Alan Watts
بواسطة daniel9955
Nowapays, it is becoming fashionahle to translate
the world’s great books into some form of Basic
English, or everyday speech. The Gita does not
easily lend itself to such treatment. The Sanskrit in
which it is written differs radically from modern
English. It is compressed and telegraphic. It abounds
in exact philosophical and religious terms. Its frame
of reference is a system of cosmology unfamiliar to
western thought. And indeed, it would be hard to
evolve any uniform English style, modern or ancient,
in which the Gita could be satisfactorily rendered.
For the Gita, regarded simply as a piece of literature,
is not a unity. It has several aspects, several distinct
tones of voice. Let us consider each of them in turn.
First, the Gita may be regarded as part of an epic
poem. It is all in verse. The first chapter is pure epic,
continuing in the mood of the Mahabharata itself.
The shouting of warriors, the neighing of horses and
the outlandish names of chieftains are still sounding
in our ears as the dialogue between Krishna and
Arjuna begius. To translate this epic prologue as
though it belonged to the philosophical discourse
which follows would be to cut the Gita right out of
its historical setting and deprive it of its vivid local
colour.
Then, again, the Gita is an exposition of Vedanta
philosophy, based upon a very definite picture of the
universe. It is no use trying to disregard this fact for
fear of alienating the western reader. The translator
who uses ‘reassuring’ topical equivalents, and twists
the meaning of the Sanskrit terms, may think he is
building a bridge between two systems of thought,
when actually he is reducing both of them to non-
sense. We have tried to explain the cosmology of the
9
10 BHAGAVAD-GITA
Gita, as briefly as possible, in an appendix. Certain
basic and much-used words, such as Brahman, At-
man, Prakriti and the gunas, have been kept in San-
skrit, for the same reason. Precise English equiva-
lents are Jacking; and every book on philosophy or
science must have a defined terminology. No one
would write about physics and avoid using the word
‘electron, just because it does not occur in everyday
speech.
The Gita is also prophetic. Like the Vision of
Isaiah and the Psalms of David, it contains ecstatic
mystical utterances about the nature and attributes
of God. These are poetry, and demand poetic ex-
pression. The diction must try to correspond to the
inspiration. Ordinary prose will render them flat and
boring.
Finally, the Gita is a gospel. Its essential message
is timeless. In words which belong to no one lan-
guage, race or epoch, incarnate God speaks to man,
His friend. Here, the translator must forget all about
Vedanta philosophy and Sanskrit terms; all about
India and the West, Krishna and Arjuna, past and
future. He must aim at the utmost simplicity.
That is why we have translated the Gita in a va-
riety of styles, partly prose, partly verse. There is, of
course, no justification for this experiment in the text
itself. The transitions from one style to another are
quite arbitrary. They can be judged from one stand-
point only: have we made the book more readable?
Extremely literal translations of the Gita already
exist. We have aimed, rather, at an interpretation.
Here is one of the greatest religious documents of
the world: let us not approach it too pedantically, as
an archaic text which must be jealously preserved
by university professors. It has something to say,
urgently, to every one of us. We have to extract that
message from the terseness of the original Sanskrit,
Translators’ Preface 11
and here the great classical] commentators can help
us. In making this translation, three of them have
been consulted throughout—Shankara, Sridhara
Swami and Madhusudana Saraswati. Wishing to
avoid bulky footnotes, we have incorporated their
explanations in our English version. Sri Aurobindo
Ghose’s masterly Essays on the Gita have also been
helpful. Nevertheless, our work is not a paraphrase.
Except in a very few difficult passages, it faithfully
follows the original.
We have allowed overselves one small liberty. The
Gita is sprinkled with epithets. Krishna is called
‘Govinda,’ ‘Slayer of Madhu, ‘Keshava, ete. Arjuna
is addressed as ‘Consumer of the foe, ‘Son of Kunti,
‘Descendant of Bharata,’ ‘Son of Pritha, and much
else. We have kept a few of these, in the opening
chapters, to create ‘atmosphere.’ Later, they are
mostly omitted, unless they seem effective for purely
literary reasons. Their repetition is apt to grow very
tiresome.
In conclusion, we have to thank our friends, Mar-
garet Adams Kiskadden and Aldous Huxley, for
their help, frank criticism and warm encourage-
ment. The final draft of our translation owes them
much, perhaps its very existence.
Introduction
More THAN twenty-five centuries have passed since
that which has been called the Perennial Philosophy
was first committed to writing; and in the course of
those centuries it has found expression, now partial,
now complete, now in this form, now in that, again
and again. In Vedanta and Hebrew prophecy, in the
Tao Teh King and the Platonic dialogues, in the
12 Bracavan-Gita
Gospel according to St. John and Mahayana the-
ology, in Plotinus and the Areopagite, among the
Persian Sufis and the Christian niystics of the Mid-
dle Ages and the Renaissance—the Perennial Philos-
ophy has spoken almost all the languages of Asia
and Europe and has made use of the terminology
and traditions of every oue of the higher religions.
