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the hindu gita Traditional commentators (VEDANTA )

the hindu gita Traditional commentators (VEDANTA ). The English gita. TRADITIONAL COMMENTATORS.

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the hindu gita Traditional commentators (VEDANTA )

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  1. the hindugita Traditional commentators (VEDANTA ) The English gita

  2. TRADITIONAL COMMENTATORS Van Buitenen: traditional commentator is not like a modern scholar, who studies the text from the historical point and reconstructs the literary context resulting into a particular interpretation of the text. The Indian interpreter looks from the point of view of values • It is not known for sure weather there were commentators before Sanakra. • Pre Shankara Commentators (jnana-kriya- samuccayavadins) one cannot relay absolutely on karma, nor on jnana for the attainment of salvation, a blending of both. A compromise between the Vedantists and Mimamsakas.

  3. Contradictions at interpretative level 1. advaita/ jnana 2. vishistadvaita/ bhakti 3. dvaita/ bhakti 4. Kashmir Shaivism /advaita 5. Suddhadvaita/bhakti 6. Marathi /advaita 7. jnana/advaita 8. karma yoga/ jnana /advaita 9. karma yoga/advaita 10.karma yoga/bhakti/advaita 11.karma yoga/advaita 12.bhakti 13.bhakti yoga 1.Shankaracharya(8thC) 2.Ramanujacharya(11th C) 3.Madhvacharya(13th C) 4. AbhinavaGupta (11CE) 5. Vallabhacharya(15th C) 6. Jnanesvara(13th C CE) 7. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa(19th C) 8. Vivekananda (19thC) 9.Tilak(19thC) 10.Aurobindo Ghosh (19thC) 11. M.G.Gandhi(20th C) 12.Bhaktivinode Thakur (19th C) 13.A.C.Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada(20thC)

  4. SankaraAcarya(788-820) • One has to be freed from avidya through the realization of its unity and identity with the Self

  5. the main purpose of the BG: jnanayoga&karmasannyasa (giving up of action). • Arjunais not a jnaniBG advocates karmayoga • 4.33, “All karma in its entirety culminates in knowledge”. • “Even if you be the most sinful of all sinners, yet shall you cross over all sin by the raft of knowledge” 4. 36 • Salvation is to be attained only through jnana recognizes the interchangeability of sannyasa and tyaga, but differentiates 2 types of sannyasa – the real one means to renounce all the activities, because both nityanadnaimitika karma produce their own fruits

  6. did he use it as a vehicle to propagate his preconceived ideas? Did Sankara use the BG as a building block for his system (like he used the Upanishads)? • Plott: the BG is not a gnostic text, as the Advaita school tries to make it. The concept of detachment does give good ground for this modern trend, and perhaps a healthy one, but it must be emphatically admitted that without the under grinding of bhakti, this detachment cannot be. The culmination of the whole classic in the famous saranaslokawherein saranagati is so pointedly enjoyed, would be strange indeed if either jnana or karma were the basic theme. Callewaert, Hemraj (1983) 91.

  7. RAMANUJA (1017-1137) Buitenen: Ramanuja reconciles monism with the living God of devotion and shows a new and supreme way to attain release, the way of exclusive devotion to a merciful personal God. Emphasized 18.62: ‘Seek refuge in Him alone, with all your heart. By his grace you will gain Supreme Peace and the Eternal Abode”.

  8. BG. 13.12 MATPARAM SHANKARA RAMANUJA Anadimatparam – Brahman is beginningless some split the expression ' anadimatparam ' into ‘anadimatparam ' , and explain it differently; thus: Brahman is beginningless, and l am Its Para-shakti, the Supreme Energy called Vasudeva. It is a self-contradiction to speak of Brahman as possessed of a particular kind of energy and at the same time as devoid of all specific attributes. Matpara - having Me as Superior. Verily, it has been said earlier: ‘Know that My Superior Nature is different. It is the life principle [Jīvabhuta], by which this universe is sustained.’ (7.5). By virtue of being pervaded by the Lord, the individual • Self naturally finds joy in being completely dependant upon Him. (See Br.Up. Madh., 5.7.22, Sve. Up., 6.9 & 16

