[Throughout the month of December, enthusiastic celebrations in various modes and forms across India, as well as abroad, mark the occasion of ‘Gita Jayanti’ (which fell on the 3rd December, 2022 this year). The festival is observed annually to venerate the revelation of the Bhagavad-Gita by Sri Krishna to Arjuna in the Dwapara Yuga, as is widely held by several Indian traditions. The present article is a feeble and somewhat delayed attempt on our part to join in these celebrations of the sacred occasion.]
The Bhagavad-Gita is known as Gitopanishad in the Indian tradition – signalling that it is accorded the highest scriptural status enjoyed by the Upanishad or Shruti, and no less. Upanishads are meant for imparting Brahma-Vidya; in fact, the whole corpus of Hinduism’s foundational scriptures, the fourfold Vedas or the Shruti (whereof the Upanishads form a specialised segment), is directed to that ultimate purpose – which is the attunement of the human body, mind and being to Brahma-Vidya, the highest knowledge that a Man can and must attain in this life.
The only difference between the Upanishads and the rest of the Vedas is that the former treats the subject of Brahma-Vidya rather directly, while the latter takes a more measured, sometimes winding, approach to the selfsame goal. It is, as it were, the rest of the Vedas prepare the mountaineer by drilling into him basic requisite training to face the vicissitudes of the ensuing uphill spiritual trek, equipping the adventurer with the tools that he must carry in that treacherous movement upwards; while the Upanishads speak directly of the steps to be followed in order to make the final summit. Both are one, as far as their quality and purpose are concerned, and yet the two are distinguished by a matter of degrees – one cannot be fully understood without intimately knowing the other.
A conspicuous point of similarity between the Bhagavad-Gita and the other Upanishads is that they all make frequent – and often extensive – use of the literary device called dialogue, which is nothing but a stylised exchange of spoken words between two or more characters, stylised in order to add to it a touch of the dramatic; and more often than not, these Upanishadic dialogues turn out to be deeply engaging Q&A sessions, held typically between an awakened master and a disciple, the former being a first-hand knower of the ultimate knowledge of Brahma-Vidya and the latter an aspirant to the same.
As for the Bhagavad-Gita, it has made a veritable monument out of the dialogic form – one that involves questioning and answering at two separate levels. The first of these two levels features the Kuru king Dhritarashtra, who enquires his charioteer and trusted friend Sanjaya about what unfolds on the battlefield of Kurukshetra during the great war – one that changed the very course of the Indian civilisation – and of course, Sanjaya obliges his king, thanks to the supernormal tele-vision granted to him by Maharshi Veda-Vyasa, the chronicler of this itihāsa.
This preliminary level of dialogue between Dhritarashtra and Sanjaya provides the periphery, the bordering, the immediate context and the framework within which the other lengthier and profounder dialogue is couched. What Sanjaya the rapporteur beholds, hears, and reports back to his king, is then an elaborate dialogue, the second and the core level of this two-storeyed dialogical complex composed in verse – one that is held between two of the most important protagonists of the Mahabharata, namely, Sri Krishna and Arjuna. The former is, like Sanjaya, an expert charioteer, but is playing the role on an ad-hoc basis, only because the momentous occasion of the Kurukshetra war so demands, and that too because the service is especially asked of him by his most intimate and trusted friend, his cousin, Arjuna. At this second and indeed higher level of the dialogic complex known as the Bhagavad-Gita, the Krishna-Arjuna dialogue proceeds from the untimely and somewhat unexpected arising of a personal but exceedingly far-reaching moral crisis (kutastvā kaśhmalamidaṁ viṣhame samupasthitam), as much as from the successful resolution of that crisis through uncynical questioning, masterful responding to every question raised, doubting the premises of some of those answers, and through the patient clarification and dispelling of all such doubts. To sum it up, the Krishna-Arjuna dialogue epitomises – and highlights the inevitability of – a most intimate cooperation between human will and divine will, for the salvific redemption of Man.
This second and higher-order conversation between Sri Krishna and the third Pandava Arjuna consists of some existentially important questions raised, and penetratingly wise, practical answers provided thereto. One might as well ask: why adopt a dialogic Q&A format, and not something else, to reveal this Upanishadic wisdom? Is it to add a mere dramatic element to what would otherwise become a rather abstruse-sounding philosophical discussion, intimidating its prospective audience? No, not just that. Drama there certainly is, but there’s something more to this series of questions and answers and the various kinds of dialogues of the Upanishadic milieu than mere theatricality. And that something more is crucial to the very method of imparting and attaining knowledge in the Indian tradition.
This crucial element is known as Guru-upadesha in Sanskrit and several other Indic languages. Through their constant preoccupation with the dialogic form, the Upanishads, including the Gitopanishad, have always highlighted the essential ingredient of master-to-disciple direct transfer of knowledge – an element that is central and indispensable to the attainment of Brahma-Vidya, despite the presence and importance of multiple intermediaries in the form of sacred texts, dialectics, commentaries, and commentators. The Brahma-Vidya aspirant simply cannot attain his ultimate objective, unless and until he gets an opportunity to receive instructions on this very special type of knowledge directly from a master instructor, someone who has already made an unmediated acquaintance of the supreme ultimate indivisible reality. In various ways, the Upanishads try to impress upon us the essentiality of this aspect of Brahma-Vidya; time and again the Upanishads deliberately draw our attention to this absolutely vital requirement, and remember it throughout, as we attempt to progress in our individual paths to the Ultimate Goal. Of all the methods adopted by the Upanishadic texts to either directly or suggestively drive the point home, the texts have most frequently issued this reminder by constantly throwing up the almost ubiquitous dialogic form of Q&A, which has been so frequently and so extensively employed in the Upanishadic texts to present their contents.
