Gita 09.16 – See beyond the technical to the transcendental
Bhagavad Gita 9.16 So, here 9.16 in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna is speaking about, briefly about the conception of the absolute as pervading the whole universe. That is mentioned Vishvatomukham, earlier mentioned. So, Vishvatomukham, what does it mean? He is talking about Jnana Yajna, it was talking about 9.15 was Jnana Yajna Chavyanya So, he is saying that these people worship him through Jnana Yajna and they worship him thus, their conception is that it is the absolute truth who is manifested in some way as pervading the universe.
So, then these people they conceive of the process of Yajna. One is that the Jnana Yajna means they are using the sacrifice of knowledge. That means they use their knowledge to intellectually conceptualize the absolute truth.
Then they also reconceptualize the whole process of sacrifice also as a manifestation of the absolute truth. And Krishna in this verse guides them how they can conceptualize this. So, this verse has a striking parallel with 4.24 but with a more personalist conception of the process of sacrifice.
Now, 4.24 was the famous verse with the repetition of Brahma many times. So, he speaks there that all the elements of sacrifice, let us not go into the specifics over there or over here both. Basically, whatever are the elements of sacrifice, there is a fire, there is a sacrificial spoon, the ladle, there is the ghee that is offered, there are other oblations that are made, there are the mantras that are chanted, there are the sponsor of the sacrifice.
So, at that time when one is conceptualizing Yajna in spiritual terms, at that time one understands that all of them are Brahma. And such a conceptualization is definitely better than the conceptualization of seeing all of them as personal. So, where it was Brahma, now it is Aham.
Aham kartur, aham yajna, sadhaham aham aushadham, mantrao aham aham evajyam, aham agnir aham hotam. Sacrifices were a big part of the spiritual culture of ancient India. We see elaborate sacrifices performed in the Mahabharata, in the Ramayana, even in the Bhagavatam.
And we see the mention of the holy name and the glorification of the holy name and the chanting of the holy names. So, as the yugas changed and Kalyuga came up, so from that time onwards, the emphasis on chanting became much more naturally. But in the earlier ages, Yajna was a very important sacred practice and that sacred practice was quite involved, technical, complex.
There are Shilpa Sutras, which are advanced treatises on geometry, and people were not interested in geometry for just some mensurational purposes. Mensuration is basically the measurement. It is used in a specific sense in geometry where sine, cosine and other ratios come up.
But then here it was used for, that knowledge was used for, knowledge of advanced mathematical shapes and everything was used for constructing elaborate sacrificial altars. So, that means, normally, when you want to do something well, we develop the things necessary to do that well. So, for example, if you want to control water flow, if you want to have some irrigation system, then we may use various things to, what is the kind of materials that will be able to resist the flow of water, what will make durable dams and things like this, they will be developed once that purpose is there.
So, when we see that advanced knowledge of geometry was developed for sacred purposes, one thing we can understand also how this knowledge, how the separation between secular knowledge and religious knowledge was not there in the past, we can see that. Additionally, we can see how much stress was there on this particular religious aspect of, or this aspect of religious life, that other branches of knowledge were developed to serve and to do, to serve that particular aspect of religious life. So, essentially, this process of yajna, which was very complex, that required many, many brahmanas to perform properly, and which had to be done with meticulous precision for giving proper results.
Sometimes they might well end up giving up the opposite results also, as happened with Vishwaroop s father, Tvashta, chanting Indra Shatruho, instead of Indra Shatruho. So, because of which, rather than getting an enemy of Indra, he got a son emerging through fire, who was, for whom Indra was the enemy. That meant that, rather than he killing Indra, he was killed by Indra, that was Uttarasur.
So, the point was that, this is a very complex, well-developed and intricate aspect of religious life, and Krishna, in one sweeping stroke of insight, is linking the technical with the transcendental, by stating that all the various ingredients in the fire sacrifice are actually He. So, we see the word Aham, how many times does He come over here? So, this is the verse in the Bhagavad Gita where the word Aham I comes the most, eight times, twice in each line, symmetrically. What does this signify? It signifies that we should not get so caught in the technical as to miss the transcendental.
That s what happened with the Yajnik Brahmanas of Mathura, as mentioned in the 10th Canto of Srimad Bhagavatam. They were so busy doing the sacrifices, as per the religious rituals, that they forgot that they neglected Krishna, who came there, the same Krishna whom they were invoking through the precision of the sacrifices, when that Krishna came in front of them, through His representatives, what they were beseeching the Lord to come and accept the food offerings, the offering which they were going to make to sacrifice, they were going to chant mantras to ask the Lord to come, and the Lord had Himself come asking for food through His associates. And yet, instead of offering, giving any offerings to the associates, what did they do? They sent them away, saying, neglected them.
So, in this way, this kind of consumption of the mind by the technical can cause distraction. And Krishna here, at one level, He talks about how the whole sacrifice can be re-conceptualized in a devotional way. And that is how some people can perform Gyan Yajna.
But as devotees, we can also see that essentially, the technical is meant to take us to the transcendental. The all-pervading Brahman, the spiritual truth is eternally manifested through Yajna. And how that absolute truth, which is actually Krishna, pervades all aspects of Yajna, He demonstrates, He explains in this verse by helping us re-envision all the aspects of the sacrifice as His manifestations.