The Gita ‘As It Is’ - A Travesty of Caste

 

                                        The Gita ‘As It Is’ - A Travesty of Caste

It is a safe bet to say that while most might have heard about Bhagavad-Gita, hardly any would have read it (much less apprised it as can be seen here) though it contains no more than seven-hundred verses that is not counting the unnumbered opening one in its thirteenth chapter! Not only that, this, possibly, over-two-millennia-old classic could be the only epic in the world that is admired without application of mind and debunked with understandable misunderstanding as it, as it is, sanctions the inimical caste divisions in the Hindu polity as opposed to the Torah, the Bible, and the Quran that seek to inculcate unity amongst the respective communities.  

The sore point to those at the rough-end-of-the-caste-stick in the ‘in vogue’ Gita (short description of the Bhagavad-Gita) is God Krishna’s alleged owning the creation of the very discriminatory caste system thus:

chātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sruṣhṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśhaḥ
tasya kartāram api māṁ viddhyakartāram avyayam (Ch 4 v 13)

Well, the plain reading of this Sanskrit sloka indicates that based on the (human) qualities and (mundane) activates he had created the four varnas (castes), and although he was the creator of this system, he remains a non-doer and unchangeable.

However, Gita’s modern-day protagonists, mostly hailing from its pampered castes, seeking to cover up this embarrassing reality aver that the envisaged caste system is based not on one’s station of birth but on the state of his human evolution etc. Granted, but if indeed it is their conviction that caste only symbolizes an evolutionary human state then they should have been at the forefront in fighting against the birth oriented caste system. Besides, why there is no advocacy whatsoever on their part that the much evolved Shudras that abound in the intellectual arena of the day should be absorbed into the Brahmin social fold? Moreover, have not many of the twice-born, who by their unbecoming conduct, having become Shudras (as per their interpretation) are fit to be shunted out of the Brahmanical arena, but is there any move in that direction? So their lip service to the Gita-hurt Hindus    while exposing their hypocritical whitewash of the birth-centric caste system confirms that the said sloka means what it means that is in spite of their nonsectarian spin to it.

Moreover, towards the very end in Ch 18, Krishna is said to have detailed the human qualities and mundane activates of the people of the four castes as –  

Of Brahmins, at the apex of the caste pyramid - Tranquility, restraint, austerity, purity, patience, integrity, knowledge, wisdom, and belief in a hereafter (v42)

Of Kshatriyas, the second in the pecking order - Valour, strength, fortitude, skill in weaponry, resolve never to retreat from battle, large-heartedness in charity, and leadership abilities (V43)

Of Vaishyas, the third in line - Agriculture, dairy farming, and commerce are the natural works for those with the qualities of Vaishyas.

Of Shudras, at the caste base - Serving through work is the natural duty for those with the qualities of Shudras. (V44)

Note: Unlike in the case of Brahmins and Kshatriyas, the (human) qualities of Vaishyas and Shudras are not spelt out, maybe owing to the fact that all the best of them were already  bestowed upon the first two. 

Thus, it can be said that the Gita as it is unmistakably propounds the caste system and unambiguously details the caste characteristics that is besides the earmarked social occupations / obligations of its members. Hence, one should ponder - would have Krishna chosen to reduce Shudras, his own people, literarily that is as Krishna himself was a  Shudra, as menials even as Jehovah, having enabled the Jews to come out of slavery, made them his Chosen People!  

Well, one need not go beyond the Gita for the right answer. 

To begin with, vague and intelligible as ‘he remains a non-doer and unchangeable’ in the said contentious verse, elsewhere in the Gita he was unambiguous in affirming that –

Varied I made vicissitudes  
As the case with attitudes.(Ch 10 v5)

Willed I birth of progenitors all
Seven seers great ’n elders four 
Not to mention sovereign fourteen. (Ch 10, v6)

Was not the manner of proclamation of the creation of ‘four caste system’ uncharacteristic of Krishna?  

Besides, having proclaimed that –

Self-Imperishable is Brahman 
But dwells it yet there in beings   
Brings that forth is Act Supreme. (Ch 8 v3)

 
Skies in rooted wind as spreads
Dwell in Me though disperse all. (Ch 9 v6)  

In beings all ’n objects too  
Within He lies, without as well,
If one comes to grasp this well
It’s perception that’s Supreme. (Ch 13 v15)  -

would have Krishna maintained in the same vein that he was also the creator of the discriminatory four caste system?

