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" Those who abide in the pure-clear modality (sattvik) go upwards; the affective-active (rajasik) dwell in the middle, and the inert-dark (tamasik) abiding in the functions of the lowest modality of nature, go downwards." and in the discussion of the two Persons of XV, 16:
" There are two Persons in the world, the Changing and the Changeless; the Changing comprises all beings, and the Mysteriously fixed is called the Changeless."
There are many other references where the two aspects of the Self have to be postulated to yield any cogent meaning at all, as in VI, 5 and 6:
“By the Self the Self must be upheld; the Self should not be let down; the Self indeed is (its own) dear relative; the Self indeed is the enemy of the Self.”
“The Self is dear to one (possessed) of Self, by whom even the Self by the Self has been won, for one not (possessed) of Self, the Self would be in conflict with the very Self, as if an enemy” The dualism of the Gita is very marked in the early chapters. In the last chapters again the dualism tends to be accentuated. The thorough-going Samkhya reasoning of chapter II, which even denies the extinction of the army when killed, refers at the same time to the shame of dishonour for Arjuna. Here contingency and necessity come together. However they come closer together in later chapters and then in the middle chapters, the two are blended. The duality is later accentuated in the further chapters and in the last chapter action gains an objective status as a  pattern of behaviour which is to be fitted like a cap on the person of the spiritual aspirant.
In the particular instance above, where Arjuna is asked to remember  Krishna  and  also fight,  the remembering gains the foreground and fighting recedes to the background. In the last chapter, however, the behaviour pattern into which fighting fits gains the foreground and contemplation is taken for granted as implied in the person of the contemplative. The actual and the perceptual are separated by less and less degrees of implicit duality as the chapters approach the centre of the work,

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while they tend to widen out again towards the second and later half of the work, coming round once more to the position of the starting chapters. To extract the full meaning of the double expressions and recommendations given throughout the Gita, this peculiarity of the construction has to be kept in mind.

MINUTER HINTS OF UNITIVE TREATMENT

Spread over the whole range of the Gita we find smaller expressions such as cha  (also), api cha (and also), and eva cha (even also). These are the most used of all the expressions in the Gita. In the light of the statement in the Gita itself that the Absolute is the grammatical dual compound called dvandva (mentioned in X, 33), it is easy to see the importance of dvandva usage for the dialectical method of the Gita, so that thereby two propositions can be spoken of together instead of alternatively. This is the essence of dialectics to deal with two propositions together.
It can make all the difference in the world to the meaning of a sentence if the significance of such little words like cha (also) are treated lightly as if interchangeable with expressions like va (even, or). Indeed there is a glaring instance of such an unpardonable error committed by most translators and commentators in interpreting the very first verse of Krishna's teaching, where he attempts to correct the confusion  of  Arjuna.  Indifference  to  the  implications  and requirements of dialectical reasoning has vitiated most commentaries of the Gita. In this particular instance in II, 11, it makes a world of difference to translate the sentence to mean (as is usually done),  " The wise grieve neither for the living nor for the dead ", instead of fully respecting the delicate implications of dialectics and translating as  “the veritable philosophers (panditah) are not affected in respect of those whose breath has gone and those whose breath has not gone.” In the former usual translation there is room for thinking that the wise are callously unrealistic and incapable of sympathy in the face of disaster such as death. This is far different from what is actually stated in the Gita, where the question of sorrow does not arise at all with a wise man, irrespective of whether one is still living as equally in the case of one who has passed further onwards in the stream of life. There is no choice between opposite alternatives suggested by
expression cha (and, also).

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Although such differences may seem trivial, they help us to see that the delicate flavour of the unitive import of the revaluation of wisdom in the Gita is often missed in many loose translations. This happens more especially when the translator is unaware of the delicacies involved in the correct use of dialectics.