But under all this confusion of tongues and myths,
of local histories and particularist doctrines, there
remains a Highest Common Factor, which is the
Perennial Philosophy in what may be called its
chemically pure state. This final purity can never, of
course, be expressed by any verbal statement of the
philosophy, however undogmatic that statement
may be, however deliberately synerctistic. The very
fact that it is set down at a certain time by a certain
writer, using this or that language, automatically im-
poses a certain sociological and personal bias on the
doctrines so formulated. It is only in the act of con-
templation, when words and even personality are
transcended, that the pure state of the Perennial
Philosophy can actnally be known. The records left
by those who have known it in this way make it
abundantly clear that all of them, whether Hindu,
Buddhist, Hebrew, Taoist, Christian or Mohammed-
an, were attempting to describe the same essen-
tially indescribable Fact.
The original scriptures of most religions are poeti-
cal and unsystematic. Theology, which generally
takes the form of a reasoned commentary on the
parables and aphrosims of the scriptures, tends to
make its appearance at a later stage of religious his-
tory. The Bhagavad-Gita occupies an intermediate
position between scripture and theology; for it com-
bines the poetical qualities of the first with the clear
cut methodicalness of the second. The book may be
described, writes Ananda K. Coomaraswamy in his
Introduction 18
admirable Hinduism and Buddhism, ‘as a compen-
dium of the whole Vedic doctrine to be found in the
varlier Vedas, Bralananas and Upanishads, and be-
ing therefore the basis of all the later developments,
it can be regarded as the focus of all Indian religion”
But this ‘focus of Indiau religion’ is also one of the
clearest and most comprehensive summaries of the
Perennial Philosophy ever to have been made.
Hoenee its enduring value, not only for Indians, but
for all mankind.
At the core of the Perennial Philosophy we find
four fundamental doctrines.
First: the phenomenal world of matter and of in-
dividualized consciousness—the world of things and
animals and men and even gods—is the manifesta-
tion of a Divine Ground within which all partial
realities have their being, aud apart from which they
would he nonexistent.
Second: hamman beings are capable not merely of
knowing about the Divine Ground by inference;
they can also realize its existence by a direct intui-
tion, superior to discursive reasoning. This immedi-
ate knowledge unites the knower with that which is
known.
Third: man possesses a double nature, a phenom-
ena] ego and an eternal Self, which is the inner man,
the spirit, the spark of divinity within the soul. It
is possible for a man, if he so desires, to identify
himself with the spirit and therefore with the Divine
Ground, which is of the same or like nature with the
spirit.
Fourth: man’s life on earth has only one end and
purpose: to identify himself with his eternal Self
and so to come to unitive knowledge of the Divine
Ground.
In Hinduism the first of these four doctrines is
stated in the most categorical terms. The Divine
14 Buacavan-Gira
Ground is Brahman, whose creative, sustaining and
transforining aspects are manifested in the Hindu
trinity. A hierarchy of manifestations connects inan-
imete matter with man, gods, High Gods and the
undifferentiated Godhead beyond.
In Mahavana Buddhism the Divine Ground is
called Mind or the Pure Light of the Void, the place
of the High Gods is taken by the Dhyani-Buddhas.
Similar conceptions are perfectly compatible with
Christianity and have in fact been entertaiz.ed, ex-
plicitly or implicitly, by many Catholic and Protes-
tant mystics, when formulating a philosophy to fit
facts observed by super-rational intuition. Thus, for
Eckhart and Ruysbroeck, there is an Abyss of God-
head underlying the Trinity, just as Brahman under-
lies Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Suso has even left
a diagrammatic picture of the relations subsisting
between Godhead, triune God and creatures. In this
very curious and interesting drawing a chain of
nianifestation connects the mysterious symbol of the
Divine Ground with the three Persons of the Trinity,
and the Trinity in turn is connected in a descending
scale with angels and human beings. These last, as
the drawing vividly shows, may make one of two
choices. They can either lead the life of the outer
man, the life of separative selfhood; in which case
they are lost (for, in the words of the Theologia
Germanica, ‘nothing burns in hell but the self’).
Or else they can identify themselves with the inner
man, in which case it becomes possible for them, as
Suso shows, to ascend again, through unitive knowl-
edge, to the Trinity and even, beyond the Trinity,
to the ultimate Unity of the Divine Ground.
