SankarAcArya's bhagavad gItA bhAshya - a few preliminary remarks

[Guest guest]

Greetings Advaitins:

 

Shri Vidyasankar Sundaresan who maintains the Advaita Home Page with the

URL: http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~vidya/advaita has kindly agreed to send

a series of articles on Sankaracharya's Bhagavad Gita Bhashya. I have

read many of his articles and I found them scholarly and thorough. I am

confident that you will enjoy these articles. I will be forwarding two

of his articles that he has already posted in Advaita-L to the Advaitin

members. In future he will be directly posting his articles to this

List. Shri Vidya will be a member of Advaitin effective immediately. I

want to thank him on your behalf for his willingness to post Gita and

other special articles to Advaitin List.

 

Note: Those who want to know more information on Advaita, I strongly

recommend you to visit Vidya's Home Page.

 

 

--

Ram Chandran

Burke, VA 22015

 

Forwarded Message From Shri Vidyasankar Sundaresan to Advaitin

 

Vidyasankar Sundaresan <vidya

SankarAcArya's bhagavad gItA bhAshya - a few preliminary

remarks

 

 

|| Om namo nArAyaNAya ||

|| SrI gurubhyo namaH ||

 

pArthAya pratibodhitAM bhagavatA nArAyaNena svayaM

vyAsena grathitAM purANamuninA madhye-mahAbhAratam |

advaitAmRtavarshiNIM bhagavatIM ashTAdaSAdhyAyinIM

amba tvAm anusandadhAmi bhagavad-gIte bhavadveshinIm ||

 

Taught to pArtha (Arjuna) by the Lord nArAyaNa (Krishna) himself, and

Collated by the ancient seer, vyAsa, in the middle of the mahAbhArata

|

Oh Goddess, who showers the nectar of advaita, in chapters eighteen,

I salute you, bhagavad-gItA, enemy of transmigratory existence ||

 

In the coming months, I will be posting articles based on SankarAcArya's

bhagavad gItA bhAshya, at a frequency of around one or two a week. The

bhagavad gItA is a very important source text for all vedAnta and yoga

schools. Even Abhinavagupta, the Kashmiri Saiva author, wrote a

commentary

to the bhagavad gItA.

 

The gItA is the most important smRti text in the triple canon (prasthAna

trayI) of vedAnta. As it is found in the middle of the classical Indian

itihAsa, the mahAbhArata, it is a very useful text for all people. It is

traditionally considered to contain the distilled essence of the

teachings

of the upanishads. The importance of the gItA cannot be overemphasized,

and it is usually called an upanishad in itself. The most widely known

recension of the gItA is the version that is commented upon by

SankarAcArya. It contains about 700 verses, but the Kashmiri recension

has

some 40 more verses.

 

Before beginning the posts based on the bhAshya of SankarAcArya, I would

like to make a few remarks.

 

1. Regarding the words "sAMkhya" and "yoga" -

 

These words are used quite often in the text and in the commentary. I

don't know how other commentators and modern interpreters view these two

terms in the gItA. As far as SankarAcArya's commentary is concerned, in

general, the word "sAMkhya" refers to what has come to be called

jnAna-yoga, and the word "yoga" to karma yoga. This interpretation is

based upon chapters two and three of the bhagavad gItA itself. I request

list-members to keep this in mind, so as to avoid confusions like, "but

so-and-so says such-and-such is not what is said in the sAMkhya-kArikAs

or

in the yogasUtras." From my reading of the commentary, it seems clear

that

the terms sAMkhya and yoga are used in general senses, in addition to

being names of independent schools of thought. This situation is

somewhat

akin to the usage of "ideal" and "idealism", or like "real" and

"realism". It is possible for a "realist" to have "ideals," without

being

an "idealist." Similarly for the "idealist," who can talk about what is

"real" without being "realist." If we remember that the gItA text itself

and SankarAcArya's commentary use the terms "sAMkhya" and "yoga" in a

broader sense than what is implied under the two schools of thought,

much

confusion can be avoided.

