Bhagwat De-squeeze of Hindu Caste-Squeeze 

Addressing a gathering at Ravidas Jayanti in Mumbai recently, Dr. Mohan Bhagwat, the Sarsanghchalak of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), as cited in the Organiser, dateline Feb 6, 2023, has said  -  “To our Creator, we are equal. There is no caste or sect. If some pundits citing scriptures are talking about caste-based discrimination, then it is false. .. We are confused in the whirlpool of the concept of caste and caste hierarchy. This confusion has to be removed.”

As a corollary, it can be said that without saying as much, Dr. Bhagwat had debunked the diabolical chātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛiṣhṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśhaḥ (v13, ch4) and such divisive verses from the eminently egalitarian Gita that were blue-penciled in the author’s Bhagvad-Gita Treatise of Self-help sans 110 inane interpolations, published way back in 2003. Be that as it may, before the veracity of the Sangh Pramukh’s “If some pundits citing scriptures are talking about caste-based discrimination, then it is false” averment is examined; it is imperative to delve into the cynical Dalit and Shudra Cards in play to affect the Double Hindu Squeeze.   

Whereas the Muslim Sufis were the first to breach the caste fault lines to spread Islam into the Hindu hinterland that eventually led to its partition on religious grounds, in due course, more so in the truncated India, the Christian Evangelists too reinvigorated themselves to poach the leftover Dalit souls into their salvation fold with an eye on future religious dividends. But yet, for too long, the hindsight-less Hindus have been keeping a blind eye to the unbridled Muslim proliferation through procreation and infiltration on one hand and on the other the Christian expansionism through fraudulent conversions of its slighted souls.

However, as the Semitic demographic waters began to rise to their nose-level, the Hindus have realized, belatedly though, that it was the Dalit apathy towards their scriptural discrimination that came in handy for the Abrahamites to wean the embittered away from their tenuous Hindu folds into their respective faiths. So, the nonplussed Hindus began to assuage the aggrieved Dalits by downplaying the underlying caste-discrimination with ingenious propositions such as the Hindu varna is not to be seen in caste colours for to start with all are Shudras at birth and it is guna (nature) that makes one a Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vysya, Shudra et al etc. Needless to say, this half-hearted attempt that is insincere at best failed to cut the caste ice and the evangelicals of the alien faiths continued to fish in the Hindu troubled waters to augment their Semitic numbers, catalyzed by the cynical Nehruvian political strategy of unifying the Abrahamic votes on religious grounds and fragmenting the Hindu franchise on the caste lines.

It was this Double Hindu Squeeze affected by the Dalit and Shudra Cards which enabled the Nehruvian forces to retain their political dominance in the post-colonial India for over six decades that was till Narendra Modi managed to unify some sections of the Shudras under his party’s Hindutva flag in 2014 only to add more such in 2019. What with the Hindu consolidation leading to the 2024 hustings is ever on the raise, the unraveled Nehruvians, driven by their craving for power, stoked up the Shudra flames of Ramcharitamanas in the hope of regaining their caste traction in the country’s political arena. Maybe, Dr. Bhagwat’s assertion supra is primarily meant to douse the Shudra political fire but if only carried forward, it has an immense potential to set the Hindu polity on its reformist course like none else before. It could be precisely for this reason that the Indian media, moulded in the Nehruvian ecosystem, by and large, has chosen not to transmit his revolutionary idea to the public though only recently it went out of its way to publicize his ‘Why look for shivling in every mosque’ advice to the Hindus that was in the wake of the developments in Varanasi’s Gyanvapi mosque.

Whatever, the Sarsanghchalak’s statement should be viewed in the light of the hypocritical explanations meant to downplay the vicious caste system, the hollowness of which was exposed in the author’s Inane Interpolations in Bhagvad-Gita (An Invocation for their Revocation) that is briefly dealt as under.

It would be apparent to any observant individual that the fake caste punditry began with the insertion of the verse 13 in Purusha Sukta (10.7.90.1-16) of the Rig Veda, the foremost of the four Vedas, thus:  

V13: From His face (or the mouth) came the brahmanas. From His two arms came the rajanya (the kshatriyas). From His two thighs came the vaishyas. From His two feet came the shudras.