Among the modern commentators on the Upanishads, it was Raja Ram Mohan Roy who first highlighted the essentiality of Guru-upadesha in attaining the final success in Brahma-Vidya. In his Bengali exposition of the Kenopanishad, published as early as the year 1816 CE, Raja points out in no uncertain terms that mere intellectual exercises like indulging in dialectics or discoursing in philosophical themes and issues at a learned assembly, cannot reveal the essence of Brahma-Vidya to the enquirer – what he requires, in addition to his own efforts, is Guru-upadesha, that is, instructions from a master who has attained perfection in Brahma-Vidya. The Raja urges his readers to take note of the fact that, in the text of the Kenopanishad, ‘Brahma-tattva’ or the exact core of Brahma-Vidya has been shown to be revealed only in the course of a dialogue held between a guru and a shishya, and that too in the form of an exchange of questions and answers. Having emphasised this point, Raja concludes that by adopting the dialogical Q&A structure, the Shruti (i.e., the Vedas – of which the Upanishads are, but advanced sections) has highlighted the essentiality of Guru-upadesha in the entire process or discipline of understanding and directly perceiving Brahma-tattva, the essence of the Absolute Principle.
The same observation, with regard to the dialogical Q&A structure of acquiring and disseminating transcendental knowledge, holds true in the case of the Bhagavad-Gita. Here we have an immortal dialogue between Arjuna and Sri Krishna at the core of the text, one that consists of multiple questions and elaborate answers to them; and even at the periphery of that central conversation, right at the start of this monumental multi-level dialogic complex, the blind king eagerly asks his human broadcaster a question, which goes: dharmakṣētrē kurukṣētrē samavētā yuyutsavaḥ
māmakāḥ pāṇḍavāścaiva kimakurvata sañjaya
Kimakurvata is the key phrase here – and it’s a question, put straightaway to the broadcaster with the blessed vision, eagerly enquiring: what did they, my children and those of Pandu, do, O Sanjaya? The very first utterance that occurs in the text of the Bhagavad-Gita, one through which the history of an epoch-making war as well as arguably the best commentary on the Vedanta becomes known to us, contains a question. That inaugural question sets the text of the Bhagavad-Gita in motion and gives rise to an occasion for the most dispassionate yet the most impactful divine intervention to take place in the narrative scheme of the epic itihāsa. The Bhagavad-Gita thus dignifies common human enquiry – even one prompted by as lowly an impulse as envy – by giving it an upward thrust, rendering it a touch of the divine finger that transforms the impure into the pure, the profane into the sacred, the temporal into the spiritual. The Gitopanishad turns that seemingly innocuous query of the blind king Dhritarashtra into a golden key that unlocks the secret casket hiding the ancient Brahma-Vidya taught by Bhagavan to the Sun-god in the days of yore. Through the extraordinary powers of Gita’s Sacred Word, intellect meets intuition, common sense meets supreme intelligence, man meets God. Recurring throughout the Gita, questions nudge the enquirer on; questions help peel off one layer after another to reveal the core of the coveted knowledge in all its splendour and depth before the enquirer’s eyes – finally enabling the sincere enquirer to intuitively apprehend the Absolute Principle and, consequently, absorb in his being and life the eternal ethic or path of dharma that ever springs from it.
This is of no small significance. When we start engaging with the Bhagavad-Gita, when we read the text or hear it being recited, we must never miss this conspicuous fact that the Gita begins with an interrogative sentence, with a question. And it is thanks to Dhritarashtra’s question, his inquisitiveness, his eagerness to know what would otherwise remain forever unknown to him, that a whole new Upanishad – an Upanishad of all Upanishads – is revealed to Sanjaya, and through him to the world at large. It is nothing but a question, a probing into the unknown and a willingness and courage to overcome it – and not a command or request or anything else – whereby the blind king expresses his eagerness to know the latest updates from a battlefield, where poised warriors from his clan ready themselves to pounce on each other. Through his question, the king is gratified to know not only the war updates that he so desired to know, but also an added bonus of the secret of secrets in all that Man can know. Therefore, we say blessed be the blind and insecure king Dhritarashtra! Yes, even to him are our gratitude and benedictions due; for all his shortcomings and narrowness and sufferings under the yoke of physical and metaphysical ignorance are redeemed, in the overall scheme of things, by that single moment of eagerness confided to Sanjaya – one that opened the floodgate of Gita’s life-giving fount of wisdom – even if that eagerness itself might have sprouted from motives lesser than either pure or selfless.
Through this simple (that is to say, easily navigable, clearly visible, and engaging) but highly effective device, that of putting forth questions and eliciting answers from an interlocutor, several other Upanishads (such as the Kena, the Prashna, and the Katha) have livened up some of the most difficult issues, themes and analyses in the field of Brahma-Vidyā – thus giving birth to some of the most memorable dialogues in the history of not only religions but of all literature of the world, such as the one between Yama and Nachiketa (in the Kathopanishad), or the one between Yajnyavalkya and Maitreyi (in the Brihadaranyakopanishad). Questions have redeemed us as flawed human beings and helped us reach the extended hand of God. Long live questions, long live the Gitopanishad!
Sreejit Datta is an educator, researcher and social commentator, writing/speaking on subjects critical to rediscovering and rekindling the Indic consciousness in a postmodern, neoliberal world. Views expressed are personal.
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