Essays on the Gita, First Series (Arya Publishing House, 1922)

In the tot six chapters the Gita lays a large foundation for its synthesis of works^nd knowledge, its~synthesis of Sankhya, Yoga and Vedanta. But tot it finds that ^rma, works, has a particular sense in the language of the Vedantins ; it iwans the Veto samfices and ceremonies or at most that and the ordering of life according to the Grihyasutras in which these rites are the most important part, the religious kernel of the life. By works the Vedantins understood these religious works, the sacrificial system, the yajnaj full of a careful ordefr^^T(J^~of exact and complicated rites, kriyd’Vishesha bahuldm. But in Yog a w orks had a much \yider significance.. The Gita insists on this, wider significance ; in our conception of spiritual activity alf^ works have to be included, sarva- SANKHYA, YOGA AND VEDANTA karmdni. At the same time, it does not, like Buddhism, reject the idea of the sacrifice, it prefers to uplift and enlargd it. Yes, it says in effect, not only is sacrifice, yajna, the most important part of life, but all life,^IPworks should be regarded as ^crific^are though by the ignorant they are 2performed without the higher knowledge and by the most ignorant not in the true order, avidhi- pArvakam . Samfice i^ the ve ry cond ition, oMif^ with sacrifice as their eternal companion the Father of creatures created the peoples. But the sacrifices of the Vedavadins are offerings of desire directed towards material rewards, desire eager for the result of works, desire looking to a larger enjoyment in Paradise as immortality and highest salvation. This the system of the Gita cannot admit ; for that in its very inception starts with the renunciation of desire, with its rejection and destruction as the enemy of the soul. The Gita does not deny the validity even of 'the Vedic sacrificial works ; it admits them, it admits that by these means one may get enjoyment here and Paradise beyond ; it is I myself, says the divine Teacher, who accept these sacrifices and to whom they are offered, I who give these fruits in the formpf the gods since so men choose to approach me. But this is not the true road, nor is the enjoyment of Paradise the liberation and fulfilment which man has to seek. It is the jgnorant who i^shii ^ the god s^ not knowing whom they are worshipping ignorantly in these divine forms ; for 3they are worshipping, though in ignorance, the One, _ the Lord, _Ae only Deva, and it is he who accepts their offering. To that Lord must the sacrifice be offered, the true_sacrifice of all the fife's energies and activities^ with devotion, withou t cfene, for His sake and for tEe "welfare of the peoples. It is because the Vedavada obscures this truth and with its tangle of ritual ties man down to the action of the three gunas that it has to be so severely censured and put roughly aside ; but its central idea is not destroyed ; transfigured and uplifted, it is turned into a most important part of the tme spiritual experience and of the method of fibei^ion^