Wager of Ambrosia

Chapter 5

Obeisances to the Divine on the Battlefield

The Tree of Literature was planted by the great Seer and now it is bearing rich and ripe fruits of sweetness.  And what a wonder this book of the Gita is! Praise be to it, all praise—bapa bapa grantha gita, as Jnaneshwar says. The Lord himself is the revealer of the supreme creative-formative Truth which even the Vedas cannot seize, the Word that ushers divinity in a tranquil poise of unfolding phenomenality of this creation. But when the Lord comes he comes not only as a Teacher with the executive Word; his dynamism is there in full operation of an active person who can accomplish the world-fulfilling task. The Avatar takes directly the charge of all the thousand forces raging here in a complex play of possibilities pulling in every direction. He stands on the battlefield in his winning might. The Wielder of the Wheel of Right Seeing—sudarshana chakra—as a weapon of sure victory, he is in the midst of warring nations to decide their fate and the fate of the world. When in the cycles of Godward march Time arrives at an epoch-making moment, he indeed assumes a terrible form to destroy the past standing in the way. But the Lord is also a Friend and a Comrade-in-Arms. He can be very intimate and obliging to the one who is his favourite, who loves him unreservedly, who identifies himself with him,—as in oneness of sunshine with the sun. Arjuna would address him in endearing terms as “O Krishna, O Yadava, O Comrade;” he would speak to him in jest and be informal  “at party, on the couch, and the seat and the banquet.” Now he makes himself bold and asks him to show him his universal Form. No doubt he is present in essentiality and in every detail in this creation and there is nought but he,—as the inner experience recognises it to be so. But at this crucial stage for Arjuna that experience does not seem to be sufficient; it ought to become perceptible and concrete as a working proposition; it is necessary that the giver of the experience become visible to the seeing eye as well:

(Jnaneshwari:11.29)

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He has already been told about the Power that upholds dynamic omnipotence in the manifold nature of its being; he knows also about the Vibhutis, the special souls who take birth to accomplish special works in this world, transient and unhappy, full of sorrow and suffering as it is. But now it is imperative that Arjuna should see the supreme Person; the Time-Spirit should stand in front of him, in great glory, ready to strike and destroy all that is wicked and evil, the one aim being the establishment of the Law of Righteousness. The Avatar also considers that there is, in a way of speaking, a certain necessity to fulfil the wish of the accepted soul for the good of the work itself. Of course, and more importantly, there is an occult dimension to it and whatever is to be done bears in it its connotation and its significance. In the interest of that work command to the chosen instrument to go into world action has to come from the world-active spirit itself. In fact, it will be a supreme command and the revelation of its absolute supremacy will thus prove its undefeatable inevitability; then only will it turn out to be a direct action of the Transcendent. Such a moment has now arrived for the high involvement and only in that high involvement will this world be carried forward in a decisive way.  The Transcendent’s action is going to yield the Transcendent’s result. Arjuna is called, explains Sri Aurobindo,

…to self-knowledge; he must see God as the Master of the universe and the origin of the world’s creatures and happenings, all as the Godhead’s self-expression in Nature, God in all, God in himself as man and as Vibhuti, God in the lowness of being and on its heights, God on the topmost summits, man too upon heights as the Vibhuti and climbing to the last summits in the supreme liberation and union. Time in its creation and destruction must be seen by him as the figure of the Godhead in its steps,—steps that accomplish the cycles of the cosmos on whose spires of movement the divine spirit in the human body rises doing God’s work in the worlds as his Vibhuti to the supreme transcndences. This knowledge has been given; the Time-figure of the Godhead is now to be revealed and from the million mouths of that figure will issue the command for the appointed action to the liberated Vibhuti. (Essays on the Gita, SABCL, Vol. 13, p. 362)

