Gita Rahasya -Tilak 16

Karma Yoga Sastra -Tilak

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY Therefore, we must any that the first attempt to deprive the Gita of its Energistic form and to give it a Renunciatory doctrinal form was made by the Samkarabhasya. Those commentators on the Gita who came after Sri Samkaracarya and who followed his doctrines, such as, Madhusudana and others, have in this matter principally adopted the procedure of the Acarya. Yet, later on, there came into existence another queer idea, namely that the principal sacred canon enunciated in the Chandogyopanisad, namely, " TAT TVAM ASI " ie., "THAT ( Parabrahman ) ART THOU ( Svetaketu ) ", which is one of the sacred canons of the Non-Dualistic cult, is the canon which has been expatiated upon in the eighteen chapters of the Gita, but that the Blessed Lord has changed the order of the three parts of that sacred canon and taken " tvam " first and " tat " after that and " asi " last, and He has in this new order impartially allotted six chapters of the Gita to each of these parts' equally The Paisaca-bhasya on the Gita does not pertain to any particular doctrine but is independent and it is believed to have been written by Hanuman i. e., by Maruti. But such is not the case. This Bhasya has been written by the philosopher Hanuman, who has also written a criticism on the Bhagavata and it supports the path of Renunciation and in it, in some places, interpretations have been copied verbatim from the Samkarabhasya, In the same way, the older or modern Marathi translations of or commentaries on the Gita principally follow the Samkarabhasya ; and the English translation of the Bhagavadgita by the late Kashinath Trimbak Telang, published in the Sacred Books of East Series brought out by Professor Max Muller, is stated by him at the end at the introduction to that translation, to be as far as possible consistent with Sri Samkaracarya and the commentators of his school. When once in this way, doctrinal commentaries on the Gita and on the other two works out of the Prasthana-trayl began to be written, the same course was later on followed by persons holding other doctrinal views. About 250 years after the coming to existence of the Samkara tradition which maintained the theory of Illusion (maya). Non-Dualism (advata) and Renunciation ( samnyasa ) Sri Ramanujacarya founded the Qualified-Monism ( visistadvaita) tradition ; and in order to substantiate that cult he also, like Sri Samkaracarya has written independent commentaries (bhasya) on the Prasthana-trayl. including, of course, the Gita, This school is of the opinion that the doctrines of the Unreality of Illusion (maya} and Non-Dualism laid down by Samkaracarya were not correct and that although the three principles of Consciousness (jiva), Cosmos ( jagat) and Isvara were independent, yet in as much as jiva, i.e., consciousness ( cit ) and the cosmos (which is acit i.e., unconscious ) were both the body of one and the same Isvara, therefore, the cit-acit-bodied Isvara was one and alone and that out of this subtle' cit' and 'acit' in the body of the Isvara, the gross cit and the gross acit or the numerous forms of Life and the Cosmos came into existence later on ; and Ramanujacarya says that from the philosophical point of view, this is the doctrine which has been enunciated by the Upanisads and the Brahma-Sutras One may even say that the works of Ramanujacarya were responsible for the Qualified-Monism doctrine finding its way into the Bhagavata religion; because, the previous exposition of the Bhagavata religion to be found in the Mahabharata and in the Glta is seen to be on the basis of the Non-Dualistic cult.