Within the Mohammedan tradition such a ration-
alization of the immediate mystical experience
would have been dangerously unorthodox. Never-
theless, one has the impression, while reading cer-
Introduction 15
tain Sufi texts, that their authors did in fact conceive
of al haqgq, the Real, as being the Divine Ground or
Unity of Allah, underlying the active and personal
aspects of the Godhead.
The second doctrine of the Perennial Philosophy
—that it is possible to know the Divine Ground by
a direct intuition higher than discursive reasoning—
is to be found in all the great religions of the world.
A philosopher who is content merely to know about
the ultimate Reality—theoretically and by hearsay
—is compared by Buddha to a herdsman of other
men’s cows. Mohammed uses an even homelier barn-
yard metaphor. For him the philosopher who has
not realized his metaphysics is just an ass bearing a
load of books. Christian, Hindu and Taoist teachers
wrote no less emphatically about the absurd pre-
tensions of mere learning and analytical reasoning.
In the words of the Anglican Prayer Book, our
eternal life, now and hereafter, ‘stands in the knowl-
edge of God’; and this knowledge is not discursive
but ‘of the heart,’ a super-rational] intuition, direct,
synthetic and timeless.
The third doctrine of tle Perennial Philosophy,
that which affirms the double nature of man, is fun-
damental in all the higher religions. The unitive
knowledge of the Divine Ground has, as its neces-
sary condition, self-abnegation and charity. Only
by means of self-abnegation and charity can we
clear away the evil, folly and ignorance which con-
stitute the thing we call our personality and pro-
vent us from becoming aware of the spark of divinity
illuminating the inner man. But the spark within
is akin to the Divine Ground. By identifying our-
selves with the first we can come to unitive knowl-
edge of the second. These empirical facts of the
spiritual life have been variously rationalized in
terms of the theologies of the various religions. The
16 Buacavap-Gira
Hindus categorically affirm that thou art That—that
the indwelling Atman is the same as Brahman. For
orthodox Christianity there is not an identity he-
tween the spark and God. Union of the human
spirit with God takes place—union so complete
that the word ‘deification is applied to it; but it is
not the union of identical substances. According to
Christian theology, the saint is ‘deified, not because
Atman is Brahman, but because God has assimilated
the purified human spirit into the divine substance
by an act of grace. Islamic theology seems to make
a similar distinction. The Sufi, Mansur, was executed
for giving to the words ‘union’ and “deification’ the
literal meaning which they bear in the Hindu tra-
dition. For our present purposes, however, the sig-
nificant fact is that these words are actually used by
Christians and Mohammedans to describe the em-
pirica] facts of metaphysical realization by means of
dire t, super-rational intuition.
In regard to man’s final end, all the higher reli-
gions are in complete agreement. The purpose of
human life is the discovery of Truth, the unitive
knowledge of the Godhead. The degree to which
this unitive knowledge is achieved here on earth
determines the degree to which it will be enjoyed
in the posthumous state. Contemplation of truth
is the end, action the means. In India, in China, in
ancient Greece, in Christian Europe, this was re-
garded as the most obvious and axiomatic piece
of orthodoxy. The invention of the steam engine
produced a revolution, not merely in industrial tech-
niques, but also and much more significantly in phi-
losophy. Because machines could be made progres-
sively more and more efficient, western man came
to believe that men and societies would automati-
cally register a corresponding moral and spiritual
improvement. Attention and allegiance came to be
Introduction 17
paid, not to Eternity, but to the Utopian future.
External cireumstances came to be regarded as more
important than states of mind about extemal cir-
cumstances, and the end of human life was held to
he action, with contemplation as a means to that
end. These false and, historically, aberrant and he-
retical doctrines are now systematically taught in
our schools and repeated, day in, day out, by those
anonymous writers of advertising copy who, more
than any other teachers, provide European and
American adults with their current philosophy of
life. And so effective has been the propaganda that
even professing Christians accept the heresy un-
qnestioningly and are quite unconscious of its com-
plete incompatibility with their own or anybody
else's religion.
These four doctrines constitute the Perennia] Phi-
losophy in its minimal and basic form. A man who
can practise what the Indians call Jnana yoga (the
metaphysical discipline of discrimination between
the Real and the apparent) asks for nothing more.
This simple working hypothesis is enough for his
purposes. But such discrimination is exceedingly
difficult and can hardly be practised, at any rate in
the preliminary stages of the spiritual life, except
by persons endowed with a particular kind of men-
tal constitution. That is why most statements of the
Perennial Philosophy have inchided another doc-
trine, affirming the existence of one or more human
Incamations of the Divine Ground, by whose medi-
ation and grace the worshipper is helped to achieve
his goal—that unitive knowledge of the Godhead,
which is man’s eternal life and beatitude. The Bha-
gavad-Gita is one such statement. Here, Krishna is
an Incarnation of the Divine Ground in human form.