However, this interpolation as can be seen under is in juxtaposition to the original template of creation expostulated in,

V14: From His mind was born the moon. From His two eyes was born the sun. From His mouth were born Indra and Agni. From His breath was born the air.

V15: From (His) navel was produced the antariksha (the space between the earth and the heavens). Dyuloka (or heaven) came into existence from His head. The bhumi (the earth) evolved out of His feet, and deek (or spacial directions) from His ears. Similarly (the demigods) produced the worlds (too).

Thus, having disoriented the Vedic egalitarianism with caste discrimination, the pundits went on to pollute the Manu Smriti, an otherwise resplendent legal manual, if anything with caste toxicity, as elaborated in the author’s essay On Bashing Manu Smriti, Or Flogging A Dead Horse Riding a Blind Ass. Of course, the pollution started with the incorporation of the Purusha Sukta invention as 1.31 in the said Smriti is out of the context, as is evident below.

1.28. But to whatever course of action the Lord at first appointed each (kind of beings), that alone it has spontaneously adopted in each succeeding creation.

1.29. Whatever he assigned to each at the (first) creation, noxiousness or harmlessness, gentleness or ferocity, virtue or sin, truth or falsehood, that clung (afterwards) spontaneously to it.

1.30. As at the change of the seasons each season of its own accord assumes its distinctive marks, even so corporeal beings (resume in new births) their (appointed) course of action.

1.31. But for the sake of the prosperity of the worlds he caused the Brahmana, the Kshatriya, the Vaisya, and the Sudra to proceed from his mouth, his arms, his thighs, and his feet.

1.32. Dividing his own body, the Lord became half male and half female; with that (female) he produce.

But Bhagwat’s mischievous pundits would have been well-aware that their hitjob would not be complete without putting their self-serving words into Lord Krishna’s mouth in Bhagvad-Gita never mind He declared in ch.9, v 29, ‘None I favour, slight I none / Devout Mine all gain Me true’. So they, inserted the infamous v13, ch 4, ‘chātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛiṣhṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśhaḥ / tasya kartāram api māṁ viddhyakartāram avyayam’, which incongruously means that ‘It is I who engineered the division of men into four varna (castes) based on their guna (innate nature) and karma (earthly duties) but yet although I am the creator of this system, know me to be the non-doer and eternal.

Not just that, as if to add the caste salt to the Shudra injury, the pundits (not Lord Krishna for any perceptive reader) having stated in v 41 ch 18 that ‘the duties of the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras—are distributed according to their qualities, in accordance with their guṇas,’ specify that ‘serving through work is the natural duty for those with the qualities of Shudras’ (v 44, ch 18). And what is worse, to tie the Shudras forever to their menial yoke, it is averred that ‘It is better to perform one’s own duty, even imperfectly, rather than indulge in another’s work perfectly for by doing one’s innate work, a person does not incur sin’ (v 46, ch 18) which is nothing but a rehash of v35, ch3, ‘It is far better to perform one’s natural prescribed duty, though tinged with faults, than to perform another’s prescribed duty, though 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.’

So, it’s for the Hindus to look beyond their caste boundaries to visualize the improbability of their scriptures demeaning the Shudras and the Dalits among them for the most part they were scripted by them only.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

On Bashing Manu Smriti,

Or Flogging A Dead Horse Riding A Blind Ass 

None knows when Manu Smriti had its last sway, if at all, over the Indian polity but still the Hindu castes that it slighted lazily hold it against the Brahmins that it once exalted, and ominously, the evangelists cynically bash Hinduism with it to lure the former into their Semitic fold. However, this essay is not an exercise to endorse the extinct Smriti per se but an attempt to expose the perceptive vacuity and the intellectual dishonesty, as the case may be, of its debunkers.  

No denying that Manu unambiguously upheld the Brahmanical supremacy albeit with an austere life-style that is self-denying to say the least, and even otherwise which society in history has been egalitarian in its concept and construct. But then, to cite but two examples, what about the Islamic bigotry that negates the kafirs and the White racism that rendered blacks into slavery. Why the Muslims have not been able to shed their ill-founded kafir antipathy even in the multi-cultural settings they happen to live. When was it that the racial segregation in the U.S. trains and buses in the Land of Liberty did end but in 1956! So, on the discriminatory note, the Manuwad decry, a euphemism for ant-Brahminism, is a far cry from the ‘Black Lives Matter’ cry.

