THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER NUMBER 14
VERSE NUMBER 03
GUNATRAYA VIBHAGA YOGA OR THE YOGA
OF THE DIVISION OF THE THREE GUNAS:
TEXT IN TRANSLITERATION:
mama yonir mahad brahma
tasmin garbham dadhaamy aham
sambhavah sarvabhootaanaam
tato bhavati bhaarata
SANSCRIT WORDS AND PHRASES AND
THEIR MEANING IN ENGLISH:
mama = my: yonih = womb: mahat
brahma = germ: dadhaami = place: aham = I: sambhavah = the birth: sarva
bhootaanaam = of all beings: tatah = thence: bhavati = is: bhaarata = O
Bharata:
TEXT IN ENGLISH:
My womb is the Mahat Brahma
(Prakriti); in that I place the germ; thence,
O Bharata, is the birth of all beings.
COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI
CHIDBHAVANANANDA:
The Prakriti is called Mahat
Brahma, the four-faced entity. He is constituted of the three Gunas. He is the
material cause of everything movable and immovable. Whatever is manifest as the
universe with its multitudinous beings is He; and His unmanifest state is
immensely more. For this reason he is known as the Mahat Brahma—the great
entity. All pervsiveness is His.
A seed is sown in the soil. In this
act, the seed is the germ and the soil, the womb. In a baby’s coming into
being, its mother and father function as the Prakriti and the Purusha
respectively. This act takes place in a macrocosmic scale too. In the great womb
of the Prakriti the germ of aatma chaitanya is embedded. The blissful union of
the Kshetra and Kshetrajna takes place in this way, leading to the coming forth
of Hiranyagarbha, the cosmic embodied being. And the countless Jeevaatmaas are
none other than the rays radiating from this cosmic being. The Jivatman is also
called the Kshetrajna because of his being endowed with the faculty of
understanding. Variations and grades in the Jeevaatmaas are all due to the
limiting adjuncts (Upaadhis) caused by desires which are all born of ignorance.
Consequently the Jivatmans are all of infinite aptitudes and temperaments.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN
If we were merely products of
nature, we could not attain life eternal. This verse affirms that all existence
is a manifestation of the Divine. He is the cosmic seed. With reference to this
world, He becomes Hiranyagarbha, the cosmic soul. Shankara says: “I unite the
kshetra with the kshetrajna, giving birth to Hiranyagarbha, hence to all
beings.” The Lord is the Father who deposits in the womb which is not-self, the
seed which is essential life, thus causing the birth of every individual. The
world is the play of the Infinite on the finite. See note on II, 12. The author
here adopts the theory of creation as the development of form from non-being,
chaos or night. The forms of all things which arise out of the abysmal void are
derived from God. They are the seeds He casts into non-being.
COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI
SIVANANDA:
My womb is the great Nature. The
cosmos is evolved out of His Nature. Nature is called the great Brahma for She
is the resting place of the five subtle elements and also the Mahat (cosmic
mind). She is called the great Brahma, because through Her the whole
manifestation takes place.
All changes arise out of this great
Nature. So She has got the name Mulaprakriti or Primordial Nature or the
original principle. From the point of view of the Unamanifest She is called
Avyakta. The Vedantins call Her Maya (illusion). The Sankhyas call Her
Prakriti.
This Prakriti is called great
because She is greater than all Her effects. This Nature made of the three
qualities, is the material cause of all beings. As She is the source or cause
of all Her modificastions and also nourishes all the modifications with Her
energy, She is called Brahma.
I place in it (the Mahadhrahma) the
embryo of life; then all beings begin to come to life therefrom. In the great
Brahman or Nature I place the germ or the seed for the birth of Hiranyagarbha;
and the seed gives birth to all beings. The birth of Hiranyagarbha or Brahma
(the Creator) gives rise to the birth of beings. The Primordial Nature is like
the clay. She cannot create the forms Herself. She gives birth to Brahma Who
creates all beings just as the potter creates various forms from the clay. I am
endowed with the two Saktis, viz, the superior and the inferior Natures (Cf.
