Evergreen Essays: Perfection at the very inception

Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra

Sri Aurobindo Pariksith Singh in conversation with Malashri Lal | Jaipur Literature Festival

Presented by Dainik Bhaskar Medical doctor Pariksith Singh is also a poet and philosopher. In his book, Sri Aurobindo and the Literary ...

The Literary Genius of the Bhagavad Gita

The Gita follows the literary tradition of the Veda. It uses the seed sounds and plays with Nirukta, the mantrik intonation of its shlokas has the same approach to a vibrational backdrop of sound, but there is no Siksa or Vedic chanting here. The chhanda too is only anushtup or trishtup in the Gita

The Gita is designed in a kaleidoscopic manner too like the Veda but by necessity it has to deliver a clear and pragmatic message while allowing the disciple enough consideration and space to gain a larger outlook for life and his actions

While being Vedic in niyojana and substance, the Gita nonetheless creates its own tropes. The most powerful among them, though hidden, is the visual sleight; we see the whole episode through the eyes of Sanjaya and that changes the whole psychology of the story

And yet, the Gita gives us the essence of the Veda in its shorter span and compact dialogic pedagogic engagement. It is, in its own place, a masterpiece of literature and art though Vedic Vedantic in lineage

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2101319830108283176

The Literary-Musical Genius of the Gita

The Gita, like the Veda, is a work of music. What do I mean? It takes the principles of music and applies it to the organization of words, phrases and shlokas. Best to show this with examples

Let us look at the second chapter. Shloka 11-30 discuss Sankhya, 38-54 karma yoga, and then Sri Krishna talks about the sthita prajna who fulfills the ideals of both Sankhya and Karma yoga. These are the two themes mainly in the first six chapters. He hints at Bhakti in shloka 2.61 but then holds it back till later discussions

The entire Gita on one level is the development of the triune path of jnana, Bhakti and karma. Sri Krishna takes these 3 and weaves them into Purna yoga by chapter 18. Similarly, he discusses the Veda, avatarhood, Vedanta throughout the scripture in unique harmonics and chords

The entire Gita thus is a symphonic work with what Sri Aurobindo calls ‘complex harmonies’ interwoven into new realizations and experiences. The Veda orchestrates similar melodies on a much larger scale. There is another music of seed sounds and refrains throughout the Gita that runs in parallel but that would be another post and another discussion

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2101500272233095512

The Literary Genius of the Bhagavad Gita: The Raga

How does a Raga work? Strange as this definition may sound a Classical Indian Raga is defined by the notes it uses. The raga explores them, builds them up, plays with them within the parameters chosen

The player begins with a note, and introduces others one by one, taking them higher or lower in pitch or creating a kind of dialogue between two notes, and creates combinations, recurrence of certain phrases and builds a mood or experience

Think about it. Isn’t that how the Gita plays with a key idea, two chhandas, a few notes and their interplay in various ascending and descending scales, chapter by chapter?

Please feel free to critique this. I have explored and described this device in more detail elsewhere. To me, this approach to art and literature is extremely creative and multifaceted. The Srutis are great compositions of literary musical arrangement and this gives them a unique everlasting beauty

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2101647892620439870

The Literary Genius of the Bhagavad Gita: Vadi Svar

Is there a key or king note in the Gita? I would submit that it is Dharma

It all begins with Dharma, does it not? Arjuna has lost his Kshatriya dharma. Sri Krishna offers him a new understanding of dharma but he does so in 18 stages or adhyayas

Notice that the first word of the Gita is dharma. It is also Sri Krishna’s final word in shloka 18.66, the rahasyamam uttamam

Notice also that the word dharma changes in significance chapter to chapter. It is an onion being peeled. In the second chapter we are clear that to be sthitaprajna is the way. In the 4th, Yajna with a deeper understanding refines our understanding of dharma. By the sixth we know that we must combine karma and jnana to live our dharma. Why such an approach and design? To show us the growth in Arjuna’s consciousness and to help us with our own if we follow the Gita

By the last six chapters, Sri Krishna has brought in Bhakti and its combination with karma and jnana. Thus, Dharma seems to be the key note. Once we see this design to the whole scripture the Gita becomes a vast and open meditation that integrates all darshanas. For music is full of multiple suggestions and capable of infinite freshness because it is not mental but living and capable of several interpretations

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2101761283901239563

The Literary Genius of the Bhagavad Gita: Samvadi Svara

Carrying on our analogy of the Gita with a musical composition especially a raga. Is there a samvadi svara to dharma as a motif? There are several notes that play against and upon dharma such as yuddha, yoga, Yajna, etc. But I feel the one that plays most as a counterpoint to dharma is Aham or I. Why so?

