Śaṅkara’s Struggles with Action in the Bhagavadgītā

Aleksandar Uskokov
Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations
University of Chicago

1st Year Qualifying Paper

Adviser: Professor Gary Tubb
4.11.2012
Śaṅkara’s Struggles with Action in the Bhagavadgītā

“The Bhagavadgītā is somewhat of an embarrassment for Advaita Vedānta. … [T]he Gītā

exhibits a strong if not dominant “theistic” dimension: it emphasizes a karma-yoga, or way of

action, and bhakti, devotion to a “personal” deity. Śaṅkara, accordingly, must strain the text

rather considerably in order to bring it into harmony with his Advaitic principles.”1 This quote

from a reader of Advaita Vedānta nicely encapsulates the view of contemporary scholarship on

the attempt of the great exegete and theologian Śaṅkara to comment on the Bhagavadgītā.

Though the Gītā is a text written in simple Sanskrit, its conclusions are not as easy to ascertain as

is its grammar. Nevertheless, three such conclusions should be by now beyond dispute:

 The Bhagavadgītā postulates that the self or the soul is eternal and recommends several

methods or combinations of methods by which one could raise oneself to the level of

Brahman (brahmabhūta). Among these methods are action (karma-yoga) and cultivation

of knowledge (jñāna-yoga); their relationship is intricate, but it seems that Kṛṣṇa

recommends that they be practiced conjointly, either as niṣkāmakarma-yoga,

disinterested action, or in the spirit of surrender to him (mayi sarvāṇi karmāṇi

sannyasya…3.30).

 The level of Brahman (brahmabhūta), which is characterized by self-satisfaction, absence

of grief and longing and by equipoise towards all beings, is not the final stage of

emancipation: it is succeeded first by a transempirical (atīndriya) vision of the self

characterized by infinite happiness (sukha ātyantika) and then by devotion (bhakti) for

Kṛṣṇa, which is the only means by which to know, see and enter the Lord as he really is.

1
Eliot Deutsch and Rohit Dalvi, The Essential Vedānta: A New Source Book of Advaita Vedānta (Bloomington:
World Wisdom, 2004), 268-69.

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  As for the ontological structure of being, though it is possible to argue that the Gītā

advocates for some kind of monism, this monism (if indeed present) is by no means

unqualified or absolute; on the contrary, the text recognizes a separate and real existence

of the world and a difference between the souls and God; in ontological terms,

Bhagavadgītā is much closer to the theistic sāṁkhya than to the oldest Upaniṣads.

These three strands of the Gītā posed serious problems for Śaṅkara. His basic doctrine was that

the Upaniṣads propound an absolute unity between the individual self or the soul (ātman) and

Brahman; the essential property of the self is immutability, wherefore it could never be an agent,

and so the only means of emancipation is knowledge, which in principle cannot be conjoined

with action, nor succeeded by devotion. Śaṅkara also shared the omni-vedāntic assumption that

the Gītā is a corroboration of the doctrine of the Upaniṣads, and that its conclusion is surely in

harmony with theirs. What was he, then, to make of the eulogy of action and devotion and the

difference between Brahman, ātman and the world, so pronounced in the Gītā?

In this paper I want to reflect on the first of these three problems, the relationship

between action and knowledge. In the first part I will briefly introduce Śaṅkara’s commentary

and give a succinct account of his action versus knowledge argument. Next, I will review several

scholarly analyses and evaluations of the argument. Further, I will try to corroborate what I said

to be “beyond dispute,” namely that the text recommends that action and knowledge be practiced

conjointly; a corollary to this will be that Śaṅkara is indeed wrong in drawing a stark divide

between the two. Finally, I will try to answer the question why Śaṅkara wrote a commentary on a

work which is so manifestly opposed to his assumptions.

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1. Śaṅkara’s authorship of the Bhagavadgītā-bhāṣya has been questioned by several scholars.2

However, Sengaku Mayeda, using the criteria proposed by Paul Hacker, concluded that there is

no reason to think that the author of the Bhagavadgītā-bhāṣya is different from the author of the

Brahmasūtra-bhāṣya (the starting point for ascertaining the authorship of other works ascribed to

Śaṅkara).3 The two works more or less share the same terminology, and where the first differs

from the second, it does so in virtue of the different vocabulary of the Gītā itself. However, the

conclusive argument in favor of Śaṅkara’s authorship of the Bhagavadgītā-bhāṣya comes from

V. Raghavan, who had found out that Bhāskara in his commentary on the Gītā gives verbatim

quotations and close paraphrases from the Bhagavadgītā-bhāṣya, as well as some pointed

criticism.4 Now, Bhaskara does not mention Śaṅkara by name—he uses instead the “infamous”

māyāvādinaḥ—but we know that he was active merely half a century or less after Śaṅkara, so he

could not have possibly quoted from a later work.5 And so, we have every reason to believe that

the Bhagavadgītā-bhāṣya is a work of Śaṅkara.