Similarly, in Christian and Buddhist theology, Jesus
and Gotama are Incarnations of divinity. But where-
18 Buacavap-Gira
as in Hinduism and Buddhism more than one In-
carnation of the Godhead is possible (and is re-
garded as having in fact taken place ), for Christians
there has been and can be only one.
An Incarnation of the Godhead and, to a lesser
degree, any theocentric saint, sage or prophet is a
human being who knows Who he is and can there-
fore effectively remind other human beings of what
they have allowed themselves to forget: namely,
that if they choose to becume what potentially thev
already are, they too can be eternally united with
the Divine Grourd.
Worship of the Incarnation and contemplation
of his attributes are for most men aud women the
best preparation for unitive knowledge of the God-
head. But whether the actual) knowledge itself can
be achieved hy this means is another question. Many
Catholic mystics have affirmed that, at a certain
stage of that contemplative prayer in which, accord-
ing to the most authoritative theologians, the life of
Christian perfection ultimately consists, it is neces-
sary to put aside all thoughts of the Incarnation as
distracting from the higher knowledge of that which
has been incarmated. From this fact have arisen
misunderstandings in plenty and a number of intel-
lectual difficulties. Here, for example, is what Abbot
John Chapman writes in one of his admirable Spir-
itual Letters: ‘The problem of reconciling (not
merely uniting) mysticism with Christianity is more
difficult. The Abbot (Abbot Marmion) says that
St John of the Cross is like a sponge full of Christi-
anity. You can squeeze it all out, and the full mysti-
cal theory remains. Consequently, for fifteen years
or so, I hated St John of the Cross and called him
a Buddhist. I loved St Teresa, and read her over
and over again. She is first a Christian, only second-
arily a mystic. Then I found that I had wasted
' Introduction 19
fifteen years, so far as prayer was concerned.’ And
yet, he concludes, in spite of its ‘Buddhistic’ char-
acter, the practice of mysticism (or, to put it in other
terms, the realization of the Perennial Philosophy)
makes good Christians. He might have added that
it also makes good Hindus, good Buddhists, good
Taoists, good Moslems and good Jews.
The sohition to Abbot Chapman’s problem must
be songht in the domain, not of philosophy, but of
psychology. Human beings are not born identical.
There are many different temperaments and con-
stitutions: and within each psycho-physical class
one can find people at very different stages of spirit-
ual development. Forms of worship and spiritual
discipline which may be valuable for one indi-
vidual may be useless or even positively harmful
for another helonging to a different class and stand-
ing, within that class, at a lower or higher level of
development. All this is clearly set forth in the Gita,
where the psychological facts are linked up with
general cosmology by means of the postulate of the
gunas. Krishna, who is here the mouthpiece of Hin-
duism in all its manifestations, finds it perfectly natu-
ral that different men should have different methods
and even apparently different objects of worship.
All roads lead to Rome—provided, of course, that
it is Rome and not some other city which the trav-
eller really wishes to reach. A similar attitude of
charitable inclusiveness, somewhat surprising in a
Moslem, is beautifully expressed in the parable of
Moses and the Shepherd, told by Jalaluddin Rumi
in the second book of the Masnavi. And within the
more exclusive Christian tradition these problems
of temperament and degree of development have
been searchingly discussed in their relation to the
way of Mary and the way of Martha in general, and
20 Buacavan-Cita
in particular to the vocation and private devotion
of individuals.
We now have to consider the ethical corollaries
of the Perennial Philosophy. “Truth, savs St Thomas
Aquinas, ‘is the last end for the entire universe, and
the contemplation of truth is the chief occupation
of wisdom.’ The moral virtues, he says in another
place, belong to contemplation, not indeed essen-
tially, but as a necessary predisposition. Virtue, in
other words, is not the end. but the indispensable
means to the knowledge of divine reality. Shankara,
the greatest of the Indian commentators on the Gita,
holds the same doctrine. Right action is the way to
knowledge: for it purifies the mind, and it is only
to a mind purified from egotism that the intuition of
the Divine Ground can come.
