a flood of light on the Gita ,\ conception of God, which is an elaboration of the idea of the | Purusa-siikta passage already referred to. God is not only im- manent, but transcendent as well. The immanent part, which forms the cosmic Universe, is no illusion or maya: it is an.emanation, a development, from God. The good and the evil, the moral and the immoral of this world, are all from Him and in Him. The “stuff of this world and its manifestations have their basis, an essence, in Him, and are upheld by Him. The transcendent part, which may be said to be the root high up, and the basis of all that has grown in this lower world, is itself the differenceless ( reality—the Brahman. But, though the Brahman is again and | again referred to as the highest abode and the ultimate realization, | the absolute essence, yet God in His super-personality transcends _ even Brahman, in the sense that Brahman, however great it may be, is only a constitutive essence in the complex personality of God. The cosmic universe, the gunas, the purusas, the mind- structure composed of buddht, ahamkara, etc., and the Brahman, } XIV] God and Man 525 are all constituents of God, having their separate functions and - mental relations ; but God in His super-personality transcends them | all and upholds thern all. There is, however, one important point in which the Gita differs from the Upanisads—this is, its intro- | duction of the idea that God takes birth on earth as man. Thus in the Gita, rv. 6 and Iv. 7, it is said that “whenever there is a dis- turbance of dharma and the rise of adharma, | create myself; though I am unborn, of immortal self and the lord of all beings, yet by virtue of my own nature (prakrti) I take birth through my own maya (blinding power of the gunas).” This doctrine of the incarnation of God, though not dealt with in any of the purely speculative systems, yet forms the corner-stone of most systems of religious philosophy and religion, and the Gita is probably the earliest work available to us in which this doctrine is found. The effect of its introduction and of the dialogue form of the Gita, in which the man-god Krsna instructs Arjuna in the philosophy of life and conduct, is that the instruction regarding the personality of God becomes concrete and living. As will be evident in the course of this section, the Gita is not a treatise of systematic philosophy, but a practical course of introduction to life and conduct, conveyed by God Himself in the form of Krsna to His devotee, Arjuna. In the Gita abstract philosophy melts down to an insight into the nature of practical life and conduct, as discussed with all the intimacy of the personal relation between Krsna and Arjuna, which suggests a similar personal relation _-+~between God and man. For the God in the Gita is not a God of | abstract philosophy or theology, but a God who could be a man \ and be capable of all personal relations. : The all-pervasive nature of God and the fact that He is the ( essence and upholder of all things in the world is again and ‘again in various ways emphasized in the Gita. Thus Krsna says, “There is nothing greater than I, all things are held in me, like pearls in the thread of a pearl garland; I am the liquidity in water, the light of the sun and the moon, manhood (paurusa) in man; good smell in earth, the heat of the sun, intelligence in the intelligent, heroism in the heroes, strength in the strong, and I am also the desires which do not transgress the path of virtue?.” Again, it is said that “in my unmanifested (avyakta) form I pervade the whole world; all beings exist completely in me, but 1 Gitd, vil. 7-11. Se ee ee, 526 The Philosophy of the Bhagavad-gita [cH. I am not exhausted in them; yet so do I transcend them that none of the beings exist in me—I am the upholder of all beings, I do not exist in them and yet I am their procreator'.”’ In both these passages the riddle of God’s relation with man, by which He exists in us and yet does not exist in us and is not limited by us, is explained by the fact of the threefold nature of God; there is a part of Him which has been manifested as inanimate nature and also as the animate world of living beings. It is with reference to this all-pervasive nature of God that it is said that ‘‘as the air in the sky pervades the whole world, so are all beings in ‘me’ (God). At the end of each cycle (kalpa) all beings enter into my nature (prakrtim yanti mamikam), and again at the beginning of a cycle I create them. I create again and again through my nature (prakrtz) ; the totality of all living beings is helplessly dependent on prakrti*.”’ The three prakrtis have already been referred to in the previous sections—prakrti of God as cosmic matter, prakrti as the nature of God from which all life and spirit have emanated, and prakrti as maya, or the power of God from which the three gunas have emanated.