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Post by Nitaidas on Jul 25, 2010 15:34:42 GMT -6
For instance, I was fascinated by the pantheistic nature of the verse cited by gerard yesterday. Is the conception of God in the Gita pantheistic? In other words, is Krsna as represented in the Gita a personification of the whole? If so, then we are related to him because we are parts of that whole. If we as parts of this mysterious whole can be conscious then why cannot the whole be as well. This sparks a whole set of questions and ideas like what is consciousness, etc., etc. But let's first of all see if this is true of the Gita's conception of God. Let's gather together all the relevant verses and look at them. There are probably only a handful that are relevant. We have the whole Gita here in Caleb's translation thanks to madanmohanji, so it should not be too hard to find them. Let's see what we turn up and what we can conclude from that. I just took that one line I like and put "etc.,etc." to that. I like your question though of looking further at what the Gita says. But this question comes just a little too early for me as I was coincidentally just about to do a little study into the possibility that the view of God as presented in the Gita is a panentheistic and not a pantheistic view, perhaps along the lines of Ramanuja but that will take quite some time. (I also just ordered Philip Clayton's book, In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God's Presence in a Scientific World (with a chapter by Keith Ward on Ramanuja). It hasn't arrived yet.) Panentheism is rapidly becoming hip and maybe we can prove that Sri Gita is the first postmodern classic! (I'm just dreaming out loud.) But I hope some other people might come up with something a bit sooner... And in the meantime: Wittgenstein: "If I thought of God as another being like myself, outside myself, only infinitely more powerful, then I would regard it as my duty to defy him." PS, Maybe the word we're looking for is "trans-theism", a going beyond regular theism. I think that one can make a strong case that the Gita's vision of God is indeed panentheistic: all those places where Krsna says: "All beings are in me, but I am not in them." That could be a motto for the Panentheistic movement. Yes, I have been in my own way following the developments of that tendency in modern Christian theology. It is rooted in Whitehead whom I have been trying read for some time and came through one of his students, Charles Hartshorne, who taught at the U of Chicago when Mahanamabrata Brahmacari was a student there. Hartshorne refers to Brahmacari in some of his writings and seems to be familiar with his dissertation on Vaisnava Vedanta. Now it seems to have revitalized Christian theology though most of it modern exponents remain blissfully ignorant of its Asian incarnations. Here is a link to a good historical article on it at Stanford: plato.stanford.edu/entries/panentheism/The other interesting thing is the way Panentheism envisions God as related to the world and the beings in it, indeed he is changed by them. This is perfect for the CV understanding of the loving relationships Krsna establishes with his bhaktas. Anyway, thanks for the suggestions. I kind of like the idea of trans-theism. It could appeal to the atheists as well, who might regard it as a growing beyond crass and even vulgar theism. Thanks also for the heads up on Clayton. I looked him up and see that he is among those advocates of Panentheism and a leader in thinking about the relationship between religion and science. Daniel Dennett refered to him at some point as a closet atheist. Anyway, a good review of the Gita's statements relating to the nature of God would do us all a bit of good. Here we sit among as these Gita scholars (madanmohanji, buddysattva, subrataji, etc.) and so far no one has coughed up a single verse except for you (10.19). I guess it is up to you and me.
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Post by fiorafemere on Jul 27, 2010 10:28:36 GMT -6
I love this discussion as I have been thinking about this since the time when I tried to reach the reasons why I was interested in CV and why for the past fifteen or so year I've been coming back to it. And I just realized, for myself, that there is something very attractive about Krishna, not the analytical side of it, but the one whcih describes interactions of Radha Krishna, their friends and lovers... I never liked the concept of god, not sure why, but it seemed so artificial and unnatural; however, as Gerard mentioned above, Krishna can not help himself being the possesor of six opulences. Sri Rupa Goswami touches upon this in Laghu Bhagavatamrita in some of the verses where he explains that Krishna can not help himself be what He is. Now. for some, the reason for loving god because he is the mighty one might bes a step "up" towards the relationship which may grow into something more intimate and less official. I think that this is one of the topics which should be discussed in present times as it appears to me that theists and atheists have gone to such opposing extremes in the past that right now they are getting so close like a rubber streched and let go just for its' ends to meet each other in embrace.
