Gita Rahasya -Tilak
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CHAPTER II
THE DESIRE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ACTION
(KARMA-JIJNASA) i.e. " the true nature of righteousness, that is to say, of the Ethics of worldly life, is very subtle ", occurs several times in the Mahabharata. It is extremely difficult to satisfactorily answer such questions as : — How did five Pandavas marry one Draupadi? or, Why did Bhisma, Drona and others sit quiet, as if with a dead heart, when attempts were made to denude Draupadi ?, or, Whether the principle ; "arthasya puruso dasah dasas to artho na kasyacit" i.e., " man is the servant o f wealth (artha), wealth is the servant of nobody " [1] enunciated by Bhisma and Drona, in justification of their having sided with the wicked Duryodhana in the civil war is or is not correct ? or, if service is looked upon as dog-like, as is shown by the words : " seva svavrttir akhyata ", i.e., " servitude is said to be the tendency of a dog " [2] and is accordingly considered eschewable, then why did Bhisma and others not give up the service of Duryodhana, rather than becoming the slaves of wealth ? Because, on such occasions different persons arrive at different inferences or decisions according to different circumstances. Not only are the principles of justice extremely subtle [3] but, as is stated later on in the Mahabharata itself, there are numerous branches to those principles and the inferences which can be drawn from them are numerous [4] Tuladhara also, where he is discoursing on questions of morality,. in the Tuladhara-Jajali conversation, says': " suksmatvan na sa vijnatum sakyate bahunihnavah ", i. e., " as morality is subtle and complicated, one very often does not know what it is " [5] The writer of the Mahabharata was fully conversant with these subtle occasions, and he has. collected together different traditionary stories in the Mahabharata in order to explain how great men behaved in the past in those circumstances. But it was necessary to scientifically examine all these subjects and to enunciate the universal principle underlying them, in a religious work like the Mahabharata. Vyasa has explained this underlying principle in the Bhagavadgita, taking his stand on the advice given in the past by Sri Krsna to Arjuna on the pretext of removing his doubts about his duty ; and, therefore, the Gita has become the mystic Upanisad and the crown jewel of the Mahabharata, and the Mahabharata has become an illustrated and detailed lecture on the fundamental principles of Right Action (Karma-Yoga) which have been enunciated in the Gita. I have to suggest to those who imagine that the Gita has been subsequently interpolated into the Mahabharata that they should pay close attention to this fact. Nay, the uniqueness and special feature of the Gita consists in this very thing. Because, although there are numerous treatises like the Upanisads etc. which deal with the pure science of Release (moksa) that is, with Vedanta, or like the Smrtis which merely enunciate rules of righteous conduct such as Harmlessness etc., yet there is not to be found, at least in these days, another ancient work in the Sanskrit literature like the Gita which, discriminates between the doable and the not-doable (karya- karya-vyavasthiti) on the authority of the extremely recondite philosophy of the Vedanta. Devotees of the Gita need not be told that the word ' karyakarya-vyavasthiti ' has not been coined by me, but is from the Gita itself [6] In the Yoga- vasistha, Vasistha has ultimately preached to Sri Rama, the path of Energism (Karma-Yoga) based on Self-Realisation ( jnana ), as has been done in the Gita; but such works, which have been written after the date of the Gita, and which are only imitations of it, do not in any way detract from the uniqueness of the Gita, to which I have referred above.
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