Besides, Manu’s detractors tend to smear him by amplifying his restrain-female tunes and muting his woman-exalted notes. But then, what was his Smriti’s woman-denial compared to Sharia’s savagery of the fair sex; for that matter, when it was that woman’s vote began to count in the first full-fledged democracy in the modern world but in 1920! And for the starters, democracy took birth in India that is Bharat of yore.

Be that as it may, there’s no historical evidence that the law of Arya Varta was ever based on the Manu Smriti for it was not mandatory,

8.309. Know that a king who heeds not the rules (of the law), who is an atheist, and rapacious, who does not protect (his subjects, but) devours them, will sink low (after death).

This and the excerpts that follow are derived from ‘The Laws of Manu’ by G. Buhler, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1886, available at the Internet Archive.   

Whatever, a tangible expostulation of Manu Smriti would be in order, and to start with, it’s the King, not the Brahmin, above all,

7.5. Because a king has been formed of particles of those lords of the gods, he therefore surpasses all created beings in lustre;

7.8. Even an infant king must not be despised, (from an idea) that he is a (mere) mortal; for he is a great deity in human form.

Besides, belying the perceived oppression of the so-called lower castes, apparently there were rulers among them, never mind Manu is said to have disregarded them -

4.61. Let him not dwell in a country where the rulers are Sudras, nor in one which is surrounded by unrighteous men, nor in one which has become subject to heretics, nor in one swarming with men of the lowest castes.

Just the same, no denying that the Brahmins, nay the pious among them, were invariably posited on the social pedestal - 

3.212. But if no (sacred) fire (is available), he shall place (the offerings) into the hand of a Brahmana; for Brahmanas who know the sacred texts declare, ’What fire is, even such is a Brahmana’.

But that entailed quite a spiritual rigour,

2.162. A Brahmana should always fear homage as if it were poison; and constantly desire (to suffer) scorn as (he would long for) nectar.

Besides a curtailed material means,

3.109. A Brahmana shall not name his family and (Vedic) gotra in order to obtain a meal; for he who boasts of them for the sake of a meal, is called by the wise a foul feeder (vantasin).  

8.102. Brahmanas who tend cattle, who trade, who are mechanics, actors (or singers), menial servants or usurers, the (judge) shall treat like Sudras.

Nevertheless, the Brahmin-incapacitating Manu dharma was not meant for lesser but freer souls.

4.80. Let him not give to a Sudra advice, nor the remnants (of his meal), nor food offered to the gods; nor let him explain the sacred law (to such a man), nor impose (upon him) a penance.

4.81. For he who explains the sacred law (to a Sudra) or dictates to him a penance, will sink together with that (man) into the hell (called) Asamvrita.

However, in case of transgressions,

5.140. Sudras who live according to the law, shall each month shave (their heads); their mode of purification (shall be) the same as that of Vaisyas, and their food the fragments of an Aryan’s meal.

Now coming to women under Manu’s yoke,

5.147. By a girl, by a young woman, or even by an aged one, nothing must be done independently, even in her own house.

5.148. In childhood a female must be subject to her father, in youth to her husband, when her lord is dead to her sons; a woman must never be independent.

5.149. She must not seek to separate herself from her father, husband, or sons; by leaving them she would make both (her own and her husband’s) families contemptible.  

No denying that male protectiveness is at odds with women’s lib but then while Manu Smriti, so to say was consigned to flames in the remotest past, the Sharia is still kicking and alive to oppress and suppress the second sex in many parts of the wide world. 

But then what is not conceded is that Manu had valued women more than any at any time in human history,

3.55. Women must be honoured and adorned by their fathers, brothers, husbands, and brothers-in-law, who desire (their own) welfare.

3.56. Where women are honoured, there the gods are pleased; but where they are not honoured, no sacred rite yields rewards.

3.57. Where the female relations live in grief, the family soon wholly perishes; but that family where they are not unhappy ever prospers.

8.28. In like manner care must be taken of barren women (by the King), of those who have no sons, of those whose family is extinct, of wives and widows faithful to their lords, and of women afflicted with diseases.