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Post by Nitaidas on Jul 28, 2010 9:17:17 GMT -6
I am sitting in Louisville Kentucky now. I will be here for a few days. I wanted to start the work of listing and categorizing the verses in the Gita that present that work's view of God, but I was unable to get to it before we had to leave. Even now I do not have time to start that process because I am expected somewhere soon. Let me just say that I have been thinking about it and because of working on this edition of the Gita with madanmohanji, I am finding lots of material for our consideration. I will try to present that in the next few days.
A good way of proceeding it seems to me is to go through the Gita chapter by chapter. I don't think that there are any verses that are relevant to the question in the first two chapters. I may be wrong. If anyone finds any please call them to my attention. There are also none in the third chapter except there are a few that are tangentially involved with the God question. I will start with those in my next post and let you see what I mean. Most of the God-verses seem to be in the middle chapters 7-9. We will look at those and try to extract the essence of a God-vision from those in the next few days. Anyway, sorry for the delay in the pace of this discussion. More soon.
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Post by gerard on Jul 28, 2010 10:07:42 GMT -6
I'm sorry, I did not know we were in a hurry. You asked for a good review of the Gita statements relating to the nature of God; that's most of the Gita.
But I presume that you are referring to the more specifically panentheistic verses. So to avoid double work I will kick off with a few:
4.35 yena bhutani .. draksyasy atmany atho mayi, by which knowledge you shall see all beings in yourself and then in Me
6.30 sarvam ca mayi pasyati he sees all things in Me
6.31 sa yogi mayi vartate that yogi dwells in Me
7.12 na tv aham tesu te mayi but I am not in them; they are in Me
8.22 yasyanthasthani bhutani [this Highest Person] within which all beings stand
9.4 matsthani sarvabhutani all beings abide in Me
but
9.5 na ca matsthani bhutani and not all beings abide in Me
and
9.6 tatha sarvani bhutani matsthaniti so all beings dwell in Me
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Post by Nitaidas on Jul 28, 2010 14:11:44 GMT -6
Thanks, Gerard. I didn't mean to hurry you or be pushy. Those are certainly important verses that we need to consider. We also want the non-Panentheistic verses. The point is to come away with an overview of the theistic viewpoint of the Gita, if there is a consistent one. So we also want the pantheistic ones and the clearly theistic ones. I guess Panentheism is attractive because it can combine the pantheistic and theistic tendencies in a system. The question is whether it is a consistent combination or whether it is a uneasy partnership. Anyway thanks for the start. Let's see what comes up here.
And no, I don't think the whole Gita is about the nature of God. Much of it is about how one should act and real renunciation and the nature of the world or the self. There are different issues.
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Post by gerard on Aug 1, 2010 14:09:16 GMT -6
9.29 mayi te tesu capy aham they are in Me and I also am in them
11.7 sacaracaram mama dehe everything moving and non-moving in My body
11.19 sasisuryanetram having the sun and moon for eyes
11.54 aham .. pravestum I .. am to be entered into
13.12: the object of knowledge is Brahman, Brahman is sat – asat, Krishna is sat - asat (in 9.19), so Krishna is Brahman (and Its foundation 14.27), this object of knowledge is in 13.15 bahir antas ca bhutanam outside and inside beings durastham cantika ca tat this remote and also near + 13.16 avibhaktam ca bhutesu vibhaktam iva ca stitham undivided yet remaining as [if] divided in all beings
This is my list of possible panentheistic quotes. The list of pantheistic and theistic quotes is about 130, that follows later.
As the definition of panentheism is rather vague (“ the belief that the being of God includes and penetrates the whole universe, so that every part exists in Him but [as against pantheism] that His Being is more than, and is not exhausted by, the universe” Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church) and as there are several types of panentheism maybe a short generic overview of what could be added to that definition might be useful. This list is taken from P. Clayton, In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being:
1. The world (the totality of finite things) is in some sense in God. 2. The world has a degree of independence in relation to God, whether necessarily or by grace (divine decision). 3. Besides influencing the world, God is also influenced by the world. 4. Hence, besides being unchanging in some respects, God also changes in some respects. 5. God is related to the world somewhat as the human mind is related to the body.
