HOW THE GITA IS A SONG

Over the vast sub-continent of India, when the monsoon rains have ceased and the harvest has been gathered in, there is a lull in the goings and comings of human life. At such a season, when the clear starry nights are neither too cold nor too warm, the time is favourable for people, young and old to foregather after nightfall and engage their leisure hours in entertainments or in stimulating or elevating occupations. Popular dances and pageantry are naturally included. The stories of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata (in which the Bhagavad Gita is set), the great epics of India, offer them an endless mine of material from which to draw inspiration and joy.
Such is the natural setting into which the name Bhagavad Gita (Song of God) has to be related, before one can understand how this great masterpiece of contemplative philosophy came to be known as a song. Whether we take it to be a “celestial” or  “divine” or a  simple  song sung by God Himself, whether we take the two adjuncts in “God's Song” as equally applicable, as a double epithet to a favourite philosophical work so popular with the masses of India (these interpretations being equally permissible according to the rules of Sanskrit grammar), the main fact for the lay reader to recognize would be that, in the Gita we have a highly philosophical work which has gained the status of an elevating scripture on a par with the Vedas and the Upanishads. The Gita itself refers to other similar writings of seers (rishis) under the description of a " song ":
" Sung by rishis in many ways, severally and distinctly in [different] metres, and also in the aphoristic words of the Brahma-Sutras, replete with critical reasonings and positively determined ". (XII 4.)
The Gita, therefore, is a very popular well-known song, lulling and elevating, at once soothing and exalting, which has

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for its subject-matter wisdom-teaching of a very rare and superior order. We can more easily understand the figurative sense in which the Gita is a song when we remember that even in the West, writers like Plato have referred to  Dialectic as a hymn (in the Republic, 532, A to C), and that even Dante calls his epic La Divina Commedia -the Divine Comedy. No better example of a text suitable at once for a song and a study in the field of what is called " the Wisdom of the East " can be found in such a compact and convenient form.The Gita may be said to be the finest flowering of wisdom, pure or applied, which is sublime and precise at once. Its growing popularity through the centuries and even in modern times is sufficiently explained, not so much by its cherished position among the religious textbooks of the Indian people in any closed or static sense, but because it highly deserves, by its universal appeal and by the high hope it holds out to all mankind, a permanent place among works referring to perennial and contemplative wisdom which can know no barrier of race, religion or tradition.

AUTHORSHIP

By popular assent the authorship of the Gita is attributed. to Vyasa, also called Veda Vyasa, or Krishna Dvaipayana. He is also reputed to be the author of the Brahma-Sutras (Aphorisms on the Wisdom of the Absolute) and alluded to under the name Badarayana. As Dvaipayana he was known to be of black colour as suggested by the name Krishna (black) usually applied to him. His father Parasara was the son of a woman of lowly birth while Vyasa himself had a fisher-damsel for mother. Though surrounded by a certain amount of mystery, the name of Vyasa, as it appears in the various scriptures of Hinduism, still occupies a central position as one of the most important revaluators of spirituality. Whenever the flow of the most subtle aspects of  “Hindu” doctrines  were  threatened  with  any  kind of  danger  or  disaster, whether theoretical or actual, we find Vyasa appearing on the scene to save the situation. Historically, whenever there was the danger of interruption in the continuity of the most precious esoteric heritage of wisdom in India, whenever the continuity and flow of the wisdom traversing the barriers of one generation after another was likely to be broken or to become extinguished, the same mystic

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and mysterious figure of Vyasa is seen, as mentioned in many of the puranas (legends), emerging into the situation to save wisdom from decay or destruction. Even the physical parenthood of some of the most important custodians of the spiritual heritage of Hindus is often attributed to Veda Vyasa. Vyasa therefore occupies a central key position in Indian spirituality. The whole of the vast body of literature constituting the Mahabharata is attributed to Vyasa. The ahabharata itself has been considered by certain authors as an aggregate of traditional lore which accumulated through a long period of history with the possibility of various interpolations and later accretions and additions. The Gita appears in the Bhishmaparva section of the Mahabharata   (L830-1531 ).  It  is in the light of  the  habit  so  prevalent  among ancient classical Writers in India of submerging their own identity in favour of some great name belonging to hoary Indian tradition itself, such as that of a Vasishta or a Narada, that we have to fix the authorship of the Gita, vague as it already is, on to the generic and mysterious personage of Vyasa, rather than on a specified or actual person. Vasishta as the author of the Yoga Vasishta and Narada as the author of the Bhakti Sutras and even Patanjali's name, associated with the Yoga Sastras on the one hand and the Mahabhasya (Great Commentary) on Panini's Grammar on the other, offer problems of no less mystery. We shall not therefore linger long here in our futile effort to fix with precision the authorship of the Gita, except to say that some particular Vyasa, though not the Vyasa, wrote it.

