Mahatma Gandhi spoke of the Bhagavad Gita as the ‘mother’. He translated the Bhagavad Gita into Gujarati, under the title – Anasakti Yoga (the yoga of detachment). His translation, with short notes, has an interpretative character, although this work may not be considered an elaborate commentary on the Bhagavata Gita for a definitive interpretation.
Mahatma Gandhi regards the Mahabharata war as non-historical
and looks at the war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas allegorically as representing
the inner conflict of human nature between good and evil propensities. Bhagavan
Sri Krishna, as such, represents the inner godhead guiding the bewildered human
soul – Arjuna – to a state oaf inner calm, beyond the qualities of outer nature,
by detachment and desirelessness, called in the Gita they state of sthitaprajna
(poise-in-wisdom).
Mahatma Gandhi reads the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita as a
discipline of austerity in personal life by renouncing attachment and desires,
and performing one’s actions in a spirit of selfless service and repose in the
calm of inner wisdom and of being resigned to the will of God in self-submission.
He also believes that the Gita’s teachings will go a long way in purifying the collective
life of man. Mahatma Gandhi finds, in the Bhagavad Gita, support for his idea
of truth, non-violence, celibacy and the practical teaching of service,
austerity and renunciation.
Followers of Mahatma Gandhis, like Mahadeva Desai in his ‘The
Gospel of Selfless Action or The Gita According to Gandhi and Mashruwala in his
Gita Mantana, have attempted to write more elaborately on the Bhagavad Gita in
the light shown by Gandhi. His follower, Vinoba Bhave, inspired by the Gandhian
ideology of social welfare, has written on the Gita. His Gita Pravacana has
been translated into many Indian languages.