Self-abnegation, according to the Gita, can be
achieved by the practice of two all-inclusive vir-
tues—love and non-attachment. The latter is the
same thing as that ‘holy indifference,’ on which St
Francois de Sales is never tired of insisting. ‘He
who refers every action to God, writes Camus, sum-
marizing his master’s teaching, ‘and has no aims
save His Glory, will find rest everywhere, even
amidst the most violent commotions.’ So long as we
practise this holy indifference to the fruits of action,
‘no lawful occupation will separate us from God; on
the contrary, it can be made a means of closer
union.’ Here the word lawful supplies a necessary
qualification to a teaching which, without it, is in-
complete and even potentially dangerous. Some
actions are intrinsically evil or inexpedient; and no
good intentions, no conscious offering of them to
God, no renunciation of the fruits can alter their
essential character. Holy indifference requires to be
taught in conjunction not merely with a set of
commandments prohibiting crimes, but also with
toduction Pa
g clear conception of what in Buddha’s Eightfold
Path is called ‘right livelihood.’ Thus, for the Bud-
dhist, right livelihood was incompatible with the
making of deadly weapons and of intoxicants; for
the mediaeval Christian, with the taking of interest
and with various monopolistic practices which have
since come to be regarded as legitimate good busi-
ness. John Woolman, the American Quaker, provides
a most enlightening example of the way in which a
man may live in the world, while practising perfect
non-attachment and remaining acutely sensitive to
the clainns of right livelihood. Thus, while it would
have been profitable and perfectly lawful for him
to sell West Indian sugar and rum to the customers
who came to his shop, Woolman refrained from do-
ing so, because these things were the products of
slave labour. Similarly, when he was in England, it
would have been both Jawful and convenient for
him to travel by stage coach. Nevertheless, he pre-
ferred to make his journeys on foot. Why? Because
the comforts of rapid travel could only be brought
at the expense of great cruelty to the horses and the
most atrocious working conditions for the post-boys.
In Woolman’s eyes, such a system of transportation
was intrinsically undesirable, and no amount of
personal non-attachment could make it anything but
undesirable. So he shouldered his knapsack and
walked.
In the preceding pages I have tried to show that
the Perennial Philosophy and its ethical corollaries
constitute a Highest Common Factor, present in all
the major religions of the world. To affirm this truth
has never been more imperatively necessary than at
the present time. There wil] never be enduring
peace unless and until human beings come to accept
a philosophy of life more adequate to the cosmic
and psychological facts than the insane idolatries of
22 BHAGAVAD-GITA
nationalism and the advertising man’s apocalyptic
faith in Progress towards a mechanized New Jerusa-
lem. All the elements of this philosophy are present,
as we have seen, in the traditional religions. But in
existing circumstances there is not the slightest
chance that any of the traditional religions will ob-
tain universal acceptance. Europeans and Ameri-
cans will see no reason for being converted to Hin-
duism, say, or Buddhism. And the people of Asia
can hardly be expected to renounce their own tra-
ditions for the Christianity professed, often sincere-
ly, by the imperialists who, for four hundred years
and more, have been systematically attacking, ex-
ploiting and oppressing, and are now trying to finish
off the work of destruction bv ‘educating’ them. But
happily there is the Highest Common Factor of all
religions, the Perennial Philosophy which has al-
ways and everywhere been the metaphysical system
of the prophets. saints and sages. It is perfectly
possible for people to remain good Christians, Hin-
dus, Buddhists or Moslems and yet to be united in
full agreement on the basic doctrines of the Peren-
nial Philosophy.
The Bhagavad-Gita is perhaps the most system-
atic scriptural statement of the Perennial Philoso-
phy. To a world at war, a world that, because it
lacks the intellectual and spiritual prerequisites to
peace, can only hope to patch up some kind of pre-
carious armed truce, it stands pointing, clearly and
unmistakably, to the only road of escape from the
self-imposed necessity of self-destruction. For this
reason we should be grateful to Swami Prabhavan-
anda and Mr Isherwood for having given us this
new version of the book—a version which can he
read, not merely without that dull zsthetie pain
inflicted by all too many English translations from
the Sanskrit, but positively with enjoyment.
Axtpous HuxLEy
Gita and Mahabharata
The Manaspuanarta is said to be the longest poem in
the world. In its original form, it consisted of twenty-
four thousand verses, and it grew to about one
hundred thousand. Like the Old Testament, it is not
a homogeneous work, but a collection of narratives.
Its central theme, as the name indicates, is the story
of the descendants of King Bharata (Maha means
great), and of ancient India, the land where the
Bharatas lived and ruled.
After the death of King Pandnu, the Mahabharata
tells us, his brother Dhritarashtra succeeded to the
throne. Dhritarashtra educated the five sons of Pan-
du, the Pandavas, along with his own one hundred
sons. As they grew to be men, the Pandavas distin-
guished themselves by their picty and heroic virtues.
In consequence, Duryodhana, Dhritarashtra’s eldest
son, becaine jealous and planned to murder them.
Duryodhana’s scheme was to build a palace in a
distant town, and invite the Pandavas to stay there
during a religious festival. The palace was made
of specially inflammable materials, so that Duryo-
dhana’s servants could easily set it on fire. It burned
to ashes, but the Pandavas and Kunti, their mother,
had been warned in time, and escaped. Duryodhana
believed them dead.
