Gita Rahasya -Tilak 22

Gita Rahasya -Tilak

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY Just as when the ocean was churned, though one person got nectar, another one got poison, and others got Laksmi, Airavata, Kaustubha, Parijata, and other articles, yet the real nature of the ocean was not thereby fixed, so also is the case of the commentators who have churned the ocean of the Gita on a doctrinal basis, or one may even say that just as, the same Sri, Krsna Bhagavan who had entered the Durbar at the time of the assassination of Kamsa, appeared to various persons in different forms, that is, he appeared to athletes-like adamant and to women like the God of Beauty ( Madana ) and to parents like their own son etc. , so also although the Bhagavadgita is one and the same, people following different cults see it in a different light. Whatever religious cult may be taken, it is quite clear that ordinarily it must be based on some authoritative religious text or other ; otherwise that cult will be considered to be totally without authority and will not be acceptable to people. Therefore, however numerous the different cults of the Vedic religion may be, yet with the exception of a few specified things, such as, the Isvara, the Conscious Ego and the Cosmos and their mutual interrelations, all other things are common to all the various cults; and therefore, in the various doctrinal commentaries or criticisms which have been written on our authoritative religious texts, ninety per cent of the statements or stanzas in the original work are interpreted in more or less the same way. The only difference is as regards the remaining statements or doctrines. If these statements are taken in their, literal meaning, they cannot possibly be equally appropriate to all the cults. Therefore, different commentators, who have propounded different doctrines, usually accept as important only such of these statements as are consistent with their own particular cult, and either say that the others are unimportant, or skilfully twist the meanings of such statements as might be totally inconsistent with their cults, or wherever possible, they draw hidden meanings or inferences favourable to them- selves from easy and plain statements, and say that the particular work is an authority for their particular cult. For instance, see my commentary on Gita 2. 12 and 16;3. 19;6.3 and 18. 2. But it will be easily seen that laying down in this way that a book has a particular purport, and examining in the first place, without prejudice, the whole of the work, and drawing its implied purport without insisting that one's own cult is propounded by the Gita, or on any such other thing, are two totally different things.