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Bhagwad
Gita is like a pendant in the necklace called Mahabharata. . Bhagwad Gita
or in short Gita consists of 18 chapters which are in fact chapter numbers
25 to 42 of the Bhishma Parva of Mahabharata. It is a philosophical dialogue
between Lord Krishna and Arjuna and consists of seven hundred shlokas.
Gita is one of the three basic texts of Vedanta philosophy. It is called
Smriti Prasthan. The other two being Upanishads and Brahma Sutras, called
Sruti prasthan and Yukti Prasthan respectively. Upanishads are the fundamental
texts (the Pramana granths), while Brahma Sutras talk the language of
logic.
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Gita
deals basically with the translation of the Upanishadic vision in our
day to day life. Even though the discourse of Gita was given on the first
day of the great Mahabharata war, but the present text as we have it was
given out by Sanjay (the charioteer) to King Dhratrashtra on the tenth
day of the war. When the King heard that Bhishma Pitamah had fallen his
surprise knew no bounds, he then asked Sanjay to describe to him the details
of all the incidents which took place on the battlefront of Kurukshetra.
Earlier the great sage Ved Vyasa had offered to the King some divine vision
with which he could see all details of the war. The King politely refused.
He was in a strange state of mind.
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On
one hand because of some very great warriors like Bhisma and Karna on
his side and also larger number of soldiers on his side he was confident
of the win, yet deep down he had his own fears about the consequences
of the war because he knew he had time & again resorted to various unrighteous
means. He would certainly not prefer to see the end of his own sons and
would certainly not like the world to know that he was watching the show
when the sons of Pandu were being killed. So he declined the unique offer
of the sage and instead suggested to let Sanjay have that divine vision,
by which he could not only see & hear things outside, but also what others
were thinking and feeling. Two people heard this divine discourse directly.
Arjuna and Sanjay. One directly by Lord Krishna and other because of the
grace of a Sage, indicating thus the total identity of the Sage and God.
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Looking at the beginning and the end of a text to discern its real purport has been an old practice. The first word of Gita is Dharma and the last word is Mama. When we combine these two words then we form the sentence Mama Dharma, meaning My Dharma. The term Dharma not only means righteousness or goodness, but also the essential nature of anything without which it cannot retain its independent existence. Here the word Dharma implies the latter. In fact one who is faithful to his essential nature alone can be truly & spontaneously righteous & good . |