Table Of ContentAnilbaran Roy. The Message of the Gita
Contents
Pre Content
Preface
Conspectus
Introduction
Kurukshetra
The Creed Of The Aryan Fighter
The Yoga Of The Intelligent Will
Works And Sacrifice
The Determination Of Nature
The Possibility And Purpose Of Avatarhood
The Divine Works
The Significance Of Sacrifice
Renunciation And Yoga Of Works
Niravana And Works In The World
The Two Natures
The Synthesis Of Devotion And Knowledge
The Supreme Divine
Works, Devotion And Knowledge
The Supreme Word Of The Gita
God In Power Of Becoming
Time The Destroyer
The Double Aspect
The Way And The Bhakta
The Field And Its Knower
Above The Gunas
The Three Purushas
Deva And Asuras
The Gunas, Faith And Works
The Gunas, Mind And Works
Swabhava And Swadharma
Towards The Supreme Secret
The Supreme Secret
The Story Of The Gita
The Historicity Of Krishna
Some Psychological Presuppositions
Glossary
Index
Preface
The Gita is a great synthesis of Aryan spiritual culture and Sri Aurobindo's luminous
exposition of it, as contained in his Essays on the Gita , sets out its inner significances in a way
that brings them home to the modern mind. I have prepared this commentary summarising its
substance with the permission of Sri Aurobindo. The notes have been entirely compiled from the
Essays on the Gita and arranged under the slokas in the manner of the Sanskrit commentators.
Sri Aurobindo Ashram,
Pondicherry,
21st February, 1938,
ANILBARAN
CONSPECTUS
FIRST CHAPTER _Kurukshetra
Arjuna, the representative man of his age, is over come with dejection and
sorrow at the most critical moment of his life on the battle-field of kurukshetra, and
raises incidentally the whole question of human life and action, the whole
exposition of the Gita revolves and completes its cycle round this original question
of Arjuna.
1 - 12
SECOND CHAPTER
The answer of the Teacher proceeds upon two different lines:
1.(1-38) The Creed of the Aryan Fighter
First, a brief reply founded upon the philosophic and moral conceptions of Vedanta and the
social idea of duty and honour which formed the ethical basis of Aryan society
13 - 24
II.(39-72) The Yoga of the Intelligent Will
Another reply founded on a more intimate knowledge, opening into deeper truths of our being,
which is the real starting-point of the teaching of the Gita. The Gita lays the first foundation by
subtly unifying Sankhya, Yoga and Vedanta.
24-45
THIRD CHAPTER
I.(1-26) Works and Sacrifice
Arjuna, the pragmatic man, is perplexed by metaphysical thought and asks for a simple rule of
action. The Gita begins to develop more clearly its positive and imperative doctrine of works, -
of works done as a sacrifice to the Divine.
46-57
II.(27-43) The Determinism of Nature
Arjuna is told that he must act always by the law of his nature. “All existences follow their
nature and what shall coercing it avail?”
58-65
FOURTH CHAPTER
I.(1-15) The Possibility and Purpose of Avatarhood
The divine Teacher, the Avatar, gives his own example, his own standard to Arjuna. In India
the belief in the reality of the Avatar, the descent into form, the revelation of the Godhead in
humanity has grown up and persisted as a logical outcome of the Vedantic view of life and taken
firm root in the consciousness of the race.
66-73
II.(16-23) The Divine Worker
Equality, impersonality, peace, joy and freedom -these are the signs which distinguish a divine
worker; they are all profoundly subjective and do not depend on so outward a thing as doing or
not doing works
74-78
III.(24-42) Th3e Significance of Sacrifice
The Gita brings out the inner meaning of the Vedic sacrifice, interpreting the secret
symbolism of the ancient Vedic mystics.
79-85
FIFTH CHAPTER -Renunciation and Yoga of Works
The Gita, after speaking of the perfect equality of the Brahman-knower who has risen into the
Brahman-consciousness, develops in the last nine verses of this chapter its idea of Brahmayoga
and of Nirvana in the Brahman.
86-93
SIX CHAPTER -Nirvana and Works in the World
This chapter is full development of the idea of the closing verses of the fith, - that shows the
importance which the Gita attaches to them.
94-106
SEVENTH CHAPTER
The seventh to the twelfth chapters lay down a large metaphysical statement of the nature of
the Divine Being and on that foundation closely relate and synthetise knowledge and devotion,
just as the first part of the Gita relate and synthetised works and knowledge in giving the primary
basic of its teachings.
I.(1-14) The Two Natures
The Gita makes the distinction between the two Natures, the phenomenal and the spiritual.
Here is the first new meta-physical idea of the Gita which heips it to start from the notions of the
Sankhya philosophy and yet exceed them and give to their terms a Vedantic significance.
107-116
II.(15-30) The Synthesis of Devotion and Knowledge
The Gita is not a treatise of metaphysical philosophy. It seeks the highest truth for the highest
practical utility. Thus it turns the philosophic truth given in the opening section of this chapter
into the first starting-point for the unification of works, knowledge and devotion.