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Post by gerard on Aug 4, 2010 5:41:10 GMT -6
The list of possible theistic verses:
2.61 yukta asita mat parah disciplined he should sit, intent on Me (first reference to Krishna divinity)
3.22 varta eva ca karmani nevertheless I engage in action + 3.23 mama vartmanuvartante manusyah .. sarvasah mankind would follow My path everywhere + 3.24 na kuryam karma cedaham .. upahanyam imah prajah should I not perform, I should destroy these creatures
3.30 mayi sarvani karmani samyasyadhyatmacetasa deferring all actions to Me, meditate on the Supreme Spirit
3.31 ye me matam idam nityam .. mucyanti te who practices this doctrine of Mine constantly, are released
4.1 imam vivasvate yogam proktavan aham avyayam I have proclaimed this imperishable yoga to the Sungod
4.3 bhakto ‘si me you are My devotee
4.6 complete verse, aja birthless avyaya imperishable isvarah the Lord
4.7 atmanam srjamyaham I generate Myself
4.8 complete verse sambhavami yuge yuge I come into being from yuga to yuga
4.9 complete verse mam eti sas he comes to Me
4.11 ye yatha mam prapadyante tams tathaivabhajamyaham they who in whatever way take refuge in Me, I love
4.13 caturvarnyam maya srstam I created the caste-system
4.14 iti mam yo ‘bhijanati karmabhir na sa badhyate who understands Me is not bound by actions
5.14 complete verse, prabuh the Lord
5.29 bhotaram yajnatapasam the Enjoyer of the sacrificial austerities sarvalokamahesvaram the Great Lord of all the worlds suhrdam sarvabhutanam the Friend of all creatures
6.14 matparas Me as highest Object
7.1 mayy asaktamanah .. madasrayah .. samagram mam .. jnasyasi with mind absorbed in Me, taking refuge in Me, you shall know Me entirely
7.5 prakrti viddhi me param jivabhutam .. yayedam dharyate jagat know My higher nature – that of spiritual beings, by which this universe is sustained
7.6 etadyonini bhutani sarvani all creautures have their womb in this aham krtsnasya jagatah prabhavah pralyas tatha I am the origin and also the dissolution of the entire universe
7.7 mattah parataram nanyat kimcid asti nothing higher than Me exists mayi sarvam idam proktam sutre manigana ive on Me all this [the universe] is strung like pearls on a string
7.13 mam ebhyah param avyayam I am higher than these [the gunas] and imperishable
7.14 mam eva ye prapadyante mayam etam taranti te only those who resort to Me and Me alone transcend this illusion
7.15 ekabhaktir .. priyo hi jnanino ‘tyartham aham sa ca mama priyah devoted to the One alone, I am exceedingly fond of the jnani and he is fond of Me
7.21 sraddham tam eva vidadhamy aham I bestow unswerving faith
7.22 labhate ca tatah kaman mayaiva vihitam hi tan he obtains his desires because I Myself ordain them
to be continued...
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Post by gerard on Aug 4, 2010 5:47:40 GMT -6
List of possible pantheistic verses:
4.10 madbhavam agatah attain My state of being
5.15 nadatte kasyacit papam na caiva sukrtam vibhuh the Omnipresent does not receive either the evil nor good deeds of anyone
5.16 tesam adityavaj jnanam prakasayati tat param that knowledge of theirs causes the Supreme to shine like the sun (panentheistisic?)