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When the battle was about to begin Arjuna had succumbed to an unusual infirmity, had fallen into the Slough of Despond; in that state of dolour he wanted to renounce everything, flee from the terrible action of killing his own kith and kin and his elders and his preceptors who had taken their positions in the opposite camp. But the divine charioteer first rebukes him and then, putting him gradually in a proper frame of mind, exhorts that he cannot run away from the dharma of his soul, the dharma of the individual in which alone is his true salvation and his fulfillment. Arjuna has come around and the delusion in which he was trapped has been dispelled. He says so, that by the profound words of the Teacher he has regained his original sense of proportionality, recovered his native consciousness; he has become adhyatmasanjnavana, aware of the spiritual basis of things and actions. Arjuna, as put by Jnaneshwar, says:

O rich Treasure of Graciousness, you have for my sake spoken what is beyond speech. Where the great senses dry up, in the Eternal, and where the central being and the first executive power stay without activity, in that supreme Person indeed is the last form to be seen. Until now it was held back from view, like a miser’s hoard in the region of the heart; it was kept away even from the Word of the Veda, for which Hari gave up all his rich and splendent royalty; that precious thing, O Lord, you have given me without another consideration. It was boastful, and egoistic, of me to have said that even if the heavens were to fall, and the universe to sink, or the seven seas mingle and merge into one another, I would not take weapons against my own kindred and relations. But you have woken me up and I have come to my senses. Now, entering into the sanctum sanctorum of your Temple, I am getting the true and full experience of the Delight of Existence, brahmarasa. It is your victory and fame, your glory that the Vedas wear as a piece of strong and durable cloth. Presently, a keen desire has possessed me and for its fulfillment if it is not to you, then to whom do I turn? to whom else can I frankly express it? Can a fish feel shy of water, or does a babe have embarrassment in suckling from the mother’s breast? So let me request you to show me your form eulogised

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by the Upanishads, from which you come to remove obstacles in the paths of the gods, the form which can be likened to capital, muddala, out of which is paid their interest, two-armed or four-armed as you come. I am impatient to behold that shape of yours which is indeed a fathomless mystery to all. 

In a sequel to this supplication of Arjuna, Jnaneshwar writes:

And lo, the wonder! As if the ocean rose up in waves under the full moon, the Lord let himself surge in divine love to satisfy the wish of his fond and very dear friend, exceptional as he was amidst others. When a person leaves behind the waking condition and enters into a dream state, he identifies himself in it with all its objects; in the same manner the Avatar on the battlefield became all that is, brahmakataha. That is the richness, the plenty, the luminous opulence of his yogic action, yogariddhi, and Arjuna had the good fortune to be given a glimpse of it.

In brief that is how Jnaneshwar expounds, in about one hundred and twenty-five owis, the first four shlokas of the eleventh chapter of the Gita. While the presentation runs smoothly with calm unperturbed spontaneity, and there are at a number of places yogic intuitive flashes caught in perfect language, we cannot say that the poetry is throughout overhead. In fact, one starts wondering whether the text did not get corrupted in the hands of lesser composers or reciters. This is an aspect which needs to be further looked into and properly researched.

Take an example. The last shloka of the chapter is an invitation to Arjuna, and so to us, for complete surrender to the Lord who resides everywhere and in everything. When a Bhakta sees me in such a manner, assures the Teacher, he finally comes to me. Jnaneshwar expounds upon it and says that the devotee, even as his three elements disappear at the end, attains oneness with me, becomes me:

(Jnaneshwari:11.699)

