Gita Saroddhara (Quintessence of The Gita) An Old and Rare Book

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This book which is a lucid exposition of the practical and theoretical aspects of the teachings of Bhagavad Gita is a collection of lectures delivered by Sri Visvesha Tirtha. Head of the Sri Pejavar Mutt of Udipi, some years back during his Chaturmasya sojourn in Bombay.

Sri Visvesha Tirtha brings into relief the true spirit of Nishkama Karma Yoga or Nivrttakarma Yoga of the ideal Jnani as taught by the great founder of the Dvaita school of Vedanta, Sri Madhvacharya, in his Bhashya and Tatparya on the Gita.

A renowned Pithadhipati of the Madhva Sampradaya, Sri Visvesha Tirtha is revered, loved and respected by all sections of the Hindu society for his dynamism and the great qualities of his head and heart. His erudition in the traditional branches of Sanskrit learning is as profound as his exposition of it. He is a fluent speaker in Sanskrit and Kannada and he addresses his North Indian audiences in chaste Sanskritised Hindi. He is closely associated with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad which strives for national inte- gration. During the last three decades he has established the Akhila Bharata Madhva Mahamandal, the Purnaprajna Vidya Pitha and several other trusts. He has also esta- blished the Pajaka Pratishthana at the birth place of Madhvacharya and has constructed a Mutt at Badrinath in commemoration of Madhvacharya's stay there. His association with the Janata College of Arts and Science at Dharwar with Sri Virendra Heggade of Dharma- sthala bears testimony to his faith in modern education.

The release of this book happily coincides with the historic occasion of Sri Visvesha Tirtha's taking charge of his biennial turn of Sri Krishna Puja at Udipi for the third time after the scheduled interval of sixteen years for each of the eight Mathas of Udipi.

The Bhagavad Gita is the one and the only scripture which expounds religious and Vedantic principles in a concise, simple and beautiful manner. There is no problem in life which cannot find its solution from this tiny book, one may say. It acquaints us thoroughly with all the equipment necessary to make our life perfectly beautiful. One can find from the Gita a sure guidance to follow in any critical situation. There is no other scripture in the whole world which analyses and defines in such a simple way the nature of life and its problems. The Gita was preached by Sri Krishna and it was written in the present form by Sri Vedavyasa. When both are the twin forms of the Almighty God Himself how could we ever fully praise the holiness and greatness of such a work? The Gita is the immortal message to the mankind given by the very person of the Lord Himself.

या स्वयं पद्मनाभस्य मुखपद्माद्विनिःसृता ।

(That which has emerged from the very lotus lips of the Padmanabha.) The Gita is both a science of philosophy and a science of life. We cannot find in any other work such a unique harmonisation of philosophic principles with mundane life.

While I was camping in Hubli for the Chaturmasya I got a good opportunity to give a series of discourses on the Bhagavad Gita. This book is a fruit of those discourses. Many people who attended those lectures desired that they should be collected and published in the form of a book and which made it possible for the work to find the light of the day.

The Bhagavad Gita is the Sun that has risen from the Udayagiri viz. Lord Sri Krishna, the Para Brahman. Though this sun of saving knowledge makes the hearts of all good men blossom forth like lotuses touched good by the sun's rays, some defective commentaries which came to be written on the Gita, in course of time, tended to obscure this light of the sun of knowledge, like passing clouds in the sky. Such clouds had been dispersed by Sri Mukhya Prana taking Avatar on earth as Anandatirtha Bhagavatpada (Madhvacharya) who composed two learn- ed commentaries on the Gita the Gita Bhashya and Gita Tatparya. Scattering these clouds still further away from approaching the Gita, Sri Jayatirtha deflated them, with his Tikas on the Gita Bhashya and Gita Tatparya.

However, ordinary minds which could not bear the dazzling sunlight of the Gita have been in dire need of a mellow light as of the full moon, to help them enjoy and appreciate the beauty of the message of the Gita. The illustrious Satyadhyana Tirtha was the first to come for- ward to meet this need of the common man. He absorbed the dazzling light of the Gita which could only be perceived from a safe distance even by the highly learned scholars and reflected it in its mellowed form through his popular, word for word rendering of the Gita, in his Gita Pratipadartha Candrika. This work has been of immense value to the common man in treading the right path in life according to the teachings of the Gita. Some commentaries on the Gita which have come down to us have tried to make out that Advaita-vada is the true message of the Gita. These look upon Sri Krishna, the supreme Lord, as still open to the illusion of duality.