Bhagavad Geeta: An Exposition of the Maha-Vakyam—Sentence Sublime

Bhagavad Geeta: An Exposition of the Maha-Vakyam—Sentence Sublime

There is a tenor common to all the great scriptures of the world. Directly or indirectly they are all exponents of the maha-vakyam, the Sentence Sublime. Now, what is this maha-vakyam? It proclaims the relationship between God and man. The Vedas contain four such proclamations. They are regarded the most sacred among inspired utterances. The most popular one among them is ‘Tat tyam asi’. This sentence contains three words. When literally translated it means ‘That thou art’. In prose order it is “Thou art That’. That you are not alien to God is the purport of this sublime sentence. In some form or other this idea is contained in all the scriptures. That book which does not deal with this supreme idea is no scripture. The Bhagavad Gita is from beginning to end a grand commentary on the sublime statement—Thou art That.

There are eighteen chapters in the Gita. They are conventionally called the Three Sixes the trishatkam. The first six chapters elucidate the word thou in the maha-vakyam. The word stands for the Jivatman or the individual soul with its potentialities and possibilities. The seeming limitations of the individual soul, and how they could be overcome to the point of perfection are fully delineated here. Chapters seven to twelve form the second satkam. This portion deals with the word That indicating God or the Ultimate Reality. What is called Nature is none other than that Reality contacted through the senses and the intellect. The Self that is immanent in Nature, that which transcends Nature and that which is the Absolute —all these are the same Cosmic Personality viewed from different grades of intuition. The third satkam contains the last six chapters. The predicate art gets explained in this portion. The inviolable relationship between the Cosmic Reality and the individual soul is well established in this part of the book. In this manner the three aspects of the maha-vakyam have an equal number of chapters allotted for the elucidation of each of them. Giving equal weight to all the three is another specialty of the Gita. Indeed it seems that this book has been divinely planned solely for the purpose of the exposition of the maha-vakyam.

Source: Srimad Bhagavad Geeta-Commentary by Swami Chidbhavananda