A DIALECTICAL REVALUATION OF CONTEMPLATION
 

 Wrong or imperfect beliefs in the domain of spiritual life have prevailed because of ignorance in regard to the fully Absolutist way of wisdom. In this matter, the Gita undertakes a thoroughgoing dialectical revaluation of contemplative spirituality under the name of Yoga.The anterior wrong opinions which are subjected in the Gita to such a process of revaluation so as to yield the teaching of the Gita in its finalized form may be discussed conveniently under the following categories:

(1) The Path of the Ancestors (pitris) and the Path Of the Shining Gods (devayana);
(2) The Rational and Pragmatic Approach (Samkhya) and the Approach of Self-Discipline yoga);
(3) Sacrifices, Austerities and Offerings and
(4) Renunciation (samnyasa). There are many secondary matters also coming under revaluation which we shall discuss in the commentary itself.

(1) Pitriyana and Devayana: Pitriyana is the path of the ancestors. This is a widely prevailing form of religious or spiritual life not only of India but of the whole world. Before the Aryans who brought the Vedic sacrifices with them which referred to the shining gods (devas) such as Indra and Varuna, the vast matrix of Indians had ancestral forms of worship. Arjuna himself is somewhat representative of this ancestral formation, although he may have been familiar with Vedic worship too through his preceptor Drona. Both pitriyana and devayana are revalued in the Gita in various chapters. We have noticed the characteristic silence of Krishna in response to the philosophical and religious scruples of Arjuna, in the first chapter, shows that both the ancestral way and the way of the gods are meant to be replaced by the thoroughgoing  Absolutist way. This revalued way includes both of the old ways as a flooded area can hide an old well-to use an analogy , employed in the Gita itself in II, 46:

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" There would be as much use for all the Vedas to a brahman of wisdom as there could be for a pool of Water when a full flood prevails over all."
This is the first case of revaluation which the Gita student has to keep in mind.

(2) Samkhya-Yoga: The revaluation of Samkhya and Yoga is mentioned with telling emphasis in V, 4 and 5:
" That rationalism (samkhya) and self-discipline (yoga) are distinct, only children say, not the well-informed (panditah); one well-established in any one of them obtains the result of both."That status attained by men of rationalist persuasion (samkhya)   is reached also by those of unitive Self-discipline (yoga); rationalism (Samkhya) and Self-discipline (yoga) as one, he who sees thus, he (alone) sees."
This revaluation however, has other implications. The rejection of ritualistic Vedism has already been accomplished in II, 44:
" In the case of those whose minds are under the sway of such teachings, who are attached to enjoyment and domination, a well-founded reason does not come under the sway of the peace of contemplation (samadhi)."

The cutting ruthlessly of the mystical tree of chapter XV also involves the rejection of relativist Vedism in favour of an Absolutism which still includes whatever is most precious in the Vedic pattern of spirituality. Reason and ritual are not estranged in the Gita teaching, but are brought unitively together under the aegis of the Absolute, as implied in XV, 24:
" (For him) the Absolute (Brahman) is the act of offering, the Absolute is the substance offered into the Absolute, which is the fire offered by (him)  the Absolute, the end to be reached by him being even the Absolute by means of his peace supreme of Absolutist action."

(3) Sacrifice, Austerity and Offering:  contemplative life which expresses itself through these three channels has also been subjected to revaluation in the Gita and this is unequivocally stated in VIII, 28:

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" Whatever meritorious result is found implied in the Vedas, in sacrifices, austerities and offerings (gifts), the contemplative who is unitively established, having understood this (teaching here) transcends all these and attains to the supreme primal State."
while the task has been more completely accomplished in chapter XVII, e.g. verses 27 and 28:
" Steady loyalty in sacrifice, austerity and giving (offerings) is also called SAT (good and existing) and so also action so intended is called SAT.
" Whatever is sacrificed, given or done, and whatever austerity is gone through, without faith it is called ASAT (non-existent, no-good), 0 Partha (Arjuna); it has no value here or hereafter."

(4) Samnyasa: The dialectical revaluation of samnyasa or renunciation is perhaps one of the most important original contributions of the Gita. From the point where Arjuna refers to taking to a life of begging, up to the last chapter where the whole question is subjected to a very close dialectical scrutiny and revaluation, the Gita has many references giving a truer picture of what the perfected samnyasi renunciatory ought to represent. The perfected renunciator who can really abstain from activity is portrayed in XVIII, 49:
" He whose reason is unattached in situations, whose Self has been won over, from whom desire has gone, by renunciation (samnyasa) he reaches the supreme perfection of transcending action." Such a task of dialectical revaluation, however, involves a progression in the arguments proceeding from stage to stage. The eighteen chapters of the Gita thus form different steps, cross sections or distinct frames of references and between each of them there will be differences of the angle of vision which many may tend to treat as contradictory  statements.  Viewed  in the light of a  sweeping, generously conceived and comprehensive alectical revaluation of the whole range of spirituality, and taking representative sections for convenience only, the apparent contradictions which might appear glaring at first sight, become still perfectly compatible with the general teaching of the Gita.