DATE OF THE COMPOSITION

Scholars have suggested that it is the result of the readjustment of Samkhya thought to the Vedic tradition, and that this took place about the third century BCE., It is also further suggested that although the original was composed then, it was brought to its present form by some follower of the Vedanta in the second century CE. The famous Orientalist  R.Garbe is  responsible for  these  suggestions, to which  J. N. Farquhar adds the suggestion that the Gita could be considered  “an old verse Upanishad written rather later than the Svetasvatara and worked up into the Gita in the interests of Krishnaism by a poet after the Christian era” . These speculations by

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Western scholars may be set off against the opposite tendency of writers like B. G. Tilak who, in their orthodox religious devotion to the book tend to exaggerate the antiquity of the work beyond all limits that sane and critical scholarship can appreciate. Tilak for example, puts the date as 3100 BCE. .
In the present work we do not wish to fix finally either the date or the authorship of the Gita. We believe that it would not be far wrong even to suggest that the Indian mind loves to retain the mystery rather than to lay it too bare. There is even a vernacular proverb which says it is wrong to trace the ancestry of a sage or to follow up a river to its very source. Seeing that many reputed scholars have applied their critical acumen and erudite imagination to this subject in vain, and out of deference also to the delicate sentiments of the popular Indian mind, we prefer, in this matter, to leave the subject there. Scholars and religionists are free to have their say in this highly speculative domain, while we retain for ourselves an open mind. 

UNIVERSAL APPRECIATION

That the Gita has enjoyed an honoured place in India goes without saying. More than the appreciations shown by individuals sensitive to wisdom values, the teaching of the Gita may be said to have influenced indirectly the whole population of India, generally enriching and nourishing its spiritual life and promoting a love of truth and justice during the last fifteen centuries. Although it is difficult to gauge in terms of actuality what service it did to the people of India, its general effect in raising the standard of thought towards a true and contemplative order can by no means be considered negligible. Rather it can easily be visualized as having been truly momentous in effect, even when we make due allowance for the paradox involved in the Gita teaching.
Such a far-reaching influence was not at all confined to the limits of India. As early as 1785 Charles Wilkins translated the work into English and printed it in quarto form in London. This was followed by a French translation by  Emile Burnouf  in 1861. Various other translations followed in the

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West and the whole story of the rapid popularity gained by the Gita is mentioned in a brochure published by an esteemed friend of the present. writer, Mr. Paul Hubert, under the title Histoire de la Bhagavad-Gita. This places on record how the reputation of the Gita spread throughout the world from 1785 to the present day. In his study in Paris Mr. Hubert actually had round him as many as 132 different editions of the Gita, in various languages - English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Swedish, Czech, Serbian, Russian, Hungarian, Esperanto, etc.
Considering the above facts it is clear that the appeal of the Gita has some element of universality implicit in it, for the appreciation of which one has no need to discard one's own more limited loyalty of civilization or of religion. Without any doubt the appeal of the Gita is human and universal.

SENTIMENTAL ESTIMATES

A book can be admired for wrong or inferior reasons, just as it is possible for a saint or philosopher to be misrepresented by his own disciples. Such a possibility is what made some of them cry out in despair, “God defend me from my friends!” as the proverb puts it. The Gita has suffered from various grades of appreciation or respect shown for it. Some have considered the Gita as a kind of amulet. Miniature editions have been enclosed in small cases to be worn round the neck as a religious charm. This is true not only of orthodox Hindus but of others outside that fold, like a young American lady who was known to carry the Gita always with her for reasons of auspiciousness or safety.
There are others only one degree removed from this extreme case who treat the Gita as a holy object or as having hierophantic value. Others, still more reasonable, have appreciated the Gita in a slightly improved form. They have often selected their favourite verses for private prayers or for being used at family gatherings. Most persons belonging to this category have tended to treat the Gita as consisting of  seven  hundred  separate  spiritual  thoughts  more  or  less aphoristically stated in verse form. The very mention of the word “Gita” is sufficient for such persons to feel that special numinous thrill which religious people often experience and to which they might have been previously conditioned in their own group life. Krishna's various promises, even to save the sinner, and parts

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of the vision contained in the eleventh chapter, appeal to their devotional temperaments. Verses of ethical import or divine protection may also be included in such appreciations of a childishly religious order .              

