THE BHAGAVAD GITA--THE HINDU BIBLE
The Bhagavad Gita (translated "The Song of the Adorable One" and "The
Divine Lay") is rightly regarded as the gem of all Hindu sacred
literature. Hindus maintain (and few will question them) that in
beauty of language and in elevation of thought it stands supreme among
their _Shastras_, or sacred writings.
Educated Hindus proudly claim for it superiority to all sacred books
of other faiths.
Of all ancient Brahmanical writings it is to-day the most cherished by
the members of that faith. The ancient Rig Veda is at present only a
book of antiquarian interest. The Upanishads, which are the
fountainhead of Hindu thought and philosophy, are only the text-books
and treasure-houses of philosophers and metaphysicians. But the Divine
Lay is extolled and used alike by men of western culture, by
conservative pandits, and by the masses as their highest book of
doctrine and their richest treasury of devotion.
Even many Hindus who have come under the fascination of the Christ,
carry with them upon their journeyings the New Testament in one pocket
and the Bhagavad Gita in the other, as the common guide and
inspiration of their quiet hours of meditation.
It is thus universally recognized that there is no book which wields a
larger influence than this in the religious life of the two hundred
and thirty millions of Hindus to-day; and there is none which is more
worthy to be called the Hindu Bible.
I
In strange contrast with the bulky tomes of Brahmanism and of the
great epic, Mahabharata (which, with its two hundred and forty
thousand lines, is the longest epic ever written, being eight times as
long as the Odyssey and the Iliad put together), the Bhagavad Gita
contains only seven hundred _slohams_, and is not as long as the
Gospel of St. Mark.
The date of the origin of the Song is very much disputed. There are
Hindu authorities who would carry it back to the fifth century B.C.,
the time which is assigned for the first recension of the Mahabharata,
of which the Bhagavad Gita is a very small part. But the highest
authorities find conclusive proof that it originated about the second
or third century of our era, and was then inserted as a part of an
episode in the narrative of the great epic.
The Mahabharata is a great poetic narrative of a conflict between the
two branches of the Bharata family--the Pandavas and the Kauravas--for
the petty kingdom of Hastinapura, near the modern city of Delhi.
The two forces are already, in counter array, eager for the fray on
the battle-field of Kuruchetra. The call to battle has already been
blown upon the miraculous conchs of the leaders of both sides, who are
seated in their chariots drawn by white horses. Over each one waves
his personal ensign. Arjuna, the noblest of the five brave Pandava
leaders, is a man of heroic traits of character; and yet within him
breathes the tenderest sentiment of humanity. He pauses a moment ere
he leads his mighty hosts against the enemy; and, as he looks upon his
own kith and kin in the opposing ranks, he is overcome by the stern
voice of conscience blending with humanitarian impulses. Is it right,
can it _possibly_ be right, for him to go forth to destroy his own
friends and relatives; shall he shed the blood of those who are
nearest and dearest to him upon the earth? This is the agonizing
doubt which seizes upon him at this time. And in his distress he turns
to his friend and relative, Krishna, who has declined to participate
in the war, but who had volunteered to act as Arjuna's charioteer. And
he says unto him: "Seeing these kinsmen, O Krishna, standing (here)
desirous to engage in battle, my limbs droop down; my mouth is quite
dried up; a tremor comes on my body; and my hairs stand on end; the
Gandiva (bow) slips from my hand; my skin burns intensely; I am
unable, too, to stand up; my mind whirls round, as it were. Even those
for whose sake we desire sovereignty, enjoyments, and pleasures, are
standing here for battle, abandoning life and wealth--preceptors,
fathers, sons as well, grandfathers, maternal uncles, fathers-in-law,
grandsons, brothers-in-law, as also other relatives. These I do not
wish to kill, though they kill me, O destroyer of Madhu! even for the
sake of sovereignty over the three worlds, how much less than for this
earth (alone)?"
Krishna replied, with a view to soothe Arjuna's perturbed mind, and to
urge him on to battle.
It is this dialogue between the hero and the god which constitutes the
Bhagavad Gita. And yet one can hardly call it a dialogue, since
Krishna's remarks make up more than nine-tenths of the book.
The dialogue is one of the favourite forms of Hindu literature. Most
of the Puranas and the Tantras are cast in that form.
It seems very strange that this book, which is the favourite exponent
of a faith whose very essence is non-resistance, whose genius is to
inculcate the passive virtues, should have found its motive in the
purpose of the god Krishna to overcome, in the warrior Arjuna, those
worthy, humane sentiments of peace and kindness and that noble
resolution to forego even the kingdom rather than to acquire it
through the shedding of the blood of his relatives. How incongruous to
build up the lofty structure of a faith upon so unethical, unsocial,
and cruel a foundation!
