My notes on the first two books of the Gita intended to establish the existence of a common tradition of thinking about political issues and questions of political philosophy and theology common to the West and the East. Having expressed my views on the subject, I turn my attention to the problem of political philosophy and the statesman himself, adopting a more exegetical approach to the text. Before I continue any further, though, I ought to define the field of enquiry more clearly, and for this I borrow from A.P. d’Entrèves’ definition: political philosophy consists of three aspects, namely, “the problem of authority, of obedience, of political obligation.”¹ The Gita, I must add, is remarkable because of its theological profoundness and as a guide for action even for the layman, but the field of inquiry above is much more restricted.

Book III of the Gita is short — it only has forty-three verses — but it packs perhaps the most important insight so far, that of means-ends politics, and of the best way to live. Arjuna asks Krishna, his divine charioteer, to explain why he must fight the war if “knowledge is greater than action” (3:1); Krishna’s advice leads to moral uncertainty, and the onus is on him to solve the issue at hand. Krishna defines two ways of life (3:3): jnana yoga, analogous to the vita contemplativa, and karma yoga, which resembles the Augustinian definition of the vita coactiva, the life of honour and activity. Both paths are equally exalted, but the former is not addressed at length, presumably because those with a disposition for the vita contemplativa will be able to find the required community and inner strength to concentrate on the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge without coercion or guidance from a warrior on the battlefield. Of more interest to Krishna, and to us as students of political philosophy, is the karma yoga, which is not the life of activity insofar as it is a life destined for profit and acquisition of worldly goods, but rather “the active path of selfless service” (3:3), of the sort that involves public responsibility and honour but not for the aggrandisement of the self, but for the furtherance of the common weal.

Particularly for the man who follows in the stead of the karma yoga, it is important that he eschew sensuous desires and wants because he does not desire knowledge of the soul (3:6). Implicit in this is a criticism of renunciants: it is not the place of man to renounce his position in society and leave for the forests to meditate, for society is important and natural to man, the zöon politikon, and it is natural to man. This is reinforced by the grounding that all creatures have natures, and consequently ends: “all creatures are driven to action by their own nature” (3:5). If all things have temporal ends, then the end of man is social and political insofar as a man of distinction has two choices, and if he is not naturally disposed to the contemplative life, the life of inquiry about the soul, then he must adopt the life of action. Even in the former, action is not unavoidable: the cosmic wheels are a turning, and refraining from doing anything at all is to deny the good; consequently, “one who shirks action does not attain freedom” (3:4).

What, then, must one do, if one is to recognise the good, and live the good life? For Krishna, those who “excel [are those] who control their senses through their mind, using them for selfless service” (3:7). The mind is to be exalted over one’s sentiments. Reason is sovereign in its appropriate domain, and can be informed but not overruled by one’s sentiments. Excellence can only be achieved by those who consciously subordinate their emotions to their reason, and who are perceptive observers of the world around them. While it is not denied that emotion is intrinsic to the human condition, it presents reason as something worth aspiring to, a higher state of being that is not mutually opposed to being caring or loving, but rather is opposed to sensuous gratification, which is temporary and cannot provide a path to eudaemonia or knowledge of the larger thought thinking itself. The life of devotion, too, is important, but I have my doubts as to whether the intention of the original text was to exalt mindless devotion at the risk of alienating the theological life, or whether the two lives were equal, the latter being somewhat more equal than the former. In any case, however, it seems as though the first step here ought to be the recognition of the self and of one’s dispositions, and in accordance with that one must pick the appropriate form of life. Consequently, one who chooses to follow the path of karma yoga, the vita coactiva, the life of honour, must be able to detach himself in a particular manner from the emotional mores of the world to act with reason over emotion. This, however, is qualified with the end of such an activity: selfless service.

