Contents
Shri Sankara's Gita Bhashya
(Sri Sankaracharya's Commentary on the Gita)
CHAPTER -4
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This verse has been differently interpreted by another com mentator.[1] How? The obligatory rites, being performed for the sake of the Lord, do not indeed produce their fruit and there fore they are, in a figurative sense, said (by that commentator) to be 'Inaction'(non-action). Their non-performance is in action; and that is also figuratively said (by him) to be 'action', because it results in the sin of non-performance (pratyavāya). Accordingly he who sees 'Inaction'In the obligatory rites, be cause they produce no fruits,-just as a cow, though not ceasing to be a cow, is not considered a cow by reason of its not yielding produce in the form of milkand in the same way sees 'action in inaction, the non-performance of obligatory rites, by reason of its producing sinful result such as hell (naraka), etc.... (i.e., such an one according to that interpretation, is intelligent among men etc.) This interpretation is not correct, since through such know ledge freedom from evil (falling into hell) cannot be attained, and the Lord's declaration, "by knowing which you will be freed from evil"[2] will be stultified. How? Because, though by the performance of the obligatory rites there may possibly be freedom from evil, it (freedom from evil) can never be had by the (mere) knowledge that they do not produce any fruit. Indeed, it has nowhere been taught (in the Śāstra) that either the knowledge that obligatory rites produce no fruit, or the knowledge about the obligatory rites (themselves) results in freedom from evil. Nor has such been taught by the Lord here. By the same argument, (the interpretation regarding) seeing action in inaction stands refuted. Indeed (according to that commentator), it is not enjoined here that non-performance (of obligatory rites) should be viewed as action, but merely that obli gatory rites should be performed. Neither is there anything to be gained by knowing that sin accrues from non-performance of obligatory rites; nor can the non-performance of obligatory rites have been taught as fit to be known[3]. |
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