5.17 tat the Supreme
5.19 nirdosam hi samam brahma Brahman is guiltless and impartial
5.21 sa brahmayogayuktatma sukham aksayam asnute whose self is united to Brahman by yoga reaches imperishable happiness
5.24 sa yogi brahmanirvanam brahmabhuto ‘dhigacchati absorbeb in Brahman this yogi attains divine satisfaction
5.25 labhante brahmanirvanam they attain divine satisfaction
6.15 santim nirvanamparam matsamsthan adhigacchati he attains supreme peace, divine satisfaction and union with Me
6.27 brahmabhutam having become one with Brahman but 6.28 brahmasamsparsam coming into contact with Brahman and 6.30 yo mam pasyati sarvatra sarvam ca mayi pasyati he who sees Me everywhere, and sees all things in Me and 6.31 ekatvam astitah .. sa yogi mayi vartate established in oneness .. that yogi dwells in Me
7.8 – 7.11 complete verses I am taste in water etc (not necessarily pantheistic)
7.18 jnani tv atmaiva me the jnani is My very self (possibly panentheistic)
7.19 vasudevah sarvam iti Vasudeva is all
to be continued...
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Post by Nitaidas on Aug 4, 2010 14:08:04 GMT -6
I am back from the backwoods of Kentucky. Sorry, I have not been active in this discussion so far. Now that I am back I will start looking at these verses that gerard has so kindly started pulling out of the Gita as examples of the conception of God that is enshrined there. Thanks also to gerard for his presentation on what is meant by panentheism. I propose to move through the Gita chapter by chapter looking at each verse that bears on the question in depth to see really what the verse says and what we supply to the verse in the form of our preconceptions that may cover what the verse really has to say. In other words, i want our exploration of the Gita's verses to challenge our assumptions about what those verses mean. And, of course, I hope and expect for input from the members of this forum. I am thinking out loud here and want your input to keep me from wandering off.
For example, what does mat-para really mean in those verses where it occurs. We are often inclined to take it as "intent on Me." But perhaps it means something like "like Me" or "after My example." Or, perhaps it means "being nothing other than Me," or "completely Me,: which would suggest that there is an underlying unity between ourselves and Krsna that is not realized until we bring our senses under control. The whole verse is:
tAny sarvANy saMyamya yukta AsIta matparaH vaze hi yasyendriyANi tasya prajJA pratiSThitA
Restricting all those [senses], collected, one should remain "intent on Me." He whose senses are under control has an established wisdom [intelligence?]..
The context implies that Krsna suggests for himself the position of Izvara in the Yoga-sutras. An object of meditation that has no causal relationship to the world. The Izvara of the Yoga sutras is an object of meditation, but not a creator or destroyer or a maintainer. He is the exemplary yogi. So it is problematic if we apply our culturally imbibed, Judeo-Christian conceptions of deity to this verse.
Interestingly Sankara has mat-paraH as "one for whom Vasudeva, the inner self of all, is the highest." Another meaning he supplies for it is "I am not other than He." He gives a theistic and monistic option.
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Post by gerard on Aug 6, 2010 14:05:17 GMT -6
Interesting thoughts on mat-para, unfortunately my Sanskrit is rather rudimentary so I can't tell whether the meaning of mat-para can shade into the meanings you suggest. Could the para of 2.61 refer back to para (masc.), having seen the Supreme, of 2.59? The word yukta, 'yoked' (perhaps not 'collected') seems to refer to a relationship, a duality, maybe a hint of bhakti ? The remarks by Shankara seem obvious from the viewpoint of the Advaitin: atma = paramatma = Krishna = Vasudeva = Brahman. The soham or the brahmasmi seems the same as the aham vasudevah in Shankara's commentary. I can't quite understand why you bring the non-causal relationship of the Isvara of the Yoga-sutras to bear on the meaning of this verse in the Gita where Krishna says He is the Origin of all. (Besides aren't the Yoga-sutras later than the Gita?) The Judeo-Christian (or just 'western' in my case) background of some members of this forum could be a subject of study as that will affect our (or their) use of theological terms. There is nowadays an entire field of study devoted to that subject: www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteness_studies and although that is more sociological than theological that idea has, as far as I know, already penetrated the field of post-modern theology too.
