Krishna’s Jewel Box: An Introduction to the Bhagavad Gita
by Steven Rosen
Throughout the centuries, numerous travelers have sought wealth in India. Colorful rubies and exotic gems of unimaginable value were brought back to Western shores as the sacred land of the Ganges was repeatedly pillaged for its considerable assets. This article will focus on an ancient text that also originated in India — the Bhagavad Gita — a metaphorical jewel box with secret treasures.
The first in the Gaudiya Vaishnava lineage to describe the Gita as a jewel box was the eighteenth-century philosopher and spiritual master, Vishvanath Chakravarti Thakur. His analogy divides the Gita’s eighteen chapters into three sections: He writes that the first six are primarily concerned with karma, or the “actions” that bring one closer to God, and that the final six focus on jnana, which uses “knowledge” in pursuit of the Divine. The middle six chapters give us bhakti, or devotion – the Gita’s essence and its highest prize. Vishvanath Chakravarti writes:
The final six chapters of the scripture, Sri Gita, are jewels of spiritual education. They form part of a treasure chest containing the rarest secret of bhakti, or devotional service. The first six chapters dealing with karma form the golden, lower part of the chest, and the third six chapters dealing with jnana form its gem-studded cover. The bhakti found within is the most precious treasure in the three worlds. It has the power to bring Sri Krishna under one’s control.
In commenting on the above, Vishvanath’s disciple, Baladeva Vidyabhushana, takes the analogy further. According to Baladeva, the following verses are like a confidential inscription on the box, revealing its true meaning and value: “Because you are My very dear friend,” Lord Krishna says to Arjuna, His exemplary devotee, “I am speaking to you the most confidential part of knowledge. Hear this from Me, for it is for your benefit. Always think of Me and become My devotee. Worship Me and offer your homage unto Me. Thus you will come to Me without fail. I promise you this because you are My very dear friend. (Bg 18.64-65)
Verse 18.65, in particular, is the only one in the entire Gita that Krishna repeats twice – He first utters this truth directly at the Gita’s center (9.34), or in the heart of the bhakti section. In other words, this verse is so significant that He decides to repeat it, emphasizing this fact with the Sanskrit word bhuyah, “again,” in 18.64, where Krishna also underlines the fact that this teaching — always thinking of Him and becoming His devotee — is the most confidential knowledge and most important part of the Gita.
Bhagavad-gita: A Summary
Gita means “song,” and bhagavad refers to “God, the possessor (vat) of all opulence (bhaga).” The Bhagavad-gita, therefore, is “The Song of the All-Opulent One”; it embodies the teachings of Lord Krishna, or God Incarnate. The work comes to us in the form of dialogue between Lord Sri Krishna and the princely warrior Arjuna just before the onset of the devastating Mahabharata war.
Arjuna, putting aside his duty as a kshatriya (warrior), decides not to fight. His decision is instigated by personally motivated reasons: his kinsmen and teachers are in the opposing army, and he begins to question the validity of the war. What starts as hesitation devolves into paralyzing fear, and Arjuna becomes bewildered.
Krishna, who has agreed to become the driver of Arjuna’s chariot, sees His devotee in illusion, distraught by the fear that he must kill his relatives and friends. While feeling compassion, Krishna is not sentimentally swayed by the specifics of Arjuna’s dilemma. He eloquently reminds the great archer of his immediate social duty (varna-dharma) as a warrior upon whom people are depending, and, more importantly, of his religious duty (sanatana-dharma) as an eternal spiritual entity in relationship to God. The relevance and universality of Krishna’s teachings transcend the immediate historical setting of Arjuna’s battlefield angst. The dialogue moves through a series of questions and answers that elucidate metaphysical concepts such as the distinction between body/soul (matter/spirit), the principle of non-attached action, the virtues of discipline (yoga) and meditation (dhyana), and the place of knowledge (jnana) and devotion (bhakti). Krishna teaches that perfection lies not in renunciation of the world, but rather in disciplined action (Karma Yoga), performed without attachment to results (karma-phala-tyaga).
He shows Arjuna His Universal Form, which includes everything in existence, then His mystical four-armed Vishnu form, and finally His original two-armed form. He explains His many manifestations, such as Brahman (His mystical impersonal feature), Paramatma (His all-pervading localized aspect), and Bhagavan (His ultimate spiritual form and direct incarnations), and ultimately reveals that His personal feature supersedes His other aspects.
He explains the three modes of material nature — goodness, passion, and ignorance — showing how an understanding of these three qualities, along with knowledge of the divine and demoniac natures, can lead to enlightenment. He enumerates the different kinds of liberation and the primacy of surrendering to Him with a heart of devotion.
