THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER NUMBER 13
VERSE NUMBER 12
KSHETRA KSHETRAJNA VIBHAGA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF THE DISCRIMINATION OF THE KSHETRA AND THE KSHETRAJNA:
TEXT IN TRANSLITERATION:
jneyam yat tat pravakshyaami yaj jnaatvaa ‘mrrtam asnute
anaadimat param brahma na sat tan naa ‘sad uchyate
SANSKRIT WORDS AND PHRASES AND THEIR MEANING IN ENGLISH:
Jeeyam = has to be known: yat = which: tat = that: pravakshyaami = (I) will declare: yat = which: jnaatvaa = knowing: amrrtam = immortality: asnute = (one) attains to: anaadimat = the beginningless: param = supreme: brahma = Brahman: na = not: sat = being: tat = that: na = not: asat = non-being: non-being: uchyate = is called.
TEXT IN ENGLISH:
I shall describe that which has to be known, knowing which one attains to immortality. Beginningless is the Supreme Brahman. It is not said to be ‘sat’ or ‘asat’.
COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
In chapter nine stanza nineteen the Lord defined Himself as immortality and death. He also spoke of Himself as ‘sat’ and ‘asat’. –being and non-being. Saguna Brahman is immanent in Prakriti. In that state, all contradictions and conflicts meet in Him. In the relative existence, the immortality of the Devas and the death of the human beings emanated from Saguna Brahman. His manifest aspects with variation in the three Gunas is ‘sat’ and His unmanifest aspect in which the three Gunas disappear in equilibrium is ‘asat.’
But in the Nirguna Brahman there is no modification of any kind. The manifest state and the unmanifest state do not apply to Him. He is Pure Consciouness having neither a beginning nor an end. While the Devas have a relative immortality. This Supreme State is to be realized in intuition or Nirvikalpa samaadhi. That Jivatman who intuits this Brahma nirvana gets merged in Brahman. Absolute immortality then becomes his own. He is no more affected by the relative ‘sat’ and ‘asat’—being and non-being, the manifest state and the unmanifested state.
SRIMAT SWAMI RAMAKRISHNA PARAMAHAMSA AS QUOTED BY SRIMAT SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
Akhanda Brahman can be experienced in Samadhi only. What follows is all silence. Enquiry into the nature of the Purusha and Prakriti, knowledge and ignorance—all these cogitations come to an end.
Beatitude alone persists. There, the position of the Jivatman is the same as that of a salt of a salt doll, incapable of surviving a sea-bath.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
anaadimat param: beginningless supreme. Shankara says this.
anaadi matparam: beginningless, ruled by Me. Ramanujar says this.
It is eternal, lifted above all empirical oppositions of existence and non-existence, beginning and end, and if we realize It, birth and death happen to be mere outward events which do not touch the eternity of the self.
COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI SIVANANDA:
The Lord praises that which ought to be known (Para Brahman) in order to create in Arjuna (or any hearer) an intense desire to know it.
Brahman cannot be expressed in words like “being” or “non-being”, because Brahman does not belong to any class or gunas like a Brahmana, cow or horse. It has no quality like whiteness, blackness, etc. It has no relation or connection with anything else, because It is one without a second. It is no object of any sense. It is actionless. It is always the witnessing subject in all objects.
The Vedas emphatically declare that Brahman is without attribute, activity, attachment or parts.
In chapter IX.19 it was stated that He is the being and also the non-being. It is now stated that He is neither being nor non-being. This would seem to the readers to be a contradiction in terms, but it is not so. Though the manifest (perishable) and the unmanifest (imperishable) universe are both forms of Brahman. He is beyond both these. (Cf. VII.2; XV. 16, 17 and 18)
Comments by the blogger:
Both revered Swamis and commentators bring our minds back to chapter 09 verse 19. Ok, I need not repeat what they have succinctly described. They had to worry about the size of their commentaries and the cost of their books. Whereas I need not worry about space at all. The more I write the greater would be the enjoyment. This should not be mistaken that I am comparing myself to those revered selves. I am not writing any Commentary on Srimad Bhagavd Gita, for which I am singularly unqualified. Since this blog has the commentaries of the three great Souls, I am ashamed of myself to add to what they say. But as a writer of this blog, I must say something. Anyhow, I am thankful that I am bringing the most revered authors’ commentaries to you every day.