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Post by Nitaidas on Aug 7, 2010 14:10:48 GMT -6
Interesting thoughts on mat-para, unfortunately my Sanskrit is rather rudimentary so I can't tell whether the meaning of mat-para can shade into the meanings you suggest. Could the para of 2.61 refer back to para (masc.), having seen the Supreme, of 2.59? The word yukta, 'yoked' (perhaps not 'collected') seems to refer to a relationship, a duality, maybe a hint of bhakti ? The remarks by Shankara seem obvious from the viewpoint of the Advaitin: atma = paramatma = Krishna = Vasudeva = Brahman. The soham or the brahmasmi seems the same as the aham vasudevah in Shankara's commentary. I can't quite understand why you bring the non-causal relationship of the Isvara of the Yoga-sutras to bear on the meaning of this verse in the Gita where Krishna says He is the Origin of all. (Besides aren't the Yoga-sutras later than the Gita?) The Judeo-Christian (or just 'western' in my case) background of some members of this forum could be a subject of study as that will affect our (or their) use of theological terms. There is nowadays an entire field of study devoted to that subject: www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteness_studies and although that is more sociological than theological that idea has, as far as I know, already penetrated the field of post-modern theology too. Thanks, gerard, for you thoughtful ruminations on this verse. It is an interesting verse in many respects. The mat-para kind of comes out of nowhere, long before Krsna tells Arjuna who he really is. Arjuna already loves him as a friend and respects him. And apparently he has heard others declare Krsna to be god (vide 10th chapter: Asita, Devala, etc). But so far Arjuna has only really accepted Krsna as his chariot driver, friend, and guru. So the mat-para pops up before Krsna has revealed to Arjuna who he is and seems out of place here. And Krsna only gradually reveals himself over the next few chapters. I don't think that the para of mat-para relates back to param in 2.59. Para means "higher" or "highest" in some cases and "other" in other cases. It also may mean "after." Its use as the final word in a compound word is a common but somewhat puzzling usage. Its meaning ranges from "engrossed in" to "synonymous with." So mat-para could mean "synonymous with Me," that is, one with Me, not different from Me. Sankara's interpretation is justifiable from the point of view of the grammar of the statement. At any rate, it strikes me as out of place at this point in the text. As for yukta, yes "yoked" would work, but yoked with what? There should be something in the instrumental case telling us what the person who is yoked is yoked with or to. There is nothing like that in the verse. Yukta must be enough by itself. Sankara glosses yukta with samAhita which means "in samadhi." So, for him yukta means that the person in question is in the state of samadhi. This brings up the question of the peculiar use of the words yukta, yuj, and yoga in the Gita. They are not used in the later sense of a discipline or practice. Each of the chapters is called a yoga, the first being the yoga of Arjuna's depression, etc. I think they are better understood as abbreviations of prayoga which means applied or engaged. Thus, yukta would mean someone who has fully applied himself to the practice or who is fully engaged in it. And yoga would mean application or usage. Thus, the 10th Chapter which is called Vibhuti-yoga, for instance, would mean something like The Application of the Opulence or Power, because in that chapter Krsna reveals the various manifestations of his opulence. And yogi would mean one who applies himself to the practice. Anyway, just some more thoughts about this verse. I see the Gita as a syncretic text blending together many different streams of Indian practice and speculation. That passage is about the practitioner not the absolute truth. The question is what does the accomplished one or sthita-prajna (one whose wisdom is present or stabilized) look like. The mat-para struck me as being very much like the izvara-pranidhAna of the Yoga-sutras and meant, possibly with that in mind, to place Krsna in the place of the unspecified izvara of the Ys. Just an intuition about the text, that it is in part an appeal to the practitioners of thetradition of yoga meant to draw them into the realm of Krsna-bhakti. As far as the relative ages of the texts goes, I don't see how that matters. The Yoga-sutras were not the start of the practice of yoga. That text is clearly drawing together various strands of an earlier yogic tradition. Yoga was around before the sutras and besides there may not be that much a difference in age between the Gita and the Sutras. I'm thinking roughly 300-150 BCE for both. Basically, it is a speculation about the potential audience the author of the text envisioned. As for Krsna's being the source of all, we shall have to look at that passage (10.8-11) by and by. The grammar there is a little bit odd. It might just be a small mistake, but maybe it is intentional.