II
The Song evidently belongs to the _tendensschrift_ school of
literature. It is written with a definite aim and purpose. It is the
highest exponent of Hindu Eclecticism. The three great schools of
Brahmanical thought and philosophy--the Sankya, the Yoga, and the
Vedanta--were founded more than twenty-five centuries ago and have
wielded resistless power in the shaping of religious thought in
India. And perhaps this power was never more manifest than at the
present time.
But these schools are, in their main issues, mutually antagonistic.
The Sankya philosophy is severely dualistic and even has little use,
if indeed it has any place, for the Divine Being. On the other hand,
the Vedanta is uncompromisingly monistic. Its pantheism is of the
highest spiritualistic type and is radically opposed to the
materialism of the Sankya school. In one school the Divine Being is
nothing and materialism has full sway; while in the other Brahm is
everything, and all that appears to men--the phenomenal--is false and
illusive.
Again, as to the method of redemption, the Yoga philosophy advocates
renunciation, self-effacement, and all the forms of asceticism. On the
other hand, the Sankya philosophy inculcates action as the embodiment
of the duty of man, through which alone he can attain unto absorption.
Even to the present time these different schools of thought not only
prevail; they have also begotten and are nourishing different schools
of religious life and practice which present different ideals and
enforce different methods.
The Brahman author, or authors, of the Bhagavad Gita was inspired with
the laudable ambition of harmonizing these conflicting teachings and
of blending their peculiarities into one consistent whole, which would
appeal to all the followers of the many-sided Brahmanical faith. This
he accomplished with rare beauty of language, and with a success which
has won admiration and acceptance by nearly all the people of India.
And this is the more remarkable since the worship of Krishna is
distinctly a part of the Vaishnavite cult of Hinduism, and as such
does not appeal to the Saivites, or the worshippers of Siva.
But the author, naturally and inevitably, failed to produce a
congruous scheme of saving truth and religious appeal. The result is
that we see, on almost every page, contradictory teachings and
conflicting methods of salvation. This, of course, is by no means
fatal to it in the estimation of Hindus, with whom consistency has
never been a foible, and in the eyes of whom two mutually
contradictory teachings can rest peacefully side by side.
Here we find dualism and monism locking hands together, and the three
ways of liberation--that of ritual, of asceticism, and of
knowledge--not only find full expression, but are also supplemented by
the inculcation of faith and of the obligations of caste. To a
Westerner, this jumbling together of such antagonistic ideas and
methods would be as repulsive as it would be absurd. But the Oriental
mind works on different lines from the Occidental, and is never
hampered by logical inconsistency.
The Song of the Adorable One is divided into three chapters, of six
divisions each.
The first extols the benefits of the Yoga method; but it also adds
that action should be supplemented to Yoga for the speediest
attainment of beatification.
In the second part, the pantheism of the Vedanta is inculcated, and
Krishna identifies himself with the universal Spirit and claims
adoration as such.
In the third part, an effort is made to blend the Sankya and the
Vedanta conceptions, an effort which largely permeates the whole book.
That is, it claims that _prakriti_, or elemental nature, and the soul,
or _atma_, find their source in Brahm; and thus it practically
vitiates the fundamental teachings of both systems. At the same time,
it also teaches the separate existence of individual souls, which is
anti-Vedantic.
As we study carefully the contents of this remarkable work, we are
impressed equally with its excellences and defects, with its sublime
teachings and absurd contentions. Generally speaking, it may be said
to be characterized by notions which are, at the same time, supremely
attractive to the East and unintelligible and repellent to the West.
1. Considering first its teaching concerning God, we find emphasized
that monistic teaching of Hindu Pantheism which has been the dominant
note in the faith of India from the first. But it is not the strictly
spiritual and the unequivocal Pantheism of Vedantism, which is purely
idealistic and which bluntly denies the existence of everything but
Brahm itself. It is rather a mixture of the dual and the non-dual
teaching of the two dominant, contending philosophies of the land.
Krishna tells us that he is not only the supreme Spirit, but also that
the material universe is a part of himself. "O Son of Pritha! I am the
Kratu, I am the Yagna, I am the Svadha, I am the product of the herbs,
I am the sacred verse. I too am the sacrificial butter, I the fire, I
the offering. I am the father of this universe, the mother, the
creator, the grandsire, the thing to be known, the means of
sanctification, ... the source and that in which it merges, the
support, the receptacle, and the inexhaustible seed.... All entities
which are of the quality of goodness, and those which are of the
quality of passion and of darkness, know that they are, indeed, all
from me; I am not in them, but they are in me. The whole universe,
deluded by these three states of mind, develops from the qualities,
does not know me who am beyond them and inexhaustible; for this
delusion of mine, ... is divine and difficult to transcend."
"There is nothing else higher than myself; all this is woven upon me
like numbers of pearls upon a thread. I am the taste in water, I am
the light in the sun and the moon."[2]
[Footnote 2: The translation which I follow here is that of Mr.
