Thammasat University students interested in comparative religion, philosophy, literature, Hindu scripture, Sanskrit, and related subjects may find it useful to participate in a free 22 August Zoom webinar on Reading the Bhagavad-Gita – Online.
The event, on Thursday, 22 August 2024 at 3:30pm Bangkok time, is presented by King’s College London, the United Kingdom.
As TU students know, The Bhagavad Gita (or God’s Song in Sanskrit), is a 700-verse Hindu scripture, part of the epic Mahabharata.
It was written sometime between 2000 and 2500 years ago.
The Gita holds a unique influence as the most prominent sacred Hindu text on the immortality of the soul.
The TU Library collection includes several books about The Bhagavad Gita.
According to the event webpage:
Every two weeks over the Summer, Dr Sachi Patel (Hindu Chaplain at King’s) will be reading the Bhagavad-Gita, covering topics such as the nature of the self, duty and morality, devotion, and the path to spiritual liberation. Whether you are new to the Gita or a seasoned reader, our sessions provide a nurturing space for reflection and personal growth. Engage with ancient wisdom that has inspired millions and discover how its teachings can enrich your daily life. […]
Students are welcome to join the sessions at this link.
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/events/bhagavad-gita-reading-online?page=3
Dr. Sachi Patel has a MPhil degree in Classical Indian Religion (SOAS) and a PhD in Hindu Theology (University of Oxford), during which he researched the intersection between Politics and Religion in eighteenth-century India.
He subsequently produced a book publication for the Routledge Hindu Studies Series, detailing the relations between Jaisingh II and the rise of public theology in the Gaudiya Vaisnava tradition.
He was born in London and has previously lived as a Hindu monk in the UK and India.
He has also served as a Hindu Chaplain at the Olympic games in 2012, the NHS Nightingale Hospitals and other universities.
Here are some observations about the Bhagavad Gita by authors, some of whom are represented in the TU Library collection:
This (Bhagavad Gita) is a most inspiring book; it has brought comfort and consolation in my life—I hope it will do the same to you. Read it.’
- Thomas Carlyle, a letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson
I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad-gita. It was the first of books’ it was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another rage and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The subject matter of the Gita ranges from vast universal cosmology to our innermost life. We learn to see the world around us from the perspective of sages who saw the beauty of God reflected in every aspect of nature – the rivers, the mountains, the sky, the ocean, the plants, the animals. And we then learn how to move from appreciation of the reflected beauty of God to contemplation of the original beauty of God Himself. We learn that the journey of life did not begin with birth and will not end with the death of the body—for the soul there is neither birth nor death. We learn how we can become modern yogis, satisfied with the pleasure that comes from within, undisturbed by the turbulence of life in even the fastest lanes of third millenium society.
- Michael A. Cremo, “Bhagavad Gita: The Song Divine” (2003)
For, as we have now abundantly seen, the Gītā makes no attempt to be logical or systematic in its philosophy. It is frankly mystical and emotional. What we may, if we like, call its inconsistencies are not due to slovenliness in reasoning; nor do they express a balanced reserve of judgment. This is sufficiently proved in several cases by the fact that the Gītā deliberately brackets two opposing views and asserts the validity of both. It is only in the realm of logic that we must choose between yes and no, or else confess ignorance. The Gītā finds no difficulty in saying both yes and no, at the same time. For its point of view is simply unrelated to logic. Even what it calls “knowledge” is really intuitional perception; it is not, and is not intended to be, based on rational analysis. And, as we have seen, “knowledge” is not the Gītā’s favorite “way of salvation.”
- Franklin Edgerton, “The Bhagavad Gītā”
I must confess to you that when doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and when I see not one ray of light on the horizon I turn to the Bhagavad Gita, and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. My life has been full of external tragedies and if they have not left any visible and indelible effect on me, I owe it to the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita.
- Mahatma Gandhi, The Collected Works, Volume 27
The marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of lifes wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion.
- Herman Hesse, “Indic Visions: In An Age of Science”
The Gita, the most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue—perhaps the deepest and loftiest thing the world has to show.
- Wilhelm von Humboldt
The Bhagavad-Gita is the most systematic statement of spiritual evolution of endowing value to mankind. It is one of the most clear and comprehensive summaries of perennial philosophy ever revealed; hence its enduring value is subject not only to India but to all of humanity.
- Aldous Huxley, “Sacred Jewels of Yoga: Wisdom from India’s Beloved Scriptures, Teachers, Masters, and Monk”
We knew the world would not be the same. Few people laughed, few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.
- J Robert Oppenheimer, in an interview about the Trinity nuclear explosion, first broadcast as part of the television documentary The Decision to Drop the Bomb (1965)
In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat-Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions. I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Bramin, priest of Brahma and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and water jug. I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate together in the same well. The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges.
- Henry David Thoreau, in Walden (1854), Ch. XVI: The Pond in Winter
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)