  9. MADHVA (1199-1278) • Wrote a double commentary: • Gita Bhasya • Gita- tatparya –nirnaya, a prose commentary stresses the importance of nishkama-karma yoga, simultaneously recommending the pure aparokshajnana – direct vision of God. 18. 20. The instinct by which That One (Sri Vishnu) is seen in all creatures as the distinct, undivided (source of Energy), that Wisdom, know to be saatvik, luminous Even though manifesting in all forms in similar manner, yet separate according to the gradation in and between each Jiva. Those which are seen as Gross, distinct from the Jivas and distinct in and between the Jivas themselves, they are all distinct from Sri Vishnu, which knowledge is their distinctive characteristics. Sharma: for no reason Madhva translates ekambhavam as Vishnum

  10. the Athenian poet seems perfectly in the right, when he represents Europe as a sovereign Princess, and Asia as her Handmaid: but, if the mistress be transcendentally majestic, it cannot be denied that the attendant has many beauties, and some advantages peculiar to herself….Although we must be conscious of our superior advancement in all kinds of usefulknowledge, yet we ought not therefore to condemn the people of Asia, from whose researches into nature, works of art, and inventions of fancy, many valuable hints may be derived for our own improvement and advantage. Sir William Jones 1746-1794

  11. Sir Charles Wilkins 1749-1836 • criticized for his dependence on vernacular scholars (pundits) • Wilkins’s translation was itself soon translated into other European languages (French in 1787, German in 1801) and thus became influential, although it was ‘full of distorting misunderstandings’, as Schlegel noted.

  12. Sir Charles Wilkins “…that the text is but imperfectly understood by the most learned Brahmanas of the present times, and that small as the work may appear, it has had more comments than the Revelations. These have not been totally disregarded, but, as they were frequently found more obscure than the original they were intended to elucidate, …it was thought better to leave many of the most difficult passages for the exercise of the reader’s own judgments than to mislead him by such wild opinions as no one syllable of the text could authorize.

  13. Sir Charles Wilkins The purpose of the Gita is to: ‘unite all the prevailing modes of worship of those days; and, by setting up the doctrines of the unity of the Godhead, in opposition to idolatrous sacrifices, and the worship of images, to undermine the tenets instilled by the Vedas.

  14. Warren Hastings Intro to Charles Wilkins Gita 1784 • ...I hesitate not to pronounce the Geeta a performance of great • originality; of a sublimity of conception, reasoning, and diction, almost unequalled; and a single exception, among all the known religions of mankind, of a theology accurately corresponding with that of the Christian dispensation, and most powerfully illustrating its fundamental doctrines. • (Letter to Chairman of East India Co.1784) …it lessens the weight of the chain by which the natives are held in subjection; and it imprints on the hearts of our own countrymen the sense and obligation of benevolence.

  15. I have no knowledge of either Sanskrit or Arabic. But I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanskrit works. I have conversed both here and at home with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. Thomas Babington Macaulay 1800-1859

  16. “Of all the systems of false religion ever fabricated by the perverse ingenuity of fallen man, Hinduism is surely the most stupendous.” Alexander Duff (1806-1878)Scottish Presbyterian

  17. Nothing less is demanded of us Englishmen, to whose charge the Almighty has committed the souls and bodies of two hundred and forty millions of His creatures, than that every man among us, whether clerical or lay, should strive to be a missionary according to the standard set up by the first great Missionary—Christ Himself. … but every tongue also of every native of India—from Cape Comorin to the Himalaya Mountains—shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Sir MonierMonier - Williams (1819-1899) Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University (1860-1899)

  18. Rev. R.D. Griffith, 19th cent. a member of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, a contributor to a volume on the BG Ambivalent about the BG, admired Krishna’s teaching on the soul (metaphysics) but belittled Krishna’s teachings on right living (ethics) Described Krishna as partial and inadequate version of His Christian counterpart – Christ. Reincarnation – contrary to the general principle of progress Appreciated yoga as a means of attaining the divine through improving the mind and restraining the flesh (mortification of the body – NT)

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