8.29. A righteous king must punish like thieves those relatives who appropriate the property of such females during their lifetime.

8.364. He who violates an unwilling maiden shall instantly suffer corporal punishment; but a man who enjoys a willing maiden shall not suffer corporal punishment, if (his caste be) the same (as hers).

9.90. Three years let a damsel wait, though she be marriageable; but after that time let her choose for herself a bridegroom (of) equal (caste and rank).

9.91. If, being not given in marriage, she herself seeks a husband, she incurs no guilt, nor (does) he whom she weds.

However, with the rider,

9.92. A maiden who chooses for herself, shall not take with her any ornaments, given by her father or her mother, or her brothers; if she carries them away, it will be theft.

More relevant to our times, mixed with much of chaff is plenty of all-season grain in Manu’s 2,684-mound granary such as -      

4.12. He who desires happiness must strive after a perfectly contented disposition and control himself; for happiness has contentment for its root, the root of unhappiness is the contrary (disposition).

4.137. Let him not despise himself on account of former failures; until death let him seek fortune, nor despair of gaining it.

4.141. Let him not insult those who have redundant limbs or are deficient in limbs, nor those destitute of knowledge, nor very aged men, nor those who have no beauty or wealth, nor those who are of low birth.

4.159. Let him carefully avoid all undertakings (the success of) which depends on others; but let him eagerly pursue that (the accomplishment of) which depends on himself.

4.160. Everything that depends on others (gives) pain, everything that depends on oneself (gives) pleasure; know that this is the short definition of pleasure and pain.

4.161. When the performance of an act gladdens his heart, let him perform it with diligence; but let him avoid the opposite.

5.109. The body is cleansed by water, the internal organ is purified by truthfulness, the individual soul by sacred learning and austerities, the intellect by (true) knowledge.

7.139. Let him not cut up his own root (by levying no taxes), nor the root of other (men) by excessive greed; for by cutting up his own root (or theirs), he makes himself or them wretched.

But the crown of the Smriti is earmarked for justice and justness,

8.17. The only friend who follows men even after death is justice; for everything else is lost at the same time when the body (perishes).

8.18. One quarter of (the guilt of) an unjust (decision) falls on him who committed (the crime), one quarter on the (false) witness, one quarter on all the judges, one quarter on the king.

8.128. A king who punishes those who do not deserve it, and punishes not those who deserve it, brings great infamy on himself and (after death) sinks into hell.

8.129. Let him punish first by (gentle) admonition, afterwards by (harsh) reproof, thirdly by a fine, after that by corporal chastisement.

8.164. That agreement which has been made contrary to the law or to the settled usage (of the virtuous), can have no legal force, though it be established (by proofs).

8.165. A fraudulent mortgage or sale, a fraudulent gift or acceptance, and (any transaction) where he detects fraud, the (judge) shall declare null and void.

However, the moot point is whether or not Manu can be exonerated on the grounds that his   original composition was subsequently fouled by caste prejudices and vested interests, and it seems to be the case.

It all began thus:

1.1. The great sages approached Manu, who was seated with a collected mind, and, having duly worshipped him, spoke as follows:

1.2. ’Deign, divine one, to declare to us precisely and in due order the sacred laws of each of the (four chief) castes (varna) and of the intermediate ones.

1.3. ’For thou, O Lord, alone knowest the purport, (i.e.) the rites, and the knowledge of the soul, (taught) in this whole ordinance of the Self-existent (Svayambhu), which is unknowable and unfathomable.’

1.4. He, whose power is measureless, being thus asked by the high-minded great sages, duly honoured them, and answered, ’Listen!’

1.5. This (universe) existed in the shape of Darkness, unperceived, destitute of distinctive marks, unattainable by reasoning, unknowable, wholly immersed, as it were, in deep sleep.

As would be evident from the following, 1.2 was a later-day interpolation intended to drag the discourse onto the four caste track from 1.31 onwards with many more insertions, albeit intermittently, though fatally.

1.25. Austerity, speech, pleasure, desire, and anger, this whole creation he likewise produced, as he desired to call these beings into existence.

1.28. But to whatever course of action the Lord at first appointed each (kind of beings), that alone it has spontaneously adopted in each succeeding creation.