 Favourite collections of Gita verses of this type have been compiled even in the name of great or reputed spiritual leaders or personalities such as Mahatma Gandhi or Ramana Maharishi. Some of these stress practice, others renunciation and there are a few, who even think that the Gita preaches outright politics with all its evils such as war and wholesale slaughter. These preferences as a rule reflect the temperaments of those who select them and could even be used for diagnosing the types to which they consciously or unconsciously belong. The Gita itself enunciates the law of mutual accord as follows:  “That which one's faith is, one is even that”. (XVII, 3) The variety and number of such appreciations are far too great for us to attempt a passing reference to all of them.

MORE SERIOUS ESTIMATES IN INDIA

Fortunately, the Gita has had more serious minds to appraise its value. Highly intelligent praise has been showered on the Gita in India. Two such instances are in verse form. The Gita Mahatmya is one of these, found in the Varaha Purana. It is often prefixed to Indian editions of the Gita. This particular composition is based on the practice of the Gita teaching in connection with worship or recitation. The various grades of spiritual merit that could accrue from the study or reading of the Gita are all mentioned in it in detail. For example, it says in the twelfth verse: " By reading of a third part one obtains the same merit as bathing in the Ganges." Although the appreciation is on the lines of Vedic orthodoxy, still, it is relieved by statements such as " The Gita is  my  Supreme  Science,  it  is verily  the  form of  Brahma” and  in verse 9  it adds significantly, " It is the three Vedas, the final bliss, the exposition of knowledge of first principles (tattva)."

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Another favourite composition in verse, and which is found prefixed to most Indian editions of the Gita, is called the Gita Dhyana (Meditation on the Gita). It is from the Vaishnavya Tantrasara. It goes into the authorship and subject matter with much greater penetrating contemplative insight than the Mahatmya, which only treated the Gita as a holy book. Here,  in  the  Gita  Dhyana, the  Gita is  called  the  Mother - presumably of wisdom-teaching, and justified all the more with the feminine gender of the word Gita ending with a long vowel in Samskrit. In a striking metaphor, it compares all the Upanishads to cows; the milker is the joy of the cow-herds (Krishna). Arjuna is the calf and men of high intelligence are those who enjoy the nectar-milk which is the Gita teaching. This allegorical method is developed in this poem in some detail in an eloquent and classically antique style. Bhishma and Drona, the two Gurus beside the Absolutist Guru Krishna, are compared to the two banks of the battle-river, and various other characters of the Mahabharata war are compared to rocks, billows, alligators and a whirlpool. The last figure of speech is applied to Duryodhana, the leader of the Kaurava army. The lotus flower (meaning the whole of the Mahabharata epic) has a perfume which is compared in the subtle import of the words of the son of Parasara (Vyasa). Yogis, it concludes, see the bright sun towards which the lotus unfolds its petals. The secondary anecdotes within the lotus epic are the stamens, surrounding the teaching which is the very core of the flower.

ASSESSMENTS FROM OUTSIDE INDIA

The estimations of the worth of the Gita from intelligent persons outside India have been both penetrating and unstinted in praise. The French Orientalist Emile Burnouf, after praising the Gita as uniting within its scope "the most noble sentiments of human nature with the Stoic law of detachment",  recommends the book to Westerners with these characteristic words: " One sees that there have been men who could think better than us and who have traced the way of salvation". The appreciation coming from the German poet F. Von Schlegel as early as 1823 is marked by wholeheartedness and

