Bhagavadgita (An Old and Rare Book)

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Shri. M. R. Yardi The author was born in a small village in 1916. He had his school education in the Hindu High School, Karwar and Garud High School, Dhulia and college education in the Fergusson College and Shri Parshuram Bhau College, Pune. He had the good fortune to study Sanskrit under the guidance of Shri. V.H. Nijsure and Prof. R.N. Dandekar and Mathematics under the guidance of Prof. D.D. Koshambi, and Prof. D.W. Kerkar. He stood first in Sanskrit in the Matriculation examination (1933) and secured the Jagannath Shankarshet Scholarship. He stood first in the B.A. and M.A. examination of the then Bombay University and was the chancellor's medalist (in Mathematics, 1939). Не topped the list of successful candidates in the Indian Civil Service held at Delhi in 1940. He served the erstwhile Bombay and Maharashtra state as Collector of Pune. Development Commissioner, Bombay and as Finance Secretary. During his stay at Nasik, he had the privilege to read Shankara Bhashya on the Brahma-Sutra with His Holiness the late Dr. Kurtakoti, Shankaracharya of Karavira Peeth. He went to the Government of India in 1962 and worked as Programme Advisor, Planning Commission, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Home and retired as Finance Secretary in 1974. After retirement he worked in all for ten years as a trustee and chief trustee of Shri Jnaneshwar Maharaj Sansthan at Alandi and has been working as Chairman, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Pune Kendra. His three works, The Yoga of Patanjali, The Maliabharata, its Genesis and Growth, A Statistical Study of the Bhagavadgita as a Synthesis have been published by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune. His translations of Jnaneshwari in Marathi, Hindi and English have been published by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Pune Kendra.

The Bhagavadgita is a superb philosophical poem which embodies the quintessence of the Upanisadic teaching. It has exercised and will continue to exercise the greatest influence on the Hindu minds as the revealed word of God. It has served as the prime authority on moral instruction and as a philosophical and religious text. It appeals to both the intellect and the heart. It declares unequivocally that the formless God who appeals to the intellectual is the same as the Personal God, who appeals to be emotional. It affirms that God-realisation is the supreme end of human life and that it can be attained through dedication to knowledge (jnananistha). It lays down three paths of God-realisation, the path of knowledge for the ascetic and the intellectual, the path of action for the activist and the path of devotion for the emotionally-inclined. But it is also makes it clear that whatever path one chooses initially, one ultimately attains to the knowledge of God, which culminates in supreme devotion. The Gita does not form part of the scriptures, but the Upanisads, the Gita and Brahmasutra form the triple canon (prasthana-trayi) of Hindu religion and are regarded as authoritative in the fundamental tenets of Vedanta. Any teaching, which does not conform to theses tenets is considered heterodox and not worthy of notice. On the other hand, those who have studied this triple canon and have written commentaries on them are called Acaryas and held in high regard by the Hindus. Our great religious leaders have written commentaries on them to demonstrate that they contain or support their particular doctrines. The earliest commentary on the Gita, which is available now, is that of Sri Sankaracarya (seventh century A. D.). He, however, refers to some prima facie views held by a predecessor, who is commonly knowledged to be Bodhayana. Sri Sankara was followed by a succession of Acaryas, who have interpreted the Gita according to their own schools of thought. The commentators of the Gita have lost sight of the fact that the Gita had tried to synthesize the prevailing systems and vied with one another to establish that their own interpretation conveyed the sole message of the Gita. An attempt has therefore been made to discover the true message of Gita.