My Gita Part 1

My Gita.

Devdutt Pattanaik.

To my friends Partho, who listens Paromita, who sees.

Why My Gita.

The Bhagavad Gita, or The Gita as it is popularly known, is part of the epic Mahabharata.

The Bhagavad Gita.

The epic describes the war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas on the battlefield of Kuru-kshetra. The Gita is the discourse given by Krishna to Arjuna just before the war is about to begin. Krishna is identified as G.o.d (bhagavan). His words contain the essence of Vedic wisdom, the keystone of Hinduism.

Ramkrishna Paramhansa, the nineteenth-century Bengali mystic, said that the essence of The Gita can be deciphered simply by reversing the syllables that const.i.tute Gita. So Gita, or gi-ta, becomes ta-gi, or tyagi, which means 'one who lets go of possessions.'

Gi-ta to Ta-gi.

Given that, it is ironical that I call this book 'My Gita'.

I use the possessive p.r.o.noun for three reasons.

Reason 1: My Gita is thematic.

The Gita demonstrates many modern techniques of communication. First, Arjuna's problem is presented (Chapter 1), and then Krishna's solution (chapters 2 to 18) is offered. Krishna begins by telling Arjuna what he will reveal (Chapter 2); he then elaborates on what he promised to tell (chapters 3 to 17); and finally, he repeats what he has told (Chapter 18). Krishna's solution involves a.n.a.lysis (sankhya) and synthesis (yoga)-slicing the whole into parts and then binding the parts into a whole. The solution itself is comprehensive, involving the behavioural (karma yoga), the emotional (bhakti yoga) and the intellectual (gyana yoga). However, no one reads The Gita as a book, or hears every verse in a single sitting.

Chapter Architecture in The Gita.

Traditionally, a guru would only elaborate on a particular verse or a set of verses or a chapter of The Gita at a time. It is only in modern times, with a printed book in hand, that we want to read The Gita cover to cover, chapter by chapter, verse to verse, and hope to work our way through to a climax of resolutions in one go. When we attempt to do so, we are disappointed. For, unlike modern writing, The Gita is not linear: some ideas are scattered over several chapters, many ideas are constantly repeated, and still others presuppose knowledge of concepts found elsewhere, in earlier Vedic and Upanishadic texts. In fact, The Gita specifically refers to the Brahma sutras (Chapter 13, Verse 5), also known as Vedanta sutras, said to have been composed by one Badarayana, sometimes identified with Vyasa. Further, at places, the same words are used in different verses to convey different meanings, and at other instances, different words are used to convey the same idea. For example, sometimes the word 'atma' means mind and sometimes soul; at other times other words like dehi, brahmana and purusha are used for soul instead of atma. This can be rather disorienting to a casual reader, and open to multiple interpretations.

So My Gita departs from the traditional presentation of The Gita-sequential verse-by-verse translations followed by commentary. Instead, My Gita is arranged thematically. The sequence of themes broadly follows the sequence in The Gita. Each theme is explained using several verses across multiple chapters. The verses are paraphrased, not translated or transliterated. These paraphrased verses make better sense when juxtaposed with Vedic, Upanishadic and Buddhist lore that preceded The Gita and stories from the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and the Puranas that followed it. Understanding deepens further when the Hindu worldview is contrasted with other worldviews and placed in a historical context.

For those seeking the standard literal and linear approach, there is a recommended reading list at the end of the book.

Reason 2: My Gita is subjective.

We never actually hear what Krishna told Arjuna. We simply overhear what Sanjaya transmitted faithfully to the blind king Dhritarashtra in the comforts of the palace, having witnessed all that occurred on the distant battlefield, thanks to his telepathic sight. The Gita we overhear is essentially that which is narrated by a man with no authority but infinite sight (Sanjaya) to a man with no sight but full authority (Dhritarashtra). This peculiar structure of the narrative draws attention to the vast gap between what is told (gyana) and what is heard (vi-gyana).