Most of all, the Gita is about dharma, a word that overflows with meaning. Although many scholars agree that “duty” is an acceptable translation of the original Sanskrit, the term is difficult to render into English. It is used to refer to religion, ordinary religiosity, sacred duty, virtue, cosmic order, and so on. Etymologically, it derives from the verbal root dhri, which means “to hold,” and more specifically, “that which holds everything together.” Things are held together by their essential qualities. Dharma is consequently seen as “the essence of a given thing,” or “a thing’s inherent nature.” The dharma of water is wetness. The dharma of honey is sweetness. And, according to the Bhagavad-gita, the dharma of the soul is loving service to Krishna with a heart of devotion.
The Threefold Division
The Gita’s tripartite division, as expressed by Vishvanath Chakravarti, actually goes back to Yamunacharya, a tenth-century Vaishnava saint in the Sri lineage, who mentions it in his 32-verse composition, the Gitartha-samgraha. Another great Vaishnava teacher, Ramanujacharya, who follows in Yamunacharya’s line, develops the idea in his Gita-bhasya. Madhusudana Sarasvati, too, though ostensibly representing an alternate philosophical tradition, makes use of the same schema in his poetic work, the Gudartha-dipika. Finally, Vishvanath Chakravarti and Baladeva Vidyabhusana, as stated, give it new life in their respective commentaries on the Gita, adding Gaudiya Vaishnavism’s signature “sweetness.” Vishvanath, especially, uses diverse imagery to make his point: He writes that bhakti gives life to both karma and jnana, which are useless without it; that it nourishes karma and jnana, and so it is strategically placed in the text so that it touches both; as a lamp placed in a doorway sheds light on both sides of a door, so the middle section on bhakti illuminates karma and jnana, and so on. Thus, for Vaishnavas, the jewel box analogy is particularly alluring, confirming that bhakti is the Gita’s “special gem.” Following Baladeva, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada uses this three-part division, too, and he is perhaps the first to do so in the English language. He sums up the idea as follows: “Chapters Seven through Twelve are the essence of the Bhagavad Gita. The first six and the last six chapters are like coverings for the middle six chapters, which are especially protected by the Lord.”
While there is considerable overlap – that is, one can certainly locate elements of jnana in the middle section, bhakti in the last one, and so on – the great masters in disciplic succession did decide to describe the Gita in terms of these three sextuplets. In fact, if one looks at the text with an awareness of these dividers, one can make out just what the acharyas are talking about: Chapters 1-6 establish the spiritual nature of the self and the importance of working (karma) for the Divine; its third chapter is even called “Karma-yoga,” and the title of the fifth chapter reiterates this emphasis. Here we learn of the self, duty, yoga, and the culmination of yoga, which is to focus the mind and heart on Krishna, God; this is, of course, Bhakti-yoga, or devotional service. It is on this note that the first section ends, serving as an introduction, of sorts, to Chapter Seven, the beginning of the middle section.
The word “bhakti” proper does not arrive until the seventeenth verse of the seventh chapter, and it is not defined until the twenty-first verse. Chapters 7-12 thus teach us about God, how to see Him in the world and beyond the world – and how to serve Him. Here we find the four “nutshell” verses through which the entire Gita is summarized. These verses are translated as follows:
Krishna says: “I am the source of all material and spiritual spheres. All things emanate from Me. Those who know this perfectly are truly wide and therefore engage in My devotional service and worship Me with the entire being. (10.8)
“Those who are greatly devoted focus their thoughts on Me. Their lives are dedicated to Me. And they derive great pleasure, even bliss, by discussing My glories and enlightening one another about My transcendental activities. (10.9)
“I only reveal Myself to those who worship Me with such loving ecstasy. And I further give them the understanding and transcendental intelligence by which they can come to Me. (10.10)
“Because I have special compassion for them, I, who dwell in their hearts, destroy any shred of ignorance that may somehow remain – I accomplish this by using the lamp of true knowledge.” (10.11)
This summarization focuses on service to Krishna (Bhakti-yoga). The last chapter of this section is even called “Bhakti-yoga,” underlining the emphasis of the six preceding chapters.
Finally, in Chapters 13-18, we find an analytical study of material nature, with elaboration on consciousness and the way in which the world works. Arjuna opens the thirteenth chapter with a series of questions, showing his desire to understand all that Krishna has taught him. The Lord then expounds on the three modes of material nature (goodness, passion, and ignorance) and on how these modes impact everything that we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. Overall, these chapters offer intellectual apparatus by which readers can learn to see and serve the Lord. In addition, this section examines the principle of renunciation, which is associated with true knowledge (jnana) and leads to surrender: the ultimate teaching of the Gita. The last chapter is essentially a summary of the text as a whole.
