Yoga in the Mahābhārata & Bhagavadgītā

• RELG 254: Introduction to Yoga Traditions - Winter 2025
• Topic: Yoga in the Mahābhārata & Yoga in the Bhagavadgītā
• Required Readings: “A Prescription for Yoga and Power in the Mahābhārata,” Fitzgerald and "Yoga Practices in the Bhagavadgītā,” Malinar

Dharma and the Mahābhārata

• Dharma is right action, righteousness, law, sacred duty, ethical propriety, virtue, "the good", and that which sustains order in the world and religion.
• The Mahābhārata teaches the subtle nature of dharma and its infinite subtlety, incalculable calculus of consequences, and endless delicacy.
• Dharma in the starkest terms is the need to destroy in order to preserve, and kill in order to live.
• The Mahabharata is a war fought at home, and in any such war, both sides must lose.
• The Mahabharata offers more questions than answers.

Yoga in the Mahābhārata

• There is a wide diversity of views on and contexts for yoga within the Mahābhārata
• Tapas means ascetic heat, austerity, asceticism.
• Yoga is associated with the pursuit of boons and powers like special weapons and flying ability
• Yoga is often linked to techniques for dying and linked to light
• Yoga powers include the ability to enter/possess another's body and to 'link' oneself with another as shown in the Sulabhā and Janaka story
• Yoga practice is generally presented as having four main aspects:
  • Moral conduct
  • Diet, posture and surroundings
  • Breath control
  • Withdrawal of the senses, concentration and meditation

Fitzgerald's Notes

• Yoga is focused on the individual, in contrast to Vedic practice
• Yoga is a regime of psycho-somatic technology, and a form of harnessing

Yoga darśana

• This refers to "The School of Mastery by means of yoga harnessing"
• Yoga manifests as strength and concentration

Sāmkhya darśana

• Sāmkhya darśana translates to “The School of Total Knowledge"
• It includes levels of being and the enumeration of ontological phenomena
• it Features the duality of puruṣa (spirit) and prakrti (matter, nature), characterized by the three guņas (qualities)
• The goal of radical disaffection from the world: vairagya, including kaivalya and isolation is the beatific detachment of spirit from matter
• Enumerative contemplation of the entire system of the world is used to achieve this

The components of consciousness (puruṣa)

• The components include:
• Pure consciousness (puruṣa)
• Primordial materiality (mūlaprakrti)
• Intellect (buddhi or mahat)
• Egoity (ahamkāra)
• Mind (manas) - both a sense capacity and an action capacity
• Hearing (śrotra)
• Touching (tvac)
• Seeing (cakṣus)
• Tasting (rasana)
• Smelling (ghrāna)
• Speaking (vāc)
• Grasping/prehending (pāņi)
• Walking/motion (pāda)
• Excreting (pāyu)
• Procreating (upastha)
• Sound (śabda)
• Contact (sparśa)
• Form (rūpa)
• Taste (rasa)
• Smell (gandha)
• "Space"/ether (ākāśa)
• Wind/air (vāyu)
• Fire (tejas)
• Water (ap)
• Earth (prthivi)
• These components consist of five sense capacities (buddhindriyas), five action capacities (karmendriyas), five subtle elements (tanmātras), and five gross elements (mahābhūtas).

Bhagavadgītā

• The Bhagavadgītā translates to "Song of the Lord" and is often called "the Gītā"
• It consists of 700 verses in Book 6 of the Mahābhārata, right when the war starts
• Most scholars propose it was written around 200 BCE – 100 CE
• It is a synthesis of earlier strands (Upanishads, etc.) within a theistic framework
• It is an important text for centuries, appealing to British and Hindu reformers seeking a "Hindu Bible"
• There are many translations available

Setting the scene: the field of dharma

• Bhagavadgītā 1.1 sets the scene in the field of dharma
• Sanjaya is asked to tell of what happened when the sons of Pandu met, and wanted to battle, on the field of Kuru
• This setting relates to the field of sacred duty [dharma]

Arjuna's dejection

• Bhagavadgītā 1.28 describes Arjuna's dejection where filled with strange pity
• Krishna's kinsmen are gathered, wanting war

Bhagavadgītā 1.29-32

• Arjuna states that "My limbs sink, My mouth is parched, My body trembles, The hair bristles on my flesh."
• Arjuna states that "The magic bow slips from my hand, my skin burns, I cannot stand still, my mind reels"
• Arjuna sees omens of chaos, and no good in killing his kinsmen in battle.
• Arjuna seeks no victory, or kingship or pleasures, and no use of kingship, delights, or life itself

Karma and the nature of the ātman

• Bhagavadgītā 2.22 refers to Karma and ātman (soul)
• Just as a person discards worn-out clothes to put on new ones, so the embodied self discards its worn-out bodies to take on other new ones.

Bhagavadgītā 2.47-48, 2.50

• Emphasis is placed on action, detachment from the fruits of action and Yoga as "skill in action"
• Be intent on action, not on the fruits of action; avoid attraction to the fruits and attachment to inaction
• Discipline helps in performing actions, firm in discipline, relinquishing attachment and being impartial to failure and success
• This equanimity is called discipline [yoga]
• Disciplined by understanding, one abandons both good and evil deeds; arm yourself for discipline. Discipline [yoga] is skill in actions.

Bhagavadgītā 3.35 and svadharma

• Svadharma translates to one's own duty
• Your own duty done imperfectly is better than another person's done well.
• It is better to die in one's own duty; another person's duty is perilous.

Bhagavadgītā 4.7-8 and avatāra

• Avatāra refers to incarnation of a deity in the world and is usually Vishnu for the sake of dharma
• Whenever sacred duty [dharma] decays and chaos prevails, God creates himself to protect virtue and to destroy people who do evil
• God sets the standard of sacred duty and appears in age after age.