Krishna and Sanjaya may speak exactly the same words, but while Krishna knows what he is talking about, Sanjaya does not. Krishna is the source, while Sanjaya is merely a transmitter. Likewise, what Sanjaya hears is different from what Arjuna hears and what Dhritarashtra hears. Sanjaya hears the words, but does not bother with the meaning. Arjuna is a seeker and so he decodes what he hears to find a solution to his problem. Dhritarashtra is not interested in what Krishna has to say. While Arjuna asks many questions and clarifications, ensuring the 'discourse' is a 'conversation', Dhritarashtra remains silent throughout. In fact, Dhritarashtra is fearful of Krishna who is fighting against his children, the Kauravas. So he judges Krishna's words, accepting what serves him, dismissing what does not.

Overhearing The Gita.

I am not the source of The Gita. But I do not want to be merely its transmitter, like Sanjaya. I want to understand, like Arjuna, though I have no problem I want to solve, neither do I stand on the brink of any battle. But it has been said that the Vedic wisdom presented by Krishna is applicable to all contexts, not just Arjuna's. So I have spent months hearing The Gita in the original Sanskrit to appreciate its musicality; reading multiple commentaries, retellings and translations; mapping the patterns that emerge from it with patterns found in Hindu mythology; and comparing and contrasting these patterns with those found in Buddhist, Greek and Abrahamic mythologies. This book contains my understanding of The Gita, my subjective truth: my Gita. You can approach this book as Arjuna, with curiosity, or as Dhritarashtra, with suspicion and judgement. What you take away will be your subjective truth: your Gita.

The quest for objective truth (what did Krishna actually say?) invariably results in vi-vaad, argument, where you try to prove that your truth is the truth and I try to prove that my truth is the truth. The quest for subjective truth (how does The Gita make sense to me?) results in sam-vaad, where you and I seek to appreciate each other's viewpoints and expand our respective truths. It allows everyone to discover The Gita at his or her own pace, on his or her own terms, by listening to the various Gitas around them.

Argument and Discussion Objectivity is obsessed with exactness and tends to be rather intolerant of deviation, almost like the jealous G.o.d of monotheistic mythologies. But meanings change over time, with the personality of the reader, and with context. Subjectivity challenges the a.s.sumption that ideas are fixed and can be controlled; it celebrates the fluid. Modern global discourse tends to look at truth qualitatively: it is either true or false. That which is objective is scientific and true. That which is subjective is mythic and false. Hindu thought, however, looks at truth quant.i.tatively: everyone has access to a slice (bhaga); the one who sees all slices of truth is bhaga-van. Limited truth is mithya. Limitless truth is satya. Satya is about including everything and being whole (purnam). The journey towards limitless truth expands our mind (brahmana).

The Gita itself values subjectivity: after concluding his counsel, Krishna tells Arjuna to reflect on what has been said, and then do as he feels (yatha-ichasi-tatha-kuru). Even Sanjaya, after giving his view on what Krishna's discourse potentially offers, concludes The Gita with the phrase 'in my opinion' (mati-mama).

Reason 3: My Gita is not obsessed with the self Traditionally, The Gita has been presented as a text that focusses on self-realization (atma-gyana). This suits the hermit who isolates himself from society. This is not surprising, since most early commentators and retellers of The Gita, such as Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhwa and Dyaneshwara, chose not to be householders. The original Buddhist monastic order may not have survived in India, but it did play a key role in the rise and dominance of the Hindu monastic order. The monastic approach w.i.l.l.y-nilly appeals to the modern individualist, who also seeks self-exploration, self-examination, self-actualization and, of course, selfies.

Shankara.

