Theology Department
St. Stephen's
Episcopal School
Austin, Texas

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-theology 12
-theology 8
-theology senior elective

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-ethics
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Another reason could be the invasion of Indo-European peoples from north of the Black and Caspian seas. A nomadic group, they rode in on chariots, conquered what they found, and made their presence felt from what is now Ireland to western China over more than a millennium, shaping language and ideas as they went. They moved into the Indus Valley and, over centuries, into the Ganges River plain of northern India. Their religious tradition gradually incorporated various preexisting native religious elements. The spiritual side of the Aryans is seen in hymns called the Vedas, which translates as "knowledge" or "body of knowledge." The Vedas are among the oldest spiritual compositions we have. They are a part of the Hindu tradition today. They reflect a particular interest in gods related to nature, sky, fire, heat, sound, sacrifice. They are often optimistic, life-affirming, expressing a sense of wonder and gratitude. One of the Vedas is the "Hymn to the Dawn." Here's a sample:

This light has come, of all the lights the fairest:
The brilliant brightness has been born effulgent.
Urged onward for god Savitar's uprising,
Night now has yielded up her place to morning....
Bright leader of glad sounds she shines effulgent:
Widely she has unclosed for us her portals.
Pervading all the world she shows us her riches:
Dawn has awakened every living creature.
Men lying on the ground she wakes to action:
Some rise to seek enjoyment of great riches,
Some, seeing little, to behold the distant:
Dawn has awakened every living creature.
Some for dominion, and for fame another;
Another is aroused for winning greatness;
Another seeks the goal of varied nurture:
Dawn has awakened every living creature.....

By about 600 B.C. the Vedic religion -- based on the Vedas -- seems to have become static, institutionalized, bound to a powerful priesthood and intricate sacrifices (see the fire sacrifice in The Sacred & the Profane). The meticulous performance of complicated rituals and formulae was crucial to the world's well-being. Priests sat atop the caste system; they alone knew the sacred language (Sanskrit) and rituals.

The key ideas in this period are found in an amazing group of texts called the Upanishads. The Upanishads are the best efforts of the wisest people of the time to understand existence and seek release from what they saw as the endless cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth into a world marked by suffering and ignorance. In a couple of stories from the Upanishads, the young Svetaketu talks to his father Uddalaka about the essence of who he was, and is told to sip from every side of a bowl of salted water. Later he breaks open a seed to find that "something" that makes the seed grow. The essence is subtle, elusive, yet real, Uddalaka says, and he repeats to his curious son, "That art thou, Svetaketu." In another story, a man named Narada asks to see the power of the god Vishnu's maya, or ability to create an illusion, and goes through a lifetime of joy and tragedy before waking up at Vishnu's feet. The common worldview seemed inadequate to the thinkers found in the Upanishads.

In the Upanishads, one of the key ideas emerging is the Brahman -- an "infinite spirit," something like the absolute and ultimate reality, the sustaining power, behind all phenomena. All things come from Brahman and are supported by Brahman, and to know Brahman is to know all, since Brahman is this "All," this universe. Brahman is present in human beings as the "self" -- the subtle essence, hard to see but as present as salt in sea water, the something in a seed that makes the tree grow. This self, this subtle essence, is the atman. To understand Brahman as the reality of both human beings and the cosmos is the goal, and so in the Upanishads the human experience is investigated to identify and describe this indestructible "self" in empirical terms.

So, for the Upanishadic thinkers, an ignorant person is like someone taken blindfolded to a wasteland, turned loose to find his way home, with no idea how he got there, or where to look, wandering aimlessly. A specific image in the Upanishads is of several blind men touching different parts of an elephant, and seeking to describe the beast based only on the part of its body they held. Ask me what all this has to do with Jimmy Dale Gilmore, and I'll tell you..... Shall we cut to the chase?

Arjuna, exiled to the forest with his family for many years, has prepared all his life for this moment, yet only seconds from beginning the decisive battle, he is suddenly paralyzed by indecision. He sees around him his friends, relatives, teachers, in both armies. Should he fight & kill them? Is a kingdom -- wealth, power, fame -- worth killing for? Does it matter that the kingdom was stolen from the Pandavas? Is it better to let himself be killed? Or withdraw from the world? Given the effects of karma (see the glossary under "action"), how can one avoid the negative effects of actions required by inherited social duties? Arjuna is confused, in doubt, and concerned with a real problem that is both personal and cultural.

Perhaps the new ideas in the Gita reflected a sense of anxiety regarding the direction of society as a whole -- things were in an uproar, particularly in northern India. In any case, many of the ideas being debated, discussed, and gaining followers dated from more than 1,000 years before the Gita was put together in its current form around the time of Christ. During this period of ferment Buddhism and Jainism emerged, among other religious schools.

One purpose of theGita was to sort out these views about creation, life, the existence of an eternal soul, suffering, death, and the nature of reality. The Gita attempts to interpret many of these issues and their possible answers within a consistent framework, and develop a synthesis that preserved the strengths of different ways of thinking while reconciling the differences of those ways of thinking -- with a continuing focus on how we are to live, and why, and on Krishna.

2. Krishna's first reply is intentionally rude, shallow, simplistic; he says if Arjuna is so concerned with the preservation of the family and the standards of society, then as a member of Kshatriya caste (royalty and warriors, the second-highest caste), he should not be such a fainthearted coward. It is his misplaced pity, and resulting inability to act, that will disgrace his family. He actions as a warrior will bring his family honor.

3. Arjuna suggests that warfare itself is wrong, fighting for material possessions which if won are soaked in blood. He suggests it's better to withdraw from such struggle, and renounce the world. Thus Krishna must respond to a fundamental question: By acting, we lock ourselves into the cycle of birth/death/rebirth. How can we avoid the bad effects of actions required by our place in society? Arjuna proposes that by withdrawing from the world one renounces actions and escapes their bad effects.

4. In desperation, Arjuna accepts Krishna as his teacher -- he formally declares "I am your pupil," but immediately says that he won't fight. Krishna begins to show Arjuna that there's a different way of looking at the problem. From this new perspective Arjuna's renunciation of his duty is unnecessary and undesirable. Arjuna comes to recognize who Krishna really is.

5. Krishna takes Arjuna through a number of perspectives, each of which repeat various points. To clear up Arjuna's confusion, Krishna first emphasizes knowledge, then action, then recognition of the true nature of who Arjuna his. Krishna says that we shouldn't grieve our own deaths or the deaths of others, because only the body dies, and an unchanging self (atman) which is connected to the infinite spirit (brahman) survives (2.19).

6. Ritual? Krishna attacks those who think religious rituals will give them pleasure, power, spiritual merit or reward. At the time the Gita was written, rituals (again, such as the fire ritual mentioned in the Sacred & the Profane) were a key to spiritual success. The priests who presided over the rituals enjoyed great power; they alone knew the sacred language (Sanskrit) and the extraordinarily detailed steps necessary for a successful ritual. The ritual succeeded in connecting the priests and their people with the Sacred, and keeping the world in orderly harmony. The rituals are still performed in India today.

2. Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, E.M. Forster, and others were pretty keen on the Gita. Check out the brief essay in the back of the book on why Thoreau took the Gita with him to Walden Pond.