So, let us say, that what Sri Bhagavan says in chapter 09 and verse 19 is with respect to the manifested Brahmam, or Saguna Brahmam. Saguna Brahmam is Lord Krishna known to the people of His time as a four-armed person of extraordinary qualities and boundless possibilities. Anyhow the Lord of the Gita is a Saguna Brahmam only. The very fact that He has condescended to come on to the plane of the earth presupposes that He has come here with certain limiting adjuncts. For example, since Vishnu came to the earth as Krishna having a body like us presupposes He has limited many of His infinite qualities. He used to eat and drink and sleep like any other human being. When He ate He could not have eaten like an elephant. He was breathing like the people around Him. He could not have stopped breathing like any of the human beings of His time. He could not have slept for eighteen hours a day! And he did not go without sleep for many days and still remain fresh in mind. If He sat in a chair, He could not have occupied more than one chair like the rest of the people of His time. The very fact that the Lord Vishnu in His infinite compassion came down to the earth’s plane speaks volumes about the Lord’s assuming qualities and abilities like the rest of the human beings of that time. Thus the Saguna Brahmam has qualities, qualifications and a human body with all the limiting adjuncts. And the Lord in chapter 09, verse 19 says that He is both ‘sat’ and ‘asat’ He referred to The Saguna Brahmam only. So He had every right to say that He is both the ‘sat’ and the ‘asat’ which is true as the whole Universe is nothing but the body and mind of the Saguna Brahmam.
But in chapter 13, verse 12 He says that the Supreme Brahman is neither sat nor asat. Here the Lord speaks that he is neither sat nor asat and it should be read in the context of obtaining immortality through Yoga; so He says that He is neither this nor that. We should never forget that Sri Krishna is teaching Gita to a person of amazing qualities and abilities, Arjuna. And if we do not study Gita with worshipful mind and with lots of confidence in what the Lord says, we would constantly encounter with stone walls and iron curtain beyond which we can neither see nor hear! Sri Krishna Himself says that Arjuna should not impart the teachings of the Lord in the Gita to those who are egotistic and without faith and reverence to Him. Because ego and faithlessness are great barriers to understand Bhagavad Gita.
And we often come across in the Holy Quran about Allah with no form but Spirit only and those worshipping various images are fools.
The Bamini Buddha statue was such a monument and the Daliban terrorists gunned the whole edifice down. They indulged in many such acts of vandalism.
They were and are having a fanatical faith in the Holy Quran. They think that they could satisfy Allah, the Great by indulging in such acts of inhuman activities. In this, they are far from the truth.
There is but one Lord in this Universe and various people belonging to various countries call the Single Spirit in so many Names, and the Hindus worship Him in so many forms.
Swami Vivekananda encountered such an argument about the Hindu’s worshipping the stone idols. The great Swami went to a non-Hindu king on his being invited and stayed there two-three days. On such an outing, Swami Vivekananda stayed with one of the minions of the king. He kept asking the Swamiji as to why he and the Hindus pay respect to mere stone idols. On being pestered by that gentleman, Swami Vivekananda asked the man to name the person in the beautiful picture on the wall. Pat came the reply that it was the image of his king! At this, the Swamiji asked the man to get the picture down and stand on the picture! At this, the king’s man almost had a fit. “Sir, he is our king. And you know that only too well. Then why do you want me to desecrate the king’s picture?” Swami Vivekananda asked if the picture was not made of mere paper, and the man said yes, but he said: “It is our king!” The great Swamiji said, “No, it is merely a piece of quality paper and on which your king’s image is drawn. But it is not your king himself. It only represents him!” In the face of such fiery argument, the man kept telling Swamiji that though it was just a paper on which his king’s image was drawn and as such, it should be respected. And as such it should be treated as the king himself! Swami Vivekananda laughed at the shallowness of the man. “You give respect to a piece of paper because on it is drawn the mere image of your king, and you give this piece of paper all the respect that you would give the King himself! Then what is wrong with us to see in the Stone idols the image of God!” Swami Vivekananda thus put a seal to the moth of the Muslim companion of his.
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