Śaṅkara’s is the earliest extant commentary on the Gītā, but it is clear from his

introduction that there were many commentaries before his: “This Gītā is a summary of the

purport of all the Vedas. Its meaning is difficult to ascertain and although it has been examined

by many word by word and sentence by sentence in order to uncover that meaning, laity still

thinks that it teaches diverse and mutually contradictory doctrines. Aware of this, I will write a

2
For a summary, see Karl H. Potter, Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, Volume III: Advaita Vedānta up to
Śaṁkara and his Pupils (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1998), 294-95.
3
Sengaku Mayeda, “The Authenticity of the Bhagavadgītābhāṣya Ascribed to Śaṅkara”, Wiener Zeitschrift für die
Kunde Süd- und Ostasiens und Archiv für Indische Philosophie, Band IX (1965): 155-97.
4
V. Raghavan, “Bhāskara’s Gītābhāṣya”, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Süd- und Ostasiens und Archiv für
Indische Philosophie, Band XII-XIII (1968/1969): 281-94.
5
For Bhāskara’s date, see Hajime Nakamura, A History of Early Vedānta Philosophy, Part One (Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 1983), 66-7.

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short commentary with a view to determine its precise meaning.”6 His comments are indeed

short and eminently readable, except in several places where he gets into polemics.

2. The thesis with which Śaṅkara opens his commentary is that the goal at which the Gītā aims is

the supreme good (para niḥśreyasa), which is complete cessation of the revolution in material

existence by the eradication of its cause. This goal can be achieved only by cultivation of

knowledge of the self, which is preceded by renunciation of all works. There is, of course,

nothing epochal in this claim: it is the stock opening that Śaṅkara uses to almost all of his

commentaries. This renunciation of works is put into contrast with performance of works. The

Vedic religion (dharma vedokta) is twofold: one is the path of action or performance of one’s

God-given (Veda-prescribed) duties and rituals (pravṛtti-lakṣaṇa dharma) and the other is the

path of contemplation, characterized by knowledge of the unity of the self with Brahman and by

renunciation of works (vairāgya-jñāna-lakṣaṇa dharma). Śaṅkara is not ready to assign the

achievement of the supreme good to the path of action, at least not in the immediate sense. This

is because the immediate goal of this path is material prosperity (abhyudaya). He puts these two

in stark opposition and sticks to their distinction throughout the commentary. In fact, this twofold

characterization of dharma as a means to para niḥśreyasa and abhyudaya is one of the more

salient themes in the Bhāṣya.

Though the path of action cannot bring us directly to the final goal, it can do so

mediately: if one does one’s duty in the spirit of devotion to the Lord and consigning the results

to him, then a state called sattva-śuddhi, purity of existence, is achieved, and then one becomes

6
For pre-Śaṅkara commentaries on the Gītā, see Hajime Nakamura, A History of Early Vedānta Philosophy, Part
Two (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1999), 198-204. All quotes from and references to Bhagavadgītā-bhāṣya are from
the three-volume edition of eleven commentaries edited by Gajanan Shambhu Sadhale. I have also consulted the
translations of A. Mahadeva Sastri and A.G. Krishna Warrier (see Bibliography).

4|Uskokov—1st Year Qualifying Paper

competent to tread the path of knowledge. In this way the path of works is also a means to the

supreme good, but in an indirect manner.

There is, then, a gradation of the “Vedic religion” proposed in the introduction which

Śaṅkara presents as twofold, but which is rather fourfold: first there is karma for the purpose of

prosperity; it is superseded by karma as an offering to the Lord, leading to purity of existence;

this is superseded by a renunciation of all works; and this culminates in knowledge of the self.

Śaṅkara collapses these four into two, the path of works and the path of knowledge, but it might

be of profit to bear in mind that he recognizes a graded transition among them, rather than a

chasm. However, for Śaṅkara this transition from one to the other still requires a qualitative

jump, insofar as they can never be practiced together. This idea is a major running theme in his

interpretation of chapters two to five.

The impossibility of practicing action and knowledge conjointly stems from the fact that

at their basis they have two mutually exclusive standpoints. The standpoint of knowledge,

sāṁkhya-buddhi, is that delineated by Kṛṣṇa in 2.11-30: it is the standpoint of the self as an

entity which is eternal, changeless, free from all modifications such as birth and growth, an entity

which, due to such a nature, could not in principle be an agent (kartṛ) or an object of action. This

is best instantiated in 2.19, where Kṛṣṇa says that the self neither slays nor is slain by anyone.