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spontaneity. In his eloquent Latin quoted by Sir Edwin Arnold, Schlegel apostrophizes Vyasa, as follows:
" 0 thou venerable first of poets, interpreter of the numinous, whatever be thy name among mortals, 0 Author of this Song whose maxims transport the spirit to the eternal and divine heights of an inexpressible felicity; I incline myself profoundly before thee in one everlasting adoration for thy sacred words ".    To the long list of early admirers of the Gita may be added the name of Victor Cousins who masterfully summarized its message in his lectures on philosophy at the University of Paris in 1841 - Sir Edwin Arnold, the famous English poet who rendered the Gita into English verse, compares it with the New Testament, without however, suggesting as some others have done, that it might have borrowed its teaching from. the Bible, a notion which is hardly worth treating seriously.
From the remarks of the French psychologist, T. A. Ribot which appeared in La Revue Philosophique in 1894, it is clear that he was able to enter more deeply into, the nature of the Gita. He wrote:
“ Its philosophy is not that of discursive reflection and implies views which should be systematized by a knowledge of mysticism and of intuitive penetration. To see in the Gita other specific developments of thought would be an inadequate method for its exposition. Its teachings should be considered more as alluding to degrees of realization of the Self as they have been recommended in the various schools of asceticism as inculcated by different mystical disciplines rather than as seeking any logical consistency or even dialectical penetration." 

Except in the last-mentioned reference to dialectics we can agree with this estimate of a first-rate thinker belonging to the strictly academic circles of the West. As we shall try to show in the sections that follow, dialectics is a little understood way of arriving at philosophical certitude. For the present reserving what we have to say on this one point, we can confidently state here that in the estimate of Prof. Ribot we have

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one which comes closest to our own basis of discussion in the commentary of this volume.

RECENT TRANSLATIONS AND COMMENTARIES

Before passing on to serious commentaries such as that of Sankara it would be natural to make a passing review of some of the editions, traditions and commentaries which have appeared in English in recent years. Politicians  like  Tilak (1935)  and  Gandhi (1946),  academic professors  like  W. D. P. Hill (1928),  F. Edgerton (1944)  and S. Radhakrishnan  (1948),  leaders of  esoteric  thought  like Mrs. Annie Besant and Bhagavan Das (1905) and those who claim to be integral Yogis such as Sri Aurobindo (1928) have all made their contributions, each in a different way, to the growing body of current literature on the Gita. At least two poetic renderings have appeared since the publication of The Song Celestial by Sir Edwin Arnold (1885). The first of these is the verse rendering by Prof. Edgerton in which he has wonderfully succeeded in retaining the quatrain stanza almost as directly as possible conforming to the words of the original Samskrit. The other is by Christopher Isherwood and Swami Prabhavananda (1945). The best qualification of this rendering is that it is readable, though in doing so it often sacrifices subtle mystical doctrine in the name of modern plainness. If we should include in this review the editions which have appeared in the various Indian languages during recent years, the list would swell to hundreds. Generally speaking, most of such editions may be said to look upon the Gita as a canonical or authoritative scripture of the Hindus. Whether the Gita could be strictly called the scripture of any particular religious expression is a question which we shall have to discuss in some detail more than once in the sections below, because the  value of the comments in the present work will depend much on coming to a proper decision on this point. Even Dr. Radhakrishnan treats the Gita erroneously more as a work on religious life rather than as one dealing with philosophy. The very last sentence of his Introduction to his translation and commentary reads " The Bhagavad Gita is more a religious classic than a philosophical treatise."  

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 Another eminent Indian writes: " We may accordingly conclude that the central pivot of the teaching is activism, or to  use the expression of the Gita, karma – yoga ….. `devotion to the discharge of social obligations” , and again:
 “It [the Gita] emphasizes the social character of man and generally speaking declines to look upon him apart from the community of which he is a member.” 
  Prof. F. Edgerton of Harvard also considers the Gita to have a theistic character.B. G. Tilak has devoted two laborious volumes to what he calls Gita Rahasya (The Secret of the Gita) in which he has much useful information to give. Translated from the Marathi original, the two volumes represent a monumental attempt wherein the author's earnestness and energy are evident on every page, not unmixed with much erudition. His attitude of a religious Hindu of an active temperament is unmistakable from what he has to say. From the vast body of his writing we extract the following for illustration:
" In short it is perfectly clear that the proper preaching [of the Gita in this place would be “energism” (pravritti) and that, as all others are only supporting Energism, that is as they are all auxiliary, the purport of the Gita religion must also be to support Energism; that is to support Action."  . Even Mahatma Gandhi, with whose general conclusions we have, independently of the Gita, a great desire to agree, does not examine the Gita teaching impersonally, but instead, his personal dogma, consciously or unconsciously, is seen to take much place in it. He would put ahimsa (non-hurting) above everything else. We read in his own words: " Thus the author, of the Gita by extending meanings of words has taught us to imitate him. Let it be granted that according to the letter of the Gita it is possible to say that warfare is consistent with renunciation of fruit, but after forty years unremitting endeavour fully to enforce the teaching of the Gita in my own life, I have in all humility felt that perfect renunciation is impossible without perfect observance of ahimsa in every shape and form." Prof. D. S. Sarma in his Bhagavad Gita (1945) stresses the fact that its central teaching is:
 " its simple lesson of yoga or union with God and bidding everyone of us to look upon his duty as something sacred, something inviolable-in fact as the only way to infinite life."  Like most others who treat