The Pandavas lived in the forest, disguised as
Brahmins, meeting all kinds of dangers and adven-
tures. One day they heard that a neighbouring king
was to choose a husband for his daughter. The win-
ner must bend a bow of enormous strength and hit
a tiny target. The Pandavas thought they would
try. Thev went to the city in their disenise.
Suitors had gathered from all over India, Duryo-
23
24 Buacavap-GiTa
dhana among them. One after another, they failed in
the test. At last Arjuna, third of the Pandavas, stood
up, bent the bow and hit the target with the greatest
ease. Draupadi, the princess, threw hin the victor's
garland. But the assembled princes could not accept
this humiliation at the hands of a seemingly poor
and unwarlike Brahmin. There would have been a
fight—just as in the story of Clysses—if Krishna, who
was present, had not intervened and persuaded
them that Arjuna had a right to his bride. Krishna
was a cousin of the Pandavas, but he was not one of
Dhritarashtra’s sons.
The brothers took Draupadi back to the forest,
where Kunti was awaiting them. “Mother, they
cried, ‘we have brought home a wonderful treasure?
‘Be sure te share it equally, my children? Kunti
answered; then she saw the girl, and exclaimed in
dismay: ‘Oh, what have I said! But it was too late.
Her word was sacred to her sons. So Draupadi mar-
ried all the brothers together.
Dhritarashtra and his son now knew that the Pan-
davas were not only alive, but allied by marriage to
a powerful monarch. Duryodhana was for carrying
on the feud, but Dhritarashtra wisely listened to
the advice of his uncle Bhisma, which was to send
for the brothers and offer them half of his kingdom.
So the kingdom was divided. The Pandavas got the
worst of the land, a wilderness along the Jamuna
River. They cleared it, built a fine city, and crowned
Yudhisthira, the eldest brother, as their king.
Now the five brothers lived in triumph and splen-
dour, and Duryodhana hated them more than ever.
His jealousy hatched a new plot for their ruin. The
pious and noble Yudhisthira had a dangerous weak-
ness for gambling. So Duryodhana challenged him to
play dice with a clever sharper named Sakuni, know-
ing that the king would feel bound in honour to
Gita and Mahabharata zo
accept. They played, Sakuni cheated, Yudhisthira
lost game after game, staking his wealth, his king-
dom, and finally his brothers, Draupadi and himself.
All were now the slaves of Duryodhana’s vengeance,
subject to insult and cruelty, until Dhritarashtra in-
tervened, and insisted that they be set at liberty and
their kingdom given back.
But Duryodhana worked upon his father until he
obtained permission for another dice-match. The
loser was to forfeit his kingdorn and retire to the
forest for twelve years, then he inust live for a year
in the city without being recognized; if he was dis-
covered, the term of exile would begin again. This
game Yudhisthira also lost. So the Pandavas went
back to the forest. They made a virtue of their mis-
fortune, practising spiritual austerities and doing
manv heroic deeds.
Once, during their wauderings, we are told, the
brothers suffered greatly from thirst. Nakula, the
youngest, was sent to look for water. He found a
lake which was clear as crystal. As he bent over it,
a voice said: ‘Stop, child. First answer my questions.
Then you may drink.’ But Nakula, in his desperate
thirst, paid no attention to the voice: he drank, and
immediately fell dead. His brother Sahadeva went
out to look for him. He, too, found the lake, and
the same thing happened. In this manner, four of
the brothers died.
Last of all came Yudhisthira. He found the
corpses, and began to lament. Then the voice told
him: ‘Child, first answer my questions, and then I
will cure your grief and your thirst.’ He turned, and
saw Dharma, the personification of duty and virtue,
standing beside him in the form of a crane.
“What is the road to heaven?’ the crane asked.
*‘Truthfulness.’
“How does a man find happiness?’
26 BuaGavap-GIta
“Through right conduct.’
‘What must he subdue, in order to escape grief?’
‘His mind.’
‘When is a man loved?”
“When he is without vanity.’
‘Of all the world’s wonders, which is the most
wonderful?”
‘That no man, though he sees others dying all
around him, believes that he himself will die.’
‘How does one reach true religion?’
‘Not by argument. Not by scriptures and doc-
trines; they cannot help. The path to religion is
trodden by the saints.’
Dharma was satisfied. He revealed himself to Yu-
dhisthira. Then he brought the four brothers back
to life.
When the period of exile was over at last, Yudhis-
thira asked for the return of his kingdom; but Dury-
odhana refused. Yudhisthira said he would be con-
tent with just one village for himself and for each
of his brothers. But Duryodhana, in the insanity of
his greed, would not agree even to this. The older
members of the family tried to arbitrate, and failed.
So war became inevitable. Neighbouring kings were
drawn into the quarrel, until the whole of India
was involved. Both sides wanted Krishna’s aid. To
both, Krishna offered the same choice. ‘Either you
can have the help of my kinsmen, the Vrishnis, in
the battle,’ he told them, ‘or you can have me alone.