VII. 4 and 5), the field and its knower. I unite these two (the Spirit and the
matter). The individu soul comes under the influence of the limiting adjuncts,
viz., ignorance, desire and action. On account of ignorance (Avidya), the individual
soul forgets his original divine nature,
gets himself entangled in the meshes of desire (Kama) and action (Karma ), and revolves
in the wheel of birth and death. The individual soul turns towards ignorance
without knowing his own true divine nature. The Jiva (individual soul) being
overpowered by ignorance and the modifications, forgets its pristine purity and
moves in various forms.
The Primordial Nature or the
Unmanifested is a dark matrix with infinite potentialities. It is not a
substance. Sound and energy are in an
undifferentiated state in It. The whole world gets involved into It during the
cosmic dissolution. There is no relationship of substance or quality between It
and the three Gunas. The qualities are the Mulaprakriti and the latter is the
former in a state of poise or equilibrium. This manifested world of the three
qualities is compared to a twisted rope of three colours, viz, white, red and
black. Each colour represents a Guna. Sattvic is white, Rajas is red and Taas
is black. The three are not in a state of equilibrium in the manifested world.
Water and the seed coming in
contact with the earth produce sprouts which grow into trees. In the womb of
Nature, the seed develops into the eightfold elements—earth, water, fire, air,
ether, mind, intellect and egoism.
There are four classes of beings,
viz., Jarayuja, Andaja, Svedaja and
Udbhijja. The Jarayuja is born of the placenta (viviparous). Human beings,
cows, elephants, horses, etc., belong to this class. In this variety the five
senses of knowledge exist. The Ajdaja is born of eggs (oviparous). In this
variety the elements of wind and ether predominate. Lice come under the
categtory of Svedaja: they are born of sweat. In this variety fire and water
predominate. Trees that are born of seeds are classified under the head
Udhijja: in this variety earth and water predominate. (Cf. VII.6: IX. 17; XV.7)
Comments by the Blogger:
This chapter is named as THE YOGA
OF THE DIVISION OF THE THREE GUNAS. This earth is a conglomeration of the Three
Gunas. This is one way of understanding the Cosmic Play by the Lord. Another
way to understand the same is telling that the this Cosmos is made up of the
coming together of The Five Elements, namely, the earth, the water, the fire,
the wind and the sky. Both of them are true. It is just a matter of looking at
the Nature from a particular point. The Truth is multi faceted. Shankara says
the whole Nature is nothing but Maya or Illusion. The Saivism holds that this
Cosmos is true, and the individual human beings are true and both have a
different role to play; and they both are eternal and imperishable. That the
Jivatmas or the Individual human beings, after their emancipation and freedom
from the chain and the vicious cycle of birth and death, go up to live an
eternal life in the Presence of God. Thus for the Saivaits the earth, the human
beings who are capable of attaining emancipation and the Lord are eternal.
Thus the same Truth is perceived
from different angles. In the Principal Upanishads the Creation of this Cosmos
and all the beings are explained in different creative ways. Mostly the
Creation of some one of the Five elements is said to be the first element God
created and that element created this world for God. There have been great thinkers ever
since the Vedic Period holding that this world is a concret one so far as the Karma
Kanda of the Rig Veda is concerned they alone matter in the final anaylisis and
one should studiously perform various elaborste Sacrifices stipulated in the
said Karma Kanda which will fetch for longish years in the heaven. So all that
matters is the various kinds of joy and enjoyment. Thus unrelieved and
continuous enjoyment of the riches of the heaven are the goal for human beings,
as they understood the Vedas.
This is why in Srimad Bhagavad Gita
we find some stanzas that categorically hold that the Practitioners of the Four
Kinds of Yogas should not give much importance to the ornate words and passages
of the Vedas, as there are much in the Vedas that are very worldly and
exclusively materialistic which are not
condusive for a rigorous practice of various kinds of Yogas stipulated in the
Gita.
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