Gita Rahasya -Tilak
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CHAPTER XI
RENUNCITATION AND KARMA-YOGA
These Dharma-Sutras are in prose and scholars believe them to be earlier in point of time than the Smrti texts, which are written in verse. We are not concerned at the moment with considering whether this opinion is correct or not. Whether it is correct or incorrect, the only important thing we have to consider in the present chapter is that the importance of the state of a householder or of the Karma-Yoga has, in these works, been stated to be more than has been done in the statements quoted above from the Manu and the Yajnavalkya Smrtis. Manu and Yajna- valkya have referred to the Karma- Yoga as an alternative for the fourth state ; but Baudhayana and Apastaihba have not done so ; and they have clearly stated that the state of the house-holder is the most important state, and that immortality is subsequently attained in that state only. In the Baudhayana Dharma-Sutras, after referring to the statement "jayamano vai brahmanas tribhir mava jayate" — that is, "every Brahmin in coming to birth brings with himself the burden of three debts " etc. found in the Taittiriya- Samhita, it is stated that the man who takes shelter into the state of a householder, which entails the performance of sacrificial ritual etc., in order to discharge these debts, attains the sphere of the Brahman; and that those who attach importance to the state of celibacy, or of Samnyasa, are ruined [1] ; and there is a similar statement also in the Apastaihba Sutras [2]. It is not that the fourth state of Samnyasa has not been described in these two Dharma-Sutras; but, even after describing that state, the importance of the state of the householder has been stated to be greater. From this fact, and especially from the fact that the adjective ' Vedic ' has been applied to the Karma- Yoga in the Manu-Smrti, the following two things become absolutely clear, namely, (i) that even in the times of the Manu-Smrti, the state of the householder, which entailed the Desireless Karma- Yoga, was considered more ancient than the Path of Renunciation by Abandonment of Action ; and that (ii) from the point of view of Release, it was considered as meritorious as the fourth state. As the leaning of the commentators on the Gita was towards Samnyasa, or towards Devotion coupled with Abandonment of Action, the above statements from the Smrtis are not found referred to in their commentaries; but, though they have disregarded those statements, the ancientness of the Karma-Yoga is not thereby in any way diminished. |
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