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But Bhishma, in his victorious career, has nothing worse to cry to his enemies than Valiant are ye, noble princes! and if you think of it on the unsymbolic plane, there is a certain nobility in the Despondency of Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita.
But there is no evidence that this is the historical development of the bhakti sentiment, and if the Bhagavad-gîtâ is emphatic in enjoining the worship of Kṛishṇa only, the Śvetâśvatara and Maitrâyanîya Upanishads favour Śiva, and he is abundantly extolled in many parts of the Mahâbhârata.
The key to this change in the man, that brings about "forgiveness," is given in the verse of the Bhagavad-Gîtâ already partly quoted: "Even if the most sinful worship me, with undivided heart, he too must be accounted righteous, for he hath rightly resolved." On that right resolution follows the inevitable result: "Speedily he becometh dutiful and goeth to peace."
Its different incidents and episodes were probably separate poems, which from the earliest age were sung by the people, and later, by degrees, collected in one complete work. Of the Mahabharata we possess only a few episodes translated into English, such as the Bhagavad-Gita, by Wilkins.
In the Bhagavad-Gita it is said of the happiness that these three grant: “Where one rests after earnest work and arrives at the end of toil, Fortune, which appears poison at first, finally is like nectar. All mystic manuals warn us of the wrong way and emphasize often that we can easily lose the way even where there is good intention.
Of the other works comprised in the Tirumurai the most important is the Tiruvâçagam of Mâṇikka-Vâçagar, one of the finest devotional poems which India can show. It is not, like the Bhagavad-gîtâ, an exposition by the deity, but an outpouring of the soul to the deity. It only incidentally explains the poet's views: its main purpose is to tell of his emotions, experiences and aspirations.
For nothing which is, is truly of itself, but God alone; who alone exists per se, spreading himself over all things, and communicating to them all that which in them truly corresponds to the notion of being." I think we can recognise here, under a not too thick disguise of churchly phraseology, the philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gita.
You may take the Bhagavad-Gita, perhaps, as the highest expression of Aryan religio-philosophic thinking. There we have the Spirit, the One, shown as the self of the Universe, but speaking through, and as, Krishna, a human personality. Heaven forbid that I should suggest there is anthropomorphism in this.
All Śivaite philosophy is really based on this last and teaches the existence of matter, souls and a deity, manifested in a series of phases. In Kashmirian Śivaism Vedântist influences seem strong and it even calls itself Advaita. It is noteworthy that Vasugupta, who discovered the Śiva-sûtras, also wrote a commentary on the Bhagavad-gîtâ.
The other point to which I would draw attention is the importance of relatively modern works, which supersede the older scriptures, especially in Hinduism. This phenomenon is common in many countries, for only a few books such as the Bhagavad-gîtâ, the Gospels and the sayings of Confucius have a portion of the eternal and universal sufficient to outlast the wear and tear of a thousand years.
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