S[=a]nkhya here means the philosophy of religion; Yoga is the philosophical state of mind, serene indifference, religious sang-froid the practical result of a belief in the S[=a]nkhya doctrine of the indestructibility of the spirit. In the following there is Vedantic teaching, as well as Sankhyan in the stricter sense.
On the warrior's asking for an explanation of this state of equipoise, the Deity gives illustrations of the balanced mind that is free from all attachments, serene, emancipated from desires, self-controlled, and perfectly tranquil. As the knight is astonished and confused at the contradiction, action and inactivity both being urged upon him, the Deity replies that there is a twofold law, that of S[=a]nkhyas consisting in knowledge-devotion, and that of Yogis in action-devotion. Idleness is not freedom from action. Freedom from attachment must be united with the accomplishment of such acts as should be performed. The deluded think that they themselves perform acts, but acts are not done by the spirit (self); they are done only by nature's qualities (this is S[=a]nkhya doctrine). "One should know the relation between the individual and Supreme Spirit, and with tranquil mind perform good acts. Let the deluded ones be, who are erroneously attached to action. The wise man should not cause those of imperfect knowledge to be unsettled in their faith, but he should himself not be attached to action. Each man should perform his own (caste) duties. One's own duty ill done is better than doing well another man's work."
The knight now asks what causes one to sin. The Deity answers: "Love and hate; for from love is born hate; and from anger, ignorance in regard to right and wrong; whence comes lack of reason, and consequently destruction. The knowledge of a man is enwrapped with desire as is fire with smoke. Great are the senses; greater, the mind; greater still, the understanding; greatest of all is 'That'" (brahma; as above in the Ch[=a]ndogya). The Deity begins again:[5] "This system of devotion I declared to Vivasvant (the sun); Vivasvant declared it to Manu, and Manu to kingly seers." (The same origin is claimed for itself in Manu's lawbook.) The knight objects, not yet knowing that Krishna is the All-god: "How did'st thou declare it first? thy birth is later than the sun's." To whom the Deity: "Many are my births, and I know them all; many too are thine, but thou knowest them not; unborn and Lord of all creatures I assume phenomena, and am born by the illusion of the spirit. Whenever there is lack of righteousness, and wrong arises, then I emit (create) myself.[6] I am born age after age for the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked, and for the sake of establishing righteousness. Whoso really believes in this my divine birth and work, he, when he has abandoned his body, enters no second birth, but enters Me. Many there are who, from Me arising, on Me relying, purified by the penance of knowledge, with all affections, fear, and anger gone, enter into my being. As they approach Me so I serve them.[7] Men in all ways follow after my path. Some desire the success that is of action, and worship gods; for success that is born of action is speedy in the world of men. Know Me as the maker of the four castes, know Me as the unending one and not the maker. Action stains Me not, for in the fruit of action I have no desire. He that thus knows Me is not bound by acts.[8] So he that has no attachment is not bound by acts. His acts become naught. Brahma is the oblation, and with brahma is it offered; brahma is in the fire, and by brahma is the oblation made. Sacrifices are of many kinds, but he that sacrifices with knowledge offers the best sacrifice. He that has faith has knowledge; he that has knowledge obtains peace. He that has no knowledge and no faith, whose soul is one of doubt, is destroyed. Action does not destroy him that has renounced action by means of indifference. Of the two, renunciation of action and indifference, though both give bliss, indifference in action is better than renunciation of action. Children, not Pundits, proclaim S[=a]nkhya and Yoga to be distinct. He that is devoted to either alone finds the reward of both. Renunciation without Yoga is a thing hard to get; united with Yoga the seer enters brahma. … He is the renouncer and the devotee who does the acts that ought to be done without relying on the reward of action, not he that performs no acts and builds no sacrificial fires. Through his self (spirit) let one raise one's self. Conquer self by self (spirit). He is the best man who is indifferent to external things, who with equal mind sees (his spirit) self in everything and everything in self (God as the Spirit). Such an one obtains the highest bliss, brahma. Whoso sees Me in all and all in Me I am not destroyed for him, and he is not destroyed for Me."
