ABSTRACT

The Bhagavadgita constitutes chapters 23 to 40 of the Bhimaparvan, the sixth book of the Mahabharata. The Bhagavadgita has a distinguished place in Indian history, and in global literary history; it has been commented upon by Sankara, Ramanuja, Gandhi, Aurobindo, and many others, and it has been influential also in Europe and North America. The colophons are more recent than the textual materials they label, but they may nonetheless preserve an ancient tradition. That the existential consequences of conventionally bad deeds can be obviated by performing those deeds in a certain manner is mentioned several times in the Upanisads. Many Upanisads describe two post-mortem paths, sometimes labeled devayana and pitryana, the "path of the gods" and the "path of the ancestors". Perhaps the most significant thing about the "proto-Samkhya" ideas expressed in texts is that the analysis of the human being goes together with the emerging concept of yoga.