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the Gita as a sacred text of Hinduism he sees obligation where the fullest freedom is alone implied. Mrs. Besant's translation with the notes and comments in collaboration with Sri Bhagavan Das   is free from one-sided exaggerations, although the tendency to see more esoteric secrets in it than what seems warranted could have been avoided in certain places.Professor 0. Lacombe of Paris comes nearest to our own standpoint in the present work when he writes:
   " The Bhagavad Gita appears to us at once as a literary expression of the most ancient form of Ekanthika Dharma. and also as being the least particularized and the least sectarian; it does not intend to be a book of any determinate school but of all orthodox schools. Round the personality of Krishna it sounds a recall of all traditional forces for a new life impetus and this is what explains its universal value in Hinduism.” 

Sri Aurobindo's Essays on the Gita, I and II series (Calcutta 1928) represent the point of view of a Hindu of modern times who has had the full benefit of an intellectual formation of the West as also a religious background which is deeply emotional and intuitive. Temperamentally uncompromising and absolutist in his ways, it is no wonder that he thought in very realistic and living terms regarding the Absolute, and there is no mistaking that Sri Aurobindo took the teaching of the Gita to heart with the utmost earnestness. Its sentiments and attitude found echo in his own heart and he was able therefore to penetrate more deeply into the spirit of the teaching of the Gita than most other critics, especially in those living or active aspects of the Absolute which agree with his own deeply mystical and actively patriotic temperament. Although Sri Aurobindo is as capable of appraising its teachings as any scholar or academic professor, he does not desire to do so, but prefers to take the attitude of a person who merely seeks, as he says, “Help and light” from it! He is interested in what he calls its  “essential and living message” which has to be  “spiritual”.
We know from the other writings of Sri Aurobindo what pattern of spiritual life or teaching is his. His profuse writings.

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leave us in no doubt in regard to this. He often speaks of the supra-mental power  which can descend to manifest itself in actual terms, and there is also the ascent of human beings to the divine status which is also possible and can transform men into superior or divine personalities. From our own remarks in this introduction and in the text of the commentary it is easy to see that we too take a similar position without however resorting to theological or dogmatic expressions like God or divinity. We have taken special pains to show that the Gita teaching is not theistic or deistic. Divested of this quasi-theological or mythological vesture the truths underlying the writings of Sri Aurobindo could support our own position to a large extent. Let us quote extracts from. Sri Aurobindo to bring out both the agreement and the difference that we refer to. He writes:
 
“ It [the Avatar) is the manifestation from above of that which we have to develop from below; it is the descent of God into that divine birth of the human being into which we mortal creatures must climb; it is the attracting divine example given by God to man in the very type and form and perfected model of our human existence."

" The union of the soul with the Purushottama by a yoga of the whole being is the complete teaching of the Gita and not only the union with the immutable self as the narrower doctrine which follows the exclusive way of knowledge." At the very beginning of his Essays on the Gita Sri Aurobindo states:

" Our object then in studying the Gita, will not be a scholastic or academic scrutiny of its thought nor to place its philosophy in the history of metaphysical speculation nor shall we deal with it in the manner of the analytical dialectician”  The two quotations that we have selected to begin with are enough to convince anyone that, regardless of this modest statement; he does have very profound and subtle doctrines of a metaphysical order to derive from the teachings of the Gita.