You will notice that mamkah or my people is brought in in the third pada of the first shloka of the Gita. They run in parallel throughout the scripture, interweave, intermingle, interplay, until both bloom into spiritual principles in harmony. The ego of Dhritrashtra becomes the egoless I of Sri Krishna. And the note appears with great force in the final revelation of 18.66 along with dharma as the vast Self and Truth of Sri Krishna.

One may even see each chapter of the Gita as a raga in miniature and all these chapters, complete in themselves as a spiritual station, connecting with each other as part of a single upward movement

This is only an analogy to enhance our understanding and appreciation of the great literary work the Gita is. We can discuss other aspects of the raga that we see here adapted to a literary structure, e.g., the concepts of alankara, pakad, jhala etc that we see in the design of the Gita. All to make us realize the intricate connection of various ideas and notes in this Narayana Vak

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2101998477756563606

The Literary Genius of the Bhagavad Gita: The Meta Narrative

Imagine a work of literature which is full of action, exciting characters, an epic scale and enormous stakes and the author suddenly stops all action right at the edge of a most cataclysmic moment to sit back and meditate! What would you think? That would be absurd, right!

Well, the Gita pulls it off with flair. In fact, so well does it accomplish this as literature that there are few works in the history of mankind that have had such an impact

The most curious thing is that narrative collapses completely for those 700 shlokas. And yet, without the Gita, the Mahabharata itself would be of minor significance

How was this made possible? Some commentators theorize that the Gita was inserted into the epic later. It doesn’t matter! If it was then this was the greatest interpolation in the history of world literature. If it wasn’t this was the greatest meta narrative freezing a narrative as it is beginning to build up into a seismic event. Either way it is a masterly trope in one of the greatest epics in world literature that we accept as a fact, a reality, accessible even today in its spiritual realization

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2102256752246825180

Vedic Matrix

The entire Veda and the Bhagavad Gita may be seen as a matrix of seed sounds. Suddenly, their prosody assumes a musical and mathematical substructure with this perspective

We have seen how the music of these masterly creations is a play of Varna, svara, bala, matra, sandhi and Sanatana. Each Chhanda brings in elements of upward and downward movements that we later see in music (आरोह and अवरोह), each chhanda plays within its own restrictions or बंदिश, and other elements such as आलाप and तान too are hinted here

Mathematically, I believe, the possibilities created by Vedic have not been fully exhausted but that remains a subject of future research and exploration. The great accomplishments of Pingala may yet be extended with a better understanding of seed sounds and their matrix

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2098340033899970711

A Literary Approach to the Veda

Why a literary approach? Because it allows me complete freedom. It seems to me that at present there are two kinds of tyranny blocking the fullest or most open appreciation of the Veda.

The first is the western tendency or insistence to take the Veda as only external ritual. And to restrict it from the thousands of years of living traditions of interpretation and experience that it has meant for the Indigenous cultures

The second is the Indic insistence again to see it as karma kanda only. To be fair, this insistence is not universal nor as closed as the west. And the multiple meanings of the Veda can be unveiled, in my experience, more easily in India than in the west. For India is still in touch with its spirituality in many forms including the Upanishads which are a part of the Veda

Great teachers have valiantly tried in the last 150 years or so to bring out the multiple dimensions of the Veda. A literary approach allows me to consider all the various commentaries and interpretations of the Veda and to present them to the world and let the reader consider them independently and decide on their own. I am even allowed to present my own thoughts without any attempt to hide them. I have attempted the same with the Bhagavad Gita and found that a multidimensional approach to the Gita was critical to my own development. I find the same with the Veda

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2097648893227860083

Vedic Sahitya

What are the grand literary achievements of the Veda?

1) The first exploration of seed sounds or Beeja Dhvanis in literature

2) The use of the mantra as the basis for meter

3) The unique holographic organization of verse along with the designing of experience

4) A theory of cosmology, sound, prosody and linguistics in action and explanation

5) Unique experiments and figures of speech that still feel modern and fresh

6) The establishment of the bases of meter such as accent, stress, quantity etc and combining them in the enunciation, an experiment that has not been repeated since

7) The use of the most sophisticated human alphabet and grammar to date

Feel free to add more please if I missed any

Veda is not our first poetry. It is the first poetry we have. How were they created remains a mystery? Historical explanations don’t suffice. In no other human field do we see this. An appearance of perfection at the very inception of the field. How? Why? We don’t really know.

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2101284690426486824

Vedic Chhanda: The Mantra

The Mantra, to paraphrase Sri Aurobindo, is the highest perfection, poornta, of Vision, Style and Rhythm. It is the music that rises beyond the words and reverberates through the Universe.

