Monday, August 25, 2008

The Guru in the Bhagavad Gītā

The only Guru-verse in Bhagavad Gita (tad viddhi praṇipātena pariprasnena sevayā, 4.34) seems to indicate that the Guru here is plural (the words upadekṣanti, jnānina and tattva darśina are all in plural case). However, the commentators all agree that here too the worshipable Guru is in the singular.
Śrī Madhusūdana Sarasvatī comments:

bahu-vacanaṁ cedam ācārya-viṣayam ekasminn api gauravātisayārthaṁ na tu bahutva-vivakṣayā. ekasmād eva tattva-sākṣātkāravata ācāryāt tattva-jnānodaye satyācāryāntara-gamanasya tad-artham ayogād iti draṣṭavyam

„The ācarya is mentioned here in plural case but still he is one. The plural case was only used here in an honorary way. It does not mean that one should have many Gurus. Divine knowledge is arising from a single Guru who has seen the truth. One should see here that it is unfit to go to other Gurus for this purpose.”

Śri Viśvanātha Cakravarti comments:

praṇipātena jnānopadeṣṭari gurau daṇḍavan-namaskāreṇa. bhagavan! kuto’yaṁ me saṁsāraḥ? kathaṁ nivartiṣyate? iti paripraśnena ca. sevayā tat-paricaryayā ca. tad vijnānārthaṁ sa gurum evābhigacchet samit-pāṇiḥ śrotriyaṁ brahma-niṣṭham iti śruteḥ

praṇipātena means offering prostrated obeisances to the knowledge-instructing Guru. ṭhe paripraśna (inquiry) is: „Bhagavan (Gurudeva)! Why am I in the material world? How can I stop material life?” sevayā means serving him or her.” Then he quotes the Upaniṣad-verse sa gurum evābhigacchet „To know this, one should approach a Guru who is learned and realized”. All of this is in singular case.

2 comments:

  1. A new text has been added to the file on Gurutattva on my site, a beautiful tika of Visvanatha Cakravartipada on SB 4.28.34. Its at the linktab 'Articles', 'The glories of (the one) Guru'.

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  2. It is real life whats going their in mahabharath its one of the nice spiritual thing

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