I tried teaching about the Bhagavad Gita today, a first. Many of my colleagues in small religious studies programs have to engage it in world religion survey courses all the time, but since we abjure such surveys, I've been spared the chance. The reason for breaking my Gita fast now is almost laughably arbitrary. Roy Scranton, whose Learning to Die in the Anthropocene we read the first week, quotes from the Gita in what purports to be a post-religious text. I also thought it would be interesting to ease our way into "religion" not through comfortably spineless Buddhism or notoriosly eco-toxic Christianity. I was also angling for a way to bring in Gandhi's critique of western culture, and he was deeply grounded in the Gita. Makes a kind of sense, I guess, and there's a reason so many non-Hindus have been impressed and inspired by it. But I couldn't have predicted that one of my students would be a child of ISKCON, the International Society of Krishna Consciousness. Karma! In any case, how can one not swoon at words like these...
'There is nothing superior
to me, O Conqueror of Wealth;
the universe is strung on me
as pearls are strung upon a thread.
'I am the water's taste, Arjuna,
I am the light of sun and moon,
the Vedas' sacred syllable,
sound in the air, manhood in men.
'I am the pure fragrance of earth
and the radiance of fire;
I am the life in all beings,
the ascetics' asceticism.
'Know me, O Son of Pritha, as
the eternal seed in all beings,
the mind of the intelligent,
the splendor of the radiant!
'I am the might of the mighty,
freed from passion and desire,
I am desire unopposed
to law, O Bull of Bharatas.'
How the Gita will connect to our Anthropocene discussions remains to be seen. The gentle Krishna above (pic from here) differs from the deterministic part of the Gita Scranton likes (where everyone is already effectively dead, a riff on 11.33). Nor is it quite like - though of course, all of them meet in Krishna - the terrifying part which has become part of the story of the Anthropocene through J. Robert Oppenheimer, who quoted the Gita (melding 10.34, 11.12 and 11.32) when he witnessed the first atomic bomb test in 1945.
And all these are different from the sustenance Gandhi finds for ahimsa in the Gita, which we'll be reading about on Wednesday... Stay tuned!
'There is nothing superior
to me, O Conqueror of Wealth;
the universe is strung on me
as pearls are strung upon a thread.
'I am the water's taste, Arjuna,
I am the light of sun and moon,
the Vedas' sacred syllable,
sound in the air, manhood in men.
'I am the pure fragrance of earth
and the radiance of fire;
I am the life in all beings,
the ascetics' asceticism.
'Know me, O Son of Pritha, as
the eternal seed in all beings,
the mind of the intelligent,
the splendor of the radiant!
'I am the might of the mighty,
freed from passion and desire,
I am desire unopposed
to law, O Bull of Bharatas.'
(7.7-11; Norton Critical Edition,
trans. Gavin Flood [2014], 39)
How the Gita will connect to our Anthropocene discussions remains to be seen. The gentle Krishna above (pic from here) differs from the deterministic part of the Gita Scranton likes (where everyone is already effectively dead, a riff on 11.33). Nor is it quite like - though of course, all of them meet in Krishna - the terrifying part which has become part of the story of the Anthropocene through J. Robert Oppenheimer, who quoted the Gita (melding 10.34, 11.12 and 11.32) when he witnessed the first atomic bomb test in 1945.
"If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...
I am become Death,
The shatterer of worlds."
And all these are different from the sustenance Gandhi finds for ahimsa in the Gita, which we'll be reading about on Wednesday... Stay tuned!