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SO-CALLED CONTRADICTIONS AND INCONSISTENCIES
 

The most glaring instance of contradiction is in the fact that the Gita admits non-hurting (ahimsa) as the most important of overt expressions of spirituality in X, 5. Yet apparently, in the very next chapter, XI,  34, there is a direct incitement to kill by the very same Krishna. We have pointed out the reason in the fact that they belong to different grades of truth as they are to be distinguished in the literary devices employed by Vyasa. There is also the further reason we have mentioned, namely, that each chapter brings together positive and negative aspects of the Absolute in a certain reciprocal and symmetrically conceived manner. After the centre of the Gita has been passed, the subject of chapter XI becomes markedly objectively, or positively conceived. In the vision of Arjuna, Vyasa has the chance to relate the actualities of the battlefield with the tragic vision of the positive notion of the Absolute of this particular chapter. Treated as belonging to their proper contexts, these statements for and against non-hurting are still understandable to the student who is not carried away by mere superficialities. When we note that Vyasa takes care to indicate that this reference to actuality verges on actuality as such belonging to curtain device No.1 by purposely going out of the way in this chapter in introducing Sanjaya and presenting the reference to killing strictly only as within the brackets as it were of this device, between the verses 9 and 35, the contradiction is only apparent. Although a paradox is still implied, such a paradox is only consistent with the paradoxical style necessarily implied in the dialectics of the Gita.
The status of these verses is not, therefore, the same as the status of X, 5. Even making due allowance thus for what is called prakarana-bheda (difference of context or subject-matter), there remains left over as legitimate the much talked-of question whether Arjuna is being asked to kill as a social obligation. We have explained this matter incidentally in other parts of this introduction. The advice has only a permissive and not a mandatory value as it is to be understood here.

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The general urge of life seeking expression could, by very rare coincidences of circumstances as detailed in the Mahabharata, all pointing towards the absolute inevitability and imperative necessity of a certain line of conduct open to Arjuna, justify this advice to kill, on the part of Krishna. It has no more obligatory character than when a midwife tells a mother in the pangs of childbirth not to repress or obstruct the natural urge at the critical moment. If on the basis of such an advice it should be thought that it is the social duty of all women in all circumstances to give birth to children, that would be no greater absurdity than to say, as has often been said, that being a kshatriya (of a fighting class), it is the duty of Arjuna to kill. A warrior without an absolutely justified war such as the one which presented itself to Arjuna, would not be different from the caricature of a warrior such as Don Quixote.
We have discussed this crowning contradiction of the Gita in some detail so as to avoid mentioning others of lesser importance with which the Gita text will be seen to abound. We shall face some of them in the actual commentary. As far as we are able to see, however, there are no contradictions in the Gita which cannot be explained.

CHARGES OF ECLECTICISM, SYNCRETISM
AND SOLIPSISM

Even those who hold the Gita in great respect have directly or indirectly contributed to degrading this noble masterpiece of contemplative science, having such rare unity of structure and revealing such attention to detail  and correctness of critical expression, by looking upon it as a work which gives whatever answer is sought from it by anybody.

The Gita is not a book of good luck, nor an encyclopedia, not is it one whose philosophy is lacking in organic unity It is true that a vast range of subjects has been touched upon by the author. Merging the Self in the Absolute Self finds mention side by side with dietetic questions, or gazing at the tip of the nose or offering a fruit or a flower to God. In the light of the structure of the Gita as we have explained above, and in the peculiarities of the treatment as a dialectical revaluation of anterior spiritual notions, it will be readily conceded that the charges of being eclectic, syncretist and even solipsist, would not apply to the work.