But I shall take no part in the fighting.” Duryodhana
chose the Vrishnis. Arjuna preferred to take Krish-
na himself, as his personal charioteer.
The battle was fought on the plain of Kurukshetra,
a sacred place of pilgrimage. It was here, just before
the armies engaged, that Krishna and Arjuna had the
conversation which is recorded in the Bhagavad-
Gita.
Gita and Mahabharata oT
The battle lasted eighteen days, and ended with
the death of Duryodhana and the complete victory
of the Pandavas. Thereafter, Yudhisthira becarne
undisputed ruler of India. He reigned for thirty-six
yeurs.
The story ends with the pilgrimage of Draupadi
and the Pandavas up the heights of the Himalayas to
the abode of God. On the way, the queen and four
of the brothers died: they were not sufficiently pure
to be able to enter heaven in their human bodies.
Ouly Yudhisthira, the royal saint, journeyed on, ac-
companied by his faithful dog. When they reached
heaven, Indra, the king of gods, told him that the
dog could net come in. Yudhisthira replied that, if
this was so, he would stay outside heaven too; for
he could not bring himself to desert any creature
which trusted him and wished for his protection.
Finally, after a long argument, both dog and king
were admitted. Then the dog was revealed as Dhar-
ma himself. This had been another test of Yudhis-
thira’s spiritual greatness. One more was to follow.
When the king looked around him, he found that
heaven was filled with his mortal enemies. Where,
he asked, were his brothers and his comrades? Indra
conducted him to a gloomy and horrible region,
the pit of hell itself. ‘I prefer to stay here,’ said Yu-
dhisthira, ‘for the place where they are is heaven
to me.’ At this, the blackness and horror vanished.
Yudhisthira and the other Pandavas passed beyond
the appearance of hell and heaven into the true
Being of God which is immortality.
The Bhagavad-Gita (meaning, literally, the Song
of God) is not regarded by Hindus as Sruti (scrip-
tural teaching actually revealed by God to man, as
in the Upanishads) but only as Smriti (the teaching
of divine incarnations, saints or prophets, who fur-
28 Buacavap-Grra
their explain and eloborate the God-given truths of
the scriptures). Nevertheless, it is the most popular
book in Hindu religious literature; the Gospel, one
may say, of India. It has profoundly influenced the
spiritual, cultural, intellectual and political life of
the country throughout the centuries, and it con-
tinues to do so to-day. Every westerner should study
it if he wants to understand the mental processes of
India’s thinkers and leaders.
The date of the Gita is generally placed by schol-
ars somewhere between the fifth and second cen-
turies, 8.c, Most of them agree that it was not orig-
inally a part of the Mahabharata itself, but this does
not necessarily mean that it was composed later
than the epic. It seems to have existed for some time
independently.
In the Gita dialogue there are four speakers: King
Dhritarashtra, Sanjaya, Arjuna and Krishna.
Dhritarashtra is blind. The sage Vyasa (who is
traditionally supposed to be the author of the Gita)
offers to restore his sight, in order that he may
watch the battle of Kurukshetra. But Dhritarashtra
refuses. He cannot bear to see his kinsmen killed.
So Vyasa confers the psychic powers of clairvoyance
and clairaudience upon Sanjaya, who is Dhrita-
rashtra’s minister and charioteer. As they sit together
in the palace, Sanjaya describes to his master every-
thing he sees and hears on the distant battlefield.
Through his mouth, the words of Krishna and Ar-
juna are mediumistically reported. Occasionally, he
pauses in his report to add descriptive remarks of
his own.
Sri Krishna (Sri is a title of reverence, such as
Lord) has been called the Christ of India. There are,
in fact, some striking parallels between the life of
Krishna, as related in the Bhagavatam and else-
where, and the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In both
Gita and Mahabharata 29
cases, legend and fact mingle; but the historical
problem has nothing to do with a consideration of
the message of the Bhagavad-Gita. To a seeker after
spiritual reality who reads the Cita or the Sermon
on the Mount, it cannot matter very much whether
or not the historical Krishna and the historical Jesus
ever existed at all.
The Gita is not primarily concerned with Krishna
as an individual, but with his aspect as Brahman,
the ultimate Reality. When Krishna addresses Ar-
juata, he sometimes speuks as au individual, but often
as God Himself:
For Iam Bralinan
Within this body,
Life pmmortal
That shall not perish:
Tam the Truth
And the Joy forever.