Also, contrary to the above cited caste characteristics, elsewhere in the Gita, he affirms that:

Noble or naughty it’s thy make
Self thus thine but shapes thyself (Ch 6 v5).

That being the case, how could Krishna have branded every Brahmin as virtuous and tagged all the Kshatriyas as valourous?

More damningly, as against Krishna’s alleged creation of the four castes based on individual (human) qualities, the Gita characterizes only three human proclivities namely, virtue, passion and delusion.

Virtue, passion so too delusion  
Send I forth though all of them

Come to dwell in none of them (Ch 7 v12) 

To tie the Spirit ’n body tight
Uses Nature as its threads 
Virtue, passion as well delusion (Ch 14 v5)  

Above all is this faux pas; having belittled women folk in Ch 9 v32 thus: 

Even those who are born of sinful origin – women, Vaishyas, and also Shudras, they attain the supreme state by taking refuge in me,

Would he have glorified them as well thus -

I’m the death that devours all
As well brings forth that beings
Besides what makes woman’s glory –

in v34 of the very next chapter i.e. Ch 10?

Whatever, if as implied, Brahmin and Kshatriya women (no exemption to them as they are clubbed with Vaishyas and Shudras, men and women together) were to be born of sinful womb (actually it is paapa-yoni, sinful vulva, in the sloka), it goes without saying that their male siblings would not have been differently born, right, but the Gita declares Brahmin men as worship-worthy! Yet this nonsensical verse 32 of chapter 9 is taken as Krishna’s word by the foolish world, and what is worse, understandably the Shudras have come to grudge the Gita on that score as well.

If only Gita’s proponents read it instead of roting it, as advised therein

Scores thought over mere roting 
Betters meditation awareness too 
What helps man to find moorings
Are acts his with no axe to grind. (ch 12 v12),

and its opponents realize the true nature of godhood is -  

None I favor; slight I none 
Devout Mine all gain Me true (Ch 9 v29),

then it would be crystal clear to both how the vested interests had miscarried Krishna’s message to mankind conveyed to the world by Vyasa, also the progenitor of the latter.

So, it makes a case for them to own up the work albeit after ridding it of its inane interpolations as was done in this writer’s Bhagvad- Gita: Treatise of Self-help that’s in the public domain as free ebook from which the quotes in verses in this article are excerpted, and those in prose are from others sources.

For further perspectives on the Gita, the readers may also read on-line the writer’s Absurdity of Bhagvad-Gita’s Caste Biases, Badnām-Gita’s Spoiler Slokas, and Dichotomy Between Hindu Religiosity and Gita's Spirituality, and Mundane distortions in the Divine discourse.

 

 

 

 

Badnām-Gita’s Spoiler Slokas

 Badnām-Gita’s Spoiler Slokas

The Bhagavad-Gita was eulogized as “the most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue” by the 19^th Century Prussian philosopher William von Humboldt but Vijay Mankar, the Ambedkarite of the day, avers that it is a rotten work deserving to be thrown into a dustbin for “it advocates inequality of man based on caste, stigmatizes women as an inferior kind and legitimizes violence”. Neither Humboldt was alone in praising the Gita for he had the illustrious company of many a Western thinker such as Arthur Schopenhauer, Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, only to name a few, nor Mankar lacked company to castigate it as a book of bigotry, for Ambedkar the Dalit intellectual, who piloted the Indian Constitution, was unsparing about it.

Whatever, these extremely divergent opinions about this antique work continue to persist to the hurt of the Hindu polity what with some perceiving it as the ‘epitome of wisdom’ even as the others avoid it treating it as a ‘Brahmanical tome’ of social oppression. Be that as it may, the irony of it all is that even its protagonists fail to benefit from this ‘book of wisdom’ owing, in part, to its very postulations that keep its skeptics away from it.

This endeavour is an ardent attempt to put the crooked record straight for the public good.       

It may be appreciated that there are no more than seven spoiler slokas (verses) in the Gita’s seven-hundred (not counting the un-numbered one in the thirteenth chapter) that rightly outrage the Mankars of the non-Brahmanical world, which the favoured varnas (castes) downplay with winding explanations that cut no logical ice though. Besides these, among the one-hundred-and-three digressive verses in the in vogue Gita, there are many that advocate the very ritualistic practices that it advises man to avoid in v42, v43 ‘n v53 of its second, and arguably its defining, chapter! Needless to say, these confuse its devout thereby failing them to grasp the art of practical living that the Gita teaches, but yet, sticking to the traditional ground, they are apathetic to any rethink of the obvious and the apparent alike. Let them be for they get what they deserve, and our concern should be for those who keep away from the Gita, on account of the seven as follows that seek to confine them to non-cerebral ways in their ghettoized existence that is besides denigrating the feminine gender as a whole.