Five Major Topics
The jewel box known as the Bhagavad Gita is home to many lustrous pearls that radiate pure knowledge and love of God. Traditionally, it is said that five such pearls, in particular, make up the Gita’s special wealth: God (ishvara), the soul (jiva), material nature (prakriti), time (kala), and the intricacies of action and reaction (karma). Though these topics are also discussed in other sacred texts, the Gita offers a most detailed analysis of them, as well as their implications in terms of the ultimate goal of life, devotional service to Lord Krishna.
Out of these five, the Lord, the living entities, material nature, and time are eternal. But karma is not: it comes and it goes. We receive the fruits of our actions, and then we move on, although the reactions may impact our lives in ongoing and countless ways. The manifestation of material nature, as we see it today, too, may be temporary, but it is not false, as some schools of philosophy claim it is. According to the philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita, the world is real but temporary. It is compared to a cloud that gradually moves across the sky, or the coming of the rainy season, which facilitates the growing of grains. As soon as the clouds are gone, or the rainy season is over, a farmer’s crops will dry up. But next season the same process will repeat again, and after that, yet again. Similarly, this material manifestation takes place at certain intervals, stays for some time, and then disappears. Nonetheless, the cycle is going on eternally.
The Gita unpacks these terms more fully as the text moves from chapter to chapter. As one reads the Gita, one realizes that the term Ishvara (“Lord”) implies monotheism – in its ultimate sense, it refers exclusively to one Supreme Godhead. Thus, the Gita informs readers of the distinction between devas (demigods, in the plural), empowered beings from higher planets, and the Lord whom they serve. In fact, all other beings (jivas) are subservient to Ishvara, who is identified in the Gita as Krishna. Though jivas are eternal and fully spiritual, like Ishvara, they are small whereas He is great. The traditional example is that jivas are to Ishvara as drops of water are to an ocean – chemically analyzed, they are the same. But the ocean is great and the drop is tiny. Thus, the jiva (you and I) are not products of the material world (prakriti). Rather, we are of a higher, spiritual nature. Accordingly, we do not perish over the course of time (kala) but instead exist in a cycle of birth and death, reaping what we sow (karma) until we surrender to Krishna with love and devotion, at which point we stop reincarnating and join Him as loving devotees in the spiritual world. These points are important to understand if one is going to gain access to the Bhagavad Gita.
The Gita now enjoys immense popularity throughout the world and is traditionally considered one of the “Five Jewels” (pancharatnani) of the Mahabharata, along with other prominent episodes, such as “Thousand Names of Vishnu,” and the “Teachings of Grandfather Bhishma.” Perhaps it was this that inspired Vishvanath and Baladeva to restructure Yamunacharya’s original jewel box analogy. Or they might have gotten their cue from the Gita itself: At the beginning of the Gita’s most confidential middle section, in Chapter Seven, we read:
Krishna says: “O winner of wealth [Arjuna], there is no truth superior to Me. Everything rests upon Me, as pearls are strung on a thread.” [italics added]
In this verse, Krishna refers to Arjuna as Dhananjaya, which means “winner of wealth.” He also compares everything in existence to pearls, the valuable commodities one might find in a jewel box. Clearly, by the end of the Gita, the most precious wealth certainly belongs to Arjuna – he has submitted to Krishna and engages in His service, with love and devotion. In other words, the “jewel box” is his for the taking, and he indeed takes it like a man possessed, following Krishna’s desire to the letter. This is the conclusion of the Bhagavad Gita.
The Gita-mahatmya, a series of verses glorifying the Gita and found in the ancient Padma Purana, gives us a hint of how valuable the Gita is:
If one reads the Bhagavad-gita with great sincerity and determined seriousness, then by the grace of the Lord the reactions of his past misdeeds will not act upon him. (Gita-mahatmya 2)
Because the Bhagavad Gita is spoken by the Supreme Person Himself, one need not read any other Vedic literature. One need only attentively and regularly hear or read the Gita. In the present age, people are consistently absorbed in mundane activities and it is thus not possible for them to read the many existing Vedic texts. But such reading is not even necessary. This one book, the Bhagavad Gita, will suffice, because it is the essence of all Vedic literature and because it is spoken by the Supreme Personality of Godhead. (Gita-mahatmya 4)
Thus, to achieve the Gita’s jewels, as Arjuna did, is the greatest wealth in all of existence.