Ramanuja's Commentary on Bhagavad-Gita
The Supreme Lord Krishna, the Lord of Sri, whose essential nature is being the sole reservoir of all illustrious attributes and who is the antithesis to all that is evil as exemplified by wisdom and bliss. Who is the great ocean of the infinite, immeasuarble, exalted and innumerable glorious qualities which being part of His natural essence such as omniscience, power, sovereignity, eternality, omnipotence and splendour. Whose transcendental form is a treasure house of effulgence, beauty, lovlieness and perfection; beyond all conceptions, divine, wonderful, everlasting and invincible and sublime being immutable in accordance with His will. He is adorned with countless transcendental ornaments: varieagated, bountiful, marvelous and permanent which are perfection and worthy of Him in every respect. Who is accoutred resplendently with innumerable divine weapons agreeing with His nature, of inconceivable power, invincible, eternal and glorious.
The Supreme Lord Krishna is the beloved of Sri, also known as Laksmi-devi, who is herself quite perfect in all the multitudes of limitless, marvelous and uncountable qualities of divinity such as amiability, compassion, devotion etc. and harmonising in perfect synchronisation with His nature, form, omnipotence, majesty and opulence. He who has at feet constantly eulogizing prayers and singing hymns, countless divine beings; whose essence, being, and phenomenal works are all in accordance with His will. They delight solely in rendering service to Him, posessed as they are with of a multitude of vast, eternal, indestrucible, and sublime attributes far beyond any definitions of words or thoughts.
The Supreme Lord Krishna whose expansions and incarnations have their abode in the transcendental celestial firmament known as Vaikuntha which is indestructible and limitless and which conforms with His nature, which is expansive, unfathomable, endless and opulent. That Vaikuntha of infinite wonder, of infinte glory, of infinite majesty and of infinite omnipotence is eternal and imperishable.
The Supreme Lord Krishna by whose will and pleasure trillions of universes are dramatically displayed by projection in the material substratum in the modes of sustenation and dissolution; the universes so replete with 8,400,000 different species of life and full of so many wonderfully variegated and amazingly phenomenal creations and hosts of enjoyers thereof. He is also to be known by the names of His manifestations such as Brahman and Para Brahman, by any of His incarnations such as Rama and Buddha and by any of His expansions such as Narayana and Vasudeva.
The Supreme Lord Krishna , who is the Ultimate Truth, the Ultimate Consciousness and the Ultimate Personality, having emanated the complete cosmic manifestation from Brahma down to a blade of grass, by His own desire He withdrew within His own Self and was instantaneously completely beyond the material existence and the meditations and adorations of Brahma, the demigods and mortal beings.
The Supreme Lord Krishna being an all pervading ocean of infinite mercy with unlimited compassion, unlimited love and unlimited magnamimity, although completely transcendental to the material existence; simultaneously willed to incarnate in various material forms similar to those of His creation, without compromising His own divine transcendental nature and periodically descends as different incarnations in the material worlds as he so desires.
The Supreme Lord Krishna is always accessible to those by whom He is worshipped and receiving His mercy are granted their desires from artha which is material wealth all the way to moksa which is salvation from material existence and their aspirations are always completely fulfilled.
The Supreme Lord Krishna's main purpose for descending and incarnating is to relieve the Earth of any demoniac and negative, undesirable influences that are opposed to spiritual developement; but simultaneously at the same time it is also His incomparable intention to continuously be within reach of all humanity. To fulfill this purpose He periodically manifests Himself in the material existence so that He becomes an actual reality for all people to consciously see, hear and learn about and He personally performs such phenomenal and extraordinary pastimes that are able to captivate, inspire and enrapture the hearts and minds of all living entities high and low.
The Supreme Lord Krishna naturally delights all the worlds who are fortunate enough to learn about Him with His transcendental beauty, His eternal, spiritual form and His extraordinary phenomenal pastimes which are overflowing with the nectar of compassion and love.
The Supreme Lord Krishna under the pretext of having to persuade Arjuna to fight at the battle of Kuruksetra, agreed to accept the position of chariot driver for His devotee and took the oppurtunity to reveal again the eternal and imperishable Bhagavad-Gita which had been lost over the milleniums. By delineating karma yoga and jnana yoga which both when becoming mature blossom into bhakti yoga which is the science of the individual consciousness attaining communion with the Ultimate Cocsciousness by loving devotional service unto the Supreme Lord or through any of His sastrically authorised incarnations revealed in the Vedic scriptures.
The Supreme Lord Krishna fully described the science of bhakti yoga in the middle six chapters of Srimad Bhagavad-Gita and these six chapters reveal the goal of all Vedantic teachings and by which He is irrefutably indicated as the Ultimate Reality, the best object of love for the highest good of all living entities and that loved , He Himself becomes the means to rescue a living entity from all illusory and conditioned existences.
The Supreme Lord Krishna appeared in His original form with a view to shower benefits on the whole Earth and allowing Himself to be overpowered by the great love from His true and faithful devotee Arjuna, gave Himself to him and consenting to his desire undertook the duties as Arjunas charioteer and safely drove his surrendered devotee to victory throughout the 18 day battle of Kuruksetra as witnessed by all the universe which was inaugurated due to King Duryodhana and the Kauravas becoming antagonistic against Arjunas's family known as the Pandavas.
Srimad Bhagavad-Gita begins with the Supreme Lord Krishna driving Arjunas magnificent golden chariot drawn by four milk white horses between the two armies opposed for battle. The dialogue begins with the blind king Dhritarastra, of the enemy Kauravas inquiring about the welfare of his son Duryodhana from Sanjaya, who had been given the power of clairvoyance by incarnation Krsna Dvaipayana Vyasa to see and hear everything that occured on the battlefield as if he was physically present.
Thus ends the introduction to the commentary of Srimad Bhagavad-Gita
by Ramanuja.