Such a standpoint is also the standpoint of oneness (ekatva). The standpoint of action (yoga-

buddhi), on the other hand, dealing with problems such as virtue and sin, which are the bread and

butter of Vedic ritualism and social worldview, though recognizing that the self is distinct from

the body, nevertheless takes off from the assumption that the self is the doer of action and the

enjoyer of its fruits. Moreover, functioning in the realm of this world and the next or of the Lord

and the self, the standpoint of action presupposes an understanding of reality grounded in

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multiplicity (anekatva). In Upadeśasāhasrī Śaṅkara labels the second standpoint as that of

misconception, making it all the more clear why it cannot be conjoined with knowledge.7 And

so, the qualification (adhikāra) for one path or the other is strictly divided: the path of action is

for those who have desires and have no knowledge of the self; the path of knowledge is for those

who have no desires, save for the “region of the self.”

These two, oneness and inactivity on the one hand and multiplicity and action on the

other, belong respectively to two distinct spheres of reality, the first being that of truth and the

second that of ignorance. It is only in the realm of ignorance (avidyā-bhūmi) that all our uses of

expressions such as action and agent (kriyā-kārakādi-vyavahāra) hold good, because both action

and inaction presuppose an agent. Those who are ignorant of the self think that it is the actionless

self that performs action or that mere abstaining from doing anything is inactivity. The

assumption in both is that the self is an agent. In truth, the self is not an agent, because agency

causes change, and change compromises the eternal character of the self. The self is an agent

only from the standpoint of ignorance; that is, it appears to be an agent to those who are blind to

its real nature. Śaṅkara tries to illustrate this. Though the self may seem to be doing action, it is

actionless, just as from a ship trees seem to be moving in the opposite direction. The agency of

the self is, thus, a matter of false cognition. Action really pertains to the body, but men falsely

attribute action to the self and imagine, “I am the agent, mine is the action, by me shall the fruits

of action be reaped.”8 Similarly, they falsely impute to the self cessation of activities and

imagine: “I shall be quiet, so that I may be happy, without worry and without action; and I do

7
See in Sangeku Mayeda, A Thousand Teachings: The Upadeśasāhasrī of Śaṅkara (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1992), 104.
8
dehādy-āśrayaṁ karmātmany adhyāropya | ahaṁ kartā mamaitat karma, mayāsya karmaṇaḥ phalaṁ bhoktavyam
iti. Bhagavadgītā-bhāṣya 4.18.

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nothing now, I am quiet and happy.”9 In this way, action is falsely attributed to the self, which is

immutable and actionless. He who has real knowledge knows that action does not belong to the

self, just as trees do not move. He also knows that when one rests and thinks oneself inactive, he

is actually active because of the presence of egoism (it is I who do not act), just as moving

objects from afar may appear stationary. Śaṅkara does not fail to use his favorite example of the

truth/ignorance dichotomy: action is mistaken for inaction as mirage is mistaken for water or

mother of pearl for silver. He also finds a support for this doctrine in 2.21. There Kṛṣṇa tells

Arjuna that he who knows the self to be eternal, unborn, unchangeable, and indestructible, could

neither kill anyone nor incite others to kill. Śaṅkara thinks that killing here is just taken as a

representative action; he who knows the immutable self, being himself identical with it, could

not in principle do anything.

Now, this raises the important question as to how the knowledge of the self is at all

possible. How can one, in other words, know oneself to be the actionless self and to have an

adhikāra for knowledge as distinct from action if one cannot in principle be aware of anything

else other than the self, and the self does not have positive qualities? Isn’t knowledge that one

need not perform Vedic action a form of cognition having positive content, and thus a change of

the self? Śaṅkara deals with this problem in the comment on 2.21. He says that he who knows

the self is in truth (paramārthataḥ) identical with the self, but is said to be learned, a knower of

the self, in virtue of a cognitive state (buddhi-vṛtti) of discrimination between the self and the

non-self (ātmānātma-viveka-jñāna), which is knowledge which isn’t real (vidyā asatya-rūpā). It

isn’t real because the self, being unchangeable, cannot “in truth” become enlightened. The self is

ever-enlightened and enlightenment is really a realization that one was never actually in

9
ahaṁ tūṣṇīṁ bhavāmi, yenāhaṁ nirāyāso’karmā sukhī syām iti kārya-karaṇāśraya-vyāpāroparamaṁ tat-kṛtaṁ
casukhitvam ātmany adhyāropya na karomi kiṁcit tūṣṇīṁ sukham āsam iti. Op.cit.

7|Uskokov—1st Year Qualifying Paper

ignorance. It seems, therefore, that as long as one is not finally liberated, as long as the world

does not vanish for him, the knowledge of the self could only be a cognitive state, untrue in the

final analysis. It would appear that the enlightened is, indeed, the self from the standpoint of

absolute reality, while from the standpoint of practical reality or ignorance he still may just be

“enlightened,” one who can discriminate between the self and the non-self, the second being

non-existent from the level of absolute reality.