But the Mahabharata is about the household, about relationships, about others. It is essentially about a property dispute. Arjuna's dilemma begins when he realizes that the enemy is family and he fears the impact of killing family on society as a whole. Krishna's discourse continuously speaks of yagna, a Vedic ritual that binds the individual to the community. He elaborates on the relationship of the individual, whom he identifies as jiva-atma, with divinity, whom he identifies as param-atma, which is etymologically related to 'the other' (para). The Buddha spoke of nirvana, which means oblivion of individual ident.i.ty, but Krishna speaks of brahma-nirvana as an expansion of the mind (brahmana) that leads to liberation (moksha) while ironically also enabling union (yoga), indicating a shift away from monastic isolationism. That is why, in Hindu temples, G.o.d is always visualized with the G.o.ddess as a householder, one half of a pair. The devotee looks at the deity (darshan) and the deity, with large unblinking eyes, looks back; the relationship is 'two-way' not 'one-way'.

Relationships.

In Chapter 5, Verse 13, of The Gita, Krishna describes the human body as a city with nine gates (nava-dvara-pura): two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, one mouth, one a.n.u.s and one genital. A relationship involves two bodies, two people, the self and the other, you and me, two cities-eighteen gates in all. That The Gita has eighteen sections, that it seeks to make sense of the eighteen books of the Mahabharata-which tells the story of a war between family and friends fought over eighteen days involving eighteen armies-indicates that the core teaching of The Gita has much to do with relationships. It serves the needs of the householder rather than the hermit.

Nine Gates Before starting on these eighteen chapters we shall briefly explore the history of The Gita. After these eighteen chapters, we shall discuss the impact of The Gita on Arjuna.

Writing My Gita helped me expand my mind. I discovered more frameworks through which I could make better sense of reality. I hope reading this book informs your Gita and helps you expand your mind. Should the urge to find a fixed single objective truth grip you, remind yourself: Within infinite myths lies an eternal truth.

Who sees it all?

Varuna has but a thousand eyes.

Indra, a hundred.

You and I, only two.

Before My Gita: A Brief History of The Gita.

Before the Bhagavad Gita, or G.o.d's song, there was the Vyadha Gita, or the butcher's song.

Vyadha Gita.

The Vyadha Gita is found earlier in the Vana Parva, Book 3 of the Mahabharata, when the Pandavas are still in exile in the forest, having lost their kingdom to the Kauravas in a gambling match. The Bhagavad Gita is found in Bhisma Parva, Book 6 of the Mahabharata, just before the war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas.

In the forest, the Pandavas encounter the sage Markandeya, who tells them the story of a hermit who would burn birds alive with a fiery glance of his eye, if they accidentally dropped excrement on him while he was meditating. When the hermit threatened to curse a housewife because she kept him waiting for alms while attending to her household ch.o.r.es, she admonished him for his impatience, and advised him to go to learn the secret of the Vedas from a butcher in Mithila. The butcher's long discourse-the Vyadha Gita-on dharma, karma and atma so moved the hermit that he returned to his home to serve his old parents, whom he had abandoned long ago.

In both the Vyadha Gita and the Bhagavad Gita, the discourse takes place in a violent s.p.a.ce: a butcher's shop and a battlefield, respectively. In both, there is a separation of the physical (prakriti) and the psychological (purusha), which is the hallmark of Vedic wisdom. In both, the householder's way of engagement is valued over the hermit's way of withdrawal.

What distinguishes the Bhagavad Gita is that it talks explicitly about G.o.d (bhagavan) and devotion (bhakti). It marks the transition of the old ritual-based Vedic Hinduism into the new narrative-based Puranic Hinduism.

Approaches to Hindu History.

The history of Hinduism spreads over 5,000 years and can be seen in eight phases that telescope into each other. The first is the Indus phase, then come the Vedic phase, the Upanishadic phase, the Buddhist phase, the Puranic phase, the Bhakti phase, the Orientalist phase and finally the modern phase. Relics from the IndusSaraswati civilization reveal ancient iconography that is considered sacred in Hinduism even today. But much of the knowledge of that period remains speculative. The subsequent three phases const.i.tute Vedic Hinduism, when there were no temples and the idea of G.o.d was rather abstract. The final four phases const.i.tute Puranic Hinduism, characterized by the rise of temples and belief in a personal G.o.d, either Shiva, or one of his sons; Vishnu, or one of his avatars; or the G.o.ddess, in her many local forms. We can go so far as to call Vedic Hinduism pre-Gita Hinduism and Puranic Hinduism post-Gita, to indicate the pivotal role of The Gita in Hindu history.

