Social and Economic Aspects of the Bhagavad Gita - PART I

DD Kosambi

The Bhagavad-Gita, "Song of the Blessed One", forms part of the great Indian epic Mahabharata. Its 18 adhyaya chapters contain the report by Sanjaya of a dialogue between the Pandava hero Arjuna and his Yadu Charioteer Krsna, the eighth incarnation of Visnu. The actual fighting is about to begin when Arjuna feels revulsion at the leading part which he must play in the impending slaughter of cousins and kinsmen. The exhortations of Lord Krsna answer every doubt through a complete philosophical cycle, till Arjuna is ready to bend his whole mind, no longer divided against itself, to the great killing. The Gita has attracted minds of bents entirely different from each other and from that of Arjuna. Each has interpreted the supposedly divine words so differently from all the others that the original seems far more suited to raise doubts and to split a personality than to heal an inner division. Any moral philosophy which managed to receive so many variant interpretations from minds developed in widely different types of society must be highly equivocal No question remains of its basic validity if the meaning be so flexible. Yet the book has had its uses.

If a Mahabharata war had actually been fought on the scale reported, nearly five million fighting men killed each other in an 18-day battle between Delhi and Thanesar; about 130,000 chariots (with their horses), an equal number of elephants and thrice that many riding horses were deployed. This means at least as many camp-followers and attendants as fighters. A host of this size could not be supplied without a total population of 200 millions, which India did not attain till the British period, and could not have reached without plentiful and cheap iron and steel for ploughshares and farmers1 tools. Iron was certainly not available in any quantity to Indian peasants before the 6th century BC. The greatest army camp credibly reported was of 400,000 men under Candragupta Maurya, who commanded the surplus of the newly developed Gangetic basin. The terms patti, gulma etc., given as tactical units in the Mbh did net acquire that meaning till after the Mauryans. The heroes fought with bows and arrows from their chariots, as if the numerous cavalry did not exist; but cavalry—which appeared comparatively late in ancient Indian warfare—made the fighting chariots obsolete as was proved by Alexander in the Punjab.

The epic began, like the early Homeric chants, as a series of lays sung at the court of the conquerors. The lament was thinly veiled, presumably by irony; the defeated Kurus survived in legend (e.g. the Kuru-dhamma-jataka) as unsurpassable in rectitude and nobility of character. Krsna-Narayana had no role to play even in the first connected epic narrative. Should the reader doubt all this, let him read the final cantos of the extant Mbh. The Pandavas come in the end to disgraceful old age, and unattended death in the wilderness. Their opponents are admitted to heaven as of right, but the heroes are only transferred there from the tortures of hell, after a long and stubborn effort by the eldest brother Yudhstihira, It strikes even the mast casual eye that this is still the older heaven of India and Yama; Krsna-Narayana is not its dominant figure, but a palpable and trifling insertion in a corner.

Those legendary Utopians, the: pure, and unconquerable Uttara Kurus of the Digha Nikaya (DN 32) and the Aitareya Brahmana (AB 8.14; H.23) are not to be confused with the Kurus who survived in historical times near Delhi-Meerut. The Buddha preached several of his sermons at the settlement Kammasa-damma in Kuruland (Majjhima Nikaya 10; 75; 106) white their capital seems 10 have been at Thullakotthita (MN 82), the seat of the nameless petty tribal Kuru chief, presumably descended from the Pan (Java conquerors whom the epic was to inflate beyond all limits. This negligible 'kingdom' either faded away or was among the tribal groups systematically destroyed by the Magadhan emperor Mahapadma Nanda, a few years before Alexander's raid into the Punjab. The memory, however, remains as of a tribe, but not a full-fledged kingdom with a class structure in the eleventh book or the Arthasastra along with similar oligarchies like the Licchavis and the Mallas known to have been destroyed about 475 BC. As for Narayana, it might be noted here, that the famous benedictory initial stanza Narayanam namaskrtya, which would make the whole of the extant Mbh into a Vaisnava document, was stripped off by V. S. Sukthankar's text-criticism in 1933 as a late forgery.

1 .1 FOR WHAT CLASS?

