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798
GITA-RAHASYA OR KARMA-YOGA
Buddhist yatins should take part in philanthropic works Therefore, in the advice which Buddha is shown to have given to Nanda, at the end of the poem Saundarananda, when Nanda had reached the state of an arhata, he first says:
arōptakuryo's parāṁ gatim gatah
na te 'sh lamcit karaniyam anapi
(Sau. 18. 54)
that is, "your duty in life is over, you have acquired the highest state; now there does not remain for you even the least duty (of your own)". And then, he goes on to say:
haya lasmud iha kuryam utmanah
kuru sthirütman parakuryam apy atho
(Sau. 18, 57)
that is, "therefore, give up Action for yourself, but become perfectly equable in Reason, and perform Action for others"; There is a world of difference between the preaching of Buddha in the ancient books, which advocated Abandonment of Action, and the words put by Asvaghosa into the mouth of Buddha in the Saundarananda-karya; and it will be seen that this argument of Asvaghosa, is similar not only in meaning but also literally and word for word to what is stated in the third chapter of the Gita, namely, "tasya karyam na indyate" (i. e., "for him no duty (for his own benefit) has remained"-Trans)... and "tasmad asaktaḥ salatam kūryam karma samācara", i. e, "therefore, perform desirelessly that duty which has befallen you" (GI. 3. 17, 19). From this, one can draw the inference that this argument has been borrowed by Asvaghosa from the Gita; because, as has been shown above, the Mahabharata existed before Asvaghosa. But this fact does not remain only in inference. It is stated in the book called Tārūnātha, which is a history of Buddhism written in the Tibetan language, that the "Jñänin Sri Krsna and Ganesa" were responsible for Rahulabhadra, the preceptor of Nagarjuna, who was the principal protagonist of the Mahayana sect, getting the idea of this Activistic improvement in the original renunciatory path of the Buddhists. This book (Täränätha) was translated into German from the Russian, but not into English. I have