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Post by gerard on Aug 8, 2010 8:44:39 GMT -6
Thanks for your elucidation of mat-para. Start to discuss one term and you open up a huge can of worms.
I agree with you on the peculiar meaning of the word yoga in BG. In Ch. 6: 11-14 it seems to mean the kind of hatha-yoga with which we associate that word nowadays but the yoga of the BG is an amalgam of at least the three major types of yoga: karma, jnana and bhakti. Robert Minor in his BG comm. calls that Gita-yoga.
It is funny you should say “The mat-para kind of comes out of nowhere, long before Krsna tells Arjuna who he really is” because in the MBh Udyoga Parva, the story is told how Krishna shows His Vishvarupa to everybody in the Shabha, including Dhrtarastra who was also given the divine eye, in order to convince Duryodhana that it would be senseless to fight Him. Duryodhana is not impressed by the Vishvarupa and leaves the Assembly Hall angrily. But Arjuna must have seen that also…
My reference to the relative date of the Yoga-sutras was to exclude the possibility of an influence of the Ys on the BG if the BG is older than the Ys, simply that. The date nowadays seems to be 100 AD (!) by Brockington. I would like to place the Gita after the Maitry Upanishad (only six angas in its yoga) and before the Yogasutras (eight angas). The clustering of the word samadhi in the BG (only in 2.44 and 2.53-54) also seems to indicate that the list of angas was possibly not very well accepted yet, as I would expect that word to appear more often and evenly spread over the Gita.
Astronomical calculations places the Gita in 800 BC, 1600 BC, 3000 BC and 5000 BC. As I have no way of checking who is using the planetarium software properly, I stick to 800 BC (Paule Lerner, Astrological Key in Mahabharata, 1988).
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Post by Nitaidas on Aug 9, 2010 9:06:28 GMT -6
Thanks for your elucidation of mat-para. Start to discuss one term and you open up a huge can of worms. I agree with you on the peculiar meaning of the word yoga in BG. In Ch. 6: 11-14 it seems to mean the kind of hatha-yoga with which we associate that word nowadays but the yoga of the BG is an amalgam of at least the three major types of yoga: karma, jnana and bhakti. Robert Minor in his BG comm. calls that Gita-yoga. It is funny you should say “The mat-para kind of comes out of nowhere, long before Krsna tells Arjuna who he really is” because in the MBh Udyoga Parva, the story is told how Krishna shows His Vishvarupa to everybody in the Shabha, including Dhrtarastra who was also given the divine eye, in order to convince Duryodhana that it would be senseless to fight Him. Duryodhana is not impressed by the Vishvarupa and leaves the Assembly Hall angrily. But Arjuna must have seen that also… My reference to the relative date of the Yoga-sutras was to exclude the possibility of an influence of the Ys on the BG if the BG is older than the Ys, simply that. The date nowadays seems to be 100 AD (!) by Brockington. I would like to place the Gita after the Maitry Upanishad (only six angas in its yoga) and before the Yogasutras (eight angas). The clustering of the word samadhi in the BG (only in 2.44 and 2.53-54) also seems to indicate that the list of angas was possibly not very well accepted yet, as I would expect that word to appear more often and evenly spread over the Gita. Astronomical calculations places the Gita in 800 BC, 1600 BC, 3000 BC and 5000 BC. As I have no way of checking who is using the planetarium software properly, I stick to 800 BC (Paule Lerner, Astrological Key in Mahabharata, 1988). 800 BC? Wow! That seems more than a bit early to me. I don't place much stock in these "astronomical" determinations. They assume that references to stars and planets are accurate and historical. That has to be proven rather than assumed. Besides, as you point out, there is such a wide variation in results. One can almost come up with anything one wants to. I prefer methods that look at the style and quality of the language and the content of the text. From that angle, the text is relatively late and may not have been original with the Mahabharata which is why your reference to a prior incident in the Mahabharata in which Krsna reveals himself may