We know that the Gita exercised a profound influence upon Mahatma Gandhi, B. G.Tilak, the 13th century Maharastrian reformer Jnanesvar, the earlier Vaisnava acarya Ramanuja. and the still earlier Samkara. Though both fought hard in the cause of India's liberation from. British rule, Tilak and the Mahatma certainly did not draw concordant guidance for action from the Glta. Aurobindo Ghose renounced the struggle for India's freedom to concentrate upon study of the Gita. Lokamanya Tilak knew the Jnaneswari comment, but his Gita-rahasya is far from being based upon the earlier work. Jnanesvar himself did not paraphrase Samkara on the Gita, nor does his very free interpretation follow Ramanuja; tradition ascribes to him membership of the rather fantastic natha sect. Ramanuja's Vahnavism laid a secure foundation for the acrid controversy with the earlier followers of Siva who came into prominence with the great Samkara. But then, why did samkara also turn to the Bhagavad-gita?

What common need did these outstanding thinkers have that was at the same time not felt by ordinary people, even of their own class? They all belonged to the leisure-class of what, for lack of a batter term, may be called Hindus. The consequent bias must not be ignored, for the great comparable poet-teachers from the common people did very well without the Gita. Kabir, the Banaras weaver, had both Muslim and Hindu followers for his plain yet profound teaching. Tukaram knew the Gita through the Jnaneswari, but worshipped Visnu in his own way by meditation upon God and contemporary society in the ancient caves (Buddhist and natural) near the junction of the Indrayam and Patina rivers. Neither Jayadeva's Gita-govinda, so musical and supremely beautiful a literary effort, (charged with the love and mystery of Krsna's cult) nor the Visnuite reforms of Caitanya that swept the peasantry of Bengal off its feet were founded on the rock of the Gita. I have yet to hear that the heterogeneous collection which forms the Sikh canon owes anything substantial directly to the Gita, though it preserves verses due to Jayadeva, and the Maharashtrian Namdev. Jnanesvar ran foul of current brahmin belief at Alandi, and had to take refuge about 1290 AD on the south bank of the Godavari, in the domains of Ramacandra Yadava, to compose his famous gloss in the common people's language. 

We know as little of the historic action taken or instigated by Samkara and Ramanuja as we should have known of Tilak s had only his Gita-rahasya survived. Yet, about the year 800, Samkara was active in some manner that resulted -according to tradition—in the abolition of many Buddhist monasteries. That this was achieved by his penetrating logic and sheer ability in disputation is now, the general Hindu belief. The mass of writing left in his name, and what is given therein as the Buddhist doctrine which he refutes, make only one thing clear: that he had not the remotest idea of Gotama Buddha's original teaching. Buddhism as practised in the monasteries had in any case degenerated into Lamalsm with opulent vihara foundations which were a serious drain upon the economy of the country. That samkara's activity provided a stimulus to their abolition, and Ramanuja's some handle against the wealthier barons whose worship of Siva was associated in the popular mind with their oppressive land- rent, seems a reasonable conclusion on the evidence before us. Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain why the richer, aristocratic landholders opted for Siva, the poorer, and relatively plebeian overwhelmingly for Visnu, in the bitter smarta-vaisnava feuds, it is difficult to believe that they could come to blows because of differing religious philosophy.. Samkara managed to discover a higher and lower knowledge in the Upanisads which allowed him "to conform to the whole apparatus of Hindu belief "—whatever that may mean—"on the lower plane, while on the higher he finds no true reality in anything; his logic, it has been well said, starts by denying the truth of the proposition 'A is either B or not B'... At death the soul when released is merged in the absolute and does not continue to be distinct from it". According to Ramanuja, "if in a sense there is an absolute whence all is derived, the individual souls and matter still have a reality of their own, and the end of life is not merger in the absolute but continued blissful existence. This state is to be won by bhakti, faith in and devotion to God." It is not possible to imagine that subtle arguments on these tenuous ideas gripped the masses, that people could be whipped up to a frenzy merely by the concept of restricted dualism (visistadvaita) or thoroughgoing dualism (dvaita). Yet frenzied conflict there was, for centuries. Neither side objected to rendering faithful service at the! same time to beef-eating Muslim overlords, who knocked brahmins off without compunction or retribution, and desecrated temples without divine punishment. 

