Manu's Shadow On Gita's Path (original) (raw)
Related papers
Introductory chapter to the latest edition of my Gita book translation
On Reading and Interpretation, 2023
This is the introductory chapter to the 2023 HarperCollins edition of my Gita book translation. It includes some reflections and ideas on how to read the Gita, and which were a part of my own reading process that led to my Gita translation via modernist poetics
The Gita: How It Shaped the World for the Better
2017
This literary review will show the following: The functional purpose of The Bhagavad-Gita , how it originated and how it has transcended not only India, but also the entire world. In addition, this paper will also tie in how it affects me personally as someone on the Autism Spectrum Disorder, including a brief explanation on the condition as well. From it’s origins as a document before a war broke out, it became a doctrine. Even as it is explained at the beginning: “King inquired: Sanjaya, please tell me, in detail, what did my people and the Pandavas do in the battlefield before the war started?” (Jayaram, 1.01), its reverence in time poses similarities between cultures of the east and ultimately over time, the entire world. The Gita has not only affected just those who practice the philosophies inside it in India, but also the entire world. Autistics view the world differently, depending on their functioning levels. How Autistics perceive religion, especially one which is utilized by the second most populated country in the world (being India), this reference work (being The Gita) is crucial for Hindus and it has definitely shaped the way the world perceives religion.
A History of the Gita’s Transnational Reception, 1785-1945
This essay lays out a history of the translation, interpretation, transmission and reception of the Bhagavad Gita as a cultural, religious and philosophical text in the West from 1785 to 1945; in doing so it focuses primarily on Britain, although it also refers to other contexts of reception where they are connected to the British context, or to present revealing or helpful comparisons. The object of the essay is to investigate relationships between the Gita’s interpretive history and assumptions about the Gita, both as a transcultural philosophical source and as an essentially Hindu religious text, which have been in place since the twentieth century. Although there have been other transnational surveys and histories of the Gita’s translation, this essay differs from them in positing a specific period of interpretation between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, during which time, it argues, the Gita as a received and translated text was significantly altered in certain specific ways which continue to influence its present understanding both in the West and in India.
2023
Gandhi and Gita - PDF-PowerPoint used for my lecture as guest of honour and as chief speaker at the Srujani Parivar, Chennai on 2nd October 2023. The intent of my investigation is to expose and interpret aspects of Gandhi’s meditation on Gita. One aim of Gandhi’s meditation on Gita consists in the search for the foundations of the right moral thought and of the right individual education. The Revelation of Gita is for the individual, among other things, a journey towards the discovery of himself and of his position in the reality; it is a journey towards the discovery of the possible developments of his own soul. The foundation of the right individual education has immediately social aspects: the right education proves to represent the very foundation of the right political action. In Gandhi’s view, the political doctrine and the political action ought to have, as their own fundament, the teachings of Gita. The Revelation of Gita gives to the individual the right moral education and the right moral foundation: it gives the knowledge of Truth, of God, of reality and of the individual essence. Through and thanks to the teachings of Gita, the individual education finds the due foundation: the individual education is then the basis of a right political and social order; it represents the basis for the dialogue between individuals and for the pacific coexistence between individuals. The morally right order of the society is the consequence of the morally right order of the individual. Thus, the meditation on Gita constitutes as such the foundation of the possibility of a right political strategy. Thanks to the education obtained through the meditation on Gita, the individual becomes able to understand the right moral behaviour and the way to reach the right moral behaviour: this has an immediate effect on the structure and organisation of the whole society. In order that the society can be morally changed, the individual ought to develop his moral constitution in a right way. There may not be any right political programme without a previous individual right moral education. The reform of the society presupposes the right moral individual education. The analysis of the position of individuals within the reality and the investigation on the individual soul constitution enables to reach an appropriate strategy for a right moral education. Since individuals consist of the three gunas sattva, rajas, and tamas, individuals are, as such, complex entities. Individuals are, moreover, dynamic entities: the development of the three gunas inside the individual soul, the relationships between the gunas in the soul and the prevalence of one guna over the other gunas within the souls are not given once and for all: they depend on the education and on the life choices of the individuals. The individual development is a question of the responsibility of the individual. The prevalence of a guna over the other ones is due to the free decision of the individual: depending on how the individual decides to orientate his own life, and depending on which dispositions of the soul the individual decides to cultivate, the soul of the individual will take a corresponding direction and will have a corresponding development. The responsibility of the development of one’s one life belongs to the individual. The development of the individual is open, at least within specific limits related to the individual nature. The corporeal dimension puts precise limits to the individual capacity of self-improvement within the corporeal life. Ahimsa cannot be fully followed within the corporeal condition; Moksha cannot be completely reached due to the influence of the senses. Individuals ought to accept the limits due to their bodily dimension; at the same time, individuals ought to steadily try to improve themselves by promoting the virtues connected to sattva: the being-limited of individuals does not imply an absence of responsibility of the individuals as regards their own actions. Individuals have the responsibility of being aware of their own constitution and of fighting against the limitations of their own condition. Individual being constitutively imperfect entails that individuals ought to educate themselves continuously: the individual ought to reach a moral foundation; he ought to steadily pay attention to the stability of his own character. The main works analysed throughout my analysis will be Gandhi’s Discourses on the “Gita”, contained in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, XXXII (November 1926 – January 1927), pp. 94-376, and the work of Mahadev Desai, The Gospel of selfless action or The Gita according to Gandhi.