It has to remain, therefore, unclear whom Śaṅkara has in mind when he says that “the

knower of the self” or “he who has seen the immutable self” has nothing to do but renounce all

work, since on his platform, the platform of the immutable self, there could be no work

whatsoever and, therefore, nothing to renounce. If, however, he wants us to see him from the

standpoint of practical reality, then we could say his dharma is to renounce all works. This is

further complicated by Śaṅkara’s claim that not only the knower of the self, but also the aspirant

after liberation, should renounce action, since here he commits an error that is known in logic as

“quadruplication of the terms”: in the case of the aspirant after liberation, karma refers to the

duties prescribed in śruti and smṛti, while in the case of the liberated, to action in principle.

Either both the liberated and the aspirant belong to the same category, which is possible only

from the standpoint of absolute reality, or the criteria for the first are applied to the second. Both

are problematic, because from the standpoint of absolute reality the two groups would be singled

out from the rest by unwarranted restriction, since the category of the enlightened includes

everyone; while from the standpoint of practical reality the aspirant after liberation participates

in the world of multiplicity just like anyone else, and is included in a category to which he does

not belong. But let us leave this can of worms and the related problems of jīvan-mukti in Advaita

Vedānta and go back to Śaṅkara’s argument.

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 Śaṅkara looks for proofs in the Gītā of his account that knowledge and action should not

be practiced conjointly, and he finds the strongest proof is Arjuna’s question in 3.1-2: “If you

think that wisdom is better than work, why do you, then, engage me in this terrible act? You

confuse my understanding with your somewhat muddled words. Tell me once and for all the one

[way] by which I may attain the preferable.” Śaṅkara says that Arjuna’s confusion arises from

the distinction that Kṛṣṇa has made in the second chapter, from verse 39 onwards. In 2.39, Kṛṣṇa

tells Arjuna that first he explained the “wisdom” (buddhi) to him in theory (sāṁkhye) and that he

should listen how theory works in practice (yoge). Śaṅkara, of course, has a take on the verse:

sāṁkhya refers to the pure nature of the absolute reality, the knowledge of the self in 2.11-30 that

removes saṁsāra. Yoga should, then, be understood as a means to attaining such wisdom. It

consists of doing one’s works without attachment and as worship of the Lord. Arjuna is certainly

qualified for work, but he is not entitled to its fruits (2.47); he should stand firm in yoga, forego

all attachments and care little for success and failure (2.48). Such action with wisdom is much

better than ordinary action, stipulated by the flowery words of the Vedas that promise material

prosperity (2.49). In fact, if he could get out from the thicket of illusion, he would become

indifferent to all that the Vedas say and his understanding would stand fixed in samādhi (2.52-

53). That is the point where karma-yoga, in Śaṅkara’s interpretation, culminates and one

becomes qualified for jñāna. Thus, from 2.54 to the end of the chapter, Kṛṣṇa apparently again

extols sāṁkhya, both for the one who has taken its course from the very beginning and for the

one who has attained it by the means of karma-yoga. But Arjuna is confused: why should he hear

about the virtues of wisdom or sāṁkhya if his qualification is only for action? And so, it is time

for Kṛṣṇa to speak verse 3.2, the crucial in the Gītā for Śaṅkara: there are really two paths in this

9|Uskokov—1st Year Qualifying Paper

world, the jñāna-yoga for the sāṁkhyas and the karma-yoga for the yogins. Who are the

sāṁkhyas and the yogins? This is how Śaṅkara defines them:

 The sāṁkhyas, who possess clear knowledge of the Self and the non-Self, who renounced

the world from brahmācārya, who determined the nature of things in the light of

Vedāntin wisdom, who belonged to the highest class of saṁnyāsins known as the

paramahāṁsas, whose thoughts ever dwell on Brahman only;

 Yogins, karmins.

We note how elated he is when describing the sāṁkhyas and how lackadaisical when describing

the yogins. Because Arjuna clearly understands that Kṛṣṇa has recommended two paths and

Kṛṣṇa is not denying this, and since Arjuna is asking for one by which he may attain the good

and not a combination of the two, these two must be practiced separately. This is the end of the

story for Śaṅkara. If Kṛṣṇa thought that action and knowledge should be practiced together, he

would have given a different answer. Śaṅkara thinks that this gives him the firm ground to

proclaim the distinction of sāṁkhya and yoga and the subordination of the second to the first. He

will not move from this stance even at the expense of claiming that non-performance of (Vedic)

duties cannot create sin, because the first is a mere absence, while the second is a positive thing

(bhāva-rūpa).