Quote –

1) Ch 3, v35

shreyan swa-dharmo viguṇaḥ para-dharmat sv-anuṣhṭhitat

swa-dharme nidhanaṁ shreyaḥ para-dharmo bhayavahaḥ. 

It is far better to perform one’s prescribed duty (read caste duty) faultily than to perform another’s perfectly. In fact, it is preferable to die in the discharge of one’s duty, than to follow the path of another, which is fraught with danger.

2) Ch 4, v 13

chatur-varnyam maya srishtam guna-karma-vibhagashah

tasya kartaram api mam viddhyakartaram avyayam. 

The four varnas (castes) have been created by Me, based on the division of guna (nurture) and karma (action / duty). Even though I created them, know Me as the non-doer and the imperishable.

3) Ch.9, v32

maam hi paartha vyapaasritya ye 'pi syuh paapa-yonayah,

striyo vaisyaas tathaa soodraas te 'pi yaanti paraam gatim.

Surely, O Paartha, even those who are born of sinful origin – women, traders, and also labourers, they attain the supreme state by taking refuge in Me.

4) Ch18, v41

braahmana-kshatriya-visaam soodraanaam cha parantapa,

karmaani pravibhaktaani svabhaava-prabhavair gunaih.

The duties of Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras, O scorcher of foes, have been classified according to the gunaas, which have born of (their) nature.

5) Ch 18, vs44

krushi-go-rakshya-vaanijyam vaisya-karma svabhaava-jam,

paricharyaatmakam karma soodrasyaapi svabhaava-jam.

Agriculture, cattle rearing and trade are natural duties of the Vaishya while service oriented actions are the natural duties of the Shudras.

6) Ch 18, v47

sreyaan sva-dharmo vigunah para-dharmaat sv-anusthitaat,

svabhaava-niyatam karma kurvan naapnoti kilbisham.

It is better to do one’s own duty, even though imperfectly, than to do another’s duty, even though perfectly. By doing one’s innate duties, a person does not incur sin.

7) Ch18, v48,

sahajam karma kaunteya sa-dosham api na tyajet,

sarvaarambhaa hi doshena dhoomenaagnir ivaavrutaah.

Natural duty (read caste duty), even though fraught with defect, should not be abandoned. For, all undertakings are covered with defect, like fire by smoke.

-Unquote.

Now the moot point is, were these indeed bhagvan uvaacha (the Lord’s utterances) as the Gita-in-circulation would have us believe?  

The key to the answer, so to say, lies in the Gita’s very own assertion – this is the quintessence of the Upanishads, Brahmasutras, and Yoga sastra – at the end of each of its eighteen chapters, which naturally leads to the counter question – had God preached man from the man-made material for Upanishads, Brahmasutras, and Yoga sastra are just that?

Well, the absurdity of its ever happening should suffice to say that as popularly acknowledged, it was Vyasa, a Shudra, who composed the Gita with Krishna, alike a Shudra, as its main protagonist, which fact puts paid to these seven spoiler verses. So, it stands to reason that it was the priestly interests that inserted these to suppress the other castes, save Kshatriyas with whom they were in cohorts, and belittle the womenfolk in general. What is no less galling, they sought to exalt their Brahmanical social standing with self-serving insertions, and gave the bhagawan uvaacha twist to Vyasa’s work to boot for better effect.

So, it is for the Shudras to realize that in reality, the Bhagvad-Gita was the pristine work of their progenitors that in time got polluted by the others, and it is time for them to reclaim it albeit by ridding it of its obnoxious insertions as was done by the author in his Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of Self-help sans 110 inane interpolations. In so far as the misconception about Gita’s advocacy of violence is concerned, as and when the interpolative issue is settled, rid of their own biases against it, its detractors would be able to appreciate that it only exhorts man to take up cudgels for justness in its fight against unjustness regardless.

All the same, the Gita eulogizers, in its present-form, must ponder over as to how these verses of inequality in the revered work jell with the much touted Hindu ethos of vasudhaika kutumbakam (world is one family). In so far as the Gita’s admirers among the Whites, it can be said that having internalized the Semitic religious ethos of the God’s alleged partiality   towards certain races and also given the prevalence of slavery in their societies, they saw nothing perverse in the inequity of the castes in the Hindu religious fold that its interpolations espoused.    

