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The Bhagavadgītā and the Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda Upaniṣads

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Abstract

The Bhagavadgītā is often interpreted in the light of the larger context of the Mahābhārata epic or in comparison to later religious or philosophical texts. Much less attention has been given to the relationship between the Bhagavadgītā and the older Upaniṣads. This article analyzes the relationship of the Bhagavadgītā to the Upaniṣads formally affiliated with the Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda (the Kaṭha, Śvetāśvatara, and Maitrī Upaniṣads) and demonstrates that these four texts are linked together in a complex textual network of mutual references as well as shared themes. This article argues that scholars must understand both the emerging theism of the Bhagavadgītā and its “proto-Sāṃkhya” philosophy in the context of the Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda school and its greater theological and philosophical concerns.

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Notes

  1. See, for example, Svāmī Vivekānanda’s (1953: 339) interpretation of the Bhagavadgītā in the light of Advaita Vedānta.

  2. See Jacob 1891.

  3. For an insightful discussion of the relationship between the culture of Greater Magadha and the Śukla Yajurveda texts, see Bausch 2015. Bronkhorst (2007) has famously argued that the local culture of Greater Magadha was distinct from Vedic culture and characterized by many philosophical innovations, such as the doctrine of karma. Since karma is mentioned in the older Upaniṣads, Bronkhorst argues that the Upaniṣads are considerably later than the commonly accepted date of sixth century BCE onwards and deeply rooted in the culture of Greater Magadha. His Greater Magadha model has been challenged by Wynne (2011) and McGovern (2013, 2018), who argue that these conceptual innovations can be explained as internal developments within the Brāhmaṇical tradition.

  4. See Witzel 1987: 179.

  5. Maitrī Upaniṣad 2.6 = Taittirīya Upaniṣad 2.1; Maitrī Upaniṣad 4.4 = Taittirīya Upaniṣad 2.6; Maitrī Upaniṣad 6.4 = Taittirīya Upaniṣad 2.1.1 and Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.16; Maitrī Upaniṣad 6.12 = Taittirīya Upaniṣad 2.2; Maitrī Upaniṣad 7.9 = Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.4–5.

  6. See Haas (1922) for parallel passages. For this article, I am treating the Bhagavadgītā as a unified text. Several scholars (Smith 1968; von Simson 1968–69; Bhargava 1977; Ježić 1979; Malinar 1996: 394–415) have proposed a distinction between textual layers from different periods in the Bhagavadgītā. As Hellwig (2017: 134) has demonstrated in his study of linguistic forms in the Bhagavadgītā, however, there is only weak evidence for internal stratification in the text.

  7. Most scholars in the field recognize the oral character of the Mahābhārata (see, for example, van Buitenen 1973: xxiv; Staal 1986: 27; Smith 1987; von Simson 1990: 37). Nevertheless, for a different opinion, see Hiltebeitel 1999, 2001 and Fitzgerald 2004. Hiltebeitel sees both the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa as written texts and argues that prior “oral epic versions of these texts are…a creation of modern scholarship, and oral theory another Western fashion with which to dress them up in the emperor’s new clothes” (2001: 19; emphasis in the original). Fitzgerald (2004: 136–42) sees aspects of the Mahābhārata as a deliberate literary creation.

  8. Compare the distinction between oral and mnemonic literature in Cohen (2008: 20–21).

  9. For instance, Arjuna’s epithet dhanaṃjaya, “conqueror of wealth,” used to fill verse lines.

  10. The text for this and all following quotations from the Upaniṣads are taken from Olivelle (1998) unless otherwise indicated. The translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.

  11. All quoted text from the Bhagavadgītā is taken from Belvalkar (1947).

  12. In the Ṛgveda, infinitive constructions are found after the verb man- (see Disterheft 1980: 74–75). This verb is also followed by infinitive clauses in Avestan (Disterheft 1980: 98).

  13. See Cohen 2008: 208.

  14. It is, however, also possible to see the Bhagavadgītā’s nāyaṃ bhūtvā bhavitā vā na bhūyaḥ (“having been, it will never cease to exist”) as an echo of Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 3.9.28: jāta eva na jāyate ko nv enaṃ janayet (“He is born [but] not born. Who gives birth to him again?”). See Lindquist (2004) for a discussion of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad passage. If so, that would be another example of the Bhagavadgītā text alluding to and reinterpreting an Upaniṣadic passage. I am grateful to one of the anonymous reviewers for IJHS for this suggestion.