As for the verses in which Kṛṣṇa extols action over renunciation and affirms its status as

a means to the supreme good, niḥśreyasa, Śaṅkara says action is indeed better than immature

renunciation, one which is not preceded by knowledge. And no doubt action is a means to the

supreme good, but only indirectly, by making one qualified for renunciation. Regarding Janaka

10 | U s k o k o v — 1 s t Y e a r Q u a l i f y i n g P a p e r
and others (presumably kings) who have attained perfection by work (4.20), they must have had

done that by first attaining the level of knowledge; they have continued with whatever work they

were doing either in order not to stop in the middle, or to set an example to the world, or to avoid

the displeasure of the eminent.

3. Śaṅkara’s argument has been criticized severely by scholars, but it had also found some

supporters. Among the second was A.G. Krishna Warrier, who authored one of the several

English translations of the Bhagavadgītā-bhāṣya. In his paper “Śrī Śaṅkara on the Bhagavad-

gītā,”10 Warrier offers a general apologia of Śaṅkara’s approach to the Bhagavadgītā, both of his

metaphysics and of his hierarchy of means. He finds that Śaṅkara’s separation of action from

knowledge has backing in the Gītā. “Marvelous confirmation of this doctrine of Śaṅkara

[knowledge alone can liberate human consciousness from saṁsāra] may be gathered from many

a passage in BG.”11 If we agree that the cause of bondage is ignorance, and ignorance is removed

by the torch of knowledge (jñāna-dīpa, Gītā 5.15), then Śaṅkara’s hierarchy of means in which

karma and bhakti are subordinate to jñāna does not inflate jñāna unfairly, but is objective. For,

how could it be otherwise? Since the true self is actionless (3.27), the injunctions that one should

perform actions and rituals, both in the Gītā and elsewhere, have to be meant for the

unenlightened. However, we have to understand correctly what Śaṅkara means by the idea of the

impossibility of combining knowledge and action. Knowledge cannot be combined with action

which is performed with a sense of egoistic agency and a desire for results. The activities of the

muktas and of the avatāras like Kṛṣṇa are never of that kind.

10
In Gītā Samīkṣā, ed. By E.R. Sreekrishna Sarma (Tirupati: Sri Venkateswara University, 1971), 1-11.
11
Warrier, 5.

11 | U s k o k o v — 1 s t Y e a r Q u a l i f y i n g P a p e r
 Warrier’s apologia is, it seems to me, a form of reduction to the impossible. Starting from

the assumption that Śaṅkara’s metaphysics is right and supported in the Gītā, even if implicitly,

he interprets the separation of knowledge and action and the subordination of the second to the

first in the spirit of “how could it be otherwise?” No wonder he makes no mention of the

passages where the text lauds action over knowledge, nor of the passages which clearly advocate

some form of dualism. Also, his claim about the activities of the muktas seems to be a

misrepresentation of Śaṅkara’s understanding of absence of agency. The liberated in Śaṅkara’s

vision could not act in principle. The absence of egoistic agency and desire for results in

Śaṅkara’s eyes is the domain of niṣkāmakarma-yoga, not jñāna-yoga.

We find a good critique of Śaṅkara’s argument in T.G. Mainkar’s book “A Comparative

Study of the Commentaries on the Bhagavadgītā.”12 Mainkar finds that Śaṅkara often distorts the

meaning of the text to suit his own agenda. He concludes: “He is the greatest philosopher of

India and an ingenious commentator, but perhaps for this very reason, not a very reliable

interpreter.”13

Much more vocal in criticizing Śaṅkara, however, was P.M. Modi, who had written

extensively on the problem. Here I will consider his paper “Philosophical ideas of the Gītā,

subsidiary to its teaching of disinterested action, yoga: with special reference to Śaṅkara’s

interpretation.”14 Modi’s thesis is that whenever the Gītā mentions a philosophical principle or a

theory, its purpose is to show how the knowledge of that principle or theory helps a man in

acting disinterestedly. Therefore, jñāna must be a help to disinterested action. Let us consider,

for instance, section 2.11-30. Śaṅkara had interpreted the section as propounding the doctrine of

the soul, but Modi finds that such an interpretation flatly ignores the context, which is that of

12
(Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1969).
13
Mainkar, 65
14
In Journal of the Gujarat Research Society, XII, No. 3 (July 1950), 123-39.

12 | U s k o k o v — 1 s t Y e a r Q u a l i f y i n g P a p e r
fratricidal war and Arjuna’s apprehension that sin would fall upon him for killing his superiors.