The Vedic phase began 4,000 years ago, the Upanishadic phase 3,000 years ago, the Buddhist phase 2,500 years ago, the Puranic phase 2,000 years ago, the Bhakti phase 1,000 years ago and the Orientalist phase only 200 years ago. The modern phase is just emerging, with Indians questioning the understanding of Hinduism that has so far been based on Western frameworks.

Dating of Hindu history is always approximate and speculative, and often a range, as orally transmitted scriptures precede the written works by several centuries, and parts of the written work were composed by various scribes over several generations, in different geographies. Everything is complicated by the fact that writing became popular in India only 2,300 years ago, after Mauryan Emperor Ashoka popularized the Brahmi script through his edicts.

Hindu History.

Before we proceed, we must keep in mind that the historical approach to Hinduism is not acceptable to all Hindus. The ahistorical school of thought sees all Hindu ideas as timeless. The rather chauvinistic proto-historical school sees all Hindu rituals, stories and symbols, Vedic or Puranic, as having been created simultaneously over 5,000 years ago. These have become political issues, which influence scholarship.

History seeks to be everyone's truth, but is limited by available facts. More often than not, what is pa.s.sed off as history is mythology, someone's understanding of truth shaped by memory, feelings and desire, available facts notwithstanding. However, it is never fantasy, or no one's truth.

Historical, Proto-historical and Ahistorical Schools We must also guard against a masculine view of history based on conflict and triumph alone: natives versus colonizers, polytheism versus monotheism, Hindus versus Buddhists, Christians versus Muslims, Shias versus Sunnis, Shaivites versus Vaishnavites, Protestants versus Catholics, Mughals versus Marathas, democracy versus monarchy, theists versus atheists, capitalists versus socialists, liberals versus conservatives. This has been popularized by Western academics and their love for the Hegelian dialectic, where thesis creates ant.i.thesis until there is resolution and a new thesis. This approach a.s.sumes that history has a natural direction and purpose.

An alternate, feminine view of history looks at every event as the fruit of the past (karma-phala) as well as the seed of future tendencies (karma-bija), without the need to play judge. Thus, we can see the writing of the Gitas as a response to, not an attack on, Buddhist monasticism, and the feminization of Buddhism as a response to, not an appropriation of, the idea of the G.o.ddess found in Hindu Puranas. No idea emerges from a vacuum. Different ideas amplify from time to time. Old ideas coexist with new ones. Contradictory ideas influence each other. Here the world has no beginning, no end, no value, no purpose. All meaning is created by humans, individually and collectively: the boundaries we establish and fight over.

Masculine and Feminine Approaches to History In most parts of the world, a new idea suppresses and wipes out the old idea, but in India, thanks to the abstract nature of Vedic ideas, new worldviews-be they native ones like Buddhism or Bhakti or foreign ones like Islam and Christianity-simply helped reaffirm the Vedic way in different ways. The same idea manifests as 4,000-year-old Vedic rituals, 2,000-year-old stories, 1,000-year-old temple art and architecture and 500-year-old devotional poetry.

This resilience of the Vedic way led to the Vedas being described in later texts, such as the Brahma-sutras, as being of non-human origin (a-paurusheya). This means Vedic ideas are not artificial: they are a reflection of nature (prakriti) as it is. It is common, however, to glamorize the Vedas by claiming them to be superhuman or supernatural.

