Krishna's teachings in Bhagavad Gita stand testimony to the fact as to how he views certain age-old ideals of the Indian society, writes Dr Asha Goswami

In Bhagavad Gita, Krishna refers to many ideologies and concepts which were prevailing in his days and practiced by the people at large. These also formed part and parcel of their social structure. Krishna’s Gita stands as a testimony of the fact as to how far he views those age-old ideals of the Indian society.

To save people from the ill effects of age old notions like sacrifice [Yajna], Krishna through his teachings not only re-set those rituals in new forms but also assigned new meanings and format to those ideals and notions. Sacrifice or Yajna is such an ancient ideology and rituals of the vedic age which was being persistently taken by the people in the same traditional sense of the Vedas and since then being treated as a rite or ritual in which oblations [ahutis] of material things like grains, butter etc, are poured in the sacred fire. To bring this notion of sacrifice to the level of his era, he firstly treated the term sacrifice in different perspective.

For instance, first of all by treating it as synonymous with some valuable social act, he treated each persons life itself as a strata of Yajna or sacrifice on earth. Next, he reworked the same ideal on new levels which were relevant to the social strata of his times. For, in Gita, Krishna teaches that “Know you life itself as a sacred Yajna or sacrifice your activities in life which bring about social upliftment and harmony in the society also serve as a sort of sacrifice and Yajna on your part”. Such a type of implication of Yajna in Gita be compared with the meaning of its English equivalent term sacrifice which means a sacred act. Even the vedic statement “Purusho vai Yajnah” seems to be in agreement with Krishna’s aforesaid view on Yajna, when he says “that man himself is a Yajna, and maintains that every activity in man’s life is a libation (oblation) or ahuti offered to the eternal world circle or sacrifice of the God in the form of world process. It is found that in the 17th Chapter of Gita while referring to the threefold day to day’s sacred acts of man such as “daan, tapa and Yajna”, Krishna seems to teach the mankind the true perspective of the term Yajna when he states that performance of every act in life in the sense of true worship to god is sacrifice. In other words, his view on sacrifice be expressed that ‘all acts done in the spirit of worship to god are infact the sacrifice offered to the god.’

Krishna’s other perspective on Yajna be understood as he says “act of sharing with others whatever one has in excess” on the part of a man is also a Yajna, which is also named as Daana” in the Gita. The same according to Krishna, also constitutes the essence of social service by way of serving the society. In this manner such a kind of Yajna be termed as one of the daily routine-activities. Krishna’s other perspective on the notion of sacrifice be traced from his statement in the Gita when he asserts that every activity of mankind if performed as worship to God, itself amounts to a Yajna or sacrifice, provided such acts also turn out to be beneficial for the society and not be harmful to anyone. Such acts are further applauded by Krishna acclaiming that the same acts never bind the doer with the effects/results. While, on the other hand the acts other than which are done with the spirit of sacrifice or worship, but are obligatory to the doer bind him to their results.

Hence, it may be ascertained that while weaving new ideologies around the age old notions as the vedic notion Yajna, Shri Krishna through Gita however retains the traditional meanings of the term. For instance when Krishna very clearly maintains “That the Yajna is Kamadhenu or wish yielding Act in the world, and further explaining this parable of Yajna as the wish-yielding cow Kamadhenu, he says that” Yajna or sacrifice as ritualistic act yields rain, which yields food and through food all the creatures in this world retain their lives or Pranas”. In such manner, Krishna rediscovers for the coming generations, the new essentials of the age-old ideologies as well as the old religious practices in India by rendering new dimensions to them.

The writer is a noted Indologist and authority on Krishnaite Studies