Telang, in "The Sacred Books of the East," which is, on the whole,
both exact and more intelligible than most other translations.]
These and many other similar expressions represent an evident effort
to graft the materialistic conceptions of the Sankya upon the Vedanta,
which is in nothing more emphatic than in denying the existence of all
that is phenomenal and material.
Krishna gave to Arjuna, at the latter's request, a vision of his true
Self separate from, and infinitely higher than, the humble and
illusive garb of his incarnation. And it was to him "as if in the
heavens the lustre of a thousand suns burst forth all at once." And
what a vision! Gazing upon it, Arjuna exclaims, "O God! I see within
your body the gods, as also all the groups of various being; and the
lord Brahm seated on his lotus seat, and all the sages and celestial
snakes. I see you, who are of countless forms, possessed of many arms,
stomachs, mouths, and eyes on all sides. And, O Lord of the Universe,
O you of all forms! I do not see your end, middle, or beginning.... I
believe you to be the eternal being. I see you void of beginning,
middle, or end--of infinite power, of unnumbered arms, and having the
sun and the moon for eyes, and having a mouth like a blazing fire and
heating the universe with your radiance. For this space between heaven
and earth and all the quarters are pervaded by you alone. Looking at
this wonderful and terrible form of yours, O high-souled one! the
three worlds are affrighted. For here these groups of gods are
entering into you.... Our principal warriors, also, are rapidly
entering your mouths, fearful and horrific by reason of your jaws. And
some with their heads smashed are seen stuck in the spaces between the
teeth. As the many rapid currents of a river's waters run toward the
sea alone, so do the heroes of this human world enter your mouths
blazing all around. As butterflies, with increased velocity, enter a
blazing fire to their destruction, so too do these people enter your
mouths with increased velocity, only to their destruction. Swallowing
all these people, you are licking them over and over again from all
sides with your blazing mouths!"
Here we verily have a fine combination of the sublime and the
ridiculous! The Apostle of Jesus was given to witness a vision of
heavenly things such as could not be uttered. This disciple of Krishna
does not hesitate to paint in such glowing terms a vision of the
divine, that, to all but a Hindu, the picture seems not only
incongruous but highly absurd and disgusting. One can hardly imagine
that any mortal, to whom a vision of the divine being had been
granted, could fail so utterly to furnish us with an edifying
description of the same.
In this Song, Krishna claims to be, at the same time, absolute Deity
and the supreme incarnation. In nothing do the East and the West
differ more radically than in their teaching concerning incarnation or
"descent." In Christianity, God only once became incarnate; and in
that Incarnation every believing soul has found its needs fully
satisfied. Never, in all these two thousand years, did our Lord Christ
satisfy more completely the human soul and bring rest to more human
hearts than at the present time.
To the Christian, Jesus represents the ultimate of God's earthly
manifestation, as He does the complete realization of human salvation.
But in Hinduism, incarnation is presented as a continuous passion of
the Deity. The absolute Spirit forever amuses itself with the "sacred
sport" of ever changing emanations and manifestations. Myriads of
"descents" are recorded in their sacred books, of all degrees and
forms of grotesqueness, and not a few of unblushing vileness. It is an
interesting fact that the same Krishna who poses, and by millions of
Hindus is accepted, as the Supreme Deity, is nevertheless represented
in the most popular books of Hinduism to-day--the Puranas, which are
known in their legends to all Hindus and which wield a supreme
influence over them in their life--as a very different being. In these
books the story of Krishna is one of fetid, unblushing immorality and
voluptuousness. The publishing of these narratives in the English
language in a western land at the present time would be considered a
crime punishable with imprisonment. And thus this Hindu god, who is
the most popular in India and who appeals most to the imagination of
the people, led a life upon earth whose record is a story of
immorality which brings a crimson blush to the pure.
But, to return to the Hindu conception of incarnation, it must be
remembered that it is unique in this particular; viz. that it regards
the Deity as continually returning to the world to visit and to help
human beings. In the Gita, Krishna remarks:--
"Whensoever, O Descendant of Bharata! piety languishes and
impiety is in the ascendant, I create myself. I am born, age
after age, for the protection of the good, for the
destruction of evil-doers, and the establishment of piety."
The inadequacy of any one incarnation is here proclaimed, and the idea
of constant communication with and impartation of himself to humanity
through repeated _descents_ is here inculcated. And it is a
fundamental conception of Hinduism--a conception which differentiates
it essentially from the Christian religion.