Veda essentially refers to a set of hymns, melodies and rituals put together nearly 4,000 years ago that symbolically and metaphorically communicate knowledge (vidya)-observations of seers (rishis), people who saw what others did not, would not, could not see. The Upanishads speculated on these ideas while Buddhism and other monastic orders challenged the rituals inspired by these ideas. These inform The Gita. The ideas in The Gita were ill.u.s.trated and often elaborated in the Puranas, including the great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. These were simplified during the Bhakti period and communicated in regional languages. They were expressed in English from the eighteenth century onwards. That is why any study of The Gita has to take into consideration Vedic, Upanishadic, Buddhist, Puranic, Bhakti and Orientalist ideas.

Influence, Ill.u.s.tration and Elaboration.

Gitas and the Reframing of Hinduism.

Two thousand years ago, South Asia was torn between two extremes. On one side were kings who established great empires, such as those of the Nandas, Mauryas, Sungas, Kanvas, Satavahanas, Kushanas and Guptas, which heralded great prosperity but also involved great violence. On the other side were hermits (shramanas) such as the Jains, the Ajivikas and the Buddhists, who spoke of the household as the place of suffering and sought solace in the solitude offered by monasteries (viharas). More and more people, including kings, were choosing the hermit's way of life over marriage, family vocation and family responsibilities, causing great alarm. Chandragupta Maurya embraced Jainism. His grandson, Ashoka, embraced Buddhism.

For 2,000 years before this, society was dominated by Vedic lore. At the heart of the Veda was the ritual called yagna, which involved exchange, giving in order to get, thus establishing a relationship between the yajamana, who initiated the ritual and the other-family, friends, strangers, ancestors, G.o.ds, nature and cosmos. It was all about the household.

Tension Between Hermit and Householder There were hermits in these Vedic times too: the rishis, who were married but chose philosophical exploration over material ambitions; the sanyasis, who had chosen to renounce the household after completing all household duties; and the tapasvis, who chose to be celibate in the pursuit of occult powers (siddhi). The Vedas presented a world where there was no conflict between the householder's way and hermit's way, as in the legendary kingdom of Mithila ruled by Janaka.

Vedic ideas were transmitted via the hymns of the Rig Veda, melodies of the Sama Veda, rituals of the Yajur Veda and even the spells of the Atharva Veda. The idea of including the Atharva Veda in the list of Vedas is a much later phenomenon. Still later, the epic Mahabharata and even the Natya Shastra-that discusses art and aesthetics-came to be seen as the fifth Veda.

Vedic transmission is highly symbolic, with the onus of transmitting the ideas resting on priests (brahmanas, or Brahmins) and the onus of decoding them resting on the patron (yajamana). As the centuries pa.s.sed, as society grew in size and complexity, as economic and political realities shifted, as tribes and clans gave way to villages with multiple communities, which gave rise to kingdoms and later empires, the transmission began to fail. The transmitters of Vedic lore, the Brahmins, a.s.sumed the role of decoders. In other words, the librarian became the professor! Consequently, hymns and rituals stopped being seen as symbolic puzzles that when deciphered unravelled the mysteries of the world. Instead, they became magical tools to attract fortune and ward off misfortune.

This trend towards materialism over self-enquiry may have contributed to the rise of the shramanas, who were known for their disdain of Brahmins and Brahmanic rituals. The need for reframing Vedic ideas was felt even within the Vedic fold.

The reframing of Hinduism happened rather organically over a period of another 1,000 years. No authority spearheaded it. Sages began communicating Vedic ideas choosing stories as their vehicle, instead of rituals and hymns. The stories were based on traditional accounts of events, both experienced and imagined. These were 'open source' narratives, with plots and counter-plots gradually turning into pieces of a complex jigsaw. Everyone worked anonymously and attributed their work to one Vyasa, who was the son of a fisherwoman. He was also credited with reorganizing the lost Vedas. The word 'vyasa' means compiler: compiler of Vedic knowledge, as well as compiler of Puranic stories.

Transmission of the Veda.