That which liberates through meditation is mantra मननात् त्रायते इति मंत्र:

But there is more. The mantra can transform not just the mind but also the praana and the body. For it is alchemic, a process of heightened energy and resonance

But most seekers do not know how to unleash its power. When chanting the mantra remember these fundamentals: श्रद्धा, भाव, ध्यान, ग्राह्य क्षमता, समर्पण

The whole being must be laser sharp in reciting it, pronunciation must be clear, exact, smooth and melodious, and one must allow the vibration to become one’s DNA. Then something might happen. In the meantime listen quietly to the sound behind the sound, the string that reverberates from worlds hidden to your inmost depths

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2099297947275997324

Vedic Chhanda: Anushtup

Anushtup is a square, balanced classic form that is supposed to have developed or followed the Gayatri which was our first Chhanda

Gayatri seems more lyrical and open to musical point-counterpoint considerations because it comprises three padas of 8 varnas each. The third pada often adds to the suggestions or statements of the first two but it can provide a different perspective or note and widen the consideration

The Anushtup is more solid, compact and is stronger in presenting a narrative with a build up of the story. It can easily move forward and that is why it has been used in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata as the Shloka meter. But it has another quality that is exploited in the Bhagavad Gita. That is, it can break away from narrative and can easily become non-narrative. Each pada is potentially independent which is ideal for concise formulations of thought or Darshana

This dual quality of the Anushtup is adroitly used in the Gita where the Chhanda easily bears both forward progression and vertical movements in a most fluid and flexible manner

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निर्विरोधाभास

इतना स्पष्ट कि दिखाई न दे

इतना सरल कि समझ न आए

इतना कल्याणमय कि संशय रहे

वह सत्य है कि नहीं

कैसे कह दूँ तुम्हें कि मुझे तुमसे कभी

प्रेम था ही नहीं

तुमसे अधिक तुम्हें पाने का दुःख मुझे है

केवल एक भव्य पारदर्शिता

जो सभी दृश्यों के आरपार देखती

जो हमारे अकेलेपन के बृहद में

तरंगों के पोर-पोर समाया एक द्रव्य

बस वही पारदर्शी जो देखता नहीं

जिससे देखा जाए केवल हुआ जाए

बस वही प्रेम जो था तुमसे

https://x.com/AmazingVedas/status/2102006512327541114

Join the reading and discussion on the profound poem "तुमको सुनने के लिए बहुत चुप होना पड़ता है". youtu.be/F8KapxCtaVc?si… Explore its world of microscopic beauty and the deep silence required to truly listen. @PariksithSingh @MakrandParanspe @AmazingVedas

https://x.com/sriaurobindochr/status/2102391397747757200

Enjoyed this clip? Watch the full conversation with poet @PariksithSingh and @MakrandParanspe on his new Hindi poem “ज्ञात-अज्ञात” — a journey beyond knowledge and vision into the profound mystery of self, other, and oneness. youtu.be/MiF-D8PgK8k?si… @AmazingVedas

https://x.com/sriaurobindochr/status/2102097778889330800

Join poet @PariksithSingh as he reads his Hindi poem “विचित्र मिलन” and discusses its meaning with @MakrandParanspe - journey toward another that becomes a journey inward, revealing love, mystery, and the self. youtu.be/NjydY4RSHBc?si… @AmazingVedas

https://x.com/sriaurobindochr/status/2102141064614441295

Join poet @PariksithSingh in conversation with @MakrandParanspe as they explore “नया अंतः स्थल” — a Hindi poem of memory, silence, longing, and the quiet spaces we carry within. @AmazingVedas youtu.be/a3cs_Jb78ic?si…

https://x.com/sriaurobindochr/status/2102037751524643169

Dr. Pariksith Singh discusses Sri Aurobindo and Philosophy with Dr. Makarand Paranjape | BluOne Ink

To order your copy, click the following link: https://amzn.eu/d/06f74p7 Sri Aurobindo and Philosophy authored by Dr. Pariksith Singh delves ...

Moral emotions are not natural defaults. Love, truth, respect, guilt, compassion and self-restraint are civilizational achievements, developed over centuries through reason, conscience and moral discipline. My latest essay:

https://x.com/JayantBhandari5/status/2100295150903636214

Sri Aurobindo on Art

Part IV: Art and the Spiritual Life (Sadhana)

A. Creative Activity as Sadhana

B. The Practice of Painting as Yoga

C. Sri Aurobindo’s Personal Development in Art Appreciation

Part V: Principles of Aesthetic Appreciation and Criticism

A. The ‘Art for Art’s Sake’ Debate

B. On Different Artistic Styles and Movements

C. The Nature of Artistic Criticism and Appreciation

D. The Nature of Beauty

Part VI: Poetic and Aphoristic Insights on Art