For some time there has been a growing consensus that the traditional Advaitin reading of the G§t~ is not well supported. Instead the G§t~ is the continuation of a strong tradition of personal theism that began with the Vedas, continued in the Upani¬ads, and culminated in the Epics and the Pur~ªas. Anyone who has visited India realizes very quickly that no Indian worships a quality-less Brahman, just as no Greek or Thomist ever prayed to Aristotle’s unmoved mover. Returning from their university offices every day, even most Hindu philosophers pay their respects at their local temples and family shrines, following in the footsteps of their Vai¬ªava or ˜aivite forefathers. Gandhi was no exception to this venerable Indian tradition and it is well known that R~ma was the personal name of God by which he communed with the ultimate.

Many of the Upani¬ads begin with invocations to the major deities, including a prayer to Vi¬ªu in the M~ndãkhya, the only Upani¬ad with the famous word advaita in it. Most commentators have now rejected ˜a¡kara’s reading of the crucial word prasada as a yogic "calming of the senses" in favor of the self receiving the "grace of the Ordainer" in the Katha and Mundaka Upani¬ads. In addition to a doctrine of grace in these texts there is also a doctrine of election: "By Him alone can He be won whom He elects." The personal term puru¬a is used to name the highest reality, even beyond Brahman itself, something the G§t~ does consistently. In the ˜vet~¶vat~ra Upani¬ad we find a "Blessed Lord" (identified as ˜iva) higher than Brahman: "I know that mighty Person. . . beyond Him is nothing whatsoever, no other thing. . . the One, the Person, this whole universe full filling!"

It is in KŬªa, however, that the ultimate expression of the puru¬a motif is conceived. KŬªa makes explicit his connection with the Vedic tradition: "Through all the Vedas it is I that should be known, for the Maker of the Veda's end am I . . ."; and "so am I extolled in Vedic speech as. . . the 'Person All-Sublime.'" KŬªa declares himself "God of gods" and the "beginning of the gods"; and he transcends them so much that they are not allowed to see KŬªa's unmanifest form." KŬªa also reiterates the subordination of Brahman to the Puru¬a, which we have already seen in the Upani¬ads: "Great Brahman is to Me a womb, in it I plant the seed: from this derives the origin of all contingent beings"; and "I am the base supporting Brahman. . . . (Note not only the subordination of Brahman but also its feminization.) R. C. Zaehner states that KŬªa "transcends the immortal Brahman as much as He transcends the phenomenal world." Both Zaehner and Robert Minor are determined to reject a nondualistic interpretation which would dissolve all selves into the one divine self. What we have then is a relation of KŬªa to individual selves much like, with the major exception of bhakti intimacy, the relation of the Lord ½¶vara and autonomous puru¬as of S~÷khya-Yoga.

The foregoing reading of the G§t~ serves Gandhi very well in terms of embracing personal theism and preserving the integrity of the individual self. But what is most controversial about Gandhi’s G§t~ is his allegorical interpretation of the battle itself. One of the strongest supports for Gandhi’s approach is the unrealistic juxtaposition of battlefield and philosophical discussion, a tension that can be resolved nicely by saying that the human soul is the actual focus of the battle. The key to reading Gandhi’s G§t~ lies in KŬªa’s speech at the end of chapter 2. Gandhi plays the original S~÷khya dualism of these passages for all they their allegorical worth. (When Gandhi says that Duryodhana and his men "stand for the Satanic impulses in us" or the "G§t~ distinguishes between the powers of light and darkness and demonstrates their incompatibility," Gandhi has gone beyond dualism to Manicheanism.) Gandhi contends that KŬªa exhorts us to kill the passions in order to have peace of mind rather than killing our brothers for military victory. The 61st verse must have especially inspired Gandhi: "Then let him sit, curbing them all, integrated and intent on Me: for firm established is the man’s wisdom whose sense are subdued." Given this clear spiritual psychology, it is impossible to read the G§t~ as recommending violence. As Gandhi states: "Violence is simply not possible unless one is driven by anger, by ignorant love and by hatred. The G§t~ ,on the other hand, wants us to be incapable of anger . . . ."

A closer reading of Gandhi’s interpretation of the G§t~ shows that he also allows a literal reading of the text. Gandhi paraphrases KŬªa’s advise to Arjuna in this way: "You have already committed violence. By talking now like a wise man, you will not learn nonviolence. Having started on this course, you must finish the job." Gandhi then uses the example of a person committing himself to a train trip, deciding midway not to continue, and then foolishly jumping off the train. Gandhi then reiterates one of his basic principles: that it is worse to be a coward than to commit violence. True Hindu dharma "does not under any circumstances countenance running away in fear. In this world that baffles our reason, violence there will then always be." Gandhi is essentially conceding the point that the G§t~ may indeed be an account of a battle in which Arjuna’s duty is to fight his cousins or be condemned as a coward.

One does not have to accept Gandhi’s allegorical approach in order to agree with his basic ethical theses about the G§t~, which are actually rather noncontroversial. Arjuna’s karma yoga consists in not a renunciation of action but only the rejection of the fruits of action. What Gandhi draws from the G§t~ is a basic philosophy of active nonattachment. Gandhi states that the "unmistakable teaching of the G§t~" is that "he who gives up action falls. He who gives up only the reward rises." Furthermore, Gandhi maintains that the G§t~’s karma yoga is committed to this-worldly human welfare as well as spiritual liberation. He believes that the text is firm on this point: "So, unattached, should the wise man do, longing to bring about the welfare of the world." What emerges from this short analysis is significant for the purposes of this book. What we have in the G§t~ is the Hindu equivalent of the Buddha’s Middle Way, between the extremes of active attachment and craving and passive nonattachment. (Some scholars are in fact convinced that the writers of the G§t~ had Buddhism clearly in mind.)

Although he seriously considered embracing another religious tradition, Gandhi remained within his own Hindu faith and decided to tie his ethics to the G§t~ as the essence of this tradition. We have seen, however, that Gandhi’s view of nonviolence is not at all relative in the Hindu sense as we have defined it above. He agreed with the Jains that the vow of ahi÷s~ is absolute, but he disagreed with them in that the exigencies of daily life force us to break that vow much more often than the Jains would ever allow.