“Mark you this, Bassanio,
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart:
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!”
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart:
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!”
So says Antonio in Merchant of Venice.
This was precisely why I’m sure most of those
including myself reacted with consternation at the demand that Baghwad Gita be
made a national book.
The other day a friend chastised me that I talk
nonsense and write bunkum in my blog embellished with grandioseness. He was
referring to my general anathema for the rightwing religious agenda and my outspokenness. He termed my assertions and opinion as frivolous and naive. Criticisms are welcome only that they have to be sauted with reasoning.
He, for that matter, though a semi liberal and not
votary of the Sangh or the right wing politics, was recently enamoured by a more
chastened and former Chinmaya Mission spiritual ascetic who excels in
discourses from the Gita. I’m sure that my friend's awareness and knowledge of the Gita is as plebeian as mine and quite
certainly he may not have read even the Penguin publication of Juan Mascaro’s
Gita that is still held as the most authentic English translation of Gita
addressing ordinary and less competent people that certainly includes me and he.
The argument the gentleman friend based his
endorsement that Gita be made a national text are
a-
Gita is all encompassing and can be
related to all race, creed, and origin of human beings
b b-
Because of its universal essence it
should be made a national book.
c c -
It is not a Hindu religious text; it
has nothing perse about religion
d d-
The message of the Gita is eternally
relevant.
Now, I being a lay person and my knowledge was
always sourced from the writings and lectures of intelligent and scholarly minds
and as always the thinking mind was set rolling by the works of elitist and
dispassionate writers and historians.
Let
me put forth why I intend to disagree with the gentleman friend on the most
vital argument that the Gita be elevated as a national book, though at the same
time acknowledging the wisdom of the
Gita as much as in many other books that are repositories of wisdom
Can
we disagree with the statement that the Gita is a war cry and the war mentioned
in the Gita is an allegory? Will the votaries who want it elevated to national
status agree to see it so and not as the iconic text of of Hinduism? Perhaps
Machiavelli too may have borrowed from the spirit of Gita in his “Prince”. The
reasoning that the Gita is universal in appeal and is the panacea to all the
tiresome agony of human existence is similar to the oft stated catch phrase
coming out from pulpits of Muslim and Christian places of worship that the
Koran and the Bible is the lone means to salvation.
In the context of Bhagawad Gita historians like
Romilla Thappar (who is persona non grata to the right wing) suggests ,
“…..that some 700 verses of the Gita were a later addition to the primary text,
The Mahabratha. The epics had originally been secular and had to be revised by
the Brahamans with a view to using them as religious literature…….”.The idea of
interpolation was provided by Wendy Doniger (again, a pariah for the right wing).
She suggests that the Gita was written around 100 CE, while the epic Mahabharata was dated about 300 BCE and 300 CE, concluding that Veda Vyas who authored Mahabharata did not write the Gita. In sum Bhagawad Gita is the wisdom of the
Upanishads and the Vedas. To now say that Gita is not a religious text is erroneous.
Forcing people of other faith to study Gita at a
time when religion is not a positive identity but a tool in the hands of
negative, parochial, divisive forces will bring a backlash that will grow ominously.
The rightwing as we have today are certainly not the ones to be trusted with a
Gita . For as the bard himself said “The devil can cite Scripture for his
purpose”.