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1780
GITĀ-RAHASYA OR KARMA-YOGA
towards the world came to be looked upon as the important part of this religion, as is apparent from the Bhāgavata ; and in the Nārada-Pañcarătra, mantras and tantras are included in the Bhagavata religion along with the Philosophy of Devotion. Yet, it is patent from the Bhagavata itself, that these are not the fundamental aspects of this religion; because, wherever there has been occasion in the Bhagavata to refer to the Sātvata or the Nārāyaniya religion, it is stated that the religion of the Sätvatas or of Nārāyana Rsi (that is, the Bhāgavata religion) is of the nature of naiskarmya' (Bhäg. 1. 3. 8 and 11. 4. 6): and it is stated that it had become necessary to preach the Devotional Bhāgavata-Purāna (Bhāg. 1. 5. 12 ), because due importance had not been given to Devotion in the *narskar mya' religion. This proves beyond any doubt that the original Bhāgavata religion was based on naiskarmya or Desireless Action, and that later on its form was changed in the course of time, and Devotion became the principal factor in it. I have already dealt above in the Gītā-Rahasya with the other various historical questions, namely, (i) what was the difference between the original Bhāgavata religion, which maintained a permanent fusion between Spiritual Knowledge, Devotion, and Prowess, and the path prescribed by the Smrtis in the shape of the arrangement of the various stages of life; (ii) how, as a result of the growth of the purely ascetic Jain and Buddhist religions, the Karma-Yoga in the Energistic Bhāgavata religion lost ground, and it (the Bhāgavata religion) acquired its new form of Renunciation with Devotion; and (iii) how the Vedic sects which came into existence after the fall of Buddhism gave to the Bhagavadgitā itself either a renunciatory, or a purely Devotional, or a Qualified-Monistic ( vršistādvaita) form. I shall, therefore, not repeat the same subject-matter here.
From the short dissertation made above, my readers will have seen (i) when, the Bhāgavata religion first came into prominence in the ancient course of the Vedic religion, (ii) how, although it was Energistic in the beginning, it later on became devotional; and (iii) how, still later on, in the time of Rāmānujācārya, it acquired the form of Qualified-Monism. The most ancient of these various forms of the Bhāgavata religion, that is to say, the Dasireless Activistic form, is the form of the Gitā
