Indian Antiquary Vol 47

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 374

24
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
entire world (VII. 6, X. 8), and identifies himself with Death (XI. 32.) All the conditions of beings originate from him (X. 4-5); He directs their destiny, ie. rewards them according to their deeds, and makes the beings revolve in the circle of births "like unto the figures of a puppet show" (XVIII. 61). Whatever God does, comes to pass only for the sake of the world, for, to God himself there is no wish to be fulfilled and no object to be striven after (III. 22, 24). "Every time when Right is on the wane, and Wrong rampant," God, who exists from all eternity and is immutable, creates himself a-new, ie. takes a new form of incarnation " for the defence of the good and the annihilation of the wicked, and thus to securely establish the Right” (IV. 6-8). Since the deed of God is an action of the matter ruled by him, and never originates from an egoistio motive, God is not bound down by his actions (IV. 13, 14; IX. 9). He can therefore be never ensnared in world-existence. The visionary picture of God in the 12th Adhydya is a dramatic production, intended to work on the phantasy (imagination), but is of little significance for the proper doctrines of the Gita.
The relation of God to the world of mankind does not entirely conform to a rigid law of recompense ; [p. 47] on the other hand, God loves human beings who know him and are devoted to him with all their hearts (VII. 17, XII. 14-20 ; XVIII., 64, 65, 69), and he emancipates from all sins everyone who resorts to him entirely (XVIII. 66). In this passage (and also at XVIII, 56, 58, 62, 73) is indeed to be found the doctrine of divine favour (Prasdda) which we come across in some of the Upanishads of the middle period ** (Katha, Sreta, Mundaka), and which as a consequence plays so predominant & part in the Indian sects.
Even though God directs the world-process, it is however matter, as we saw above, which does all work (III. 27, V. 14, XIII. 20, 29). From the primordial matter, originates the world, into which it goes back (VIII, 18, 19); the idea of evolution and reabsorption as much as the conception of the world-periods is therefore taken over from the Samkhya system. All the theories in the Bhagavadgita regarding matter generally agree with those of the Sankhya system. The three gunas play here in the Bhagavadgitd) the same rôle as in the Sankhya system; they affect by their actions the soul in bondage (XIV. 5 ff.), and the results of their activity make themselves felt in life step by step, as has been set forth in a very thorough fashion in Adhydyas XVII and XVIII. The physiological exposition of the internal organs and the senses is that of the Samkhya system (III, 40 42: XIII. 5). All these similarities, however, are not for the dootrines of the Bhagavadgita of that much significance as the fundamental theory regarding the nature of matter borrowed over from the Så mkhya, from which proceeds the philosophical consideration in Adhyâya II. Though indeed matter is not something created by God, still it is present from eternity onward, and it unceasingly underlies all progress and change. All its products and effects are finite; its actions, such as joy and sorrow, come and go, and therefore it is not right that one should be influenced by them (II. 14).
[P. 48] In contrast to the mutability of what matter gives rise to, stands the immutability of the spirit. As a matter of fact, the spirit (the soul, the self) is to that degree. like matter in that both are eternal and imperishable ; since what is, has ever been, and will always be ; "to a non-existing thing, no existence can be imparted; to the existing
42 See Hopkins, Great Epic, p. 188.