THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER 4, JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE, OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE, VERSE NUMBER 04

THE HOLY GITA

CHAPTER 4

JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE:

 VERSE NUMBER 04

Text in Transliteration:

                  arjuna uvaacha

Aparam bhavato janma param janma vivasvatah

Katham etad vijaaneeyam tvam aadau proktavaan iti

                 Arjuna said

Later was your birth, earlier the birth of Vivasvat; how then am I to understand that you told it in the beginning?

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

You are the son of Vasudeva of today. Vivasvat appeared in the beginning of creation. How can a modern man instruct an ancient one? This is Arjuna’s question

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

The Buddha claimed to have been the teacher of countless Bodhisattvas in bygone ages. “Saddhrmapundareeka, XV, I. Jesus said: “Before Abraham was, I am.” Viii, 58

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:

Thy birth took place later in the house of Vasudeva; Vivasvan or Vivasvat (the Sun) was born earlier in the beginning of evolution. How am I to believe that Thou taughtest this Yoga in the beginning to Vivasvan, and that Thou, the self-same person, hast now taught it to me? I am not able to reconcile this. Be kind enough to enlighten me, O my Lord!

Comments made by the blogger:

Some teachers, who are thorough in their subject love to be questioned. Some teachers take it as an affront. Or they don’t like to deviate. Here Krishna is a Yogeshwara or the Lord of Yoga. He was and is the subject, book, teaching, teacher all rolled into one. If this is to be elongated, He is the student too. The illusion of the Lord is so beguiling that jeevatmas or ordinary human beings and extraordinary persons like Arjuna cannot identify when the Lord Himself takes birth in his Millennial sport with His own Maya or illusion.

That apart,the catechism is not peculiar to Christianity. Nor the question and answer pattern of Aristotle unknown to the Indian philosophy. In the Bhagavat Gita Arjuna poses so many questions; some doubtful and others are more daring. Only when he sees the Lord’s Universal Form he is able to utterly believe in the Lordship of Sri Krishna over all here.

Prachna Upanishad contains questions by six seekers of truth (six young students) to their master, Pipalatha. In Kadopanishad a small boy, Nasiketan, puts questions to Yama (the Lord of Death) in the nether world.