The first strategy in Gandhi’s reading of the Gita was to treat the text as an allegory. The battle of Kurukshetra was not, in Gandhi’s view, “a battle which took place so many thousand years ago; it is one which is raging all the time, even today". He regarded the battle between the Kauravas and the Pandavas as an allegory for the battle “between the innumerable forces of good and evil which become personified in us as virtues and vices.” Even winning the war did not bring happiness, it brought only regret and remorse to all, proving that "mere material gains never brought peace within.”
He holds that "Every one of us is a mixture of good and evil. . . The difference that there is between human beings is the difference of degree." In interpreting the battle in the Mahabharata, he says that, "Duryodhana and his supporters stand for the satanic impulses in us, and Arjuna and others stand for Godward impulses. The battle-field is our body. The poet-seer, who knows from experience the problems of life, has given a faithful account of the conflict which is eternally going on within us." (Navajivan, 11-10-1925)
According to him, the notion of avatar is a result of human imagination. What humans imagine Krishna to be is more important than the historical Krishna. He thought that an avatar did not mean any descent of God into human form but the ascent of humans into divine status. Those who stood against the wickedness and immorality of the time were looked on as avatars and thus it was open to every human being to be an avatar. For him, therefore, the Gita becomes above all a book of ethics, emphasising selfless devotion in the cause of human brotherhood.
In reading the Gita in this manner, Gandhi marks a sharp distinction between his approach to the text and that of his political predecessors, particularly the Extremists. During his time in the Yerwada Jail (1922-24), he read around 150 books including the entire Mahabharata along with all the available translations of Gita including Tilak’s. Gandhi agreed with Tilak about the importance of doing the right action and following truth as per Gita. However, he disagreed with Tilak about how to do the right action. Gandhi drew the message of non-violence and ahimsa from Gita.
Gita advocates three paths: Karma yoga, Bhakti Yoga, and Gyana Yoga; without preferring one over the other. In Tilak’s interpretation of Gita, Karma Yoga (action) rules supreme, and takes precedence over the Bhakti Yoga (devotion) and Gyana Yoga (knowledge). He justified action, even when it became violent like killing, as long as it is without personal interest or motive.
Gandhi however interpreted that action without expectation of fruit (anasaktiyoga) was the essence of the entire work. The crux of this difference was illustrated in Gandhi's paper Young India where he said that Tilak considered everything fair in politics, an idea of politics that he did not accept. Tilak objected to the remark and said in a letter to Young India:
I write this to you to say that my view is not correctly represented therein. Politics is a game of worldly people, and not of sadhus, and instead of the maxim "Overcome anger by loving kindness, evil by good" as preached by Buddha, I prefer to rely on the maxim of Shri Krisna "In whatsoever way any come to Me, in the same way I grant them favour". That explains the whole difference and also the meaning of my phrase "responsive cooperation". Both methods are equally honest and righteous but the one is more suited to this world than the other.
Gandhi answered:
I naturally feel the greatest diffidence about joining issue with the Lokamanya in matters involving questions of interpretation of religious work. But there are things in or about which instinct transcends even interpretation. For me there is no conflict between the two texts quoted by the Lokamanya. The Buddhist text lays down an eternal principle. The text from the Bhagavad Gita shows to me how the principle of conquering hate by love, untruth by truth, can and must be applied.
If it be true that God metes out the same measure to us that we mete out to others, it follows that if we would escape condign punishment, we may not return anger but gentleness even against anger. And this is the law not for the unworldly but essentially for the worldly. With deference to the Lokamanya, I venture to say that it betrays mental laziness to think that the world is not for sadhus. The epitome of all religions is to promote purushartha, and purushartha is nothing but a desperate attempt to become sadhu, i.e., to become a gentleman in every sense of the term.
Finally, when I wrote the sentence about "everything being fair in politics" according to the Lokamanya’s creed, I had in mind his oft-repeated quotation "evil unto evil". To me it enunciates bad law. And I shall not despair of the Lokamanya with all his acumen agreeably surprising India one day with a philosophical dissertation proving the falsity of the doctrine. In any case I pit the experience of a third of a century against the doctrine underlying "evil unto evil". The true law is "truth even unto evil".
