Bhaja Govindam -2. Sri Swami Chidananda

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Tuesday, August 04, 2020. 5:13. AM.

Post-2.

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These three — the Upanishads, the Brahma-sutra and Srimad Bhagavad Gita — are known as Prasthana-trayee (the three authoritative landmarks in spiritual literature). They form the ultimate authority to decide all questions pertaining to religion, metaphysics, philosophy, sacrament, rituals, dharma and the ultimate Reality, the transcendental Reality in Hinduism. They are the three authoritative scriptures that decide in case of all disputes, and their conclusion has to be accepted as final. Great scholars and pundits say, "One’s learning or education is incomplete until one has mastered the Prasthana-trayee." Jagad-guru Adi Shankaracharya is one of the luminous commentators of the Upanishads, the Brahma Sutra and the Bhagavad Gita. His commentary known as Shaankara-bhashya is forever of the ultimate highest standard. He has set a standard.

The truths of the Bhagavad Gita, and the truths which Shankaracharya expounds in his beautiful lyric Dvadasha Manjanka — popularly known as Bhaja Govindam — are not different from each other. But the style in which it is given and the way in which it is expounded to the layman are different. Bhagavad Gita, Brahma-Sutra and the Upanishads are for a Sanskrit scholar, who has already got some background of philosophy; but for Bhaja Govindam no such background is necessary, because it tells you what you already know. It tells you home truths within the range of your own bitter and sweet experiences of this world of human nature and of the state of things that prevail in human society.

The great compassionate Jagad-guru Adi Shankaracharya might have thought, ‘If these people, who are the children of Bharatavarsha, who are the descendants of those great illumined sages, who are the heirs to this wonderful cultural treasure of knowledge, are to be deprived of it, it would be a great pity. Something should be done to bring quintessence of the teachings of all the great Upanishads and the Vedanta, within easy reach of the common man. I shall, for the common man, bring to their very homes, at their very doorstep, the Upanishadic message, the loftiest truths of the Upanishads in an easy, interesting, concise style, but at the same time in a complete, compact and comprehensive way.’ And this great gift Bhaja Govindam was the outcome.

To be continued ...

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