The main conclusion is surely the following : Practically anything can be read into the Gita by a determined person, without denying the validity of a class system. THE GITA FURNISHED THE ONE SCRIPTURAL SOURCE WHICH COULD BE USED WITHOUT VIOLENCE TO ACCEPTED BRAHMIN METHODOLOGY, TO DRAW INSPIRATION AND JUSTIFICATION FOR SOCIAL ACTIONS IN SOME WAY DISAGREEABLE TO A BRANCH OF THE RULING CLASS upon whose mercy the brahmins depended at the moment. That the action was not mere personal opportunism is obvious in each of the cases cited above It remains to show how the document achieved this unique position.

1.2. A REMARKABLE INTERPOLATION

That the song divine is sung for the upper classes by the brahmins, and only through them for otters, is clear. We hear from the mouth of Krsna himself (G.9.32): "For those who take refuge in Me, be they even of the sinful brands such as women, vaisyas, and sudras.." That is, all women and all men of the working and producing classes are defiled by their very birth, though they may in after-life be freed by their faith in the god who degrades them so casually in this one. Not only that, the god himself had created such differences (G.4.13): "The four-caste (class) division has been created by Me"; this is proclaimed in the list of great achievements. The doctrines are certainly not timeless. Ethics come into being only as they serve some social need. Food-producing society (as distinct from conflicting aggregates of food-gathering tribal groups) originated in the fairly recent and definite historical past, so that the principles upon which it may work at some given stage could not have been expressed from eternity. The Gita sets out each preceding doctrine in a masterly and sympathetic way without naming or dissecting it, and with con- summate skill passes smoothly on to another when Arjuna asks "why then do you ask me to do something so repulsive and clearly against this ?" Thus, we have a brilliant (if plagiarist) review-synthesis of many schools of thought which were in many respects mutually incompatible. The incompatibility is never brought out; all views are simply facets of the one divine mind. The best in each system is derived, naturally, as from the high God. There is none of the polemic so characteristic of disputatious Indian philosophy; only the Vedic ritual beloved of the Mimamsakas is condemned outright. The Upanisads are well—if anonymously—represented, though the Svetasvdara Upanisad alone contains the germ of bhakti, and none the theory of perfection through a large succession of rebirths. This function of karma is characteristically Buddhist. Without Buddhism, G.2.55-72 (recited daily as prayers at Mahatma Gandhi's asrama) would be impossible. The brahma-nirvana of G. 2.72, and 5.25 is the Buddhist ideal state of escape from the effect of karma. We may similarly trace other—unlabelled—schools of thought such as Samkhya and Mimamsa down to early Vedanta (G. 15.15 supported by the reference- to the Brahama-sutra in G. 13.4)-. This helps date the work as somewhere between 150-350 AD, nearer the later than the earlier date. The ideas are older, not original, except perhaps the novel use of bhakti. The language is high classical Sanskrit such as could not have been written much before the Guptas, though the metre still shows the occasional irregularity (G. 8. 101, 8. IP, 15. 3a, &c) in tristubhs, characteristic of the Mbh as a whole. The Sanskrit of the high Gupta period, shortly after the time of the Gita, would have been more careful in verification.