Selfless service does not imply the negation of the self, but the complete opposite. Krishna tells Arjuna, “every selfless act, Arjuna, is born from Brahman, the eternal, infinite Godhead. Brahman is present in every act of service” (3:15). Selfless service is a return to the moment of primordial creation, when “mankind and the obligation of selfless service were created together” (3:10). It is implied that those who refuse to follow this maxim of selfless service are rebelling against their nature, and consequently the law of nature would consider actions done with an aim toward or “thought of personal profit” (3:9) to be consciously alienated from a just world. Justice — the form that is cosmic, at any rate — is eternal, available to reason, and no intelligent being can deny either its existence or of man’s moral obligation to it, through selfless service. The first principle of man’s existence is the divine, and life itself stems from “selfless worship and service” (3:14). Man cannot deny his nature, his creation, and his role in the cosmic saga.

This is why Krishna exhorts Arjuna: “Fulfil al your duties; action is better than inaction” (3:8). This sounds an awful lot like Burke’s maxim, “the situation of man is the preceptor of his duty.”² Duty and moral obligation, even in the polis, stems from the general principle of one’s obligations which are determined by one’s positions; in the Gita it is expressed as svadharma, which can only be loosed translated as one’s personal duties, the sort that arises from one’s position in society. The duty of a warrior is not the same as the duty of a merchant, but this comes not from birth but from one’s station: inherited caste has no basis in determining the size and scope of one’s duty. Equality, in this analysis, falls by the wayside, because it is understood that society is not made of individual units that are completely identical, but that one’s standing and position can exist in the context of one’s society. The closest form of equality here can be the concept of proportionate equality, á la Aristotle and Cicero.

Of particular interest is the following set of two verses: “Strive constantly to serve the welfare of the world; by devotion to selfless work one attains the supreme goal of life. Do your work with the welfare of others always in mind. It was by such work that Janaka attained perfection; others too have followed this path” (3:19–20). The verses make specific reference to the mythic king of Mithila, Janaka, who features in the older Ramayana as the father of Sita, the princess whose abduction is the driving force of the epic’s plot, and is like the Indian Helen. Janaka was famed for his wisdom and his single-minded focus on trying to know the good, which is what made him such a remarkable ruler. He ruled in the interests of the summum bonum, justly, deftly, and astutely, and without an eye toward personal gain, aggrandisement, or enrichment. His form of rulership was a sort of paternalistic conservatism, understanding man’s intrinsic imperfection. He sought a kingdom where not he, but the law of cosmic justice, was sovereign, where virtue and justice could be one and reside on earth. By doing this, he attained perfection, if not absolute perfection to the point where he was neither man nor god, but of a saintly, mythical kind, of a man who always sought out the good — a philosopher king. Janaka, and not an obscure sage of mythic wisdom, is the model here, because the imperative for action dictates that it is, in fact, much harder to live when one must make conscious choices and avoid the temptation of tenuous sensuous desires. The welfare of the res publica is the key marker of the good ruler, who must act with courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom toward the actualisation of the welfare of his subjects.

“Even the wise,” Krishna reminds Arjun, “act within the limitations of their own nature” (3:33). What does this mean for the student of the studia humanitatis? It implies that the human condition is marked by deficiency, the foremost of which is human fallibility. One may strive for the good life within the bounds of one’s nature, i.e., to attempt to live a life of higher purpose without forgetting that man is fallible, and consequently prone to imperfection, temptation, and failure.

One’s personal dharma, the svadharma, is dealt with more particularly by Krishna: “It is better to strive in one’s own dharma than to succeed in the dharma of another. Nothing is ever lost in following one’s own dharma, but competition in another’s dharma breeds fear and insecurity” (3:35). One must follow one’s duty, if only because everyone has an ordained place in society, and to aspire to more without completely fulfilling what one must do as a marker of one’s position is to succumb to greed, turning away from the good. Similarly, the ruler of a state must not aspire to an increase in his territory — the dharma of another ruler — if he has not fulfilled his to the maximum possible extent. Similarly, it is not the role of the warrior to meddle in business; nor is it the responsibility of the businessman to meddle in politics by influencing it with money. The possibilities are endless; they are sometimes upholders of convention, and in other places rather subversive. But on the whole, this is a remarkable maxim, one that must be followed. It also puts to rest the myth of the oriental despot: if one lives according to the rules laid down in the Gita or the Politics, justice would prevail, not despotism and tinpot dictatorships, but alas.