Keya Maitra - Philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita: A Contemporary Introduction

Philosophy of the
Bhagavad Gita

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM BLOOMSBURY

An Introduction to Indian Philosophy, by Christopher Bartley

Divine Self, Human Self, by Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad

Doing Philosophy Comparatively, by Tim Connolly

The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Aesthetics and

Philosophy of Art, edited by Arindam Chakrabarti

The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Ethics,

edited by Shyam Ranganathan

Understanding Asian Philosophy: Ethics in the Analects, Zhuangzi,

Dhammapada and the Bhagavad Gita, by Alexus McLeod

Philosophy of the
Bhagavad Gita

A Contemporary
Introduction

KEYA MAITRA

To the memory of my mother

Maya Moitra

The first person in my life to teach me about the

depth, grandeur, and the certainty of the Gita

Contents

A s this book goes into production I hope it will be helpful to inspiring students of the Gita. But I am also mindful of Krishnas counsel that one has claim over ones actions alone and never over the fruits of actions, and therefore, one must not live for the fruits of action. However, without the generous support of many friends, colleagues, and students, this fruit of my labor would have been substantially inferior. I have worked on this project for nearly ten years. This Acknowledgments would be too long if I tried to name all from whom this project has profited during this long interval. But any merit of this book would not be possible without the critical and insightful comments, suggestions, and encouragements of the following individuals: Heather Hardy for inspiring and challenging me to imagine what this project could be; Daniel Kolak for initially encouraging me to commence on this project; Simon Brodbeck for his extensive comments on an earlier draft that also helped me envision the Philosophers Corners; Stephen Phillips for his generous sharing of his extensive knowledge of the Gita and constant encouragement; Catherine Parker for her thoughtful, yet astute, comments on multiple previous drafts; Colleen Coalter, my editor at Bloomsbury, for her brilliant guidance; Elizabeth Schiltz, Laura Guerrero, Jeremy E. Henkel, Emily McRae, Kisor Kumar Chakrabarti, and Jay L. Garfield for their deep philosophical sensibility, and dedication to authenticity, clarity, and rigor; Kelly Sloan, Merritt Moseley, Jill Yarnall, Amy Hannon, and Katherine Zubko for their generosity with their time, and careful comments on various previous drafts. I also want to share my deep sense of gratitude to my current and former students: Carson Nickels, John Fate Faherty, Matthew Mcllhenny, and numerous students in my Asian Philosophy course over the years for their enthusiasm for this project and their specific help in the preparation of this translation. Finally, members of my family, especially Mohsin, whose love and sense of humor keep me grounded; my father and sisters who have been tremendous with their love and constant moral support; and my son Abir, whose very being continues to teach me an expansive sense of life. I dedicate this work to the memory of my mother who surely would have been the happiest to see this project coming to fruition.

Keya Maitra

Asheville, North Carolina

T aking my experience of teaching the Gita at two undergraduate institutions in the United States over the past decade into account, this book tries to attain the happy medium between readability and accuracy as well as provide a solid sense of the philosophical concepts on which the themes and ideas of the Gita stand. Different translators of the Gita into English have wavered between rendering the Sanskrit terms denoting main concepts into English and leaving them in Sanskrit. While the first approach provides easy accessibility, the latter approach tries to capture the internal and contextual complexity of many of these concepts. Further, as R. C. Zaehner writes, many of the keywords of the Gita are so ambivalent in meaning as to make such an accurate [single English] translation impossible without either misrepresenting the original or failing to bring out the multiplicity of meaning these keywords contain in any single instance (1969, 4). Since many of these concepts, for example, yoga, dharma, and guna, are used in the Gita with a range of meanings in different contexts, I have decided to follow the latter approach. Further, since a particular meaning in which such a term is used in a context is not always clear, I believe leaving the term in Sanskrit allows the reader to determine the meaning for herself using the Glossary that I have provided following the translation, which is intended to supplement the translation. Whenever a term is left in Sanskrit and is italicized in the translation, it denotes one such concept. I have also left some other terms in Sanskrit (e.g., Prakriti, Purusha) not because they necessarily denote a multitude of meanings, but because the common English words that are used as their translation (Nature in the case of Prakriti or Spirit in the case of Purusha, for example) fail to capture their meanings in the context of the Gita.

However, a major conceptual term that I have translated is karma partly due to its wide use in the popular culture of the West. One might even have seen the bumper sticker My Karma ran over your Dogma. However, from the perspective of Hinduism and the Gita, the idea of karma has very little to do with the idea of dogma. So to minimize misreading, I have rendered the term karma as action in the present translation. I have also followed the convention of translating every epithet used for Krishna and Arjuna. For each epithet, I provide the name of the person referred to by that epithet when it is used for the first time in a chapter. Subsequently, I allow each epithet to stand on its own when it is repeated in the same chapter. However, given that Arjuna only addresses Krishna in the course of the Gita, all of the epithets he uses address Krishna. Therefore, I decided not to specify Krishna as the bearer of those epithets in the text.

My aim in the following Introduction is to give an overview of the various contexts and philosophies of the Gita. Ultimately, I hope to show that the Gitas unique importance is underlined by its adaptation of disparate philosophical and religious themes of early South Asian religious thoughts into a cohesive, if not completely consistent, narrative. Let me also note here that in numerous classical translations of the Gita the translation is often accompanied by copious notes and commentaries. While they are invaluable for a Sanskritist, an Indologist, and a specialist in Indian philosophy, for most other readers they often present a halting access to the text. My hope is that by laying out the conceptual and philosophical groundworks in the Introduction, the translation will be able to stand on its own. Given my goal to enhance and facilitate Western readers philosophical engagement with the Gita, however, I have appended each chapter with what I have called a Philosophers Corner: Chapter Analysis and Questions for Consideration. There I draw attention to a few central issues with philosophical import that arise in the text, in addition to pointing out possible directions and questions for cross-cultural and comparative philosophical engagement.

Let it be granted, that according to the letter of the