Gita Rahasya -Tilak 32

Karma Yoga Sastra -Tilak

CHAPTER II THE DESIRE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ACTION (KARMA-JIJNASA) Coriolanus was a brave Roman potentate, who had boon driven out of Rome by the citizens of Rome and on that account had gone and joined hands with the enemies of Rome, whom he promised never to forsake. After sometime, the camp of the hostile army under his command came to be placed outside the gates of Rome itself, he having attacked and defeated the Romans and conquered teiritory after territory. Then, the women of Rome put forward the wife and the mother of Coriolanus and advised him as to his duty to his motherland, and made him break the promise given by him to the enemies of Rome. There are numerous other similar examples of persons being puzzled as to duty and non-duty in the ancient or the modern history of the world. But it is not necessary for us to go so far. We may say that our epic Mahabharata is a mine of such critical occasions. In the beginning of the book (A. 2), while describing the Bharata, Vyasa himself has qualified it by the adjectives " suksmartha-nyayayuktam " (i. e., filled with the discrimination between subtle positions ) and " aneka samayanvitam " (i.e., replete with numerous critical occasions ), and he has further praised it by saying that, not only does it contain the philosophy of Ethics ( dharma-sastra), the philosophy of wealth {artha-sastra) and the philosophy of Release ( moksa-sastra ) but that in this matter, "yad ihasti tad anyatra yan nehasti na tat kvacit", i.e., "what is to be found here, is to be found everywhere and what cannot be found here can be found nowhere else". . It may even be said that the Bharata has been expanded into the ' Mahabharata ' for the sole purpose of explaining to ordinary persons in the simple form of stories how our great ancient personages have behaved in numerous difficult circumstances of life; for, otherwise, it would not be necessary to writs 18 parvas (cantos) for describing merely the Bharata war or the history known as 'jaya' . Some persons may say : " Keep aside the case of Sri Krsna and Arjuna ; why is it necessary for you or us to enter into such deep questions ? Have not Manu and the other writers of the Smrtis laid down in their own books, clear rules as to how persons should behave in worldly life ? If one follows the ordinary commandments prescribed for everybody in all religions, such as : 'Do not commit murder ', ' Do not hurt others', ' Act according to moral principles', ' Speak the truth ', ' Respect your elders and your preceptors', ' Do not commit theft or adultery', etc., where is the necessity of enter- ing into these puzzling questions ?" But I will in reply ask them : "So long as every human being in this world has not started living according to these rules, should virtuous people, by their virtuous conduct, allow themselves to be caught in the nets spread by rascals or should they give measure for measure by way of retaliation and protect themselves ?" Besides, even if these ordinary commandments are considered as unchanging, and authoritative, yet responsible persons are very often faced with such situations, that two or more of these commandments become applicable simultaneously ; and then, the man is puzzled as to whether he should follow this commandment or that commandment, and loses his reason.