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Commentators take the word tridhatu, the three elements constituting the bodily existence in the Ayurvedic sense of phlegm, wind and bile. Not that this is totally baseless; but it cannot be the whole spiritual or occult sense intended by the poet who is also a Yogi. Mere dissolution of the chemical substances of the body can never be sufficient for such a high attainment as oneness with the supreme Person. There are a number of sheaths of the human body and these have to be abandoned before that state is reached. Behind the gross physical form, sthula, is the subtle body, sukshma, and then is the causal body, karana. When the evolutionary soul merges into the Eternal these forms have to go away and it is this fact which Jnaneshwar must have intended in the use of tridhatu. The term tridhatu has a Vedic connotation also; it describes the Transcendent in the triple state of Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, Sachchidananda, but that cannot be the sense in the present context. The problem of editing Jnaneshwari is therefore still an open issue. Homogeneity of style, the character of high spiritual substance, the freshness of idiomatic form, the revealing power of the phrase and the symbol, all these will have to be perceptively recognised if we are to expunge what is weak or goody-goody, or immature, lacking the vigour of the breath of the spirit.  We should of course bear in mind that  the young author had never revised his work at any later stage—he lived only for six years more after the composition was completed—and what we have is only whatever had come in the first flush of the inspiration. At present let us, however, take a few examples of the great poetry that we have in this chapter.

The Lord of the universe has presented himself in the universal Form. Arjuna is given the divine eye—divya chakshu—to behold its splendour, proverbially put as brighter than that of a thousand suns. The infinite Godhead’s endless and middleless and beginingless majesty is everywhere in its magnificence and in its beauty,—and in its terrible aspect too. All the wonders of existence grow in him, in his wideness, in the likeness of his own person. Arjuna wishes to know who this person is and what his will is in this present working. Whatever that will be, he knows, it will bear the full charge and will have the power to achieve the intended result, the purpose of divinity in the Time-process. It may forebode destruction; but it will be a “reassuring

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reality behind this face of death and this destruction,”—avows Sri Aurobindo. Arjuna bows down and offers his prayers to the Lord, whom the gods and the fulfilled beings and the Rishis give praise, chant hymns of benedictive glory with the swasti-utterances. Even as the Vision in front of Arjuna grows more and more wide in its transcendent dimensions, we also hear in Vyasa the ring of Overmind poetry manifoldly expressing that unseizable Greatness:

(The Gita: 11.36-40)

Rightly and in good place, O Krishna, does the world rejoice and take pleasure in thy name, the Rakshasas are fleeing from thee in terror to all the quarters and the companies of the Siddhas bow down before thee in adoration. How should they not do thee homage, O great Spirit? For thou art the original Creator and Doer of works and greater even than creative Brahma. O thou Infinite, O thou Lord of the gods, O thou abode of the universe, thou art the Immutable and thou art what is and is not and thou art that which is the Supreme. Thou art the ancient Soul and the first and original Godhead and the supreme resting-place of this All; thou art the knower and that which is to be known and the highest status; O infinite in form, by thee was extended the universe. Thou art Yama and Vayu and Agni and Soma and Varuna and Prajapati, father of creatures, and the great-grandsire. Salutation to thee a thousand times over and again

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and yet again salutation, in front and behind and from every side, for thou art each and all that is. Infinite in might and immeasurable in strength of action thou pervadest all and art every one.  (Essays on the Gita, SABCL, Vol. 13,  p. 374)

We very briefly present, by way of illustration, relevant verses from Jnaneshwari, verses that so feelingly and superbly render these shlokas into Marathi, in which poetry rises to another grandeur of the gracious and felicitous spiritual: 

(Jnaneshwari: 11.504-506; 511-536)