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It is true he avoids giving his doctrines a dialectical, academic or scholarly form. This however is willfully and consciously done by him as we have stated. A close scrutiny of the implications of the two quotations we have selected will, however, convince the careful reader that they bear resemblance, though not directly, to dialectical modes of theorization at least to esoteric schools such as the Hermetics. While the kinship of his doctrines to the Tantra school of Bengal is not undiscernible, the roots of such theorization in the Indian soil are not readily traceable, especially because, as hinted at in the second quotation above, Sri Aurobindo has a lurking mistrust for anything that is of the nature of pure knowledge, which he refers to as the "narrower doctrine". These "narrower" doctrines however, we note on the other hand, tally with the standpoint of Sankara, the. most respectable of Gita commentators. However, we can discern implicit in Sri Aurobindo's standpoint, in spite of its tantric and esoteric form, the same dialectics that we are to explain in some of the sections of this Introduction, as forming the key to the enigmas and problems of the Gita.
Sri Aurobindo’s own philosophy according to us has kinship with the realism of the Sanjaya section of the eleventh chapter of the Gita, and more pointedly to the last line of Chapter XVIII, 75, where Krishna's divine presence is referred to as nothing more or less than actual. An Avatar who helps the establishment of Dharma and Arjuna fulfilling his own Dharma refer, according to Sri Aurobindo, to the core of the subject- matter of the Gita, for he writes:

" Dharma in the language of the Gita means the innate law of the being and its works and an action proceeding from and determined by the inner nature, svabhavaniyatam- karma . . the rest of the Gita is written to throw a fuller light on this immortal Dharma." Having been an active politician, interested in the liberation of India from foreign rule, Sri Aurobindo retained, even after he became a Yogi of Pondicherry (as made very evident in his message of Independence Day in India, on August 15, 1947) those aspects of spiritual or contemplative life which refer to active realities. The Gita, at least in its peripherally placed teachings, does lend support to such an attitude. We

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have however, preferred to treat. the Gita as a purer form of contemplative text based on dialectics. Among recent editions of the Gita, special and honourable mention has to be given to a translation of Jnâneshwar Maharaj’s great opus on the Gita. This great Mahratha Sage lived in the early part of the 14th century. The original is a record of a spoken discourse which has been translated into English with great pains and attention to detail by Mr. Mann Subedar, under the title, The Gita Explained by Dnyaneswar Maharaja. The method adopted by the Sage in this work which enjoys rare popularity among great numbers of devotees of the Gita in the Mahratha region of India, is to have a running commentary in a simple, mystical-contemplative style in which the Gita's teaching is presented in a homely, intimate. form with a richness of supplementary examples and explanatory instances.Even the devotee who may not be too erudite is led by the hand, as it were, to the deepest secrets which, like rare gems of mystical, contemplative or truly devotional doctrine, lie hidden in the teachings of the Gita. The avoidance of all hair-splitting and eyebrow-knitting by the adoption of a free and easy popular style is the chief merit of this work which by itself has attained a status similar to the Gita itself in the popular mind. A quiet contemplative flavour pervades the work as a whole and the reputation it has built for itself is likely to be as extensive as it is lasting.
It is not necessary for us to quote at length from the Jnaneshwari as the work is endearingly referred to by those who  practice its daily reading. To justify our foregoing remarks we shall content ourselves with one representative passage to reveal the homeliness and popular appeal of the work which, however, does not compromise the soundness of the doctrines involved, although the implications of subtle dialectics of the Gita as a Shastra (textbook) may not always be fully evident therein. Here then is a passage, referring to the negative state of the spirit of Arjuna which Krishna wants to correct (it is from the beginning of the second chapter):

Shri Krishna says to Arjuna: What is the matter with you?     Why have you lost courage? You are a great hero, a model Kshatriya with an unsullied name. . Your attitude at the call of battle is as incomprehensible as darkness covering the sun, nectar meeting with death, wood absorbing fire, salt dissolving water, the frog swallowing the serpent, or the fox defying the lion. You are a sensible man.. Wake up. Take
 
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courage. War is not made with rose-water. Live up to your reputation and get rid of these silly ideas. Kindness towards opponents in battle is misplaced... Did you not know hitherto that the Kauravas were your kinsmen? " The latest example of a Gita commentary where the message of the Gita may be seen to be narrowed down and bent for the purpose of workers in the field of social reform and politics or both, is to be found in Acharya Vinoba Bhave's Gita Pravachana which has gained wide publicity in many of the vernaculars of India. Samya is the central value that Vinobaji rightly sees implied in the Gita message; but this samya and samya yoga are directly meant by him to promote the free gift policy of giving lands called Bhoodan in which he is personally intent. It need not be pointed out that samya or “sameness”  or  “identity”  is a philosophical expression belonging to yoga or dialectics, which it would be unfair to limit and degrade for supporting a localized cause in a spirit of excessive zeal, however much the laudable end of Bhoodan might seem to justify such an interpretation.