make no difference here. Arjuna doesn't appear to regard him as God in this text until the middle of it. He is surprised to hear that Krsna instructed Vivasvan in the 4th, for instance. Anyway, whether Arjuna didn't know about Krsna's true glory or he just forgot, the revelation that occurs in the Gita is gradual and builds to a climax in the 10th and 11th chapters. Additionally, the text is, in my view, post-Buddhist. Verse 2.27 seems a reasonable expression of the Buddhist doctrine of dependent origination. Moreover, the position the Gita takes with respect to renunciation seems squarely aimed at the Buddhist and perhaps the Jaina practices of renunciation, that is, leaving the caste system and becoming monks and nuns. Also, the use of the word nirvana in 2.72 is another example. In the context of Buddhism nirvana which means "blowing out" makes perfect sense, but in the context of Hinduism nirvana makes no sense. The term nirvana had taken on a meaning of its own by the time the Gita was written representing a generic term for the final goal of spiritual practice. That was the result of the influence of several hundred years of Buddhism. Thus, the text can be viewed as a Hindu response to the spread of Buddhism which was having a great deal of success at the time. It even accepts some of the Buddhist criticisms leveled at the Vedic tradition by calling the Vedas just flowery words ( 2.42-43). If Nakamura ( A History of Early Vedanta Philosophy) is correct in re-dating the Buddha to around 400-350 BCE, then the Gita should be placed a couple of hundred years after that. Your speculations on the development of yoga are interesting, but sometimes things get simpler rather than more complicated. Compare the way the 16 padarthas of Nyaya eventually got reduced to the 7 padarthas of Vaisesika. Besides, I still maintain that the Gita does not mean the specific discipline we now call yoga when it uses the term yoga or yukta. And the three yogas that are supposedly discussed in the Gita are much later superimpositions on the text that don't really make complete sense. Anyone can see that it is not quite as neat and clean as that.
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Post by gerard on Aug 11, 2010 7:39:35 GMT -6
We seem to be getting into bigger subjects than mat-para by now. Let’s recap.
800 BC is far too early. Possibly. I like to stick to astronomical data though, the MBh is full of them. To early people astronomy was a matter of life and death. Only much later religion and astrology came in. So the astronomical data had to be preserved; it only seems a matter of interpreting them and that is up till now not really a big success.
Your suggestion that Arjuna might have forgotten the Vishvarupa does not seem convincing, the forgetting, yes, as is seen in the introduction to the Anu-Gita spoken by Krishna to Arjuna in Hastinapur after the War. Arjuna asks Krishna to repeat the BG as he has forgotten what He had said but Arjuna had not forgotten his Vishvarupa darshan!
BG as a post-Buddhist text. Also possible. Verse 16.2 ahimsa satyam akrodhas seems a good summary of the Buddhist doctrines. But it could also have been an inspiration to Buddhism. Dasgupta says in his History that the term nirvana existed in pre-Buddhist times in the meaning of ‘satisfaction’, hence my translation of 2.72 brahmanirvana with ‘divine satisfaction’. Dasgupta also points out that the term brahmanirvana occurs only in the BG, nowhere else.
Also I try to image, together with the idea that the BG is perhaps an interpolation of the MBh, how that could have happened. You can see those haughty, supercilious know-it-all Brahmins doing their fire yajnas and then Buddhism comes up under Ashoka. Now they start writing texts in response to that with their own God as center and then smuggle that into the MBh? They would be influenced to such an extend by those nastikas? That doesn't seem very likely to me.
My idea is more a Zeitgeist theory. Times change, the mood and consciousness changes, the Vedic religion is on its way out, including the “flowery language”. The Divine as a sort of groundwater comes up, a rising damp if you will. That might lead to changing ideas in texts. And Krishna gradually takes over from Indra as devadeva on many places in the MBh and Gita.