The narratives by 'Vyasa' were called the Puranas, or chronicles, which included the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata that spoke of family quarrels over property. They were also called Itihasa. Itihasa, taken literally, means stories from the past. Itihasa, taken symbolically, means stories that will always be true: past, present or future. They reiterated the concept of 'iti', which means 'as things are'-accepting the reality of s.e.x and violence, desires and conflicts in relationships, household and life.

Those who affirmed iti were the astikas. Those who denied iti were the nastikas. Later, as Hinduism turned more theistic, iti denoted faith in G.o.d, and so astikas and nastikas would come to mean believers and non-believers.

Unlike monastic orders of Buddhism, which spoke of withdrawal and renunciation, these narratives spoke of liberation despite engaging with society and upholding responsibilities. Household quarrels and property disputes were always resolved using Vedic wisdom presented in the form of conversations. Often, the conversations were turned into Gitas, made lyrical using the a.n.u.shtup metre, where each verse has four sentences and each sentence has eight syllables.

The Mahabharata itself has many Gitas, besides the butcher's song and G.o.d's song. In the Shanti Parva, Book 12 of the Mahabharata, Bhisma reveals nine Gitas to the Pandavas: the prost.i.tute's song (Pingala Gita), the priest's song (Sampaka Gita), the farmer's song (Manki Gita), the ascetic's song (Bodhya Gita), the king's song (Vichaknu Gita), the retired man's song (Harita Gita), the demon's song (Vritra Gita), the philosopher's song (Parasara Gita) and the swan's song (Hansa Gita). Outside the Mahabharata, there are the Ashtavakra Gita, Vasishtha Gita, Ram Gita, Shiva Gita, Devi Gita, Ganesha Gita and many more.

Locating The Gita in a Sea of Scriptures The Bhagavad Gita, of course, remains the most widely read of the Gitas. It is the counsel of a chariot-driver called Krishna to the chariot-rider and archer, Arjuna, just before the start of a war at Kuru-kshetra between the five Pandava brothers and their hundred Kaurava cousins. It is so popular that today, when we say Gita, we mean the Bhagavad Gita.

In its final form, the Bhagavad Gita had 700 verses, split into 18 chapters, of which 574 are spoken by Krishna, 84 by Arjuna, 41 by Sanjaya and 1 by Dhritarashtra. There are suggestions that the Bhagavad Gita originally had 745 verses. It is a conversation, though it does seem like a discourse, which takes place over ninety minutes while fully armed soldiers on either side wait impatiently to do battle. Whether this event is a time-bound physical objective truth (history) or a timeless psychological subjective truth (mythology) remains a matter of opinion.

Commentaries, Retellings, Translations Interpretations of The Gita started appearing nearly five centuries after its final composition. The reason for this gap remains a mystery. The Vedic idea was widely prevalent, but no special attention was given to this particular conversation in the Mahabharata between Krishna and Arjuna.

Commentaries on The Gita start appearing from approximately the time Islam entered India. One of the world's oldest mosques was built on the Malabar coast in the seventh century, and Adi Shankara, who wrote the first elaborate commentary on The Gita and made it an important scripture for Vedanta, was also born in the Malabar coast region in the eighth century. A relationship cannot be denied. Whether this was pure coincidence or the cause for the resurgence of The Gita remains a matter of speculation, mired in contemporary politics.

With Islam, India was exposed to Abrahamic mythology: the idea of one formless G.o.d, one holy book, one set of rules and one way of thinking that included a violent rejection of hierarchy as well as idolatry. Christian and Jewish traders had introduced many of these ideas before, but nothing on the Islamic scale. As many Muslims settled in India, as many kingdoms came to be ruled by Muslims, as many Indian communities converted to Islam, they were bound to influence Hindu thought. However, the extent of Islamic influence provokes fierce debate.

The Gita readings took place in five waves spread over 1,200 years.