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O Lord, the living world, even livingly instinct as it is with life, does hold you endearingly in adoration; and more and more do you destroy them those who are evil-minded and wicked. There is a great fear of you, O Hrishikesha, in the heart of the demons of the three worlds and, because of it, beyond the ten directions they are fleeing.  And others, the gods, and  human beings, the celestial musicians, the realised souls, the  sages and  seers, as well as all that is fixed or moving, every object and creature,—I see that they  are very exultantly  bowing to  you... . From where issue forth manifold universes, in various lines, spreading out as creepers of the great formative elements, in that primal existence has the Will of the Divine conceived.  Lord, you are the measureless Quality, without an end in any extension; Lord, you are the calm and even Spirit, the same in each and every aspect, in all the aspects; you are indeed the Supreme, God of gods. You are the abode of the three creations, you are the ever-auspicious and benign, you are the imperishable substance and cause of what is; you are the Being and the Non-Being; verily, you are beyond the reach of them all. In you is the origin of Soul and Nature, Purusha and Prakriti; what defines the creative principle in its power of manifestation, that you are; you yourself are without a beginning, O Ancient of Days. You are the life-breath of this entire universe, in you is the manifold treasure of the human soul; the knowledge of the past and the future, and the works of Time, all that is at your command. Pleasing and happy is your person to the eye of the revealed Scripture, O Indescribable, O Undifferentiable, and in you repose those three worlds, O you its splendid Abode. That is why at the end of the cycles of creation she, the Executrix, the most Excellent, withdraws into you, her retreat and her dwelling place. In other words, O Lord, you are the originator of this whole cosmos, one in infinite forms, and therefore who can really extol your vastness and your grandeur and majesty? Is there a thing in which you are not, or a piece of ground or stead or site vacant of you? Therefore, in whatever way you be and in whichever manner you abide or conform, it is to you that such a praise do I offer. O Lord, unbounded and eternal, you are Vayu the All-Pervasive

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and you are Yama the Ordainer and, living in creature-kind, you are Agni. Varuna the Ruler over the Waters you are, and Soma the Moon-God. You are the Creator as Brahma and even beyond him, that Supreme, you are; you are yourself the begetter of the great Grandsire. O Master of the Universe, besides this existence, all that is visible or invisible, all that has taken shape or is without it, to you I offer my obeisances.

Continues Jnaneshwar:

In this way, and with a heart full of devotion, and with loving respect, did Arjuna bow and express his feelings, saying  “Obeisances to you, O Lord, my obeisances, again and again.” Looking at that gracious incarnate form in every detail, he repeatedly said, “Obeisances to you, O Lord, my obeisances, again and again.” One by one as he beheld the several parts of the deity, and with a pleased and calm unperturbed mind, he said once more, “Obeisances to you, O Lord, my obeisances, again and again.” Seeing the entire creation in him, inanimate and animate beings in a like manner, he said, “Obeisances to you, O Lord, my obeisances, again and again.” Amazed, such wonderful forms as he saw in the Infinite, to them, to them, marvellingly, he said, “Obeisances, obeisances.” He could neither gather memory to praise more nor, dumbfounded, could he just remain quiet, without uttering a single word; instead, in a strain of fond affectionate intimacy, he simply sang, proclaiming that glory and that greatness. Or else, in this emotion-filled state, he bowed a thousand times and said, again and again, “Obeisances to you, O Srihari, whom I see standing before me, face to face. It perhaps serves no purpose to know if there is anterior or posterior, that God has front or rear, and therefore, O Master, my obeisances to you that you are at my back. It may so happen that you would be on my backside and hence I would speak of it that way; but it cannot be really said that there is a front or rear for you in the world. It is impossible indeed to enumerate your several limbs and parts and aspects and that is why, yet making a count, obeisances to you residing

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in all. You are the ardour and the forward-moving will, O Almighty, and your triumph is interminable; you are the same essentiality, always and in all, and obeisances be to you, O one having all forms. It is in the wideness of the sky that the sky itself becomes space, at the same time pervading it fully; in that way are you present here in every respect. Or else, like the ocean of milk that bears only the waves of milk, so in all, or in the whole, there is nothing but you. That is why nought is there different from you, O Lord; you cannot be separate from what is. My good sense now recognises that, indeed, you are everything.

If we compare the original Sanskrit verses with the Marathi owis, we at once recognise the new element that has entered into spiritual poetry. There is sublimity in both. But one is solid and luminously dense, the rhythm coming from the oceanic movement of sound, infinitely widening in its gleaming surges of meaning and sense with their massiveness, yet remaining subtly fluent in its greatness and in its gracefulness; the other is lyric-delightful. In one is the spiritual force, Tapas Shakti; in the other the upward winging of the happy psychic, the soul of adoration freely breathing ethereality of deep blue spiritual skies. To the language of the Spirit has now been made available the beauteous song of the Psychic. 

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