This author, then, formed the idea of combining the loftiest philosophy of his country with the worship of Krishna. He would intertwine the speculative thought that satisfied the intellect with the fervid devotion which even the uncultured felt for a god who was believed to have walked the earth. Philosophy would thus come nearer religion, while religion would be placed on far surer intellectual ground. His tastes led him to connect his work with the romantic poems of the day; his genius suggested the situation, a dialogue between a noble knight and the incarnate divinity; his catholicity taught him to interweave the Sānkhya with the Yoga and both with the Vedānta; and as we have seen, his penetrative imagination was equal to the creation of the subjective consciousness of a god-man.
We can now answer the question which stands at the head of this chapter, What is the Bhagavadgītā? It consists of two distinct elements, one old, one original. The philosophy is old; for it is only a very imperfect combination[[92]] of what is taught in earlier books. The original element is the teaching put into Krishna’s mouth about his own person and the relation in which he stands to his own worshippers and to others. Of this part of the teaching of the Gītā we here give a brief analysis:—
Krishna is first of all the source of the visible world. All comes from him,[[93]] all rests in him.[[94]] At the end of a Kalpa everything returns to him,[[95]] and is again reproduced.[[96]] He pervades all things;[[97]] and again, in another sense, he is all that is best and most beautiful in nature and in man.[[98]] But while Krishna is thus the supreme power in the universe,[[99]] he is altogether without personal interest in the activity therein displayed:[[100]] he sits unconcerned,[[101]] always engaged in action,[[102]] yet controlling his own nature,[[103]] and therefore never becoming bound by the results of his action.[[104]] This conception of the Supreme, as at once the centre of all activity and yet completely detached, enables the author, on the one hand, to soften the seemingly hopeless contradiction involved in identifying the king, warrior and demon-slayer, Krishna, with the passionless, characterless Atman[[105]] of the Upanishads, and, on the other to hold up Krishna as the supreme example of Action Yoga.
We now turn to Krishna’s relation to his worshippers. Knowledge is good;[[106]] mental concentration is better;[[107]] disinterested action is better than either;[[108]] but the supreme wisdom is faith in Krishna and boundless devotion to him.[[109]] Such is the teaching of the Gītā. The worst epithets are kept for those who fail to recognise him as the Supreme, who disregard him, carp at him, hate him.[[110]] To those who resort to Krishna,[[111]] who place faith in him,[[112]] who shower on him their love, devotion and worship,[[113]] who rest on him,[[114]] think of him[[115]] and remember him[[116]] at all times,—to them are promised forgiveness,[[117]] release from the bonds of action,[[118]] attainment of tranquillity,[[119]] true knowledge[[120]] and final bliss[[121]] in Krishna.[[122]]
Since all the gods come from Krishna,[[123]] and since he is in the last resort the sole reality,[[124]] worship offered to other gods is in a sense offered to him.[[125]] He accepts it and rewards it.[[126]] This is in accordance with his indifference to men: to him no one is hateful, no one dear.[[127]] Yet the highest blessings fall only to those who recognize him directly.[[128]]
Clearly our author formed his conception of the man-god with great skill, and fitted it into his general scheme with all the care and precision he was capable of. On this elaboration of the self-consciousness of Krishna he concentrated all his intellectual and imaginative powers. And with what unequalled success! Could any greater compliment be paid an author than to have sixty generations of cultured readers take the creation of his mind for a transcript from history?
The masses of evidence we have marshalled to prove that Krishna never claimed to be God, may be briefly summarised as follows:—
1. The situation in which the Gītā is said to have been uttered at once strikes the historical student as suspicious: one can scarcely believe that there was ever a battle in which such a thing could have taken place; and, on the other hand, it makes such an excellent background to the theory of Action Yoga, that one cannot help believing that it was invented for the very purpose. Further investigation leads to the following results:—
2. The characteristic religious and philosophical ideas of the Gītā are not found in any books produced immediately after the age of Kurukshetra. If we start with the teaching of that age, we have to trace the stages of a long and clearly-marked development before we reach the ideas of the Gītā.