The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography.

[BOOK REVIEW FORTHCOMING IN THE JOURNAL PHILOSOPHY EAST AND WEST]
The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography. By Richard H. Davis. Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 2015. Pp. x + 243. Hardcover $24.95, ISBN 978-0-691-13996-8.
Reviewed by Andrew J. Nicholson, State University of New York at Stony Brook,
andrew.nicholson@stonybrook.edu
Princeton University Presss Lives of Great Religious Books is a series with the
worthy goal of introducing general readers to major works from many different
traditions. The phrase lives of indicates that the point is not just to elucidate the
works meaning, but also to trace how it has been interpreted (its life) between the
time of its composition and the present day. In Richard H. Davis, the author of one
previous book on visual culture in India and another dealing with aiva ritual,
Princeton has found a happy conjunction of scholar and subject matter. Davis brings to
this book years of reflection on the diversity of religious expression in medieval and
modern India, and approaches this topic with a lively and inviting writing style.
The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography consists of an introduction, six chapters of
roughly chronological order, and an epilogue. Also included are endnotes, a glossary,
an index, and a list of books for further reading. After the introductions brief remarks
about the Bhagavad Gt and its reception history, chapter one presents the meaning of
the Gt as it was likely understood at the time of its composition. This chapter alone is
worth the price of the book, as it succinctly presents the most recent scholarship
concerning the texts authorship and origins, including two theories from James
Fitzgerald and Alf Hiltebeitel on the Mahbhratas authorship during the uga and
Kava dynasties (185-28 BCE). Among other important points, Davis makes the
observation that the Bhagavad Gt never says Ka is an avatar of Viu. That