THE CLASSICAL COMMENTATORS

(Sankara, Ramanuja and Madhva)
The classical commentators of the Gita are many. Among them we have the great names of Sankara (788-826 CE.), Ramanuja (1017-1137 CE.) and Madhva (1199-1317? CE). Although there are other names such as those of Vallabhacharya, Nimbarka, Sridharaswami and Anandagiri, whose opinions and comments find place in Gita literature, in the present commentary we propose to give prime importance only to Sankara. Ramanuja and Madhva were founders of religious groups who based their comments largely on the point of view of Sankara, whether by differing considerably from him or by travelling with him on similar lines in revaluation and estimation of the Gita. All three, Sankara, Ramanuja and Madhva were orthodox Vedantins of what are known as the Advaita (non-dualist), Vishishtadvaita (more specifically non-dualistic) and the Dvaita (dualistic) schools. The last two names are those of Gurus who belonged to the Vishnu context and who may be said to be representatives of the religious tradition of the Bhagavata religion also associated with the Pancharathras and the Narayaniya sects whose origins are

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lost in antiquity. On the other hand, Sankara follows the equally ancient Siva tradition, although accepting and adoring all the other gods of the Indian pantheon in a graded, critical, and comparative manner. The Vaishnavite Gurus were theologically minded, while Sankara gave primacy to wisdom (jnana), discrediting ritual and totally averse to treating action and wisdom as both important to adopt in spiritual life.

SANKARA’S UNIQUE POSITION

Sankara, therefore, although himself recognized as a Guru of the Smartha sect in South India at the present time, was more of a philosopher than a religious leader. This is not to say, however, that he did not himself influence spiritual life. Indeed, Sankara's is the greatest single philosophical influence prevailing to the present day in India as a whole. He was undoubtedly the greatest of the interpreters of the ancient wisdom of India, and the respect that he enjoys in India and among thinkers in the world outside India acquainted with Vedanta is very considerable and in many respects unrivalled. The difference between him and the other two Gurus who have commented on the Gita is one of methodological and epistemological outlook. Vedanta in the hands of Ramanuja and Madhva has a more theistically religious complexion, while Sankara, like his predecessor Gaudapada, of the same rational tradition, remains more purely philosophic. Sankara thus occupies a key position in regard to the prevailing spiritual pattern of Indian life as a whole. Sankara is equally well recognized in the North of India and in the South. Although he was himself mistrusted in his own time as being a  “Buddhist in disguise”,  because of the great importance he gave to Reason, yet, when it comes to naming a single personality who may be said to represent the best philosophic tradition which has survived and is still in vogue among the intelligent section of the people of India to the present day, Sankara's name has undoubtedly to be given all primacy.About the period when the Guptas ruled, when Buddhism was in decline in India, largely owing to political reasons, there was a spiritual vacuum in the land. The monastic life of the Buddhists had to give way to a revalued and readjusted

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form of spiritual life. The heterodox rationalism of the Buddhists had come to be discredited and there was no valid philosophy to displace it. In its latest form, the Gita was itself a fulfillment of the spiritual need of the times and Sankara's commentary on the Gita came just at that period when there was a certain anarchy and confusion of spiritual values in the mind of the ordinary people. Vedic ritualism also tended to be discredited among the masses and the regulating influence so necessary to keep people from falling into an era of decadence of norms and standards of a just or truthful life was absent . By his comments Sankara was able to give stability and continuity to the flow of righteous teaching down through the succeeding generations. His importance as a commentator of the Gita is thus unique, representative and comprehensive. In our own commentary Sankara's position is the only one we have treated with any seriousness, whether to agree with or to differ from.

