Bhagavadgita Cogitations - Gandhi's Assessment of Gita - Part III

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Part III Doctrine of Incarnation and Description of an Ideal Devotee and

Saint

Lastly, we come to Mahatma Gandhi's doctrine of Incarnation. (1) Every

embodied being, he tells us, is an incarnation, though to be regarded as a

perfect incarnation some extra- ordinary service to mankind is necessary. This

is an important statement. It is in this way that those who have been called

Avatars are so called, because they have performed great works for the benefit

of humanity. Elsewhere in this book we may notice how Garbe, Hopkins and

Edgerton have spoken almost in the same strain. Being born men, acing to them;

people first become men-gods and then gods. Mahatma Gandhi's criterion for

incarnation is, in a similar strain, the great service that a man does to

humanity. ( 2 ) We can approach the doctrine of incarnation from another point

of viear also. The Bhagavadgita itself tells us : Wherever there is

excellence, wherever there is preminence, wherever there is a `portion of the

great power and lustre of God, there he might regard that God is present as an

incarnation. great Vibhutis, therefore, are themselves embodiments or

incarnations of God. let us select only ten Vhibutis here or our purpose :

Meru and Himklaya among the mountains ; Jahavi among the rivers, Magendra and

Vainateya among the animals and birds, Sgmaveda among the sacred books,

Mrgasira and. Kusumakara among the months and seasons; Omkara among syllables

and Vasudeva among Divine heroes. (3) Finally, it is wonderful to see how

the great German philosopher, Hegel, who evidently seems to have read, the

Bhagavadgita, has said that it is the substantial or the universal, which

constitutes the essence of things and which we might understand as equivalent

to an incantation. He says :- " When God says, in the metal I am brightness

of its shining, among the rivers I am the Ganges, I am the life of all that

lives', he thereby suppresses the individual. He does not say I am the metal,

the rivers, the individual things of various kinds as such. The brightness is

not the metal itself but is the universal, elevated above any individual form.

What is expressed here is no longer pantheism ; the idea expressed is rather

that of the essence of things." Hegel's Philosophy of Religion, p. 42.3.

This raises the conception of the essence or incarnation to a philosophic

level.

 

Description of an Ideal Devotee and an Ideal Saint

We now proceed to discuss the last two points. We shall first deal with

Mahatma Gandhi's sublime description of a devotee. Neither in his work on the

Bhagavadgita nor probably anywhere else has Mahatma Gandhi described the

qualifications of a devotee in the manner in which he has done here: It is a

superb illustration of what a devotee ought to be. Not merely does he gather

together utterances from the Bhagavadgita, but inserts some of his own

reflections in order to present a full picture of a devotee. According to

Mahatma Gandhi ;-

" He is a real devotee who is jealous of none, who is a fount of mercy, who is

without egoism, who treats alike cold and heat, happiness and misery, who is

ever forgiving, who is always contented, whose resolutions are firm, who has

dedicated mind and Seoul to God, who causes no dread, who is not afraid of

others, who is free from exultation, sorrow and fear, who is pure, who is

versed in action and yet remains unaffected by it, who renounces all fruit,

good or bad, who treats friend and foe alike, who is untouched by respect or

disrespect, who is not puffed up by praise, who does not go under when people

speak ill of him, who loves silence and solitude, who has a disciplined

reason." Anasakti Yoga, p. 126.

 

I am tempted to feel that Mahatma Gandhi having thought deeply about the

qualifications of a devotee has given almost an autobiographical account in

this description. Finally, when we come to Mahadeva Desai's commentary on

Mahatma Gandhi's work, we see that he excels himself in describing what an

ideal sage ought to be. Probably, he has got his teacher Mahatma Gandhi in his

mind. The description is wonderful and we quote it as it is :- "The Yogin is

therefore one who reflects all these attributes in his life, who, in the midst

of raging storm and blinding spray, will keep his vision of the Sun

undisturbed, who will look difficulties and death in the face, who goes with

the same mind to the shambles and the scaffold and whose mind is so serene

that thunder rocks him to sleep."