interpretation probably came later in the first millennium, though it is often presented
in modern textbooks as being an unambiguous part of the Gts message.
The second chapter describes medieval responses to the Bhagavad Gt,
including other competitive Gts oriented towards other deities such as iva (in the
vara Gt) and the Goddess (in the Dev Gt). It is also in this chapter that Davis
covers the philosophical commentaries on the Bhagavad Gt. Because his short book
has so much ground to cover, he focuses on only three among the many medieval
commentators, akara, Rmnuja, and Jnadeva. Davis juxtaposes akaras and
Rmnujas understanding of Ka, noting that unlike Rmnuja akara considers
Ka a kind of spectral projection of brahman, and that Kas as-if-ness consigns
him to a secondary status in Shankaras ontological order. The author also contrasts
Rmnujas path to liberation, which combines knowledge (jna) and action (karman),
with akaras position that knowledge alone liberates. Kas insistence in the second
chapter of the Gt that Arjuna must fight is presented as an interpretive quandary
for akara, given akaras view that renunciation of prescribed action is necessary
for liberation. akara resolves this quandary by emphasizing that Kas advice is
specific to Arjunas situation as a katriya householder, and is not for brahmin
renouncers. Davis seems to find special personal resonance in Jnadevas poetic
Marathi-language adaptation of the Gt, suggesting that Jnadeva remained closer
perhaps to the ethos of the Gt itself than did akara, who saw texts multiplicity of
meanings as a problem that he hoped to overcome.
Chapters three and four discuss Gt interpretations in the modern west and in
modern India, respectively. Given the vastness of these topics, Davis is conscious of the
need to be selective with what he includes. He begins with the story of Charles Wilkins,
who published the first English translation of the Gt in 1785. Governor-General
Warren Hastings had stated that Indians should be governed by their own laws, and
this Orientalist perspective spurred the first wave of Sanskrit to English translations,
including those by Wilkins, H.T. Colebrooke, and William Oriental Jones. Later
Anglicist administrators such as Lord Macaulay, by contrast, held that the study of
Sanskrit and Persian should be discouraged and English culture should be taught in
order to create a new type of colonial subject, Indian in blood and colour, but English
in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. In this Anglicist camp was also James
Mill (father of J.S. Mill), who conveniently observed that the Hindu, like the eunuch,
excels in the qualities of the slave. Taking up the mantle of Sanskrit translation from
the British Orientalists were 19th century German romantics such as Friedrich von
Schlegel, who proclaimed Sanskrit literature equal to that of Greek and Latin and noted
the structural similarities between the three languages. In a turnabout later in his life,
however, Schlegel converted to Roman Catholicism and criticized the Gt for what he
considered its world-renunciatory emphasis. This world-renunciatory reading was later
echoed in Hegels lectures on the Gt, where he portrayed Hinduism as having merely
a primitive, passive, and inert intuition of Geist.
The Indian freedom fighters portrayed in chapter four certainly call into
question Mills observation about Hindus making fine slaves; many 19th century
Indians heard Ka as calling for political activism or even militancy. Imprisoned by
the British for allegedly inciting terrorism, B.G. Tilak wrote a lengthy Marathi
commentary on the Bhagavad Gt that repudiated akaras world-renouncing
understanding of the Gt. Tilak, influenced partly by Nietzsches transvaluation of
values, taught that certain men who had reached the sthitapraja state of inner
tranquility were no longer bound by conventional morality. Such a man could even
assassinate his enemy during a truce without any karmic consequences, as did the
Maratha warrior ivj, if he maintained an inner state of yogic poise while doing so.
Tilak, a Citpvan Brahmin from Maharashtra, also rejected the idea that Kas advice
to Arjuna was specific to Arjunas caste. As Davis astutely observes, for Tilak British
colonialism turns all Indian citizens into potential Kshatriyas.
The most famous interpreter of the Gt described in this book is surely Gandhi.
Davis does an admirable job of situating Gandhis own views in his political and
intellectual milieu. Gandhi draws from Tilak and other early 20th century Indian
interpreters who saw karma yoga, understood as political action, to be the central
teaching of the Gt. On the other hand, Gandhi completely rejects the literalism that
led to Tilaks embrace of violent action, and insists that the violence of the Bhagavad
Gt and Mahbhrata must be understood purely allegorically. In this, he draws upon
western Theosophical interpretations that read the struggle between dharma and
adharma described in the Gt as a purely interior, spiritual one. Gandhi combined these
influences to create an unprecedented Gt-based teaching that emphasizes both the
necessity of worldly activity and, reminiscent of Jain ethics, the absolute rejection of
violence.
Chapter five compares four modern English translations, by J.A.B. van Buitenen
Stephen Mitchell, Swami Prabhupada, and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. Daviss sixth
chapter is remarkable because here incorporates his own fieldwork into the study of
the Gt, traveling throughout India to see the ways in which the text is performed
today, including its liturgical use at Gandhis Ashram in Wardha, a Marathi exposition
near Jnadevas tomb in Alandi, and an Advaita-inspired teaching in English by Swami
Parthasarathy at a large auditorium in Delhi. Davis bends over backward to be fair to
these contemporary interpretersin his examination of Gt translations, he might
even be too evenhanded. He is no more critical of Stephen Mitchell, a poet who admits
he has little knowledge of Sanskrit and sees the Bhagavad Gt as a slightly inferior to
the Tao Te Ching in its expression of perennial truths, than he is of the leading 20th
century Indologist J.A.B. van Buitenen. This might give some readers the false
impression that all translations or interpretations of the Gt are equal, a relativistic
position I am sure that Davis rejects.
The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography avoids some of the pitfalls of other volumes in
Princetons Lives of Great Religious Books series. Davis eschews Indological jargon
and refuses to take sides in intramural debates that will only be of interest to
specialists. In the final chapters the copyeditors have missed a few typos (e.g., rice for
rich on p. 174), but on the whole the books readability and its many photographs
taken by the author will appeal to a wide variety of audiences. Some of Daviss
unexpected detours will surprise even Gt experts, and he provides an appropriate
number of endnotes for further research. (In at least one other book in this series,
Princeton has put the majority of the notes online: a shortsighted choice, given the
constant churn of internet addresses and the rapidly changing publishing industry.)
Richard Daviss The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography will be an excellent resource for the
undergraduate classroom. I predict that it will also become the preeminent secondary
source on the Bhagavad Gt for general readers.

The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography.

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography.

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography.

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

How has the Bhagavad Gita been interpreted through history?

What are some of the major philosophical commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita?

[BOOK REVIEW FORTHCOMING IN THE JOURNAL PHILOSOPHY EAST AND WEST]

The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography. By Richard H. Davis. Princeton: Princeton University

observation that the Bhagavad Gt never says Ka is an avatar of Viu. That

You might also like

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.