117-124
EIGHTH CHAPTER – The Supreme Divine
We have here the first description of the Supreme Purusha,-the Godhead who is even more and
greater than the Immutable and to whom the Gita gives subsequently (as in the fifteenth chapter)
the name of Purushottam. The language here is taken bodily from the Upanishads.
125-131
NINTH CHAPTER -Works, Devotion and Knowledge
What the Gita now proceeds to say is the most secret thing of all. It is the knowledge of the
whole Godhead which the Master of his being has promised to Arjuna
(VII-I). To direct the whole self Godwards in an entire union is the way to rise out of a
mundane into a divine existence.
135-148
TENTH CHAPTER
I. (1-11) The Supreme Word of the Gita
The divine Avatar declares, in a brief reite ration of the upshot of all that he has been saying,
that this and no other is his supreme word.
149-154
II, (12-42) God in Power of Becoming
This section enumerates examples of Vibhutis or forms in which the Divine manifests its power
in the world. It leads up to the vision of the World-Purusha in the next chapter.
155-164
ELEVENTH CHAPTER
The Vision of the World-Spirit I. (1-34) Time the Destroyer
165-173
II- (35-55) The Double Aspect
The Time figure of the Godhead is now revealed and from the million mouths of that figure
issues the command for the appointed action to the liberated Vibhuti. This vision of the universal
Purusha is one of the most powerfully poetic passages in the Gita.
174-180
TWELFTH CHAPTER—The way and the Bhakta
In the eleventh chapter the original object of the teaching has been achieved and brought up to
a certain completeness. What remains still to be said turns upon the difference between the
current. Vedan- tic view of spiritual liberation and the larger comprehensive freedom which the
teaching of the Gita opens to the spirit. The twelfth chapter leads up to this remaining knowledge
and the last six that follow develop it to a grand final conclusion.
181-188
THIRTEENTH CHAPTER—The Field and its Knower
The distinctions between Purusha and Prakriti, Soul and Nature, rapidly drawn in this chapter
in the terms of the Sankhya Philosophy, are the basis on which the Gita rests its whole idea of
the liberated being made one in the conscious law of its existence with the Divine.
189-200
FOURTEENTH CHAPTER—Above the Gunas
The Gita now proceeds to work out its ideas of the action of the gunas, of the ascension
beyond the gunas and of the culmination of desireless works in know- ledge where knowledge
coalesces with bhakti,—knowledge, works and love made one,—and it rises thence to its great
finale, the supreme secret of self-surrender to the Master of Existence.
201-212
FIFTEENTH CHAPTER—The Three Pwushas
The entire doctrine of the Gita converges, on all its lines and through all the flexibility of its
turns, towards one central thought—the idea of a triple consciousness, three and yet one, present
in the whole scale of existence. All that is now brought together into one focus of grouping
vision. This chapter opens with a description of cosmic existence in the Vedantic image of the
aswattha tree.
213-221
SIXTEENTH CHAPTER—Deva and Asura
The Gita now proceeds to give the psychological discipline by which our human and earthly
nature can be trans- muted. But first it prefaces the consideration of this enlightening movement
by a distinction between two kinds of being, the Deva and the Asura.
222-230
SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER—The Gunas, Faith and Works
The Gita next gives an analysis of action in the light of the fundamental idea of the three guna?
and the transcendence of them by a self-exceeding culmination of the highest sattwic discipline.
In this chapter it lays special stress on Faith, shraddha, the will to believe and to be, know, live
and enact the Truth as the principal factor.
231-241
EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER
I. (1-39) The Gunas, Mind and Works
The Gita enters into a summary psychological analysis of the mental powers before it proceeds
to its great "finale, the highest secret which is that of a spiritual exceeding of all dharmas. .
242-255
II. (40-48) Swabhava and Swadharma
In this section the Gita deals with an incidental question of great importance— the ancient
social idea of chatwvarnya, which was a very different thing from the present day caste system.
256-262
III. (49-56) Towards the Supreme Secret
In this section the Gita re-states the body of its message.
263-271
IV. (57-78) The Supreme Secret
The essence of the teaching and the Yoga has thus been given to the disciple and the divine
Teacher now proceeds to apply it to his action. Attached to a crucial example, spoken to the
protagonist of Kurukshetra, the words bear a much wider significance and are a universal rule for
all who are ready to ascend above the ordinary mentality and to live and act in the highest
spiritual consciousness.