It is known in any case that the Mbh and the Puranas suffered a major revision " in the period given above. The Mbh in particular was in the hands of Brahmins belonging to the Bhrgu clan, who inflated it to about its present bulk (though the process of inflation continued afterwards) before the Gupta age came to flower. The Puranas also continued to be written or rewritten to assimilate some particular cult to Brahminism. The last discernible redaction of the main Purana group refers to the Guptas still as local princes between Fyzabad and Prayag. This context fits the Gita quite well. The earliest dated mention of anything that could possibly represent the Gita is by Hsiuen Chuang, early in the seventh century, who refers to a Brahmin having forged at his king's order such a text, (supposedly of antiquity) which was then 'discovered', in order to foment war. The fact does remain that the Mbh existed in two versions at the time of the Asvadayana Grhya Sutra, which refers both to the Bharata and the Mahabharata" The prologue of the present Mbh repeats much the same information in such a way as to make it evident that the older 24,000-stote Bharata was still current at the time the longer version was promulgated. Every attempt was made to ascribe both to the great 'expander', Vyasa, to whom almost every Purana is also ascribed. A common factor is the number 18, which had some particular sanctity for the (whole complex, and for the Brahmins connected therewith. There are 18 main gotra clan-groups of brahmins though the main 751 sages are only seven in number; many of the 18 (e.g. the kevala Bhiargavas and kevala Angirasas) are difficult to fit into a rational scheme. Correspondingly, there are 18 main Puranas, and 18 parvan sections of the Mbh, though the previous division was into 100, as we learn from the prologue. The very action of the Bharatan war was fought over 18 days between 18 legions. The Gita has also 18 adhyayas, which is surely not without significance. That the older Bharata epic had a shorter hut similar Gita is most unlikely. One could expect some sort of an exhortation to war, as is actually contained in- G. 2. 37: "If slain, you gain heaven; if victorious, the earth; so up, son of Kunti, and concentrate on fighting'. These lines lit the occasion very well. Such pre-battle urging was customary in all lands at all times (advocated even by the supremely practical Arthasastra, 10.3) through invocations and incantations, songs of bards, proclamations by heralds, and speech of captain or king. What is highly improbable - except to the brahmin bent upon getting his niti revisions into a popular lay of war—is this most intricate three-hour discourse on moral philosophy, after the battle-conches had blared out in mutual defiance and two vast armies had begun their inexorable movement towards collision.

To put it bluntly, the utility of the Gita derives from its peculiar fundamental defect, namely dexterity in seeming to reconcile the irreconcilable. The high god repeatedly emphasizes the great virtue of non-killing (ahimsa), yet the entire discourse is an incentive to war. So, G. 2.19 ff. says that it is impossible to kill or be killed. The soul merely puts off an old body as a man his old clothes, in exchange for new; it cannot be cut by weapons, nor suffer from fire, water or the storm. In G. 11, the terrified Arjuna sees all the warriors of both sides rush into a gigantic Visnu-Krsna's innumerable voracious mouths, to be swallowed up or crushed. The moral is pointed by the demoniac god himself (G. 11.33): that all the warriors on the field had really been destroyed by him; Arjuna's killing them would be a purely formal affair whereby he could win the opulent kingdom. Again, though the yajna sacrifice is played down or derided, it is admitted in G. 3.14 to be the generator of rain, without which food and life would be impossible. This slippery opportunism characterizes the whole book. Naturally, it is not surprising to find so many Gita lovers imbued therewith. Once it is admitted that material reality is gross illusion, the rest follows quite simply; the world of "doublethink" is the only one that matters.

The Gita was obviously a new composition, not the expansion of some proportionately shorter religious instruction in the old version. I next propose to show that the effort did not take hold for some centuries after the composition.

Courtesy:

Myth and Reality: Studies in the Formation of Indian Culture (first printed in 1962).

The entire book can be downloaded here

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Some Loud Thinking about the Bhagavad-Gita

G Ramakrishna

Karl Marx pointed out that truly human liberation is to be achieved only by breaking every kind of bondage that mankind has been subjected to in the course of the evolution of society through different social formations. Emancipation has its philosophers even as oppression has its agents and defenders. Marx as the most thoroughgoing scientific analyst of society has also indicated that the roots of religion are essentially earthly and hence the tent of heaven cannot be pulled down by remaining in the clouds. From the point of view of the emancipation seekers, therefore, Marx is the most profound philosopher and guide. In the specific context of Indian philosophy and class struggles the Bhagavad-Gita has been the most formid­able weapon for the ruling classes and remains a significant document to be countered by Marxism whose polaric opposite the Bhagavad-Gita is.

Mystification and awe-inspiring pronouncements are the stock in trade of the philosophy of the oppressors and the Bhagavad-Gita abounds in such apparently invincible final truths. That irrelevancies hardly bother the hardcore votaries of' idea­lism is amply illustrated by the method and design of the Bhagavad-Gita. A more pernicious text in the field of Indian philosophy is almost impossible to come by. Such is, the character of this text in the range of Indian religion.