From this remark of Krishna, who speaks here as the Supreme Being, one
would suppose that Hindu incarnations have been, and still are,
definitely intended to enhance human piety upon earth, and have been
such as to accomplish this purpose. As a matter of fact, the historic
or legendary incarnations of India, as they are now recorded in their
sacred books, have practically no ethical or spiritual content. I defy
any Hindu to take the narratives of these descents, as found in the
Puranas and other books, and show from them that there was anything
more than physical and social relief to men intended by them or
accomplished through them. I have yet to find, in those narratives,
the conception of human sin and moral depravity and of the purpose of
the incarnation to break the fetters of sin and to bring spiritual
light and moral beauty to those among whom it manifested itself. The
gulf which thus stands between the Hindu ideal of incarnation and the
real incarnations which are recorded in Hindu literature, including
that of Krishna himself, is wide and impassable. One has well said
that the incarnation of Krishna is an incarnation of lust, and the
record of his 16,100 wives and 180,000 sons is but a suggestion of the
correctness of this estimate. Even the incarnation of Buddha, which,
doubtless, is the highest and best among those incorporated into the
Hindu Pantheon, is expressly stated by Hindu authorities to be for
the purpose of deceiving and destroying the people.
When one begins to compare the picture of the Christian Incarnation
with that of any and of all those that occupy the Hindu mind, and fill
many volumes of Hindu literature, we pass from noon-day light into
Egyptian darkness.
2. The doctrine of _atma_, or the human self, or soul, is more in
accordance with the Sankya than the Vedantic school. The individual
soul is represented, not as a part of the Supreme Soul, which is the
distinct doctrine of the _Adwaitha_ philosophy, but as a separate
entity which is immutable and eternal. Listen to Krishna's argument to
Arjuna, in order to urge him into battle and to shed the blood of his
friends: "Learned men grieve not for the living nor the dead. Never
did I not exist, nor you, nor these rulers of men; nor will any of us
ever hereafter cease to be. As in this body, infancy and youth and old
age come to the embodied self, so does the acquisition of another
body; a sensible man is not deceived about that.... There is no
existence for that which is unreal; there is no non-existence for that
which is real.... These bodies, appertaining to the embodied self
which is eternal, indestructible, and indefinable, are said to be
perishable; therefore do engage in battle, O descendant of Bharata! He
who thinks it to be the killer and he who thinks it to be killed, both
know nothing. It kills not, is not killed. It is not born, nor does it
ever die, nor, having existed, does it exist no more. Unborn,
everlasting, unchangeable, and primeval, it is not killed when the
body is killed.... But even if you think that it is constantly born,
and constantly dies, still, O you mighty man of arms! you ought not to
grieve thus. For to one that is born, death is certain; and to one
that dies, birth is certain."
There is a great deal more in this line of the indestructibility of
the soul; but nothing is said of the Vedantic idea that the soul has
no real, separate existence, and that even this illusory existence, in
human conditions, will terminate when the self shall be recognized to
be, as it really is, an unsevered and inseparable part of the Supreme
Soul.
The eternal existence of the soul is posited by every school of Hindu
thought. In the Sankya philosophy, the human self, as we have seen, is
a separate, uncreated entity; and the teaching of the Divine Lay
concerning it is in harmony with this. And it must be confessed that
in many respects this doctrine is inferior to the Vedantic, which
emphasizes the spiritual character, and the divine origin and destiny,
of the soul.
3. The doctrine of Liberation, or of Redemption, as found in the
Bhagavad Gita, is a strange combination of all the ways which
Brahmanism has inculcated through its many schools, with other ways
here added. "In every way men follow in my path," declared Krishna. In
the pursuance of any religious practices whatever, men were assured
that they would be acceptable if they were only Krishna-olaters.
(1) But the highest path which leads unto God is the path of knowledge
(_Gnana_). "Sacrifices of various sorts are laid down in the Vedas.
Know them all to be produced from action, and knowing this you will be
released from the fetters of this world. The sacrifice of knowledge is
superior to the sacrifice of wealth, for action is wholly and entirely
comprehended in knowledge.... Even if you are the most sinful of all
sinful men, you will cross over all trespasses by means of the boat of
knowledge alone. As a fire well kindled, O Arjuna! reduces fuel to
ashes, so the fire of knowledge reduces all actions to ashes. For
there is in this world no means of sanctification like knowledge, and
that one perfected by devotion finds within one's self in time. He who
has faith, whose senses are restrained, and who is assiduous, obtains
knowledge. Obtaining knowledge he acquires, without delay, the highest
tranquillity.... Therefore, O descendant of Bharata! destroy with the
sword of knowledge these misgivings of yours which fill your mind, and
which are produced from ignorance." "He who is possessed of knowledge,
who is always devoted, and whose worship is addressed to one only, is
esteemed highest. For to the man of knowledge I am dear above all
things, and he is dear to me. All these are noble, but the man
possessed of knowledge is deemed by me to be my own self."
