thers, maternal uncles, fathers-in-law,
grandsons, brothers-in-law, as also other relatives. These I do not
wish to kill, though they kill me, O destroyer of Madhu! even for the
sake of sovereignty over the three worlds, how much less than for this
earth (alone)?"

Krishna replied, with a view to soothe Arjuna's perturbed mind, and to
urge him on to battle.

It is this dialogue between the hero and the god which constitutes the
Bhagavad Gita. And yet one can hardly call it a dialogue, since
Krishna's remarks make up more than nine-tenths of the book.

The dialogue is one of the favourite forms of Hindu literature. Most
of the Puranas and the Tantras are cast in that form.

It seems very strange that this book, which is the favourite exponent
of a faith whose very essence is non-resistance, whose genius is to
inculcate the passive virtues, should have found its motive in the
purpose of the god Krishna to overcome, in the warrior Arjuna, those
worthy, humane sentiments of peace and kindness and that noble
resolution to forego even the kingdom rather than to acquire it
through the shedding of the blood of his relatives. How incongruous to
build up the lofty structure of a faith upon so unethical, unsocial,
and cruel a foundation!

II

The Song evidently belongs to the _tendensschrift_ school of
literature. It is written with a definite aim and purpose. It is the
highest exponent of Hindu Eclecticism. The three great schools of
Brahmanical thought and philosophy--the Sankya, the Yoga, and the
Vedanta--were founded more than twenty-five centuries ago and have
wielded resistless power in the shaping of religious thought in
India. And perhaps this power was never more manifest than at the
present time.

But these schools are, in their main issues, mutually antagonistic.
The Sankya philosophy is severely dualistic and even has little use,
if indeed it has any place, for the Divine Being. On the other hand,
the Vedanta is uncompromisingly monistic. Its pantheism is of the
highest spiritualistic type and is radically opposed to the
materialism of the Sankya school. In one school the Divine Being is
nothing and materialism has full sway; while in the other Brahm is
everything, and all that appears to men--the phenomenal--is false and
illusive.

Again, as to the method of redemption, the Yoga philosophy advocates
renunciation, self-effacement, and all the forms of asceticism. On the
other hand, the Sankya philosophy i