Krishna and Arjuna at Kurukshetra, c. 1830 painting
Courtesy: Wikimedia

The most unalloyed idealistic merchandise is made to appear quite glittering and glamorous by the author of the Gita who is the most sophisticated janitor that the ruling classes have found among, the intellectual justifiers of the horrors of oppression and crime. Milton wrote the epic Para­dise Lost to justify the ways of god to man. The most, powerful shield that the ruling classes has possessed in history is the mood of acceptance among the masses, for, if an idea that grips the minds of the masses is a material force, it does not really matter whether it is the idea of submission or revolt that so grips the minds; each will have its own hold on the minds and also act as the motivating force for further action or inaction, as the case may be. The clever rationaliser, that the author of the Gita is, induces inaction. Paradoxically enough, this message of inaction is couched in the language of dynamic action in the Gita. Even some scholars devoted to dialectical and historical materialism have averred at times that the impact of the Gita is fundamentally that the lethargic and astounded Arjuna was made a violent resister, and so on. But all this facile deduction may be tantalizing as a rhapsody only for those who like to excel the falsifiers of philosophy by adding their own contribution to the act of falsification.

Take any ancient treatise and there is room for discussion from various angles mainly because different shades of opinion are usually reflected in these treatises. The Veda and Upanisads belong to this category. The Veda and Upanisads are not texts with a single track, and a blind tract at that. Phases of the changing society are recognizable therein. The dialogues among the philosophers of the Upanisads are not the despair of a scientific socialist for the simple reason that those philosophers consciously admit the possibility of the materialist point of view as a basic for discussion. The Buddhist texts and texts of later philosophical schools, especially the latter, may take pains to discredit materialism, but they don’t dismiss it offhandedly and abrasively. That is the extraordinary prerogative the Gita enjoys.

The author of the Gita is the official spokesman of the ruling class in the sphere of philosophy and it is his specialty that he gives fine finishing touches to a sordid philosophical junk. Take an average teacher of Indian philosophy in an Indian university of today. Chances are that he is blissfully ignorant of the dichotomy between idealism and materialism in the stream of philosophical disquisition through the ages even in India. He is the ‘justifier’ & ‘rationliser’ of the system for which idealism is the typical philosophy. An enlightened observer of our society today cannot miss what the professor of philosophy so schemingly misses. And that is why he is the official spokesman. To put it rather bluntly, a painstaking journalist is more relevant and useful than such an official spokesman. In the context of the professor of philosophy, namely the author of the Gita, it is necessary to look for the enlightened journalist of the period to which the Gita belongs so that the distortions and manipulations of the official spokesman may be recognized.

The Dharmasastrakaras are better and more honest chroniclers than the author of the Gita in so far as they present their crude formulae about social structure and social stratification without any inhibitions. They are mercenaries straight and simple. Their spots are thus easy to discover and guard against. But the polished tongue of the author of the Gita conceals the venomous trick that he is out to perform in favour of his masters. His armoury of wisecracks provides the smokescreen for the vicious role that he has chosen to play as the voice of the oppressing class. Howe else can we understand the Gita’s enunciation of the caste system as divine ordinance, but based on ‘guna’ and ‘karma’, as opposed to the brazen-faced declaration of the Dharmasastrakaras that it is a division entirely based on the criterion of birth? Practice is the litmus test for ascertaining the credibility of these differing claims of the Gita and the law-givers; that the law-givers are nearer the truth is obvious. Still, the Gita speaks of the ennobling criterion and gives the padding of svadharme nidhanam sreyash, etc.