From time immemorial Indian sages have looked upon God as the Supreme
Intelligence; He is the absolute Wisdom, and to know Him or it, and to
know that "I am it" (_Tat twam asi_), this is the highest wisdom
(_Brahma Gnana_), and it gives immediate entrance into the heaven of
beatification or of absorption. And the only sin which such a man, and
which this system of thought, recognizes is the sin of ignorance
(_Avidia_); that is, the folly, or stupidity, of thinking that one's
soul is separate from the divine Soul. To know, under these mundane
conditions of delusion (_Maya_), and while under the tyranny of
passion and of action (_Karma_), that I am, after all, identical with
the divine Spirit, and that the thought of a separate existence is a
snare and a bondage,--this is the immediate shattering of my earthly
bondage and the full entrance of my soul (like a drop of water to its
mother ocean) into the eternal peace and tranquillity (_Sayutcha_) of
the godhead--a state of unconscious calm which shall never after be
disturbed.
Thus the highest way of salvation, as taught by Hindus of all classes,
is the way of knowledge. It is the highest step in the progress of
human redemption. All other ways of salvation are but preliminary, or
stepping-stones, to this. There is no return to the bondage of this
world of Him who has crossed the river of death "in the boat of
knowledge." All others must again return and further, by new births,
the cause of the soul's emancipation.
(2) The second path of liberation here inculcated is that of
self-restraint, of asceticism. From time immemorial the ascetic has
been India's ideal of a man of piety. He is a man who has turned his
back upon the pleasures of the world, even its harmless amusements and
physical enjoyments, and has given himself to stern rigid self-denial.
By thus denying himself every pleasure that body can bring and every
satisfaction that human society can furnish; yea, more, by a
renunciation of everything worldly to the extent of supreme physical
pain and social deprivation, he separates and weans himself from all
that is temporal, that he may pass on in sadness up the pathway of
redemption. This is the way of Yoga; and the Yogi to-day finds highest
admiration in India as its ideal of life.
In the Divine Lay also this pathway of Yoga finds emphasis and
exaltation.
"The devotee whose self is contented with knowledge and experience,
who is unmoved, who has restrained his senses, and to whom a sod, a
stone, and gold are alike, is said to be devoted.... A devotee should
constantly devote himself to abstraction, remaining in a secret place,
alone, with his mind and self restrained, without expectations and
without belongings. Fixing his seat firmly in a clean place, not too
high nor too low, and covered over with a sheet of cloth, a deerskin,
and kusa grass--and there seated on that seat, fixing his mind
exclusively on one point with the working of the mind and sense
restrained, he should practise devotion for the purity of self....
Thus constantly devoting himself to abstraction, a devotee whose mind
is restrained attains that tranquillity which culminates in final
emancipation and assimilation with me.... The self-restrained,
embodied self lies at ease within the city of nine portals, renouncing
all actions by the mind, not doing or causing anything to be done."
This path of abstraction and asceticism leaves the soul to theosophic
knowledge, which is consummated in the supreme bliss of assimilation
with the Divine.
So enamoured has India been of this method of life throughout the
centuries that Yoga has been reduced to a science, and has been
elaborated to a degree which is ridiculous and almost idiotic. Listen,
for instance, to Krishna's instructions where he speaks of the ascetic
as "holding his body, head, and neck even and unmoved, remaining
steady, looking at the tip of his own nose," etc. These ridiculous
posturings and idiotic attitudes cannot, as has been well said by
Barth, but lead to idiocy or to a loss of all mental aptitude.
The ultimate aim of Yoga is to reduce the soul to tranquillity and
quiescence, by abstracting the mind from all things earthly, and thus
leading to cessation from action; for action is said to lead to new
fruit, which must be eaten by the soul; and for this purpose new
births are necessary, which delay final absorption in the deity.
The spirit of Hinduism is thus evident in its exaltation of this
method of life. It has made the path of abstraction and the
elimination of every thought, emotion, and ambition, its ideal. In
other words, man, by self-repression and the effacement of every
faculty of mind and body, is to attain unto final beatification or
emancipation. This is an end in itself, according to the Hindu plan of
life.
In Christianity, on the other hand, self-realization and not
self-effacement must be the consummation of life. The way of the
Cross, that is, the path of self-denial, is indeed most rigidly
enjoined; but it is the denial of the lower self, the meanest passions
of the soul, in order that the highest faculties may find complete
realization. Thus, in Christianity, also, asceticism has a place of
value; but it is as a means to a higher end, and that is, perfect
growth and development of the man unto the "measure of the stature of
the fulness of Christ."
(3) It also possesses the distinction of emphasizing works or action
as necessary to salvation. Indeed, the Bhagavad Gita is unique among
the books of India in teaching that action is superior to
renunciation.
Sri Krishna says: "Renunciation and pursuit of action are both
instruments of happiness. But of the two, pursuit of action is
superior to renunciation of action."