Arjuna, in his attitude to Krishna, also expresses
this dual relationship. Krishna is the divine incama-
tion of Vishnu. Arjuna’s chosen deity. Arjuna knows
this—yet, by a merciful ignorance, he sometimes
forgets. Indeed. it is Krishna who makes him forget,
since no ordinary man could bear the strain of con-
stant companionship with God. After the vision of
Krishna's divine aspect, which is recorded in chap-
ter eleven, Arjuna is appalled by the realization that
he has been treating the Lord of the universe as
‘friend and fellow-mortal.’ He humbly begs Krish-
na’s pardon, but his awe soon leaves him. Again,
he has forgotten. We may infer the same relation-
ship between Jesus and his disciples after the vision
of the transfiguration.
King Dhritarashtra speaks but once. In fact, the
whole narrative of the Gita is Sanjaya’s answer to
his single opening question.
LI. The Sorrow of Arjuna*
DHRITARASHTRA!
Tell me, Sanjaya, what my sons and the sons of Pan-
du did, when they gathered on the sacred field of
Kurukshetra eager for battle?
(In the following verses, Sanjaya describes how
Duryodhana, seeing the opposing army of Panda-
vas in array, went to Drona, his teacher, and ex-
pressed his fear that their own ariny was the weaker
of the two, although numerically larger. He named
the leading warriors on either side. This is one of the
catalogue-passages to be found in nearly all epics.
It need not be translated in full.
In order to raise Duryodhana’s failing courage,
Bhisma, the commander-in-chief, sounded his
conch-shell horn. But this was ill-advised—for the
enemy chieftains immediately blew their horns in
reply, and made much more noise. The trumpeting
‘resounded through heaven and earth,’ we are told.
Arjuna now addresses Krishna, his friend and
charioteer. )
ARJUNA:
Krishna the changeless,
Halt my chariot
There where the warriors,
Bold for the battle,
Face their foemen.
Between the armies
There let me see them,
The men I must fight with,
Gathered together
Now at the bidding
* The accent is on the first syllable.
30
The Sorrow of Arjuna 31
Of him their leader,
Blind Dhritarashtra’s
Evil offspring:
Such are my foes
In the war that is coming.
SANJAYA (To DHRITARASHTRA ) :
Then Krishna, subduer of the senses, thus requested
by Arjuna, the conqueror of sloth,* drove that most
splendid of chariots into a place between the two
armies, confronting Bhisma, Drona and all those
other rulers of the earth. And he said: ‘O Prince,
behold the assembled Kurus!’
Then the prince looked on the array, and in both
armies he recognized fathers and grandfathers,
teachers, uncles, sons, brothers, grandsons, fathers-
in-law, dear friends, and many other familiar faces,
When Kunti’s son saw all those ranks of kinsmen
he was filled with deep compassion, and he spoke
despairingly, as follows:
ARJUNA:
Krishna, Krishna,
Now as I look on
These my kinsmen
Arraved for battle,
My limbs are weakened,
My mouth is parching,
My body trembles,
My hair stands upright,
My skin seems burning,
The bow Gandiva
Slips from my hand,
My brain is whirling
Round and round,
I can stand no longer:
Krishna, I see such
* Arjuna is traditionally supposed to have lived entirely without sleep. We may
take this to mean that he had overcome all forms of laziness.
32
Omens of evil!
What can we hope from
This killing of kinsmen?
What do I want with
Victory, empire,
Or their enjoyment?
O Govinda, *
How can I care for
Power or pleasure,
My own life, even,
When all these others,
Teachers, fathers,
Grandfathers, uncles,
Sons and brothers,
Husbands of sisters,
Grandsons and cousins,
For whose sake only
I could enjoy them
Stand here ready
To risk blood and wealth
In war against us?
Knower of all things,
Buacavap-Gira
Though they should slay me
How could I harm them?
T cannot wish it:
Never, never,
Not though it won me
The throne of the three worlds;
How much the less for
Earthly lordship!
Krishna, hearing
The prayers of all men,
Tell me how can
We hope to be happy
Slaying the sons
* One of the names of Sri Krishoa, meaning Giver of Enlightenment.
The Sorrow of Arjuna 83
Of Dhritarashtra?
Evil they may be,
Worst of the wicked,
Yet if we kill them
Our sin is greater.
How could we dare spill
The blood that unites us?
Where is joy in
The killing of kinsmenP
Foul their hearts are
With greed, and blinded:
They see no evil
In breaking of blood-bonds,
See no sin
In treason to comrades.
But we, clear-sighted,
Scanning the ruin
Of families scattered,
Should we not shun
This crime, O Krishna?
We know what fate falls
On families broken:
The rites are forgotten,
Vice rots the remnant
Defiling the women,
And from their corruption
Comes mixing of castes:
The curse of confusion
Degrades the victims
And damns the destroyers.
The rice and the water
No longer are offered;
The ancestors also
Must fall dishonoured
From home in heaven.
34 Buacavap-GITa
