Subscribe To Print Edition About The Tribune Code Of Ethics Download App Advertise with us Classifieds
search-icon-img
search-icon-img
Advertisement

An empire of thought

The Bhagvad Gita has been translated, commented upon, paraphrased, rendered into vernaculars, countless times but there are remarkably few illustrated versions of the text of the first of books
  • fb
  • twitter
  • whatsapp
  • whatsapp
featured-img featured-img
The opposing forces of the Kauravas and the Pandavas
Advertisement

The enticing title I am using above I have lifted from the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, great essayist and one of the leading intellectuals of America in the 19th century: and it defines in his view — I am sure this will surprise many — that great text, the Bhagvad Gita. This is how, writing as he was sitting away from the bustle of city life, a passage of his runs, "I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagvad Gita. It was the first of books; it was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence, which in another age and climate had pondered, and thus, disposed of the same questions which exercise us." And he continued: "The Bhagvad Gita is an empire of thought."

Emerson’s friend and protégé, Henry David Thoreau, whose celebrated book Walden is ‘a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings,’ was equally taken up with this ancient work from India that he had come upon.

"Everyday," he wrote from where he lived his Life in the Woods, "in the morning, I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvad Gita, in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seems puny and trivial."

Advertisement

Wisdom, solace and inspiration are what countless generations have received from "Krishna’s Counsel in Time of War", as one translator designated the text. Mahatma Gandhi, who kept fighting a war of his own kind all his life, recognised the counsel, for he said he turns to the Bhagvad Gita "when doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and I see not one ray of hope on the horizon."

Understandably, and predictably, this sacred text has been translated, commented upon, paraphrased, rendered into vernaculars, countless times: from the great Shankaracharya and Jnaneshwar down to our own. Interestingly, however, there are remarkably few illustrated versions of the text that have come down. To a considerable extent, this can be understood, for after all, it is a philosophical text, filled with abstractions and subtle ideas. It does begin with a narrative passage which establishes the context of the dialogue that ensues on the battlefield of Kurukshetra between Krishna acting as Arjuna’s charioteer and Arjuna.

Advertisement

Folios from the illustrated manuscript of the Bhagvad Gita National Museum, New Delhi

The eight energies: Folios from the illustrated manuscript of the Bhagvad Gita National Museum, New Delhi

The painters, or the scribes, who illustrated manuscripts of the text, seize upon this brief narrative passage; and a large number of manuscripts feature an opening image or two, showing Arjuna seated in his chariot, and Krishna, as the charioteer, turning back to address him and his natural agitation of mind.

But soon, in the text, another world takes over: the world of concepts and eternal questions. This world the painters will have naturally found hard-to-imagine or provide visual parallels to.

Till, of course, the 11th chapter comes in, with its wondrous description of the Vishwarupa (Cosmic Form) of Krishna-Vishnu.

Here, the painters often take off and fly, and sometimes come up with extraordinary imagery. But, by and large, this is where it generally ends: the ‘illustrated manuscripts’ filled with, folio after folio of the text but barely another image.

Occasionally, however, when one comes upon a fully illustrated manuscript, one is surprised and almost grateful. As I was when I came upon one in the collection of the National Museum in New Delhi not long ago. The manuscript is complete and contains a vernacular version — in a mixture of Hindi and Rajasthani dialect — of the entire text in verse, shloka for shloka. At the end is a five-line colophon which provides useful information: the text of this ‘doha-bandha Gita’, it says, was composed by Harivallabha; the scribe was one Gurji Bhawani Das; the patrons for whose edification it was prepared was "Shri Maharani Shri Sowbhagyavati Shri Chawandi, Shri 108 Raj Kuwar"; and the paintings were made by the artist Dunga-ji. There is no date, no mention of place, but these are not difficult to guess: it is likely to have been prepared towards the end of the 18th century and, judging from the style, in some thikana of the Marwar group of states in west Rajasthan. The work is undoubtedly folkish, but by no means devoid of charm. What makes it stand out, however, is the fact that in it, gamely, the painter takes upon himself the task of giving visual form to concepts and to subtle strands of thought, which richly fill the text.

Close to where the text opens, the painter brings in an image of the two great armies ranged against each other — the Kauravas and the Pandavas — each warrior "well equipped with different kinds of weapons, and each experienced in military science".

It is an arresting image, the large blank space left by the painter in the middle of the page making an impression. But it is elsewhere, in images where ideas come in, that the interest of this manuscript truly lies.

Consider, for instance, the passage in the Bhagvad Gita (VII 4) in which Krishna speaks of the eight things that constitute "My separated material energies": earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego. Picking on this, Dunga-ji, the painter, puts all these ‘energies’ in small boxes one next to the other, and represents them through symbols: geometric in the case of the five elements like earth, water etc., but adding a confident-looking man who stands for "mana", a seated woman meant possibly to be seen as a mother standing for "buddhi", and a superior-looking man resting against a bolster standing for "ahamkara".

This, as I see it, is wonderfully inventive and, for his reader perhaps, drove the point home.

Again, when the text (Bhagvad Gita, IV, 37) speaks of the merits of jnana — knowledge — the painter takes off. The text says, "As a blazing fire turns firewood to ashes, O Arjuna, so does the fire of knowledge burn to ashes all reactions to material activities". And the painter brings in an image of jnana, an ascetic seated in meditation, a mountain, and a forest on fire. Undoubtedly, in his mind, the mountain stands for steadfast knowledge and the blazing fire in the forest for ignorance turning to ashes.

This is the way it goes in this uncommon manuscript, folio after folio. There is courage in the rendering. And, of course, imagination.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
tlbr_img1 Home tlbr_img2 Opinion tlbr_img3 Classifieds tlbr_img4 Videos tlbr_img5 E-Paper