The Taliban, a jihadi terrorist organisation consisting of 70,000 strong fighters, have established an Islamic state—Emirate—in Afghanistan. They could easily defeat a three lakh well-trained, modern army with sophisticated weaponry. The Afghan army simply abdicated without fighting. Maybe because both the armies belonged to the same ethnic group, with the same ideological moorings! Also, they shared the same socio-political and religious beliefs.
Political pundits were simply aghast, they could not believe what was unfolding in Afghanistan—how could a US-trained modern army surrender so meekly to the butchers of the Bamiyan Buddhas?
As the Afghan drama unfolds, I get a copy of Bibek Debroy’s book, The Bhagavad Gita for Millennials. And like the Afghan army, I find Arjuna in a quandary: Whether to fight the war or not. He, too, put aside ‘Gandiva’, his bow and arrows at the beginning of the Great War. How could he fight and kill his great grandfather, his teachers, his uncles, his brothers, among others, for the sake of a kingdom?
The Bhagavad Gita for Millennials by Debroy, a renowned economist and scholar, is a great read. The Bhagavad Gita, the song celestial, belonging to the ‘Smriti’ text category, is a part of the Mahabharata. There are other songs or ‘Gitas’: Agastya Gita in Varaha Purana, Avadhuta Gita in Padma Purana, Uttar Gita in Brahmand Purana, Uddhav Gita in Bhagawata Purana, Kapila Geeta in Bhagawata Purana, Guru Gita in Skanda Purana, Parashara Gita in Mahabharata, Bhramara Gita in Bhagavata Purana, Rudra Gita in Varaha Purana, Vasishtha Gita in Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana, Vibhishana Gita in Adhyatma Ramayana, Hamsa Gita in Mahabharata, Harita Gita in Mahabharata, Siddha Gita in Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana, Vanar Gita in Parashara Samhita, Vamdeva Gita in Mahabharata, Yama Gita in Agni Purana, Dharma Vyadha Gita in Mahabharata, Ashtavakra Gita, Ram Gita, and Anu Gita in Mahabharata.
The first translation of the Gita in English was done by Charles Wilkins in 1785 AD. There are several famous commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita by Adi Shankaracharya, Abhinavagupta, Ramanujacharya, Madhvacharya and Vallabhacharya. In the war, the Kauravas had eleven ‘akshauhini’ and the Pandavas had seven ‘akshauhini’ — ‘akshauhini’ being the unit of army consisting of 21,870 chariots, 21,870 elephants, 65,610 horses and 109,350 foot-soldiers. The Bhagavad Gita synthesises Yoga, Sankhya, Vedanta, Mimansa, Bhakti and much more. Bhagavan Krishna says in the Gita, “The ignorant are addicted to desire, think of heaven as the supreme objective and are enamoured of the fruits of birth and action.”
Bhagavan in the Gita asserts that whenever ‘Dharma’ goes into a decline and ‘adharma’ is on the ascendance, then He creates Himself. He takes incarnation or ‘Avatara’ — God comes down to a lower plane of existence for the protection of the ‘bhaktas’, but the Gita emphasises ‘arohana’ — rising from a lower plane to a higher plane of existence.
Most of us believe in ten ‘Avatara’ of Bhagavan Vishnu: Matsya (the fish), Kurma (the tortoise), Varaha (the boar), Narasimha ( half-man, half-lion), Vaman (dwarf), Parshuram, Rama, Krishna, Buddha and Kalki. Matsya, Kurma, Varaha, Narasimha and Vaman came in the Satya Yuga. Parashurama and Rama were in the Treta Yuga, Krishna was in the Dwapara Yuga and Buddha was in the Kali Yuga.
Compared to Satya Yuga, there are fewer ‘avatars’ now. Debroy emphasises that the ‘avataras’ reflect evolution — fish to tortoise, tortoise to boar, boar to half-man half-lion, and finally to a human being. “Water to land, fish to amphibian, and amphibian to mammal, and so on,” writes Debroy. In the scheme of things, obviously, emphasis shifts to ‘arohana’ — rising from a lower to a higher plane of existence through Yajna (sacrifice), Tapa (austerities), Yoga (meditation, etc), Bhakti and Karma.
We cannot agree more to the translation of a ‘shloka’ mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita by Dr Debroy when he writes, “The wise look equally upon a Brahmana, who is learned and humble, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a ‘shvapaka’.” Elsewhere the learned author translate ‘shvapaka’ as ‘a person, who cooks dog and thus, eats them.’ and then, he emphatically asks not to bring in ‘shudras’ on the basis of imperfect translation, thereby hammering the Marxist narrative about caste atrocity in the Gita.
Debroy states that the Mahabharat was written in 5th century BC while its final rendition was done in the fifth century AD. Obviously, he is wrong. Sage Vyasa was alive during the Great War, and he is the author of the Mahabharata of which ‘the song celestial’ is a part. Colonial administrator-scholars believed in the Biblical Creationism, i.e., they asserted that the earth was created in 4004 BC.
Obviously, they had to squeeze or abandon selectively Indian chronology mentioned in the Puranas. How could there be kings and monarchs ruling over different parts of India when there was no earth? They had to create Aryan Invasion/Migration Theory, and in doing so they were oblivious to the paradox — Saraswati Civilisation (Harappa Culture) had the greatest geographical spread, but no literary evidence, whereas the Vedic Civilisation has vast literature, but no archaeological footprint at all.
It is ironic that Debroy, well-versed in Sanskrit worldview, has fallen prey to colonial-Marxist historiography.
This, however, doesn’t take away the beauty of the book. It’s, as the title of the book suggests, for the millennials. And its language and style perfectly suit the stated objective.