A close look at the first chapter of the Gita reveals to us that it is the best part of the Gita as that is the only scientific part of it. The forceful and inevitable questions that the supposedly panic-stricken Arjuna raises are the questions of a responsible sociologist. The next seventeen chapters are the answers of a windbag in that nowhere do we find the least evidence that the author has any sensible answers to the fundamental questions raised in the first chapter. The questions are real and they cannot be ignored by the philosophers of the ruling class. His answer, however, is full of rationalizations and obscurantism. This can well be demonstrated:

Gita 1.28 tells us that Arjuna was overcome with feelings of concern for his fellowmen. He was frustrated with thoughts of destruction. It was ethical consciousness which pervaded the mind of Arjuna (1.36). There was, of course, also a sense of egoism, presumptuousness and arrogance in him when he, together with his preceptor, described himself as the illumined (1.39). But the main question was: Svajanam hi katham hatva sukhinah syama madhava? (1.37). The philosopher’s agony was that the well settled order of hierarchy was going to be disturbed. Varnasamkara is the menace that threatens him. But there is a mild joke there when the author of the Gita puts the question like one of the orthodox Brahmins might put it today. Utsadyante jatidharmah kuladharmasca sasyatha, he says. If they are really ‘sasvatah’, then where is the fear of their collapsing in a war crisis? The social catastrophe, with the old order displaced, is round the corner for the author and he must stall it. His next seventeen chapters are there to perform this feat.

How does the author achieve it? His first appeal is to fame, dignity and prestige of Arjuua (BG. 2. 2-3). But Arjuna again comes up with the doubts of his success in war. Moreover, there are pujarhah among the opponents; they are not just tribals like Hidimba! But the climax of it is that the author creates the ideological framework for his class by first creating a halo round the head of the preceptor of Arjuna (2.7).

Bhagavad Gita, a 19th-century manuscript
Courtesy: Wikipedia

Look at the concrete questions of Arjuna and the abstract answers of his preceptor beginning with 2.11. The scientists of Los Alamos are put to shame by Krishna who nonchalantly speaks of the stupidity of those who grieve over the dead! Immediately thereafter we have some inane declarations none of which are great discoveries made by Krishna for the first time (2.13: Dehino'smin yatha dehe kaumaram yauvanam jara, etc). But the analogy is supposed to corroborate something said in 2.12: Na tvevaham jatu nasam na tvam neme janadhipah; na caiva na bhavisyamah sarve vayamatah param. Arjuna becomes gullible with these verbal gimmicks. If it is true that there is no existence prima facie, as Krishna wants to suggest and prove, then where is the need to fight? If there is no killer and killed, a fight is as meaningless as reluctance to fight. And yet Krishna is all the time proving to Arjuna that a fight is more natural and hesitation unnatural. If there is no killer and killed, it follows that there is no victor and vanquished. So, why indulge in the luxury of a fight? And ultimately, when Krishna does induce Arjuna to fight, it is not a fight against any known social evil; it is against one's fellow-beings. Giving some allegorical meaning to the Gita will not help us much in this regard because the basic question of philosophy tackled here does not vary. The attempt of the author is to confound those who seek right answers to social questions. Thus he starts off with a puzzling and mystifying ‘Na jayate mriyate va kadachit ...’; unfortunately, the question of Arjuna was not that at all. Where is Krishna's reply to the query of Arjuna: Aho bata mahatpapam kartum vyavasita vayam; yadrajyasukhalobhena hantum svajanamudyatah(1.45)? It is a sociological quandary to which a mystifying high philosophy dish is served by Krishna. The totally uncalled for jugglery of nainam chindanti sastrani... , is the awe-inspiring chain that the philosopher as the defender of the ruling class is presenting to the masses. If Arjuna averred that war is evil and thereby betrayed some sign of a civilized approach, Krishna the divine declared that it is muck and colossal ignorance to think so. Justification? - Acchedyoyam adahyoyam akledyoyam asas yoyam, etc. He reinforces this philosophical obscurantism with the legend that you must be a slave to your duty (2.31: Svadharmamapi caveksya na vikampitumarhasi; dharmaddhi yuddacchreyo’ nyat ksatriyasya na vidyate). It is almost like the dictum and the homily administered to the GI’s by Nixon and Johnson during the crusade against communism in Vietnam. As if this were not enough, he makes Arjuna feel intimate with heaven also because ‘sukhinah ksatriyah parthalabhante yuddamidrasm’ (2.32). What a shame really that there are crazy people who decry war as a scourge on mankind! They must take their first lessons in morality and duty; from Sri Krishna Bhagavan!