1.29. Whatever he assigned to each at the (first) creation, noxiousness or harmlessness, gentleness or ferocity, virtue or sin, truth or falsehood, that clung (afterwards) spontaneously to it.

1.30. As at the change of the seasons each season of its own accord assumes its distinctive marks, even so corporeal beings (resume in new births) their (appointed) course of action.

1.31. But for the sake of the prosperity of the worlds he caused the Brahmana, the Kshatriya, the Vaisya, and the Sudra to proceed from his mouth, his arms, his thighs, and his feet.

And intriguingly, much later in the Smriti it is said,

9.67. That chief of royal sages who formerly possessed the whole world, caused a confusion of the castes (varna), his intellect being destroyed by lust.

However, the true give away of the fouling of the original Smriti that apparently originated before the advent of Atharva veda (1.23) is the mention of Upanishads in it that succeeded the same (6.29)

1.23. But from fire, wind, and the sun he drew forth the threefold eternal Veda, called Rik, Yagus, and Saman, for the due performance of the sacrifice.

6.29. These and other observances must a Brahmana who dwells in the forest diligently practise, and in order to attain complete (union with) the (supreme) Soul, (he must study) the various sacred texts contained in the Upanishads.

So, instead of bashing the Manu Smriti a la flogging the dead horse riding a blind ass, it pays the mankind to discard the redundant chaff to nourish itself on the pristine grain in Manu’s ancient granary.

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.

 

 

 

 

Dichotomy Between Hindu Religiosity ‘n Gita's Spirituality

 

Long before the advent of the Torah, not to speak of the Bible and the Quran that followed it, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad had it that “.. since he (man) created gods who are better than he: and also because, being mortal, he created immortals, it is his higher creation. Whoever knows this, comes to be in this, his higher creation.” 

However, in the latter-day Nārāyana Upanishad, the ‘mortal man’ sought to control the ‘immortal god’ he himself had created thus:

“daiva dēnam jagat sarvam, / mantrā dēnantu daivatam,

tan mantram brāhmanādēnam, / brāhmano mama dēvata.”

 

It’s on god that hinges all / Mantras rein in that godhood

Controlled are those by Brahmans / Making them our own angels.

 

Going by the purānās, not only the Brahman rishis and maharshis maneuvered gods through yagnās ‘n yāgās but also were wont to curse them when offended.

In time though, as if god gained an upper hand in his tussle with man, Lord Krishna, in Bhagavad-Gita, popularly known as the Gita, averred that –

Those as meditate ’n worship / Them I take My wings under (Ch9, v22)

Devout be in heart and soul / Me the Supreme thou shall reach (Ch9 v34)

If thou develop faith in Me  / Take for granted I take thee (Ch 12 V8 )

If one remains to Me firm / It’s My promise I take him (Ch 18 v65)

Set all aside ’n have faith / Thus sans sin, reach Me thou. (Ch18, v66)

It is in this context that we should read Sir Edwin Arnold’s postulations in his introduction to the Gita as The Song Celestial in translation (1885) “...indeed, so striking are some of the moralities here inculcated, and so close the parallelism—ofttimes actually verbal— between its teachings and those of the New Testament, that a controversy has arisen between Pandits and Missionaries on the point whether the author borrowed from Christian sources, or the Evangelists and Apostles from him.

This raises the question of its date, which cannot be positively settled. It must have been inlaid into the ancient epic at a period later than that of the original Mahabharata, but Mr. Kasinath Telang has offered some fair arguments to prove it anterior to the Christian era. The weight of evidence, however, tends to place its composition at about the third century after Christ; and perhaps there are really echoes in this Brahmanic poem of the lessons of Galilee, and of the Syrian incarnation.”

Indeed the New Testament affirms that –

The Lord shall fight for you, and you should hold your peace. (John 14:14)

If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. (John 15:7)

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (Mathew 11:28)

That apart, psalm 115:11of the Old Testament has it that, “You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord; He is their help and their shield.”

All the same, the purpose of this article is not to ascertain whether it was plagiarism or parallel thought but, as its title suggests, is about the dichotomy between the Hindu religiosity and Gita's spirituality.