Modi claims that: 1) the passage does not say anything about the several characteristics of the

individual soul, like jñātṛtva and kartṛtva which are discussed whenever the knowledge of the

soul is dealt with; and 2) the passage does not even assert the immortality of the soul. This is so

because “[a] discussion about the relation of the body and the soul not in general but when the

warriors are killed in the battle-field is the topic of v. 11-30.”15 In fact, Kṛṣṇa there flirts with

three different theories of the soul, one propounding its immortality, another one speaking about

a “beginning” and an “end” of beings (2.28) and a final one asserting that the soul is

“wonderful,” that is, unknowable. Arjuna may pick whichever he likes, still he would find no

reason to grieve for the soul and opt not to fight. So, Śaṅkara is wrong here in seeing “knowledge

of the self.” Further, Modi does not see a reference to the absence of the six changes (ṣaḍ-vikāra)

in the soul in 2.20, and finds Śaṅkara wrong in reading a doctrine of non-agency of the soul in

2.21, where the context is clearly that of killing. Further, Śaṅkara is also wrong in detaching

2.31-38 from 2.11-30, where the two are clearly a unit. He finds a proof of this in 2.39, where

Kṛṣṇa says that so far he had been speaking in terms of war (sāṁkhya, relating to war, from

saṁkhya, war), but will now take another direction. What sāṁkhya-buddhi means is

“disinterested action based upon certain teachings about the war.”16 He goes on up to the end of

his paper claiming that whatever principles or methods the text introduces—akṣara, prakṛti or

karman, the dhyāna-yoga of the 6th and the jñāna-yoga of the 7th chapter and so on—it does that

solely with the aim of supporting the Gītā’s method of yoga, disinterested action. In most of the

places where Śaṅkara sees philosophy, there is no such thing at all; the author merely uses some

upaniṣadic terminology for his own purpose.

15
Modi, 124.
16
Modi, 127.

13 | U s k o k o v — 1 s t Y e a r Q u a l i f y i n g P a p e r
 As much as his reading of sāṁkhya in 2.39 is interesting, Modi is just plainly wrong on

many accounts. First, the “several characteristics of the soul” are indeed discussed in 2.11-30.

For instance, aprameyasya in 2.18 has to be taken either in the sense of aṇutva, minuteness, or in

the sense of pramātṛtva, being a knower. The self’s nityatva, eternal existence, is the central

topic of the whole section. He is, to my mind, also wrong in denying the reference to the six

transformations of the body that the soul does not undergo. He criticizes Śaṅkara for interpreting

na hanyate in the sense of absence of change (avikriyātva), an interpretation which “is a forced

one and is, in fact, never meant by the author.” But all he needs to do is read on couple more

verses and there, in 2.25, the soul is described as avikārya. Further, his claim that the topic of the

passage is not the soul-body relation in general but when warriors are killed on the battle-field is

a non sequitur; what happens to warriors on the battle-field is just a particular instance of the

general body-soul relation, subsumed under and contingent on it. Also, the argument in 2.26-28

is clearly supplementary to the main argument in 2.11-25, which is evident from the collocation

atha … manyase … tathāpi, and Śaṅkara is right in interpreting it as such. We cannot treat it as

an alternative to the first, as Modi would like. He is, of course, right in emphasizing the context

of the war and Śaṅkara is at times oblivious of it, but the claim that there is no Sāṁkhya and

Vedānta in the Gītā, just a cursory use of such terminology, is farfetched. So is the claim that

only disinterested action is taught in the text.

We find a much more thought-out criticism of Śaṅkara’s take on the knowledge-action

relationship in the Gītā in T.S Rukmani’s paper “The Problematic of Karma and

Karmajñānasamuccaya in the Bhagavadgītābhāṣya of Śaṅkarācārya.”17 Rukmani finds the cause

for Śaṅkara's misreading in his narrow interpretation of karma. For Śaṅkara in the Gītā, karma is

17
In Paramparā: Essays in Honour of R. Balasubramanian, ed. by Srinivasa Rao and Godabarisha Mishra (New
Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research, 2003), 191-211.

14 | U s k o k o v — 1 s t Y e a r Q u a l i f y i n g P a p e r
only ritual action as a means to prosperity in this world and to gradual liberation. Though, as

evident from the references he quotes, he must have been aware of other, novel models of karma,

he chose to stick to the old understanding, which is predominantly that of Mīmāṁsā. The model

of karma that the Gītā advocates is niṣkāmakarma, working without the expectations of results;

though Śaṅkara is aware of that and, in fact, uses the concept in the commentary, he nevertheless

applies to it the same criteria that apply to ritual karma. In the light of niṣkāmakarma, however,

his argument that fruits of work are perishable is moot, since disinterested action bears no fruits.

Rukmani finds that in the Gītā, the saṁnyāsin is not singled out from all the others who engage

in some kind of action: if that action is niṣkāma, they are all equally eligible for liberation as the

saṁnyāsin. Śaṅkara's opposition to the coexistence of knowledge and action is understandable in

the ontological context of Advaita Vedānta, but Gītā understands this relationship differently.

Rukmani’s critique, thus, points to Śaṅkara’s unwillingness to recognize that a new form of

karma is promoted in the Gītā.

4. Let us now try to ascertain if it is possible to establish some hierarchy of the different kinds of

yoga in the first chapters of the Bhagavadgītā. It should not be too difficult to set the boundaries.