This is, indeed, strange teaching in the realm of Hindu literature,
where action is universally taught to be both in itself an evil and to
be the cause of sin. Krishna, by some magic of his own power, here
reverses the ordinary Hindu teaching. "He who has controlled his
senses and who identifies his self with every being, is not tainted,
though he performs actions." "He who, casting off all attachment,
performs actions, dedicating them to Brahm, is not tainted by sin, as
the lotus leaf is not tainted by water." Indeed, we are told that some
"perform actions for attaining purity of self." Thus we see inculcated
the peculiarly un-Hindu doctrine that he who works for God is for that
reason absolved from the fruit of his action; yea, more, by his very
acts attains unto purity, and approaches the consummation of
absorption. Still more, the very motive of Krishna, in this Divine
Song, is to stir up the warlike courage of Arjuna and to lead him into
the bloody activities of war. "Therefore do you, too, perform
actions, as was done by men of olden times."
But action, in order that it may be effective, must be according to
prescribed rules. Any work which is inculcated in the sacred books is
both sacred and useful in the scheme of redemption. And among these
prescribed works, few are more useful than the performance of
sacrifice. Men "have their sins destroyed by sacrifice. Those who eat
the nectar-like leavings of the sacrifice prepare for the eternal
Brahm. This world is not for those who perform no sacrifice. Thus
sacrifices of various sorts are laid down in the Vedas. Know them all
produced from action, and knowing this you will be released from the
fetters of this world."
Idolatry, also, is a part of this sacred duty. "Desiring the success
of action, men in this world worship the divinities, for in this world
of the mortals, the success produced by action is soon obtained."
"Those who worship the divinities go to the divinities, and my
worshippers, too, go to me." "Even those, O Son of Kunti, who being
devotees of other divinities worship with faith, worship me only, but
irregularly. For I am the enjoyer as well as Lord of all sacrifices.
But they know me not truly, therefore do they fall," _i.e._ they
return to the world of mortals. This teaching may be called polytheism
rather than idolatry. And yet at the time this book was written,
polytheism had already degenerated into idolatry.
The most definite and multitudinous courses of action are those
enforced by the caste system. And these also are emphasized in this
song. Krishna here informs us that he is the author of the caste
system. "The four-fold division of castes was created by me according
to the apportionment of qualities and duties." Elsewhere, in Hindu
writings, we are abundantly informed that Brahm created these four
divisions of men from his head, his shoulders, his loins, and his
feet, respectively.[3]
[Footnote 3: See Chapters IV and V, on Caste.]
He only lives well and works worthily who lives in strict accordance
with caste rules, and who works in obedience to the dictates of caste
tyranny. We are here informed that "one's own duty, though defective,
is better than another's duty well performed. Death in performing
one's own duty is preferable; the performance of the duty of others is
dangerous." Here, of course, "one's own duty" is the duty prescribed
to a man by the Hindu caste system. "The duties of Brahmans,
Kshatriyas, and Vaisyas, and of Sudras, too, O terror of your foes,
are distinguished according to the qualities born of nature.
Tranquillity, restraint of the sense, penance, purity, forgiveness,
straightforwardness, also knowledge, experience, and belief in the
future world, this is the natural duty of the Brahmans. Valour, glory,
courage, dexterity, not slinking away from battle, gifts, exercise of
lordly power, this is the natural duty of Kshatriyas. Agriculture,
tending cattle, trade, this is the natural duty of Vaisyas. And the
natural duty of Sudras, too, consists in service. Every man intent on
his own respective duties obtains perfection." And, again, "One's
duty, though defective, is better than another's duty well performed.
Performing the duty prescribed by nature one does not incur sin. One
should not abandon a natural duty though tainted with evil."
Thus the most stupendous system of social and religious evil that the
world has ever known--the Hindu caste system--is here boldly taught
and inculcated as the most sacred duty of life. One man is born for
pious leadership, another born to fight, another born for menial
service; and woe be to any one of them who abandons this so-called
"natural duty" and strives for a betterment or a change of life! This
is the divinely inculcated system of bondage which has enthralled
India for twenty-five centuries.
But it is gratifying to know that, though taught and inculcated in
this highest book of their faith, Hindus are beginning to denounce the
whole system. Both a social and a religious consciousness are
beginning to rebel against its very existence.
But we pass from this lowest aspect of "action" to the highest when we
remark that all acts should, according to Krishna, be free from
attachment. No duty is more frequently enforced in the Bhagavad Gita
than that of detachment in religious activity; nor is there any higher
than this within the whole compass of this Song. It is the duty of man
to work out righteousness and to exercise virtue without regard to the
results or the fruits of his action. It is the high-water mark of the
teaching of the book.
"Your business is with action alone; not by any means with fruit. Let
not the fruit of action be your motive to action." "Wretched are those
whose motive to action is the fruit of action." Therefore, perform all
action, which must be performed, without attachment. For a man,
performing action without attachment, attains the Supreme. "Forsaking
all attachment to the fruit of action, always contented, dependent on
none, he does nothing at all, though he engages in action. Devoid of
expectations, restraining the mind and the self, and casting off all
belongings, he incurs no sin."