Obviously realizing that the Hindu religiosity was steeped, not in man’s surrender to god but in invoking his favours through mantras of assorted rituals, Lord Krishna proclaimed in the second chapter of the Gita thus:

Unwise use all enticing / Flowery language to further

Rituals Vedic in their scores / Not the knowledge of Vedas (V 42)
        

Eyeing heaven with mind mundane / Go for ceremonies such in hope /

Of having best of both the worlds (V 43) 

Stands as firm mind thy clear / Steer thou clear of path rituals (v53)

        That is besides cautioning man that –

        Pursue if thou wants with zeal / Instincts then would spin thy mind (v44)

But the Brahmins, in control of the Sanskrit mantras and the spiritual narrative alike, with their priestly interests to protect, so as not to let the Lord’s message sink into the Hindu consciousness, inserted into the Gita their contra narrative at the very beginning of the next chapter thus:

The Creator wanted mankind to prosper through sacrifices, which shall be the milch cow of man’s desires (v10)

Foster the gods through sacrifices (v11)

Fostered by sacrifices, gods would bestow desired enjoyments, but they are thieves who do not return anything to gods (v12) 

Who follow the above regimen would attain moksha (v16).

Owing to the all-pervading purānic narrative that is in tune with ­­the above, by and large, the Hindu religiosity has come to be steeped in propitiating the gods through assorted rituals and fervent prayers to avert adversity or for self-aggrandizement and /or both. It’s another matter though that in our materialistic time, it has further descended into a religious barter with gods, or worse, of seeking to bribe them that too only after they second man’s bidding!

Hence, the Gita’s exhortation to man to surrender to Him, the corner stone of the Semitic faiths, and alien to the Hindu ethos, invariably fails to scripturally draw the Hindus towards it, thereby rendering them skeptical to explore its sterling philosophy fashioned for their benefit. What’s worse, as brought out by the writer in his free ebook Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of Self-help sans 110 inane interpolations and in articles, Mundane distortions in the Divine discourse, Absurdity of Bhagvad-Gita’s Caste Biases, and Badnām-Gita’s Spoiler Slokas, the majority of the Hindus are averse to this peerless philosophy owing to its discrimination of man on account of his so-called birth that anyway was the Brahmanical twist to what was essentially an egalitarian tome. It is for them to realize that in reality, the Gita was the pristine work of their progenitors, Krishna ‘n Vyasa, that in time got polluted by the others, and it is time for them to reclaim it by ridding it of its obnoxious interpolations. 

That being the case, the question that naturally arises is how come the Gita was eulogized as “the most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue.…. perhaps the deepest and the loftiest thing the world has to show” by the 19^th Century Prussian philosopher William von Humboldt? And he was not alone in showering praises on it for many a Western thinker such as Arthur Schopenhauer, Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson were equally effusive in expressing their admiration for it! The answer could as well lay in this truism - the Semitic religious emphasis of surrendering the self to the Lord serves the faithful spiritually but yet it intellectually fails the believer when it comes to the realization of the self that is atma that the Gita enables one.

Incidentally, John Ephraim, a Telugu Christian of the day, exemplifies this aspect perhaps like none other; seeing the Gita but as an extension of the Bible to delve into the self, he not only learnt Sanskrit to be able to grasp its philosophical nuances but also by hearted all its 700+0 slokas. What is more, while taking his Christian walk on the Gita’s path, he has made it his life’s mission to induce the recalcitrant Hindus and others onto it.

What of the Hindus from the higher echelons, who keep away from the Gita for the lack of an aptitude to surrender to the god? Who were to tell them that it is not a tome of devotion but, more significantly, it deals with character building besides delving into the art of living as outlined in its chapter 12 thus –

       If thou develop faith in Me / Take for granted I take thee (v8)

       Were thee to fail develop faith / It’s not thou reached blind alley, 
       Ever Me having in thy mind / Practice lets thee turn the bend.      (v9)

       If thou feel that’s hard as well / Indulge then in deeds Me please. (v10 )

       If thou find that difficult too / Give thyself to Me Supreme 
       Act then with thy subdued mind  / With no thought for what follows. (v11)

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

So, it helps you, irrespective of your religious orientation, to pick up a copy of the Gita and begin reading it by skipping the following verses from it for better comprehension, and, if you please, my Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of Self-help sans 110 inane interpolations is in the public domain as free ebook.

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 ).

 

 

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