Gita- Chapter 2: Yoga of Knowledge

 

In this Chapter, entitled "Sankhya Yoga," we get an exhaustive summary, as it were, of the whole philosophical content of the Geeta. Roughly, we may say that the first ten stanzas explain the circumstances under which Arjuna totally surrenders to the "Krishna-influence."




From stanza 11 to stanza 46 we have a digest of the Sankhya, meaning here not so much a repetition of the Sankhyan philosophy, but as a word denoting "the logic of thought in a philosophy." From stanzas 47 to 60, we have an exhaustive, though hasty, sketch of the "Yoga of Action" as adumbrated in the entire Geeta. From stanzas 61 to 70, the Path of Love (Bhakti Yoga), has been indicated, and in 71 and 72, the Path of Renunciation (Samnyasa Yoga), has been slightly suggested. Thus, the Second Chapter of the Geeta can be taken as an epitome of the entire Geeta.



We find in the Geeta all the known Paths to Perfection sketched out in the Vedas --- Jnana, Bhakti, and Karma, by which Upanishadic realisation is reached when one has fully purified oneself by the pursuit of ritualism Karma Kanda, and has spent a period of time in living the Upasana Kanda. People believed that these three are irreconcilable factors, and so many schools rose up, and each started quarrelling with all the others. This was the chaotic condition in which Vyasa found Hinduism, in the Puranic Age. In the Geeta he has tried to find for the Aryan children of the Vedas a reconciliation and a synthesis in which all can walk hand in hand.