Alan Watts

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