The first wave involved Sanskrit 'commentaries' (bhasyas) by Vedanta scholars, the most celebrated of whom were Adi Shankara from Kerala in the eighth century followed by Ramanuja from Tamil Nadu in the eleventh century and Madhva Acharya from Karnataka in the thirteenth century. They were concerned about the nature of G.o.d, and the relationship of divinity and humanity. Was G.o.d within or without? Was G.o.d embodied (sa-guna) or formless (nir-guna)? Their language was highly intellectual. What is significant is that all three commentators were celibate monks, who either did not marry or gave up marriage and established Hindu monastic orders (mathas), suggesting very clearly that Hinduism, once champion of the householder's way, had ended up mimicking the hermit's way of Buddhism it had previously always mocked. It contributed to the gradual separation of the more intellectual Vedanta from the more sensory Tantra, with the former becoming more mainstream and the latter being seen more as the occult.

The second wave involved 'retellings' in regional languages, the earliest of which was in Marathi by Gyaneshwara (thirteenth century), followed by the works of Niranam Madhava Panikkar in Malayalam (fourteenth century), Peda Tirumalacharya in Telugu (fifteenth century), Balarama Das in Odiya (fifteenth century), Govind Mishra in a.s.samese (sixteenth century), Dasopant Digambara and Tukaram in Marathi (seventeenth century) and many more. The tone in these regional works was extremely emotional, with the poets speaking of G.o.d in extremely personal and affectionate terms. Gyaneshwara even refers to Krishna as 'mother', and visualizes him as a cow that comforts the frightened calf, Arjuna, with the milk that is The Gita. It is through works such as these, usually presented as songs, that the wisdom of The Gita reached the ma.s.ses. It is in this phase that the Bhagavad Purana, or simply Bhagavata, which describes the earlier life of Krishna as a cowherd, became the dominant text of Hinduism. It is also during this phase that The Gita started being personified as a G.o.ddess, and hymns were composed to meditate on her (Gita Dhyana) and celebrate her glory (Gita Mahatmya). Gita Jayanti, the eleventh day of the waxing moon in the month of Margashisha (December), was identified as the day when Krishna revealed this wisdom to Arjuna, and the world.

Gyaneshwara.

The third wave involved 'translations' by Europeans- eighteenth-century European Orientalists such as Charles Wilkins, who was sponsored by the East India Company, and nineteenth-century poets such as Edwin Arnold, who also introduced the Buddha and many things Eastern to Europe. They sought an objective, hence correct, reading of The Gita, implicitly introducing the suggestion that commentaries and retellings and poetic renditions were mere interpretations-subjective, contaminated by artistic liberty, hence inferior. The translators were Christian and, like Muslims, immersed in Abrahamic monotheistic mythology, who saw G.o.d as the primary source of knowledge and humans as sinners who needed to follow the way of G.o.d. Naturally, they saw The Gita's G.o.d as judge, even though such a concept was alien to Hinduism. The Gita naturally became a directive from G.o.d, a Hindu Bible! These translations, and the meanings given by Orientalists to Sanskrit words, with a.s.sumptions rooted in Abrahamic mythology, continue to be subscribed to and have a profound impact on the understanding of The Gita in modern times.

The fourth wave involved 're-translations' by Indian nationalists. The Indian National Movement gained momentum in the early part of the twentieth century, and there was an increased urgency to bind the diverse peoples of the Indian subcontinent into a single narrative. The Gita seemed like a good book to do so. But different leaders saw it differently. Sri Aurobindo found in The Gita mystical ideas of an ancient civilization, while B.R. Ambedkar pointed out that The Gita seemed to justify the draconian caste system. Bal Gangadhar Tilak found the rationale for righteous violence in it, while Mahatma Gandhi found inspiration for the path of non-violence. This was the period that the world was introduced to the words of the Buddha that were compared with the words of Krishna. Eventually, Arjuna's dilemma was radically re-articulated: it became less about 'how can I kill family?' and more about 'how can I kill?'

