Bhagavad Gita Based On Sri Adi Shankaracharya's Commentary
OM!
Hi Friends,
This is my attempt to study Bhagavad Gita based on Sri Adi Shankaracharya's commentary. Though I would not go about typing down the entire shankara bhasyam, I will try to bring out the essence as I assimilated form my guru ji's teachings. I hope, sharing it on a public forum can be found useful for one and all.
Sri Adi Shankaracharya's starts with a short introduction in the first chapter and then he starts explaining from chapter 2 verse 10. I will follow a similar structure. I will not delve deeply into chapter 1.
The Prayer and the Meaning of Sradha
Shankaracharya's Prayer verse:
naaraayaNaH paro.avyaktaat aNdamavyaktasambhavam |
aNdasyaantastvime lokaaH saptadviipaa cha madinii ||
नारायणः परोऽव्यक्तात् अण्दमव्यक्तसम्भवम्।
अण्दस्यान्तस्त्विमे लोकाः सप्तद्वीपा च मदिनी॥
Narayana is beyond the unmanifest; The cosmic egg is born of the unmanifest. Within the cosmic egg are these worlds, the earth and all the seven islands.
Sri Adi Shankaracharya starts by remembering Narayana. If we want to assimilate the teachings of Bhagavad Gita, we should be devotees of Sri Krishna. Unless we approach the text with devotion we cannot assimlate the teachings and we will not be able to understand what the teaching is all about. A student should have "sradha".
Sradha is losely translated as faith, but it really means "srat dadathi iti sradha", srat is sat-nama, another name of Self. Sradha means that the student should have an attitude which allows him to discover the Truth or Self. What is this attitude ?
1. When I approach a saint or a guru for the teaching, I should have an open mind. Which means I try to see what the guru is saying, rather than jump to my own conclusions.
2. And when the guru says something that is not clear, we do not "reject" that straight away but enquire into it and find out if it is correct or not.
When I have such an attitude, I am a good student. Traditionally when a disciple goes to a guru to learn a scripture, its a custom to start their study with a prayer. The objective of the prayer is to invoke sradha in the student and the teacher towards the teaching. Both the student and the teacher respect the teaching and the teacher uses the teaching to reveal some facts to the Student.
Lets take a simple example to see this point better. A student wanted to know what the moon is and the teacher took him to his window and showed him the moon by saying: "My son, do you see the white thing thats between the two branches of that tree there ? Thats the moon.". The student got it! The teacher was effective in communicating the Truth to the student. And then someone noted this down in a book. Decades later, there were students who were always looking for the moon between those two branches of the tree -- but none of them could see for the obvious reasons.
The teachings of the scriptures are pointers towards the moon. A guru should be the one who has "seen the Truth" or who had "SAT-DARSHANAM". And so the guru can now communicate the Truth to the Student using the pointers used in the scripture. While the guru explains it, the student should have the proper attitude [Sradha] to see what the guru is pointing towards. If the student simply keeps chanting what the guru told and does not "See" what is pointed to -- the student fails. Thats why Sradha is not blind faith. The aim of the prayer verse is to invoke Sradha.
The Two LifeStyles
Sri Adi Shankaracharya starts his introduction by saying that the Creator, God, having created this world, imparted knowledge of the laws corresponding to two kinds of lifestyles : the pravritti marga and the nivritti marga.
When we buy an electronic equipment we are provided with a manual. This is like that. The lord has provided with the details about the laws or his order as it is. For example, if I put my finger in fire, it burns. That's a law -- which is observable and arrive-able through certain experiments. Here Shankara says that the lord has provided us with two kinds of laws. One category is instructed to prajapathis like marichi etc and the other category he instructed to renunciates like sanaka , sananda etc. These people are like custodians for that knowledge.
Shankara does not delve into these dharmas in his introduction. As the text unfolds, these lifestyles are explained in greater detail. The purpose in mentioning them is to elaborate the reason for Sri Krishna's Avatara. Again, to understand what an Avatara is, we will have to wait for the text itself to unfold. Shankara says, these two fold dharma, as time progressed, lost its hold amongst the people and Sri Krishna, who is the Lord Himself, took birth in a human body to reestablish this Dharma.
The way Shankara describes Sri Krishna's taking birth is indeed very interesting, he says:
"स्वमाययादेहवान्एवजातः"
"By his own maya, "as if embodied", he was born"
Come up, O Lions, and shake off the delusion that you are a sheep
Bookmarks