Sambodhi 1989 Vol 16

Author(s): Ramesh S Betai, Yajneshwar S Shastri
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 11

including that of the intellectuals and the scholars, feeling of reverence for and devotion to this unique Text.
What is Dr. Radhakrishnan's approach to this basic situation ? In the first place, it is necessary to acknowledge, both in an academic and intellectual way, the chroonological position that the Gitä takes in the evolution of Indian thought, philosophical and religious. D. Radhakrishnan points out that,
"The Bhagavadgita is later than the great movement represented by the early Upanişads and earlier than the period of the development of the philosophic systems and their formulation in sutras. From its archaic constructions and internal references, we may infer that it is definitely a work of the pre-Christian era. (fifth Century B. C.)....." (Text ed. Intr. p. 14).
It is clear, then that the Gita cannot be read as an exposition of 3. particular system of thought, nor can a philosophic system be imposed on it. The colophon at the end of cvery chapter indicates that thic Gitä is both metaphysics and ethics-brahmavidya and yogas listra, "the science of reality and the art of union with reality." But the teaching of the Gita is not presented as a metaphysical system tlought out by an individual thinker or school of thinkers. "It is set forth as a tradition which bas emerged from the religious life of mankind".
Dr. Radhakrishnan tells us that "the different clements which, at the period of the composition of the Gita, were competing with cach other within the Hindu System, are brought together and integrated into a comprehensive synthesis, free and large, subtle and profound. The teacher refines and reconciles the different currents of thought, the Vedic cult of sacrifice, the Upanişad teaching of the transcendent Brahman, the Bhāgavata theism and tender piety, the Samkhya dualism and the yoga meditation." (Ibid., pp. 13-14). In other words, the teacher of the Gitā is a profound seer who sees truth in its many-sidedness and believes in its saving power. The Gitā, thus,
"represents not any Sect of Hinduism but Hinduism as a whole, not merely Hinduism but religion as such, in its universality, without limit of time or space, embracing with its synthesis the whole gamut of the human spirit, from the crude fetishism of the savage to the creative affirmations of the saint.” (Ibid., p. 12)
'Understood in this light and on this chronological background, the scholarly attempts to discover the old and the new in the Gītā, the so