The foulness of the design of the author of the Gita is quite unmistakable. Look at 2.33 to 38. Arjuna dear, if you don’t fight, your dharma and kirti will be gone. You are a sambhavita and that position will be lost. And dread it you must because it is worse than death. Those who look upon you as a man of greatness and integrity will look down upon you. They will make a scandal of it, etc. All Goebbelsian talk. Why should Krishna want Arjna to worry about all these things if as he had said earlier that soul of man is acchedya, etc.?

The voluble preceptor has held the mind of Arjuna captive with fine abstract mystifying words and concepts; so much so, at the end of the preceptor’s discourse in which there is not a word by way of a direct answer to the questions raised by the pupil, Arjuna asks the master to hold forth a little more about the character of the sthitaprajna instead of simply reiterating his earlier question by pointing out to the master that his question had not been answered at all. Self-abnega­tion is made the most virtuous value in the course of the next discourse on sthitaprajna. (It is not without reason then that the Gandhian hypocrites have found in this part of the Gita their gospel). Joy in status quo, helplessness, submission; illusory happiness, aversion for fulfillment and the like are extolled in hyperbolic language. The result is that the enquirer’s mind is stunted in its growth, its virility is gone, and it meekly surrenders to the ‘great and the noble’. It is needless to say that all this is rich with the potential to check social change and class struggle. The best fortress for the ruling class is the inert mind of the oppressed people. The Gita has for its purpose the transformation of a questioning mind into a dead mind. And that is precisely the reason why the misleading importance of the Gita needs to be exposed fully in our fight against idealism. There is no text in the whole range of Indian Philosophy which is replete with naked idealism and obscurantism as grievously as the Bhagavadgita. It is no surprise, therefore, that it is extolled as the text par excellence by all the footmen of feudalism and the staunch brokers of capitalism.

This essay was first published in  Marxism and Indology, KP Bagchi & Co, Calcutta, 1981

It also appears in The Living Marx, Ma-Le Prakashana, Bangalore, 1983 (Page 29 – 35)

Dr. G Ramkrishna is the Chief Editor of Hosatu, a progressive periodical in Kannada. He was a Professor of English at National College, Bangalore and a Visiting Professor at Kannada University, Hampi. He is the author a number of books in Kannada and English including The Strange Culture of M.S. Golvalkar,  The Living Marx, and Philosophy in China (in English), The features of the Anti-Fascist Movement, RSS – A Poisonous Tree, On Hindutva (Kannda)
Email ID: dgrkrishna@gmail.com

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Gita: Not a Religious Book?

Ram Puniyani 

Srimad Bhagwat Gita or Bhagwat Gita or Gita has been in the news recently for various reasons. Few months ago, the matter came up when a Siberian Court in the Tomsk City of Russia was to decide about the ban on the translation of Gita by Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad Swami, the founder of ISKCON. The argument was that this particular translation was promoting social discord and so be banned. It was perceived in India as if there is a demand for ban on Gita in Russia. In this context the matter came up in the parliament and a strong protest was voiced against banning of Hindu religious text. Later the court did not ban this particular translation and so the matters came to rest there. Incidentally it can be reemphasized that Gita as a Hindu religious scripture is prevalent in Russia from centuries, and what was being demanded was a ban on particular translation and not on the Holy Scripture as such. 

Closer home, the M. P. High court has ruled (Jan 2012) that “Gita is essentially a book on Indian philosophy, not book on Indian religion”. This judgment gave a sanction on the decision of M.P. Government to continue with the teaching of Gita Sar (Essence of Gita) in the MP schools. This petition had come up in the court when the Catholic Bishop Council appealed that moral values of all religions should be taught in schools and not just Gita. So now the M.P. High Court has concluded that since Gita is a book on Indian Philosophy and not on religion, it can be continued as such and the need to consider introducing the moral values from other religions as well, need not be considered. Incidentally other BJP ruled state; Karnataka is also planning to introduce the teaching of Gita in its schools. While giving this judgment, one wonders if the honorable judge forgot that while the oath is administered to Hindus in his court, they are made to do take oath by keeping their hand on the same Holy book, as a religious book not for its philosophy! 