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Post by Nitaidas on Aug 14, 2010 12:12:24 GMT -6
We seem to be getting into bigger subjects than mat-para by now. Let’s recap. 800 BC is far too early. Possibly. I like to stick to astronomical data though, the MBh is full of them. To early people astronomy was a matter of life and death. Only much later religion and astrology came in. So the astronomical data had to be preserved; it only seems a matter of interpreting them and that is up till now not really a big success. Your suggestion that Arjuna might have forgotten the Vishvarupa does not seem convincing, the forgetting, yes, as is seen in the introduction to the Anu-Gita spoken by Krishna to Arjuna in Hastinapur after the War. Arjuna asks Krishna to repeat the BG as he has forgotten what He had said but Arjuna had not forgotten his Vishvarupa darshan! BG as a post-Buddhist text. Also possible. Verse 16.2 ahimsa satyam akrodhas seems a good summary of the Buddhist doctrines. But it could also have been an inspiration to Buddhism. Dasgupta says in his History that the term nirvana existed in pre-Buddhist times in the meaning of ‘satisfaction’, hence my translation of 2.72 brahmanirvana with ‘divine satisfaction’. Dasgupta also points out that the term brahmanirvana occurs only in the BG, nowhere else. Also I try to image, together with the idea that the BG is perhaps an interpolation of the MBh, how that could have happened. You can see those haughty, supercilious know-it-all Brahmins doing their fire yajnas and then Buddhism comes up under Ashoka. Now they start writing texts in response to that with their own God as center and then smuggle that into the MBh? They would be influenced to such an extend by those nastikas? That doesn't seem very likely to me. My idea is more a Zeitgeist theory. Times change, the mood and consciousness changes, the Vedic religion is on its way out, including the “flowery language”. The Divine as a sort of groundwater comes up, a rising damp if you will. That might lead to changing ideas in texts. And Krishna gradually takes over from Indra as devadeva on many places in the MBh and Gita. Thanks once again for your thoughtful comments. Yes, we are going into bigger subjects, but these are things that should be raised, I think, before proceeding. When one places a text in its proper context, it begins to make a lot more sense. Every text has an historical context, even if we believe that it is in some sense "eternal." Eternal things manifest at particular times in forms and language that is suitable for those times. That the Gita was inserted into the MBh does not seem improbable to me. There are so many episodes and stories that have no real bearing on the main plot. They certainly enrich the text and make it more profound, but they could also have been left out. The Gita missed being an Upanisad by just a few hundred years, but instead was placed in the great work of the time. Still, it has the character of an Upanisad and may actually be more effective than an Upanisad because of its placement in the epic. Who pays attention to the Maitri Upanisad these days, though stylistically it may have been composed at roughtly the same time. But the Gita everyone cares for. Anyway, for me, seeing it as a response to Buddhism makes it a lot more meaningful. The very first teaching is that of the permanence of the atman in direct opposition to the doctrine of anatman of Buddhism. The use of the word dharma can well be seen in many places as a reference to the dharma or teaching of Buddhism. Sarva-dharmAn parityajya can be seen as a direct reference to rejecting the dharmas of Buddhism, especially as it seems to contradict so many of the earlier verses where one is told to practice one's own dharma. The rather sad effort to authenticate the caste system by making it a creation of Krsna is another example of a response to Buddhism and Jainism which reject the caste system. I wonder where Dasgupta says nirvana was used in the sense of satisfaction before Buddhism. Does he give a clear reference? I tend to doubt that point. Apte finds it used in the sense of satisfaction in Kalidasa and some other later poets, but nothing very early. It occurs in other parts of the MBh and in the Bhagavata, but those are not pre-Buddhist. If it comes from one of the Upanisads it may well also be post-Buddhist. Nakamura ( A History of Early Vedanta Philosophy, 19-25) argues quite convincingly that the Katha Upanisad has drawn some of its material, its similes, from Buddhist texts. If it comes from one of the Brahmanas maybe the point is valid. Still, the truth is in the details. Anyway, I suppose we should move on to the next set of verses that seem to present a view of the nature of God in the Gita. Those are in the next chapter (3.21-24). There he refers to the responsibility of those who are "best." That would be God as either culture hero or model for ideal behavior. This is a trait that does not seem exclusive to God but might apply to any great man or woman. More on this tomorrow.
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