INTRODUCTION
It may be useful in approaching an ancient Scripture, such as the Veda,
Upanishads or Gita to indicate precisely the spirit in which we approach it and
what exactly we think we may derive from it that is of value to humanity and its
future. First of all, there is undoubtedly a Truth one and eternal which we are
seeking, from which all other truth derives, by the light of which all other truth
finds its right place, explanation and relation to the scheme of knowledge. But
precisely for that reason it cannot be shut up in a single trenchant formula, it is not
likely to be found in its entirety or in all its bearings in any single philosophy or
scripture or uttered altogether and for ever by any one teacher, thinker, prophet or
Avatar. Nor has it been wholly found by us if our view of it necessitates the
intolerant exclusion of the truth underlying other systems; for when we reject
passionately, we mean simply that we cannot appreciate and explain. Secondly,
this Truth, though it is one and eternal, expresses itself in Time and through the
mind of man; therefore every Scripture must necessarily contain two elements, one
temporary, perishable, belonging to the ideas of the period and country in which it
was produced, the other eternal and imperishable and applicable in all ages and
countries. Moreover, in the statement of the Truth the actual form given to it, the
system and arrangement, the meta- physical and intellectual mould, the precise
expression used must be largely subject to the mutations of Time and cease to have
the same force; for the human intellect modifies itself always, continually dividing
and putting together it is obliged to shift its divisions continually and to rearrange
its synthesis; it is always leaving old expression and symbol for new or, if it uses
the old, it so changes its connotation or at least its exact content and association
that we can never be quite sure of understanding an ancient book of this kind
precisely in the sense and spirit it bore to its contemporaries. What is of entirely
permanent value is that which besides being universal has been experienced, lived
and seen with a higher than the intellectual vision.
We hold it therefore of small importance to extract from the Gita its exact
metaphysical connotation as it was understood by the men of the time,—even if
that were accurately possible. That it is not possible, is shown by the divergence of
the original commentaries which have been and are still being written upon it; for
they all agree in each disagreeing with all the others, each finds in the Gita its own
system of metaphysics and trend of religious thought. Nor will even the most
painstaking and disinterested scholarship and the most luminous theories of the
historical development of Indian philosophy save us from inevitable error. But
what we can do with profit is to seek in the Gita for the actual living truths it
contains, apart from their metaphysical form, to extract from it what can help us or
the world at large and to put it in the most natural and vital form and expression we
can find that will be, suitable to the mentality and helpful to the spiritual needs of
our present-day humanity. No doubt in this attempt we may mix a good deal of
error born of our own individuality and of the ideas in which we live, as did greater
men before us, but if we steep ourselves in the spirit of this great Scripture and,
above all, if we have tried to live in that spirit, we may be sure of finding in it as
much real truth as we are capable of receiving as well as the spiritual influence and
actual help that, personally, we were intended to derive from it. And that is after all
what Scriptures were written to give; the rest is academical disputation or
theological dogma. Only those Scriptures, religions, philosophies which can be
thus constantly renewed, relived, their stuff of permanent truth constantly reshaped
and developed in the inner thought and spiritual experience of a developing
humanity, continue to be of living importance to mankind. The rest remain as
monuments of the past, but have no actual force or vital impulse for the future.
The thought of the Gita is not pure Monism although it sees in one unchanging,
pure, eternal Self the foundation of all cosmic existence, nor Mayavada although it
speaks of the Maya of the three modes of Prakriti omnipresent in the created
world; nor is it qualified Monism although it places in the One his eternal supreme
Prakriti manifested in the form of the Jiva and lays most stress on dwelling in God
rather than dissolution as the supreme state of spiritual consciousness; nor is it
Sankhya although it explains the created world by the double principle of Purusha
and Prakriti; nor is it Vaishnava Theism although it presents to us Krishna, who is
the Avatar of Vishnu according to the Puranas, as the supreme Deity and allows no
essential difference nor any actual superiority of the status of the indefinable
relationless Brahman over that of this Lord of beings who is the Master of the
universe and the Friend of all creatures. Like the earlier spiritual synthesis of the
Upanishads this later synthesis at once spiritual and intellectual avoids naturally
every such rigid determination as would injure its universal comprehensiveness. Its
aim is precisely the opposite to that of the polemist commentators who found this
Scripture established as one of the three highest Vedantic authorities and attempted
to turn it into a weapon of offence and defence against other schools and systems.
The Gita is not a weapon for dialectical warfare; it is a gate opening on the whole
world of spiritual truth and experience and the view it gives us embraces all the
provinces of that supreme region. It maps out, but it does not cut up or build walls
or hedges to confine our vision.
There have been other syntheses in the long history of Indian thought. We
start with the Vedic synthesis of the psychological being of man in its highest
flights and widest rangings of divine knowledge, power, joy, life and glory with
the cosmic existence of the gods, pursued behind the symbols of the material
universe into those superior planes which are hidden from the physical sense and
the material mentality. The crown of this synthesis was in the experience of the
Vedic Rishis something divine, transcendent and blissful in whose unity the
increasing soul of man and the eternal divine fulness of the cosmic godheads meet
perfectly and fulfil themselves. The Upanishads take up this crowning experience
of the earlier seers and make it their starting-point for a high and profound
synthesis of spiritual knowledge; they draw together into a great harmony all that
had been seen and experienced by the inspired and liberated knowers of the Eternal
through- out a great and fruitful period of spiritual seeking. The Gita starts from
this Vedantic synthesis and upon the basis of its essential ideas builds another
harmony of the three great means and powers, Love, Knowledge and Works,
through which the soul of man can directly approach and cast itself into the
Eternal. There is yet another, the Tantric, which though less subtle and spiritually
profound, is even more bold and forceful than the synthesis of the Gita,—for it