One is reminded of another judgment at this time, the one known as “Hindutva as a way of life”. The Supreme Court was to decide whether the use of the word Hindutva in elections tantamount to corrupt electoral practices or not, as Hindutva divides people along religious lines. Contrary to the theological, sociological and political understanding that Hinduism is a religion and that the word Hindutva is built around Hindu religious identity, Court ruled something which opened the floodgates of dividing people along religious lines. This judgment ‘Hindutva is a way of life’ exonerated someone who was doing divisive religious propaganda and gave legitimacy to the politics in the name of religion. Now the Gita judgment has again raised the questions about the nature of Hinduism, its religious texts and its religious belief.

Opportunistically the MP government and other Hindutva ideologues who called Gita as a holy Hindu religious scripture, and so needs to be taught in schools are keeping quiet, as this judgment suits their political agenda. The confusions prevail at multiple layers, as Hinduism is not a prophet based religion and there is no single 'revealed holy book’ this understanding is being used by many to take the convenient path of taking the meaning which suits their purpose. 

While term Hindu is of late origin, eighth century, the consolidation of Hinduism from the various prevailing religious sects has been a process beginning around that time with Magadh Maurayan empire. There are many a religious scriptures, many a holy books in this umbrella of Hinduism, Vedas, Upanishads, Ramayana, Mahabharata etc. So which is the holy scripture of Hindus? While all these books are regarded as Holy, over a period of time Hindu religion is being shaped around, One Deity, (Lord Ram) One Book (Gita), One Clergy (Acharyas, Mahants). The verdict of the court defies logic when it proclaims, “Gita is essentially a book on Indian philosophy not book on Indian religion.” 

The Bhagwat Gita or Gita (Song of God) is a 700 verse scripture that is part of the epic Mahabharata. As it is drawn from Mahabharata it can be labeled as Smriti text. Some sects of Hinduism give it the status of Upanishad, thereby making it sruti (revealed) book. It is also regarded to represent the summary of Upanishadic teachings and so it is also called as ‘Upanishad of Upanishads’. In this Holy Scripture Lord Krishna teaches Arjun about his duties as a Prince belonging to Kshtriya Varna. Arjun was faced with the dilemma of the war, the possibility of killing his own kin, cousins and others. Lord tells Arjun that it is his holy duty to undertake the war. Lord elaborates on different Yogas and so Gita is often described as a core of Hindu theology. As most holy scriptures are the revelations from the supreme God, in Gita also Krishna reveals his identity as Supreme Being himself (Svayam Bhagvan). He blesses Arjun with the awe inspiring vision of divine universal form. 

The Gita elaborates on the central part of Hindu theology, the origin of Varnas. In Purush Sukta of Vedas Lord Brahma narrates as to how he created four Varnas from the body of Virat Purush. In Gita on similar lines Lord Krishna also tells about the divine origin of Varna’s. Lord says that the fourfold order was created by him according to the divisions of quality (Guna) and work (karma). 

One knows that origin of Hinduism is different from the Prophet based religions. Here there has been an evolution of the Hinduism over a period of time and today while Hinduism is a religion, Gita is its Holy Scripture. To take the stand that it is Indian philosophy and not religious one is far from truth. There is philosophy also in many a Holy Scriptures. Notwithstanding that, they are primarily religious scriptures. The verdict of the court needs re-examination as it is not conforming to the belief of millions of Hindus; neither can it stand the scrutiny of rational understanding about Hinduism as a religion. From the religion of Pastoral Aryans to the practices of Hindus today, there is a long journey. The communal forces want to introduce this text in schools as not only they want to impose Hindu nation in this country but also through this book, they aim to reinforce the concept of Varna, which is one of the core doctrine of Hinduism, and Gita tells this by attributing Varna to the divine creation by Lord Himself. While there are many a philosophical formulations in this divine book there is also the subtle defense of what the Hindutva politics wants to bring in today, Varan- Jati in a repackaged form.

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