On the lower end is surely the karma extolled in the “flowery words of the Vedas” as the means

to heaven, pleasure and power (2.42-43); its concern is the realm of the three guṇas or

constituents of nature (2.45). Arjuna is advised to shun such action and to be rather engaged in

buddhi-yoga, which is by far better than the Vedic karma (2.49). What is at the upper end is a bit

more difficult to ascertain, but bearing in mind the context—Arjuna’s quandary as to the

fratricidal war that is ahead of him and that would bring sin upon him for slaying his superiors,

destroying the family and what else not—I think it has to be the level of naiṣkarmya-siddhi, of

15 | U s k o k o v — 1 s t Y e a r Q u a l i f y i n g P a p e r
which Kṛṣṇa gives a hint in 3.4. This verse seems to be crucial because there Kṛṣṇa denounces

both action and renunciation when divorced from knowledge: “Not by leaving works undone

does a man win freedom from [the bond of] works, nor by renunciation alone can he win

perfection’s prize.” (Zaehner’s translation.) Śaṅkara is, of course, ready to accept that

naiṣkarmya is the upper limit, since it is very much what himself he had proposed: absence of

activity, the essential state of the self. I think, moreover, that in the same third chapter we have a

description how that naiṣkarma looks like; it is to be found in verses 17-18: “When one takes

pleasure in the self alone, when one is satiated in the self, in the self alone contented, then he has

no work to do. He has no interest in works done or undone on earth, nor has he to rely on all

beings for such an interest.” This is also in harmony with Śaṅkara’s interpretation. However,

where he errs by a long shot is his claim that action should not and cannot be conjoined with

knowledge. Rather, this conjunction seems to be exactly what the text wants to propose for

filling the space between the flowery words of the Vedas and naiṣkarmya. This comes very

nicely to light in the fifth chapter, which opens with a doubt similar to that of the third. Arjuna is

still uncertain which one is better, renunciation of works or karma-yoga, and asks for a final

settlement on the issue. Kṛṣṇa’s answer is that both renunciation and karma-yoga are means to

the highest good, niḥśreyasa, but hard pressed, he has to single out karma-yoga as the better. To

be sure, inasmuch as they lead to the same goal, they are not at all distinct. However, mere

renunciation unaided by practice is hard to attain, and so the path of sāṁkhya is tedious.

Therefore, it is better to conjoin sannyāsa with karma-yoga, which would mean to gradually get

rid of the idea of personal doership by working out that in practice. It becomes at once clear that

what the text has been talking about from the 2nd to the 5th chapter is really theory (sāṁkhya) and

practice (yoga). Potentially, they both lead to mastery, but achieving mastery by mere theory is

16 | U s k o k o v — 1 s t Y e a r Q u a l i f y i n g P a p e r
tedious, while practice without theory can be misguided. A healthy union of the two is required,

and how that union looks like should be apparent from 5.7-12: the real yogi, who had mastered

over his senses and is a knower of things, though touching, smelling, eating, walking, sleeping,

breathing, thinks, “Lo, nothing do I do.” He thinks that the senses are occupied with their

respective objects and thus relinquishes all action into Brahman. With his body, mind,

understanding and senses aloof from the self, he performs action and renounces the attachment,

all for the purification of the self [probably meaning the complex of the body, mind…, not the

essential self]. He is not stained by evil just like the lotus-petal is untouched by water.

This is rather a level close to the apex of naiṣkarmya and in all probability more sublevels

could be accommodated from the text. But I believe this to be the general frame, and if I am

right, then Śaṅkara is wrong that works and knowledge cannot be combined.

5. Here we’ve reflected only on the knowledge-action relationship, but an analysis of the other

two major themes of the Bhagavadgītā, bhakti and ontology, would end in a similar conclusion:

in Mainkar’s words, “Śaṅkara is not a very reliable interpreter.” On the other hand, there could

be little doubt in his intellectual genius. It is, in other words, unlikely that he misunderstood the

text. Given that, we are naturally prompted to ask why he wrote a commentary to the Gītā. One

way to think about it is that he had to. In all probability, the idea of prasthāna-traya was already

formed by his time (even if the concept as such was not yet verbalized) and he had to make an

effort to harmonize the ideas of the Gītā with the divergent ideas of the Upaniṣads and the

attempted reconciliation in the Brahmasūtra.

However, even if that was the case, he still had the option of acknowledging the authority

of the Gītā by quoting from it here and there and avoiding the task of writing a full exposition.

17 | U s k o k o v — 1 s t Y e a r Q u a l i f y i n g P a p e r
That would not have been too uncommon. In fact, we know that several centuries later

Rāmānuja, with a project similar to that of Śaṅkara, namely harmonizing the doctrines of the

Gītā, the Upaniṣads and the Brahmasūtra, chose not to write commentaries to the Upaniṣads

because he thought he had given a frame in which the apparent divergences could be brought

into consonance, the Vedārtha-saṁgraha, and had in fact harmonized them in the Brahmasūtra

commentary.