The knight now asks how it fares with a good man who is not equal to the discipline of Yoga, and cannot free himself entirely from attachment. Does he go to destruction like a cloud that is rent, failing on the path that leads to brahma? The Deity replies: "Neither in this world nor in the beyond is he destroyed. He that acts virtuously does not enter an evil state. He obtains the heaven that belongs to the doers of good, and after living there countless summers is reborn on earth in the family of pure and renowned men, or of pious devotees. There he receives the knowledge he had in a former body, and then strives further for perfection. After many births he reaches perfection and the highest course (union with brahma). There are but few that strive for perfection, and of them only one here and there truly knows Me. Earth, water, fire, air, space, mind, understanding, and egoism (self-consciousness)—so is my nature divided into eight parts.[9] But learn now my higher nature, for this is my lower one. My higher nature is alive, and by it this world is supported. I am the creator and destroyer of all the world. Higher than I is nothing. On Me the universe is woven like pearls upon a thread. Taste am I, light am I of moon and sun, the mystic syllable [=O]m ([)a][)u]m), sound in space, manliness in men; I am smell and radiance; I am life and heat. Know Me as the eternal seed of all beings. I am the understanding of them that have understanding, the radiance of the radiant ones. Of the strong I am the force, devoid of love and passion; and I am love, not opposed to virtue. Know all beings to be from Me alone, whether they have the quality of goodness, of passion, or of darkness (the three 'qualities' or conditions of all things). I am not in them; but they are in Me. Me, the inexhaustible, beyond them, the world knows not, for it is confused by these three qualities (conditions); and hard to overcome is the divine illusion which envelops Me, while it arises from the qualities. Only they pass through this illusion who come to Me alone. Wicked men, whose knowledge is taken away by illusion, relying on a devilish (demoniac) condition, do not come to Me. They that have not the highest knowledge worship various divinities; but whatever be the form that any one worships with faith I make his faith steady. He obtains his desires in worshipping that divinity, although they are really bestowed upon him by Me.[10] But the fruit of these men, in that they have little wisdom, has its end. He that sacrifices to (lesser) gods goes to those gods; but they that worship Me come to Me. I know the things that were, that are, and are to be; but Me no one knoweth, for I am enveloped in illusion. I am the supreme being, the supreme godhead, the supreme sacrifice, the Supreme Spirit, brahma."
The knight asks "What is brahma, the Supreme Spirit, the supreme being, the supreme sacrifice?" The Deity: "The supreme, the indestructible, is called brahma. Its personal existence is Supreme Spirit (self). Destructible existence is supreme being (all except [=a]tm[=a]). The Person is the supreme godhead. I myself am the supreme sacrifice in this body."
Then follow statements like those in the Upanishads and in Manu, describing a day of brahma as a thousand ages; worlds are renewed; they that go to the gods find an end of their happiness with the end of their world; but they that go to the indestructible brahma, the Deity, the entity that is not destroyed when all else is destroyed, never again return. There are two roads (as in the Upanishads above), one, the northern road leading to brahma; one, the southern road to the moon, leading back to earth. At the end of a period of time all beings reënter the divine nature (Prakriti[11]), and at the beginning of the next period the Deity emits them again and again (they being without volition) by the volition of his nature. "Through Me, who am the superintendent, nature gives birth to all things, and for that cause the world turns about. They of demoniac nature recognize me not; they of god-like nature, knowing Me as the inexhaustible source, worship Me. I am the universal Father, the Vedas, the goal, the upholder, the Lord, the superintendent, the home, the asylum, the friend. I am the inexhaustible seed. I am immortality and death. I am being and not-being. I am the sacrifice and he that offers it. Even they that, with faith, sacrifice to other gods, even they (really) sacrifice to Me. To them that ever are devout and worship Me with love (faith), I give the attainment of the knowledge by which they come to Me" (again the doctrine of special grace). "I am the beginning, the middle, and the end of all created things. I am Vishnu among sun-gods; the moon among the stars; Indra among the (Vedic) gods; the S[=a]man among the Vedas; among the senses, mind; among created beings, consciousness; among the Rudras I am Çiva (Çankara); among army-leaders I am Skanda; among the great sages I am Bhrigu (who reveals Manu's code); among the Siddhas[12] I am Kapila the Muni…. I am the love that begets; I am the chief (V[=a]suki and Ananta) among the serpents; and among them that live in water I am Varuna; among the Manes I am Aryaman; and I am Yama among controllers;[13] among demons I am Prahl[=a]da …; I am R[=a]ma; I am the Ganges. I am among all sciences the highest science (that in regard to the Supreme Spirit); I am the word of the speakers; I am the letter A among the letters, and the compound of union among the compounds.[14] I am indestructible time and I am the Creator. I am the death that seizes all and I am the origin of things to be. I am glory, fortune, speech, memory, wisdom, constancy, and mercy…. I am the punishment of the punisher and the polity of them that would win victory. I am silence. I am knowledge. There is no end of my divine manifestations."
