Gita Rahasya -Tilak
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
It is true that- some commentators do maintain that these descriptions of the various means of Release are not several or unconnected with each other, but the Gita has harmonised them with each other ; and finally, there are also to be found others who say that although the teaching of the Brahman in the Gita is apparently easy, yet the true import of it is very deep and no one can understand it except from the mouth of a preceptor [1], and that though there may be numerous criticisms on the Gita, yet, there is no other way to realise the true meaning of it, except from the mouth of a preceptor. These numerous interpretations of the Bhagavadgita, namely, the Energistic interpretation consistent with the Bhagavata religion made by the writer of the Mahabharata and the other purely Renunciatory ones made by several later Acaryas, poets, yogis, or devotees of the Blessed Lord, consistently with the different traditionary schools to which they respectively belonged, are likely to cause confusion and one will naturally ask whether it is possible that all these mutually contradictory interpretations can be put on one and the same work ; and if it is not only possible but even desirable, then why so ? !No one can entertain any doubt that these-various Acaryas who wrote the commentaries were learned, religious and extremely pure-minded. Nay, one may even say that the world has not to this day produced a philosopher of the calibre of Sri Samkaracarya. Then why should there have been such a difference between him and the later Acaryas ? The Gita is not such a pot of jugglery, that any one can extract any meaning he likes out of it. The Gita had been written long before these various schools of thought came into existence, and it was preached by Sri Krsna to Arjuna not to increase his confusion but to remove it ; and it contains a preaching of one definite creed to Arjuna[2], and the effect of that advice on Arjuna has also been what it ought to have been. Then, why should there be so much confusion about the teaching of the Gita ? This question seems a really difficult one. But the answer of it is not as difficult as would appear, at first sight. Suppose, looking at a sweet and nice food-preparation, one says that it is made of wheat, and another one says it is made of ghee and a third one says, it is made of sugar, according to his own taste ; then, which one of them will you call wrong ? Each one is correct in his own way and ultimately the question what that food-preparation is, remains unsolved. Because, as it is possible to mix wheat, clarified butter, and sugar and to prepare from them various kinds of eatables such as 'ladus,' 'jilebi', 'ghiwar' etc. the particular eatable cannot be sufficiently defined by saying that ghee or wheat or sugar is the principle element in it. |
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