We must not, however, give to this detachment a Christian value. For
it is a part of Hindu thought to condemn every emotion and sentiment,
however lofty as an asset of life. It regards every desire, however
noble in itself, and every sentiment, however exalted, as essentially
evil; for it is a momentary barrier to that equilibrium and quiescence
of soul which the Hindu has always maintained to be the highest
cultivation of the self. Therefore, action, in order to be of any
permanent value, must be severed from every passion, desire, or
expectation. And thus the Hindu does not here seek so much the
existence of pure altruism as he does the absence of desire, which
means soul unrest and the removal of one of the barriers to soul
emancipation. It is, he says, when love and every other passion cools
off into a quiet intellectual calm, and the soul is animated, not by
sentiment, but by clear vision, that _Sayutcha_, or absorption into
the Brahm, is attained.
If, then, detachment is a keyword to Higher Hinduism and man is
forbidden to seek after any good, even the highest, in connection with
his religious activities, what then can be an adequate motive to a
religious life of good works?
Here is introduced another keyword of this Eclecticism--the word
_Bhakti_.
The doctrine of Bhakti finds a supreme place in the Divine Song.
_Bhakti_ means devotion or love to Krishna himself. Perhaps the
Christian word "Faith" best expresses the full meaning of the word
_Bhakti_. Krishna says, in substance, Have no attachment to the
results of your acts; but be attached to me who am the supreme God,
and live and act according to the noble impulse of that attachment.
"Among all devotees, he who being full of faith worships me, with his
inmost self intent on me, is esteemed by me to be the most devoted."
"Even if a very ill-conducted man worships me, not worshipping any one
else, he must certainly be deemed to be good, for he has well
resolved." "Place your mind on me, become my devotee, my worshipper;
reverence me, and thus making me your highest goal, and devoting
yourself to abstraction, you will certainly come to me." "On me place
your mind, become my devotee, sacrifice to me, reverence me, you will
certainly come to me. I declare to you truly, you are dear to me. I
will release you from all sins. Be not grieved." "No one amongst men
is superior to him in doing what is dear to me."
It is probable that the Bhagavad Gita was the first to introduce this
doctrine of faith. It is, of course, a doctrine possible only in
connection with a _personal_ God, and was doubtless introduced through
the new cult of Krishna-olatry. It is foreign to Vedantism, whose God
is the Impersonal and the Ineffable One; foreign also to the Sankya
school, where God is neither known nor needed. It is essentially a new
teaching, and is a peculiar feature of the worship of the incarnations
of Vishnu.
But, introduced by this Song of the Adorable One, it has been
incorporated into the Hindu religion, and figures now as one of the
most powerful motives of that faith. And this new doctrine brings the
Hindu religion into warmer relationship to Christianity than at any
other point. Sir Monier Williams truly claims that Hinduism, in no
other teaching, so closely approaches Christianity as in the doctrine
of faith.
But, like all other teachings of Hinduism, this doctrine also has been
considerably distorted in the process of appropriation; so that
"faith" in the worship of Vishnu's incarnations, to-day, is more
potential as an act than is "faith" in Christianity. For, in Hinduism,
it matters not on what god or ritual the _Bhakthan_ places his faith,
it has power to redeem him from all troubles.
It should be remembered that _Bhakti_ is perhaps the most distinctive
and mighty influence in Vaishnavism, if not in all Hinduism, at the
present time.
(4) Little is said in Hinduism with a view to inculcate and to reveal
the efficiency of altruism, or the love of man for man. In the Bhagavad
Gita hardly any reference is made to this which is so dominant a note in
the Christian faith. Krishna does remark that one should have "regard
also to keeping people to their duties," in performing action. "Whatever
a great man does, that other men also do; ... wise men should not shake
the convictions of the ignorant who are attached to action, but acting
with devotion should make them apply themselves to all action." "He who
identifies himself with every being is not tainted, though he performs
actions." "The sages who are intent on the welfare of all the beings
obtain the Brahmic bliss."
This certainly is neither very clear, nor at all adequate, as the
inculcation of the most fundamental of all duties, the love of our
fellow-men and the sacrifice of self in the interest of common
humanity. The Vedantin claims that the unity of all being, as taught
by him, is a strong injunction upon him to love all the parts of that
unity. But the Bhagavad Gita does not teach clearly even this Vedantic
doctrine. Selfishness is too much stamped upon the Hindu faith. It is
too exclusively an individualistic religion. It is every one for
himself in the great struggle of man for redemption. It pre-eminently
tends to cultivate in man both pride in his own achievement and an
exclusively selfish devotion to the consummation of his own
redemption.
4. In the Bhagavad Gita little is said of the character of the
salvation which is to be achieved by the devotee of Krishna. Indeed,
the nature of this consummation is left very much in mystery. We are
told that Krishna's worshipper will come to him. "He who, with the
highest devotion to me, will proclaim this supreme mystery among my
devotees will come to me freed from all doubts." Again we are taught
that such a devotee, "understanding me, truly enters into my essence."