The knight now asks to see the real form of the deity, which was revealed to him. "If in heaven the glory of a thousand suns should appear at once, such would be his glory."
After this comes the real animus of the Divine Song in its present shape. The believer that has faith in this Vishnu is even better than the devotee who finds brahma by knowledge.
The philosophy of knowledge (which here is anything but Vedantic) is now communicated to the knight, in the course of which the distinction between nature and spirit is explained: "Nature, Prakriti, and spirit, Purusha (person), are both without beginning. All changes and qualities spring from nature. Nature is said to be the cause of the body's and the senses' activity. Spirit is the cause of enjoyment (appreciation) of pleasure and pain; for the Spirit, standing in nature, appreciates the nature-born qualities. The cause of the Spirit's re-birth is its connection with the qualities, (This is S[=a]nkhya doctrine, and the same with that propounded above in regard to activity.) The Supreme Spirit is the Support and great Lord of all, the [=a]tm[=a], while brahma (=prakriti) is the womb in which I place My seed, and from that is the origin of all things. The great brahma is the womb, and I am the seed-giving father of all the forms which come into being. The three 'qualities' (conditions, attributes), goodness, passion, and darkness, are born of nature and bind the inexhaustible incorporate (Spirit) in the body. The quality (or attribute) of goodness binds the soul with pleasure and knowledge; that of passion (activity), with desire and action; that of darkness (dulness), with ignorance. One that has the attribute of goodness chiefly goes after death to the highest heaven; one that has chiefly passion is born again among men of action; one that has chiefly darkness is born among the ignorant. One that sees that these attributes are the only agents, one that knows what is higher than the attributes, enters into my being. The incorporate spirit that has passed above the three attributes (the origin of bodies), being released from birth, death, age, and pain, obtains immortality. To pass above these attributes one must become indifferent to all change, be undisturbed by anything, and worship Me with devotion…. I am to be learned from all the Vedas; I made the Ved[=a]nta; I alone know the Vedas. There are two persons in the world, one destructible and one indestructible; the destructible one is all created things; the indestructible one is called the Unchanging one. But there is still a third highest person, called the Supreme Spirit, who, pervading the three worlds, supports them, the inexhaustible Lord. Inasmuch as I surpass the destructible and am higher than the indestructible, therefore am I known in the world and in the Veda as the Highest Person."
The references to the S[=a]nkhyas, or S[=a]nkhya-Yogas, are not yet exhausted. There is another in a following chapter (vi. 18. 13) which some scholiasts say refers to the Ved[=a]nta-system, though this is in direct contradiction to the text. But the extracts already given suffice to show how vague and uncertain are, on the whole, the philosophical views on which depends the Divine Song. Until the end of these citations one hears only of nature and spirit, the two that have no beginning, but here one finds the Supreme Spirit, which is as distinct from the indestructible one as from the destructible. Moreover, 'nature' is in one place represented as from the beginning distinct from spirit and entirely apart from it, and in another it is only a transient phase. The delusion (illusion) which in one passage is all that exists apart from the Supreme Spirit is itself given up in favor of the S[=a]nkhya Prakriti, with which one must imagine it to be identified, although from the text itself it cannot be identical. In a word, exactly as in Manu, there are different philosophical conceptions, united without any logical basis for their union. The 'system' is in general that of the S[=a]nkhya-Yogas, but there is much which is purely Ved[=a]nta. The S[=a]nkhya system is taught elsewhere as a means of salvation, perhaps always as the deistic Yoga (i. 75. 7: "He taught them the Sankhya-knowledge as salvation"). It is further noticeable that although Krishna (Vishnu) is the ostensible speaker, there is scarcely anything to indicate that the poem was originally composed even for Vishnu. The Divine Song was probably, as we have said, a late Upanishad, which afterwards was expanded and put into Vishnu's mouth. The S[=a]nkhya portions have been redressed as far as possible and to the illusion doctrine is given the chief place. But the Song remains, like the Upanishads themselves, and like Manu, an ill-assorted cabinet of primitive philosophical opinions. On the religious side it is a matter of comparative indifference whether that which is not the spirit is a delusive output of the spirit or indestructible matter. In either case the Spirit is the goal of the spirit. In this personal pantheism absorption is taught but not death. Immortality is still the reward that is offered to the believer that is wise, to the wise that believes. Knowledge and faith are the means of obtaining this immortality; but, whereas in the older Upanishads only wisdom is necessary (wisdom that implies morality), here as much stress, if not more, is laid upon faith, the natural mark of all sectarian pantheism.