It seems to me that the fact that Śaṅkara chose to write a commentary on the Gītā is a

strong indication that Gītā was very important to him, and such a tone of importance also

resonates in his introduction. So I am disinclined to conclude that he wrote the commentary

because he had to. Rather, I should like to propose that the Gītā provided him an authority for

three very important elements in his theological undertaking. First, 2.42-46 gave him his most

powerful backing in his assault on the Mīmāṁsakas. For Śaṅkara's agenda, these verses were

dream statements. The domain of the Vedas is in the three strands of nature; their purpose is

promotion to heaven and gain of prosperity for personal sake (puruṣārtha), and preservation of

such gain, which is a paradoxical attempt in a world which is the abode of misery and is

impermanent (duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam, 8.15). The words of the Vedas—and there can be little

doubt that the mantra and brāhmaṇa sections are summoned here—are flowery, but the fruits of

the acts that they recommend is rebirth. Those who cling to the Vedas are after pleasure and

power, in fact these two have become their addiction. Van Buitenen appropriately notes: “These

charges strike the Mīmāṁsakas where they are vulnerable. Exegetes and advocates of the act,

they stress the personal reward for the sacrificer from his act.”18 If we have in mind that the

Mīmāṁsakas are Śaṅkara's main rivals, it becomes at once easy to see why Gītā is so important

18
J.A.B. van Buitenen, The Bhagavadgītā in the Mahābhārata (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press,
1981), 18.

18 | U s k o k o v — 1 s t Y e a r Q u a l i f y i n g P a p e r
to him. As Rukmani observes, karma reigned supreme in his time in the environment in which he

lived. “Mīmāṁsā was studied meticulously and commented on with great fervor.”19 That his

commentary should be primarily understood through the lens of his attitude to Mīmāṁsā is, I

believe, even more obvious from the fact of how selective he is in his approach to the text. Most

of his longer (and polemical) comments deal with the relationship between knowledge and

action. Except in 13.2, he does not enter into serious polemics on matters theological and

metaphysical. Also, other than a few twists and turns, he barely touches upon the question of

bhakti. It is transparently not in his program to engage in disputations with advocates of bhakti. It

is Mīṁāmsā that fully occupies his interest. As Rukmani observes, the Gītā was a popular text

that had an authority and an appeal to the minds of people. For this reason it was the perfect

vehicle for an attack on Mīmāṁsā, something that an Upaniṣad of the kind of the Muṇḍaka could

never be.

This brings us to the second reason why, I think, Gītā was so important for him. He was

an orthodox theologian and he could not (and would not) reject outright the ritualistic sections of

the Vedas, the mantras and the brāhmaṇas. Here Gītā’s concept of niṣkāmakarma played the

crucial role: if action prescribed in śruti and smṛti is performed without a desire for results and in

the spirit of an offering to the Lord, then it purifies one’s existence and in time makes one

qualified for the path of renunciation and knowledge. The idea of niṣkāmakarma bridged the rift

between Vedic ritualism and the ideals of asceticism coming from multiple directions, a rift

which is so evident in the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad, second section of the first muṇḍaka.

Finally, the idea of sattva-śuddhi or purification of existence made it possible for Śaṅkara

to open some space for everyone in his worldview. Advaita Vedānta is often accused of elitism

and inconsideration. There is also an accentuated tension between its social and metaphysical
19
Rukmani, 193.

19 | U s k o k o v — 1 s t Y e a r Q u a l i f y i n g P a p e r
assumptions. While there is no difference whatsoever in the spiritual essence of everyone and in

truth everyone is already enlightened, it is only the brāhmaṇa-saṁnyāsin who could in principle

be qualified for knowledge. The idea of sattva-śuddhi served for Śaṅkara as a means to relieve

some of this tension. While he was not willing to abolish the elite status of his own circle and

was very much immersed in the caste hierarchy, he made space for gradual promotion to the

level of qualification for knowledge. It was the Gītā, in other words, that made it possible for

him to speak of one, unified “Vedic religion.”

To conclude, there can be little doubt that Śaṅkara’s interpretation of the action-knowledge

relationship in the Gītā is not immanent to the text. Gītā clearly does not support his absolute

preference of knowledge over action, or the stark difference between the two. Rather, it

recommends that knowledge and action be practiced conjointly. However, we should be wary of

accusing Śaṅkara of misappropriation. The Gītā has a crucial place in his worldview; it is, in

fact, its organizing principle, the substructure that holds all things in place. Thus, Śaṅkara’s affair

with the Gītā is a complex one, sort of a “can't live with her, can't leave without her” situation.

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