The question of the supreme teaching of the Bhagavadgita has engaged the attention of scholars throughout the centuries. As the title of the present work will show, God-realisation according to us is the supreme teaching of the Bhagavadgita. This has not been properly insisted on by any of the great scholars that have gone by. We shall see presently how both in ancient and modern times they have produced a labyrinth out of which the only way to escape is by holding securely in our hands the thread or clue of God-realisation.
by The present work is divided into five parts. The first part deals with the ancient systems with which the Bhagavadgita comes into relation. The second part deals with the thought of the middle ages where we find the great Vedantic scholars and spiritual teachers throwing light on the meaning of the Bhagavadgita. The third part deals with a veritable labyrinth that has been produced in the interpretation of the Bhagavadgita modern scholars during the last century and a half. The fourth part deals with our solution of the problem in terms of contemporary thought and mode of procedure, The last part deals, in a general way, with the conception of the Sublime which has been outlined in the Bhagavadgita and which has assumed great importance with eminent European philosophers, linking it up with the conception of the Divine.
It will be necessary for us here to cast a glance at the main points of discussion in these five parts in order that the reader may be able to appreciate better the entire argument of the work. The first part will deal with the Upanisads, the Samkhya-Yoga and the Brahma-sutras, Particular attention is drawn in the Upanisad Section to the realisational value of the Isa, to the reality of the Asvattha in the Katha as against its unreality in the Bhagavadgita, and to the prototype of the Visvarupa of the Bhagavadgita in the Mundaka.
Under Samkhya and Yoga we are pointing out how the word Avyakta, used by the Upanisads and the Samkhya philosophy to designate Prakrti, has been used by the Bhagavadgita to designate Aksara Purusa or Paramagati, how the Trigunas play no less an important part in the Bhagavadgita than in the later Samkhya philosophy, having their physiological correspondence with the cerebral, cardiac and muscular functions, and lastly, how the word Kaivalya has been used to indicate Isolation in Samkhya, Vision of the Self by the Self in Yoga and Unison in Vedanta.
In regard to the Brahmasutras and their relation to the Bhagavadgita, this much is certain that there is interquotation and interreference. It is evident that the Brahmasutras do refer to the Bhagavadgita in that famous Sutra अतश्चायनेऽपि दक्षिणे and that the Bhagavadgita refers to Brahmasutras in the expression बह्मसूत्रपदेचैव, but what Brahmasutras it refers to cannot be determined. Hence the question of the priority or posteriority of the Bhagavadgita and Brahmasutras remains a very difficult problem to solve.
Part II of our work deals with the main points of discussion between the great Vedantic commentators such as Samkara, Ramanuja, Madhva and Vallabha, as well as with that eminent mystical exponent of the Bhagavadgita, Jaanesvara, who might easily be regarded as the greatest commentator on the Bhagavadgita that has ever lived. The three principal problems from the Vedantic commentators with which we shall be dealing are the nature of the Absolute or God, the character of Asat or Not-Being, which they interpret variously, as well as the meaning of Naiskarmya or transcendence of actions which also they interpret differently to suit their own philosophical convenience.
Under Jnanesvara we shall see particularly how he discusses poetico philosophically the nature of the Absolute which he likens to the Cit-Surya, his analysis of the principal mystical emotions which is a contribution to the psychology of religion, as well as his greatest con-tribution to thought, namely, his doctrine of asymptotic approximation to Reality, which is a veritable landmark in the history of the philosophy of mysticism.
Vedas (1182)
Upanishads (493)
Puranas (624)
Ramayana (741)
Mahabharata (354)
Dharmasastras (165)
Goddess (496)
Bhakti (242)
Saints (1503)
Gods (1290)
Shiva (370)
Journal (187)
Fiction (60)
Vedanta (362)
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