This carries the definite and universal thought of Hinduism, that man
will be absorbed in the Deity. In another place we are told that the
worshipper "who is purified by the penance of knowledge has come into
my essence."
This is the eschatology of all Hindu _Shastras_. The peculiar teaching
of the Bhagavad Gita concerning action and its emphasis upon a
strenuous life in this world would have led us to expect the teaching
of a future of some kind of activity. Instead of that, it falls back
upon the old and hackneyed pantheistic idea, that the human soul,
being ultimately divested of its human bodies, both gross and fine,
passes on in its nakedness into oneness with the Absolute, and thus
loses all the faculties which, so far as we know, constitute its
greatness, power, and glory. In this condition of absorption the human
soul is not only deprived of its separate existence, but also of all
self-knowledge, which is the true basis of personality.
As to the process of this salvation we are here taught, as in all
Hindu writing, that it is attained through metempsychosis, or
reincarnation. The human soul, like the divine, in Brahmanism, passes
through many incarnations (some writers say 8,400,000) before it
receives the crown of perfection, or of absorption. Krishna says: "As
a man, casting off old clothes, puts on others and new ones, so the
embodied self, casting off old bodies, goes to others and new ones."
"I have passed through many births, O Arjuna, and you, also," says
Krishna; "I know them all, but you, O terror of your foes! do not know
them."
This devious and tedious path of reincarnation is the one over which
every soul must pass. And between every incarnation and that which
follows, the soul, clothed upon with a subtle body, passes through
many heavens and hells in order to eat the fruits of its past actions.
And there is a remnant of these fruits left which necessitates the
return to a new body and a new human existence.
These upper and nether regions through which the soul passes and
settles its accounts with the past, are not in any sense permanent.
Concerning this, the Bhagavad Gita says that men, "reaching the holy
world of the Lord of Gods, they enjoy in the celestial regions the
celestial pleasures of the gods. And having enjoyed that great
heavenly world, they enter the mortal world when their merit is
exhausted." After, perhaps, millions of these human incarnations (and,
indeed, the incarnation may be of lower animal and of vegetable), the
self will gradually be perfected, they say, and will pass on into the
calm essence of the supreme Soul, as a drop of water descends in rain
and blends again with the ocean. I see absolutely no reason why this
interminable process of metempsychosis should lead to the perfection
of the soul rather than to its complete demoralization. Indeed, there
is nothing ethical at all in the character of these reincarnations, so
far as they are described by Hindu writers.
III
This, then, is the "Divine Lay" of the Hindu religion, the book most
cherished and most highly extolled by more than two hundred and thirty
million Hindus.
We are, first of all, impressed by the many contradictions which
disfigure the book. Hardly a page is free from conflicting doctrines
and methods of life. It could not be otherwise in any effort to
harmonize the mutually contradictory teachings of the conflicting
schools of religious thought and practice in this complicated faith.
On the other hand, we see in this Song an honest and an able attempt
to bring the many tenets of that faith into a consistent whole. And we
cannot help feeling that, while the view of God and man here
presented, and the ways of salvation here enunciated, are not
satisfactory, yet we find scattered through its pages gems of thought
and beauties of religious conceptions and instruction which are beyond
cavil, and which to-day _seem_ to satisfy many millions of our
fellow-men.
But, at the close of a careful perusal of the book, one feels that it
is radically unsatisfying.
In the first place, it is wanting in any power for life. In order to
feel this, one has only to compare it, for a moment, with the Gospels
of Christianity. We find here philosophical disquisitions on the
Divine Being which few men can understand and none can hope to
harmonize. In the Gospels, on the other hand, we see presented a
scheme of life which, at the same time, satisfies the highest
philosophy and is perfectly intelligible to the most simple-minded.
Here a bewildering number of mutually contradictory ways of life are
urged upon us, not one of which can appeal in fulness and power to the
common man. There do we find one clear way of salvation--the way of
faith in Christ; and in order to walk in that way the power of the
Divine Spirit is promised to every one, even to the humblest soul and
to the greatest sinner, that he might accept the Christ and live in
and through Him a holy and a righteous life.
Above all, we have here represented an incarnation the records of
whose doings, in the sacred writings of the Hindus, shock us by their
immorality and disgust us by their coarseness. And yet he arrogates to
himself the nature and the functions, as he makes upon us the demands,
of the supreme Deity. There, on the other hand, we witness the
spectacle of the Christ who so lived the divine life, and whose
immaculate holiness is so overwhelming, that His claim to be one with
the Godhead brings no shock or sense of incongruity to any one to-day.
He has so impressed men of all generations that untold millions, in
all lands, have felt no hesitation in believing Him when He says, "He
that hath seen me hath seen the Father." Here do we indeed find the
supreme contrast between the manual of Hindu faith and the Gospels of
Christianity; and it is a contrast at the most vital point of
religion.