The fifth wave involved 're-framing' following the end of the two World Wars that replaced colonial empires with republics and democratic nation states. The world, traumatized by violence, was confused as to how to interpret The Gita. J. Robert Oppenheimer infamously equated the nuclear bomb with Krishna's cosmic form. Aldous Huxley saw The Gita as part of the perennial philosophy that bound all humanity. It became the definitive holy book of the Hindus that spoke of peace. Spiritual gurus started projecting The Gita as a directive from G.o.d with a well-defined goal of liberation (moksha) and turned Hinduism into a 'religion'. Management gurus used The Gita to explain leadership, ethics, governance and the art of winning. By the 1980s, before the Internet explosion, there were an estimated 3,000 translations of The Gita in almost fifty languages, and nearly a thousand in English.

Some American academicians, in recent times, have challenged the notion that The Gita has anything to do with peace. They tend to project Hinduism as the outcome of an oppressive violent force called Brahminism that sought to wipe out Buddhist pacifism and propagate a hierarchical system that promoted patriarchy and untouchability. The Gita then becomes a complex justification of violence. Any attempt to challenge this view is dismissed as religious fundamentalism or Hindu nationalism. Such a nave, or perhaps deliberate, force-fitting of Hinduism into the conflict-based masculine historical template, long favoured in the West, is increasingly being condemned as Hindu-phobia, especially by the Hindu diaspora. Increasingly, historians are drawing attention to the deep prejudice and cultural context of many South Asian scholars, as well as nationalists, that influence the way they make sense of facts.

To eyes that can see, each of these waves is a response to a historical context, be it the amplification of Hindu theism in the Buddhist and Islamic periods or the transformation of India into a British colony or the rise of the national movement or the end of empires, the rise of secular democracies with atheistic ideologies or an increasingly digitized global village having an ident.i.ty crisis, where everyone seems to be tired of violence but no one seems to be able to give it up.

You and I live in unique times. We have access to the history of The Gita, its creation and its transformation over time. We have a better understanding of geography, of history, of different mythologies and philosophies from around the world, with which we can compare and contrast ideas of The Gita. We have access to research on animal, human and developmental psychology. We are also aware that any study of The Gita eventually becomes a study of how humans see the world, how Indians saw the world, how the West wants to see India, how India wants to see India and how we want to see The Gita.

Rather than seeking a singular authentic message, you and I must appreciate the plurality of ideas that have emerged over the centuries and seek out what binds them, and what separates them. In the various translations, commentaries and retellings, we do find a common tendency to appreciate the relationship between the self (Arjuna) and the other; those who stand on our side (Pandavas); those who stand on the other (Kauravas); the one who stands on everybody's side (Krishna); and of course, property (Kuru-kshetra). Our relationship with the other, be it a thing or an organism, and the other's relationship with us, is what determines our humanity. And this is a timeless (sanatana) truth (satya), a discovery of our ancestors, which we will explore in My Gita.

My Gita.

Vishwa-rupa.

In the following chapters, you and I will explore eighteen themes of The Gita. We will continuously journey between the outer world of relationships and the inner world of thoughts and emotions. We will begin by appreciating how we look at the world and ourselves (darshan). Then we will understand the architecture of the world we inhabit, composed of the tangible and the intangible, both within and around us (atma, deha, dehi, karma). After that, we will see how humans can socially connect (dharma, yagna, yoga). Then we will appreciate the idea of G.o.d (deva, bhagavan, brahmana, avatara), located in all of us, that helps us cope with our fears that disconnect us from society. Lack of faith in the divine within makes us seek solace outside, in property (kshetra, maya). Because of this, a tug-of-war ensues between the inside and the outside. As long as we cling (moha), we are trapped. As soon as we let go, we are liberated (moksha). We become independent and content in our own company (atma-rati) yet generous and dependable for the other (brahma-nirvana).

The sequence of themes in My Gita is slightly different from the sequence of themes in The Gita as some concepts have been elaborated to facilitate understanding.

The Architecture of My Gita.