Why The Bhagavat Gita? Poem by Narayanan Nair. P Perunthanam

WHY THE BHAGAVAT GITA?
We need not be concerned with the author of the text; but the content of Bhagavat Gita. It is the ancient book we got as part of Mahabharata. It is the gist of all Vedas and Upanishads.Mahabharata is intended to dissuade people from worldliness and persuade to live by satisfying needs and limiting wants to the minimum. It also tells us that the deeds decide the result. Good deed ensures good result and the wicked deeds make bad results. None can live without thinking or doing from birth to death. Gita teaches us the techniques of doing things with least sorrow and finally how to escape from sorrow.Gnana(Knowledge) , Karma(Action) Bhakti(Piety) and Yoga(Meditation) margas(ways) are well elucidated in it. It cures depression of people; guides to peaceful life which is essential for progress of a society. It is also the need of the hour in India and the world over.
The Book both Sruthi(heard) and Smruthi(recollected) .It is Indian in Sanskrit unlike the holy Bible of Jerusalem and Jordan area in Aramic language and the holy Qur'an of Mecca and of Madina in Arabic language. All these books are valid in India as they have followers here. But the Indianness adds more credit to Bhagavat Gita in India. The very concept of European secularism in politics shall not be a bar in accepting and reading Bhagavat Gita. We have National Anthem'Jana Gana Mana etc…' of Rabindranath Tagore and equally considered 'Vande Mataram' of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee.
In India the ancient curriculam was comprised of Vedas(Sruti) including Ayurveda, Ganitham(Mathematics) , Tharka Sastra(Logic) , Chandas(Versification technics) , Sanskrit Language, and Jyothisha (Astrology and Astronomy combined) .Sanskrit was the lingua franca (link language of the elite and erudite) in India from Himalayas to the Kanyakumari irrespective of regional linguistic differences. There was no political regional egoism about it as of now. Adi Sankaracharya's travel and four Mutts establish it. This system in academic circles were destroyed by the introduction of English by the British by the first half of the 19th Century(Lord Meccaulay Minutes in 1835 became the guidelines for the beauty-parlour of the present Indian-Europeans who insist on English as the Language of Science and Knowledge. Sanskrit has this status in India even today. But the communal selfish politicians who do not know of it oppose Sanskrit as the language of the Hindus!
Bhagavat Gita is in Saskrit; of course translations are available in regional languages. To regain the status of Ayur Veda we need to introduce Sanskrit Studies again. Let us stop musing over Eurocentric Culture but think on Indian Culture which is the product of Indian citizens. Let us remember the words of Swami Vivekananda, 'The co-mingling of the East and the West will dawn a new Era'(Talks with Swami Vivekananda, Belur Mutt, Kolkotta.) .This thought is good for Indian politicians too when they think of Gita and Sanskrit. The political Clash of NDA and UPA or the Left Activists shall not make a bar on our way of progress. Bhagavat Gita makes all humble and duty-bound. Knowledge is not banned to any religion. Neither shall it be biased nor secluded.
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