Ridden of the following 110 spoiler slokas, the Gita acquires the clarity of expression and thought required for its comprehension and contemplation.

Ch. 3:  s9 –s18, s24 and s35 (12 slokas); Ch.4: s11 - s 13, s24- s32 and s34 (13 slokas); Ch.5: s18 and s27 -29 (4 slokas) ; Ch. 6: s10-s17 and s41 -s42 (10 slokas) ; Ch.7:  s20 –s23 (4 slokas) ; ch.8:  s5, s9- s14 and s23-s28 ( 13 slokas) ; Ch.9: s7,s15-s21, s23-s25, and  s32-s34 (14 slokas) ; Ch.11: s9- s14 and s29 (7 slokas) ; Ch.13:  s10, s22 and s30 (3 slokas) ;Ch.14: s3 -s4 and s19(3 slokas) ; Ch.15: s9 and s12- s15 (5 slokas ); Ch.16: s19 (1 sloka) ; Ch.17:  s11- s14 and  s23- 28 (10 slokas)  and Ch.18:  s12, s41-48, s56 and s61(11 slokas ).

Academia.edi links to Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of Self-help–

Ebook https://www.academia.edu/21433459/Bhagvad_Gita_Treatise_of_Self_help

Audio-book https://www.academia.edu/video/jKQ34l

 

Absurdity of Bhagvad-Gita’s Caste Biases

 

To the uninitiated, Bhagvad-Gita was a discourse between Prince Arjuna and his charioteer Krishna, an avatar of Lord Vishnu, on the eve of the battle of Mahabharata, chronicled by Vyāsa through the medium of Sanjaya. In order to appreciate the Gita’s caste component, as opposed to its philosophical content, we must realize that whereas Arjuna was a Kshatriyā, perceived to be the second highest rung of the Hindu caste-ladder (below Brahmins but above Vaisyās), Krishna, Vyāsa as well as Sanjaya were Shudras, the supposedly low end of it. 

Given his belief in and concern for his caste purity, Arjuna could be expected to have voiced his fears to Krishna over the impending death of multitudes of his caste-men at the very outset in ch1 -   

V 40. Die aged en masse dharma’s votaries / Won't that let go youth ours haywire?

V 41. Sex ratio adverse that war ensues / Turns women soft on caste barriers.

V42.  Fallen women all go to hell / What is more their bastards rob / Posthumous rites of forebearers.

v43. Liaisons low of women wanton / Set our race on ruinous course.

However, Krishna being a Shudrā, would he have deprecated his own community in v32, ch9 in which it is stated that ‘women, Vaisyās and Shudrās could win the Lord’s favor through devotion’, sounding as if they are all in an inferior league. Doubtful, isn’t it?

Moreover, having earmarked the caste duty of Shudrās as menial work (v44 ch18), how come then Krishna would have assumed the role of a philosopher? Not only that, Vyāsa, the transmitter of the Gita to the world was a seer nonpareil credited with the compilation of the Vedas, which is no mean a task leave alone a menial work! 

That brings into question the veracity as well as the credibility of v41 thru v46 of ch18 that describe the mundane duties of man on the basis of his caste (never mind Brahmin Dronācharya and his valorous son Ashwathāma were donning the role of Kshatriyās in the very battlefield at that time) besides the foundational caste-oriented v13ch4 in the Gita - chātur varnyam mayā srustam, the plain reading of which would have us believe that the Lord Himself created the four-caste system to suit the inclinations of a given soul towards certain earmarked calling of social and spiritual life in this world. And then, as a rider that is vague at the very best; Krishna supposedly said that though He is the author of it all, He should not be deemed as the doer.

In view of the above, it is absurd that Krishna in the Bhagvad-Gita would have formulated these caste biases and erected their functional barriers in ch18 through -

V47. It is better to do one’s own dharma, even though imperfectly, than to do another’s dharma, even though perfectly. By doing one’s innate duties, a person does not incur sin.

V48. One should not abandon duties born of one’s nature, even if one sees defects in them, O son of Kunti. Indeed, all endeavors are veiled by some evil, as fire is by smoke.

As detailed in my ‘Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of Self-help’ sans 110 inane interpolations, the above and other deprecating verses were but mischievous insertions of the priestly class to subserve its mundane interests.

So, now it’s time for us all to follow Krishna’s advice to Arjuna in v63, ch18,

That thee heard of this wisdom/ For task on hand now apply mind.

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Links to Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of Self-help https://g.co/kgs/8f5awH