 

2. Format -

 

In each article, I will post the full text of the gItA verse(s)

commented

upon, but not all the text of the commentary. I will limit myself to

only

significant excerpts, as the entire commentary is too voluminous. The

verse will be followed with a translation that is based upon the

commentary. Much of the commentary itself is structured so as to

give word for word meanings. The verse translation will be followed by a

translation of the commentary. Finally will come my own notes,

explaining

the thrust of the argument, or explaining why I chose a particular

translation. Some postings will combine two or three verses and their

corresponding commentaries, e.g. the chapters which list the various

manifestations of the Lord and the viSvarUpa-darSana. Other postings

may each have only one verse and its commentary. There will also be

instances where one verse and its commentary will run through two or

three

separate postings, e.g. the chapter on the kshetra-kshetrajna-yoga, and

in

verses which have exceptionally long commentaries.

 

These postings are meant to serve other purposes too - namely,

svAdhyAya,

translation and answers to all the questions that routinely crop up on

this list. svAdhyAya is for my own benefit, so it requires little

justification. However, there are numerous translations of the gItA

itself

that are available out there. So, one might ask, why another translation

by an amateur? The answer is, I intend to translate according to the

sense

of SankarAcArya's bhAshya on each verse. Each translation is different,

and I won't always quote the earlier translators every time. I will

mostly

consult the translations by Sargeant [1], van Buitenen [2] and

Radhakrishnan [3]. There will be occasions when I differ from

one or all of these earlier authors. Besides, my own translation of the

gItA verses will be a part of another project that I've embarked upon -

a

translation of SankarAcArya's commentary. In this case, I will consult

the text and translation of the gItA commentary by Krishna Warrier [4].

I

plan to translate in more modern and hopefully, more easily readable

language. I would appreciate comments from list members in this regard.

If

something is not clear, please ask me at once, and I will try to explain

further.

 

3. SankarAcArya provides an introductory chapter to the commentary,

which

briefly recounts the traditional lore surrounding the setting of the

gItA,

and explains the two paths of pravRtti dharma and nivRtti dharma taught

by

Lord Krishna. However, he does not provide explicit comments on the

first

chapter, which is called "arjunavishAda-yoga". The other 17 chapters

have

extensive commentary. Consequently, I will not post the verses and

translations for the first chapter. Instead, in the next posting, I will

provide a brief synopsis of the epic events that lead to the teaching of

the gItA. This will be followed by the translation of SankarAcArya's

introduction in the second posting after this, and thence to the

commentary proper, which only begins with the second chapter.

 

4. Transliteration -

 

I'll be using more or less the same scheme as in the Advaita website.

See

<http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~vidya/advaita/transliteration.html>, or

<http://www.erols.com/ramakris/advaita/transliteration.html>. The only

difference from the scheme mentioned in these webpages is that I will

use

"H" for the "visarga" and not the ":" sign. In my own notes, I will slip

into the generally accepted English spellings, especially for proper

names, e.g. "Krishna" instead of "kRshNa."

 

References -

----------

 

1. The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Winthrop Sargeant. Rev. ed. /

edited

by Christopher Chapple; foreword by Swami Samatananda. Albany : State

University of New York Press [1984].

 

2. The Bhagavadgita in the Mahabharata: text and translation, J. A. B.

van Buitenen. Chicago : University of Chicago Press [1981].

 

3. The Bhagavadgita, with an introductory essay, Sanskrit text

[transliterated] English translation and notes by S. Radhakrishnan.

[1st Harper torchbook ed.]. New York, Harper & Row [1973].

 

4. Srimad Bhagavad Gita bhasya of Sri Samkaracarya: with text in

Devanagari & English rendering, and index of first lines of verses /

translated by A. G. Krishna Warrier. 1st ed. Madras, India: Sri

Ramakrishna Math [1983].

 

Regards,

Vidyasankar