Theophany and the identity of Krishna

• Theophany is the appearance of a deity to a human being
• Krishan reveals his identity to Arjuna
• The crescendo is revealed in Bhagavadgītā chapter 11
• Viśvarūpa translates to universal form or "all-form"

Bhagavadgītā 11.16

• Krishna's boundless form is seen everywhere, with countless arms, bellies, mouths, and eyes.
• Krishna is the Lord of All, with no end, middle or beginning

Bhagavadgītā 11.12

• If the light of a thousand suns came into the sky at once, it'd be like the light of the great spirit.

Bhagavadgītā 11.32-33

• Krishna is time grown old, creating world destruction, set in motion to annihilate the worlds and even without you, all warriors arrayed in hostile ranks will surrender and cease to exist
• Arjuna must arise and win glory!
• Arjuna must conquer your foes and fulfill your kingship as they are already killed by Krishna
• Arjuna to be just his instrument, the archer at his side!

Theistic framework

• Bhakti translates to devotion and love

Bhagavadgītā 9.26-9.27

• The leaf or flower or fruit or water that one offers with devotion, God takes from the person of self-restraint in response to their devotion.
• Whatever good you do, offer as an offering to God, Arjuna!

Bhagavadgītā 11.55

• act only for God, intent on God, Free from attachment, Hostile to no creature, Arjuna
• A person of devotion will come to God

Bhagavadgītā 12.8

• Focus your mind on God, Let your understanding enter God
• Seek to reach God, Arjuna, By discipline in practice"

Angelika Malinar on "Yoga Practices in the Bhagavadgītā"

• Yoga in the Bhagavadgītā is a term used to refer to methods of controlling one's activities with the aim of obstructing the production of karman
• Yoga refers to the doctrines and practices of meditation and the acquisition of liberating insight
• Yoga refers to states of self-control and strength in the hour of death, and extraordinary powers that allow one to control other agents in the world
• Yoga refers to the cosmic cause of creation itself (brahman, prakrti)." (p. 58-59)

Krishna as "the Lord of Yoga"

• Krishna (yogeśvara), uses his yogic powers for the welfare of all beings (59)
• Yoga as "self-control" (see p. 59-60)
• Devotional practices exist vs. ascetic practices
• Yoga and Sāmkhya are related
• Yoga and action are referrd to as karmayoga
• There are theistic and non-theistic paths of yoga

Hindu Interpreters of the Bhagavadgītā

• karmayoga, jñānayoga, and bhaktiyoga are three types of yogic paths described in the Bhagavadgītā

Jñānayoga - the discipline or path of knowledge

Shankarāchārya

• Shankarāchārya lived c. 700-750 CE
• He published commentaries on Upanishads and Bhagavadgītā
• He was an advocate for Non-dualism, also known as Advaita Vedanta
• He Stressed the liberating power of knowledge (for example, discriminating if something is rope/snake)

Ramana Maharshi

• Lived - 1879-1950
• His approach is classified as Jñāna yoga
• He taught the technique of vicara, or inquiry in order to attain Self-realization
• He asked the relentless pursuit of the question, "Who am I?" will lead to realization

Bhaktiyoga is the discipline or path of devotion

Jñāneshvar

• Jñāneshvar lived in the 13th century
• Jñāneshvar performed the first vernacular translation/commentary, which was rendered in Marathi
• Jñāneshvar emphasized bhakti

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

• A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada lived from 1896-1977
• He was from the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition
• He was the Founder of ISKCON, International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Hare Krishna Movement), and traveled to North America
• He emphasized personal devotion to Krishna
• He translated the Bhagavad-Gītā As It Is (1968)

Karmayoga - the discipline or path of action

Bal Gangadhar ("Lokmanya") Tilak

• Bal Gangadhar ("Lokmanya") Tilak lived 1856-1920
• The British called him the "father of Indian unrest"
• He wrote Srimad Bhagavadgita Rahasya, commentary on Gita while he was in jail, 1910-1911
• He Emphasized action, and karma-yoga
• He Quoted Gītā to support idea that no blame could be attached to anyone who killed an oppressor without any thought of reward

Aurobindo

• Aurobindo lived 1872-1950
• Aurobindo was an Indian nationalist who first focused on action
• Aurobindo brought bhakti into his interpretation of karma-yoga
• He urged activists to see themselves as instruments of divine power like Arjuna, but for the Indian nation

Mohandas K. Gandhi.

• Mohandas K. Gandhi lived from 1869-1948
• Gandhi called the Gītā his spiritual dictionary
• Gandhi wrote a commentary on the Bhagavadgītā in Gujarati (English trans. 1946) after being jailed in 1929
• Gandhi Emphasized action, seeing theological statements as secondary
• Gandhi interpreted the Gita as allegory, not as a work of history, but a religious text that seized on the 'occasion' of the Mahabharata war to draw attention to war in our own bodies between the forces of Good (Pandavas) and Evil (Kauravas)
• Gandhi taught about non-violence (ahimsā)

Nathuram Godse

• Nathuram Godse was alive from 1910-1949
• Godse Assassinated Gandhi in January 1948
• Godse was a Right-wing Hindu nationalist who believed Gandhi's influence was helping Pakistan but hurting India
• Godse said that he believed honor, duty and love of one's own kith and kin and country might often compel people to disregard non-violence and In the Mahabharata, and that Arjun had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations, including the revered Bhishma, because Bhishma was on the side of aggressors
• Godse thought by dubbing Ram, Krishna and Arjun as guilty of violence, that the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action

Explores yoga traditions within the Mahābhārata and Bhagavadgītā, including dharma, asceticism (tapas). The Mahābhārata is a war fought at home, and in any such war, both sides must lose. The Mahabharata offers more questions than answers.