SANKARA’S CONFLICTING ATTITUDES

Even with this single representative we have not found much need to enter into any strikingly different point of view. When they concern philosophical doctrines, Sankara's conclusions are, on the whole, acceptable to us. However, when he tends to look on the Gita as a book laying down religious obligations, or rules of life and conduct, treating it as a dharma shastra  (textbook on right ways of life) or a smriti (wisdom teachings applied to the practical life, incorporating dharma shastra), and not as a purely contemplative text, we tend to differ from him.How the Gita is far from coming under the category of Smartha (obligatory religious) literature, will be evident both from our former remarks on this subject and what we have to say below, as also from the remarks that we have made by way of comment when such aspects of spirituality come to be treated in the text. That Sankara himself does not treat the Gita seriously as a Smriti or book of obligatory conduct, should be evident from his definite remark in commenting on Chapter II, 10,  as follows:
" The conclusion therefore, of the Bhagavad Gita is that salvation is attained by knowledge alone and not by knowledge conjoined by works. That such is the teaching of the Gita we shall show here and there in the following sections according to the context".

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  That knowing cannot be considered an obligation or an action should be clear to anyone. That action belongs to one plane and knowing belongs to another is stated in the beginning of Sankara's Vivekachudamani in very unequivocal terms. Although some scholars on the basis of certain references such as  “Moreover it is so stated in Smriti” (Brahma Sutras, II, iii, 45) and "(These details are recorded by Smriti with reference to the Yogins; and both (Samkhya and Yoga) are Smriti (only)", (Brahma Sutras, IV, ii, 21), found in Sankara's comments on the Brahma Sutras, where the word Smriti is used by Badarayana, still persist in thinking that the Gita is a Smriti (work of obligatory religious tradition), and though Sankara as commentator is only indirectly responsible for so treating the Gita, we can only say here that any text teaching Brahma-Vidya (the Science of the Absolute) as the Gita itself avowedly claims to be (as stated at the end of every chapter), cannot be a Smriti, more especially in the light of the very conclusive statement of Sankara himself which we have quoted above. Leaving the controversy for the moment, we can state here that we take the Gita to be a book devoted to the wisdom of the Absolute with no mandatory reference to obligatory action, or traditional conduct in it. We have the support of the greatest commentator on the Gita in this appraisal of the nature of the Gita.
So far we have been able to see from the spontaneous appreciation of  the  Gita  in  India  and  outside,  from  scholars,  from  the commentaries of founders of religious groups and from philosophers, that the Gita is a highly treasured book of ancient wisdom of a contemplative, intuitive and mystical order. In the Gita, closed and static tendencies have been subjected to a dialectical revaluation, making them open, universal and dynamic. It cannot be said to be the scripture merely of any one particular religious expression, whether of Hinduism, the Bhagavata cult or of Vaishnavism of a later date. Its outlook is universal and fully philosophical in the best sense of the term. Fuller justification of these claims will be found in this

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introduction and in the body of the commentary itself according to the occasion.

NO  RIVALRY  INTENDED IN THE  PRESENT COMMENTARY

From what we have said it will be sufficiently evident that the Gita has drawn to itself the attention of many masterminds of the world during the last fifteen centuries. The great commentaries themselves have been interpreted by the disciples of the various Gurus in works which themselves have become classics. Different philosophies have been derived by each according to the background to which each belonged. In India, whenever a man of intelligence had any pretensions for religious leadership or for Guruhood, one of the first qualifications considered desirable by himself or by the public was a reputation based on an interpretation of the Gita. It has therefore to be stated in advance here that the present commentator has no such ambitions or pretensions. A few friends and disciples of the present writer happened to evince a keen interest in the way the Gita was interpreted by him. The volume and intensity of such interest became enlarged from day to day and the demand for a complete statement of such views and meanings on the Gita as a whole became very pressing and imperative. These circumstances have been sufficiently explained in the Preface of this book.

THE REASON FOR THE MISTAKE OF  TREATING THE GITA AS A WORK OF  OBLIGATORY NATURE

If we ask why the contents of the eighteen chapters and the 700 verses of the Gita have been so puzzling that most commentators have tended to treat it as a book on obligatory  religious or traditional lore, instead of treating it, as it highly deserves to be, on a par with the most authoritative writings pertaining to pure contemplative wisdom, the reasonable answer is that the author of the Gita was faced with taking cognizance of the existing schools of spiritual thought and practice of his own time, like any other writer.
Such a body of anterior opinion (known in India as Purva paksha) happened to be, by necessary historical and ideological circumstances, the inevitable background of the Gita.