  15. Compare Pinchard 2016: 262.

  16. The image of an upside-down tree with its roots in heaven is already mentioned in Ṛgveda 1.24.7, where it also carries positive cosmic connotations: abudhné rā́jā váruṇo vánasya / ūrdhváṃ stū́paṃ dadate pūtádakṣaḥ / nīcī́nā sthur upári budhná eṣām / asmé antár níhitāḥ ketávaḥ syuḥ—“In (the airy realm) without a base, king Varuṇa of purified skill firmly holds the crest of the (nyāgrodha) tree on high. They [=its trunks] reach downward, their base above. They should be set down as beacons within us” (Jamison and Brereton [2014: 120] translation). The same image is evoked in Maitrī Upaniṣad 6.4: evaṃ hy āha—ūrdhvamūlaṃ tripād brahma śākhā ākāśavāyvagnyudakabhūmyādaya eko ‘śvatthanāmaitad brahma—“(This triple being) must also be known as fivefold: ether, wind, fire, water, earth. Thus the text says: ‘The aśvattha, whose roots grow upward (and whose) branches (downward) is…that Brahman’” (van Buitenen [1962:135] translation). The phrase “thus the text says” indicates that the author of the Maitrī Upaniṣad is quoting another text here, but the text quoted is no longer known to us.

  17. I am here following the text in Olivelle (1998) with double sandhi.

  18. See Oldenberg (1915: 490) and Cohen (2008: 26).

  19. The phrase jyotiṣām api taj jyotis (“it is the light of lights”) in Bhagavadgītā 13.17 recalls tad devā jyotiṣāṃ jyotir āyur hopāsate ‘mṛtam (“the gods worship that as the light of lights, as immortal life”) in Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 4.4.16; Bhagavadgītā 13.15 is paraphrasing Īśā 5. See Zaehner (1969: 339–40) and White (1979: 502) for a discussion of the Bhagavadgītā borrowing from the Upaniṣads here.

  20. See Oberlies 1988: 59.

  21. All quotations from the Sanskrit text of the Maitrī Upaniṣad are taken from van Buitenen (1962).

  22. The proto-Sāṃkhya/Yoga ideas of the Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda Upaniṣads are further explicated and developed in two significant portions of the Mahābhārata, the Bhagavadgītā and the Mokṣadharma section of the Śāntiparvan. A detailed comparison between the proto-Sāṃkhya ideas of the Bhagavadgītā and the Mokṣadharma falls outside the scope of this study, but we should note that Johnston (1937) has observed a great many parallels between the two sections of the epic, both in language and ideas.

  23. For a relative chronology of these texts, see Johnston (1937: 4) and Cohen (2008: 287–88).

  24. See, for example, Hume (1921: 406) and Radhakrishnan (1953: 738), who explicitly reject any connection between kapila in the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad and the mythical sage.

  25. Bronkhorst (2007: 68) hints that Sāṃkhya philosophy may have its roots in the culture of Greater Magadha as well. While Bronkhorst’s fascinating theories remain challenging to prove, it is clear that proto-Sāṃkhya ideas, including the name of the school’s mythical founder, flourished in an intellectual milieu strongly associated with the Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda, a textual tradition that also encompasses the Baudhāyana Dharmasūtra mentioned above.

  26. In the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (2.1.20), for example, the inferior wisdom teacher Dṛpta Bālāki identifies the person (puruṣa) in the sun, the moon, and so forth, as the ultimate brahman. However, these ideas are refuted by the wise king Ajātaśatru, who declares that it is ātman, rather than puruṣa, which is the highest principle of all. The confrontation between Bālāki and Ajātaśatru is also described in the Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad 4.19, with a similar outcome.

  27. I am following the reading in Olivelle (1998: 420), where sandhi is resolved for metrical reasons in lines 3 and 4 of stanza 7.

  28. See, for example, Baudhāyana Śrauta Sūtra 24.5.

  29. Compare Oldenberg (1919: 228) and Jacobsen (1996: 77).

  30. Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 4.10: māyāṃ tu prakṛtiṃ vidyān māyinaṃ tu maheśvaram (“One should know this illusion to be prakṛti and the illusionist to be the Great Lord”). For a discussion of this passage as a possible interpolation, see Johnston (1937: 27) and Cohen (2008: 228).

  31. There is a pun in the Sanskrit text; aja means both “an unborn male” and “a billy goat,” while ajā means both “an unborn female” and “a nanny goat”.

  32. See Chatterjee 1981: 30.

  33. Although this article deals with only one intertextual network, that of the Bhagavadgītā and the Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda Upaniṣads, many similar networks existed between ancient Hindu texts. As Bausch (2015) has demonstrated, for example, texts affiliated with the Śukla Yajurveda, such as the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa and the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, show a close affinity to the Buddhist Suttanipāta. Many such networks of texts are associated with the śākhās of Vedic transmission, which explains why many of the concerns of older Sāmaveda texts are reflected in the Chāndogya or Kena Upaniṣad, for example. Nevertheless, there are also intertextual networks in ancient India that go beyond the Vedic śākhās; the interconnection between the Suttanipāta and the texts affiliated with the Śukla Yajurveda is one such example, and the close relationship between medical texts such as the Caraka Saṃhitā and the Suśruta Saṃhitā and the Atharvaveda is another (see Wujastyk 2003: xxviii–xxx).

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Cohen, S. The Bhagavadgītā and the Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda Upaniṣads. Hindu Studies 26, 327–362 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-022-09323-0

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