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The perfection of the structure of the Gita when examined in detail, would also refute the possibility of interpolations in the text, by which, according to many scholars, it is marred. The truth is that the Gita has not been subjected to serious study in the same sense that, say, Shakespeare has been studied. This has been its misfortune. As a result, political and religious adventurers have taken advantage of the Gita to support their own favourite doctrines.

RHAPSODIC INTERLUDES

The Bhagavad Gita is above all meant to be a song, within the meaning as referred to in XIII, 4:
" Sung by seers (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"
After the Vedas and the Brahma-Sutras there have been no other spiritual works which have attained to the sublimity and purity of the Gita, and which makes it fit to be considered on a common basis with the Vedas themselves. Although orthodox scholars have shown and still show some hesitation in giving the Gita its long overdue place among the highest of the spiritual treasures of India, being even superior to the Vedas inasmuch as the Gita is absolutely open, dynamic and universal in its appeal, its true place is undoubtedly among  the noblest and best contemplative masterpieces of literature in the world.
Even when we try to appraise its value within the limited domain of Indian scripture, the interludes interspersed here and there in the Gita in a metre and verse form more ample and elaborate than the rest, have a tone of exaltation and ecstasy which gives to the Gita that pure and time-honoured touch which reflects credit to the highest of hopes of which the human spirit is capable. Such interludes attain to the heights of a spiritual rhapsody which is rare in any literature. In some of these rhapsodic interludes there can be discerned a delicate play of gentle sarcasm almost imperceptibly hidden between the lines as for example, in IX, 20 and 21: “Knowers of the three (Vedas), soma-drinkers, purified from sin, worshipping by sacrifices, pray to me the way to heaven; they, attaining the holy world of Indra (Lord of Gods), enjoy divine feasts in heaven. " They, having enjoyed that expansive heaven-world, then on their merit exhausted, they enter the world of mortality, thus conforming to the righteous notions implied in the three (Vedas), desiring desirable objects they obtain values which come and go."

The dialectical revaluation of the Gita is accomplished without any abrupt breaking away from the old. In this fulfilling, free and easy style as an exalted " hymn of dialectics " the Gita excels above all.
 

CONCLUSION

In the light of the foregoing, we could sum up our position as follows:
The Gita is a wisdom dialogue of a non-religious and non-obligatory, contemplative and philosophical order, consciously and artfully inserted in the heart of the great epic called the Mahabharata by the ancient Sage-Bard Vyasa; in which the rarest of possible coincidences called an absolutely just war is taken as presenting itself to be fought by its central character, Arjuna, who, being a sensitive and contemplatively disposed type of soldier, is about to adopt a negative, escapist attitude of regret and retrospection when it was actually too late for him to extricate himself from the situation that had already assumed a harsh and imperatively necessary character. Arjuna suffered from a characteristic form of subtle egoism  which, taking the form of self-pity, regret or mystical agony, blurred his outlook, making him claim prematurely the high virtue of renunciation  while  still  given  to  relativist  patterns  of  thinking altogether incompatible with the thoroughly absolutist philosophy and way of life that the Gita brings out through the words of Krishna as representing the Guru and Absolute at once.
Krishna, who, besides being the Guru, is also relation, friend and charioteer of Arjuna, takes every possible measure at every level of life possible, to remove the philosophical doubts, religious scruples and psycho-physical inhibitions which dimmed Arjuna's vision and clogged his spirit. Eloquently and in elevating language, Krishna preaches that rare type of unitive wisdom or Absolutist way of life known  as Yoga, a mystical and intuitive path of contemplative dialectics.

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Established in this unitive way by which inner and outer factors of life are equalized, harmonized or neutralized, Arjuna is able to get rid of superstitious repressions and conflicts. He regains normality of outlook as a true yogi who did not particularly wish to avoid war when it was absolutely necessary, just and conducive to general happiness. Whether he adopted the way of quiet contemplative retirement portrayed in the last chapter, or whether he engaged in harsh warfare is left an open question by Vyasa. Before the epic moves onward in its grand heroic pace again, we find Arjuna a fully disillusioned contemplative ready to affiliate himself wholeheartedly as one of the counterparts of a contemplative situation in which Krishna himself is involved as representing the supremely Absolute Value.