Shri Shankar Shikshayatan organised a national seminar on Srimad Bhagavada Gita vijnana-bhashya on December 30,2022. Pandit Madhusudan Ojha’s Srimad Bhagavada Gita-vijnana Bhashya. The volume is divided into four chapters–rahasya khanda, moola khanda, acharya khanda and hridaya khanda. In Rahasya Khanda, there is vivid description of rajarshi vidya. Pandit Motilal Shastrij has authored three small volumes on rajarshi vidya. In each of these volumes, there are seven upadeshas. The present seminar focused on these three volumes.
The seminar was organised into two session. The first session was chaired by Prof. Santosh Kumar Shukla, convener, Shri Shankar Shikshayatan and professor at Sanskrit and Prachya Vidya Adhyayan Sansthan, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. The second session was chaired by Prof. Saroj Kaushal of Jai Narain Vyas University, Jodhpur, Rajasthan.
Prof. Shobha Mishra of Vikramjit Singh Sanatan Dharma College, Kanpur, spoke on the fourth upadesh from the first upanishad. Simple meanings of terms have been given here. The commentary explains the distinction between shoka or sorrow and anushoka or repentance. Sorrow is when there is a reason and repentance has no specific reason.
Dr Avanindra Kumar Pandey of Rambachan Singh Rajakiya college, Mhow, Uttar Pradesh, talked about the fifth upadesha of third upanishad. Dr Lakshmi Mishra of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gorakhpur University, focused on the third upadesha in the second upanishad. In Gita, Bhagawan Krishna has referred to svadharmamapi. It is related to yoga. Dr N. Vaiti Subramanian of Himachal Pradesh Central University, Dharamshala, spoke on rajarshi vidya. He said there were three types of karma–where tatva was dominant karma, it was called mahatkarma, where budhi tatva was dominant, it was vijnana karma and where pragyan tatva dominated, it was called manasakarma.
Chairing the first session, Prof. Santosh Kumar Shukla explored the importance of budhiyoga in the vijnanabhashya. He referred to the relationship between budhiyoga and bhaktiyoga. Pandit Madhusudan Ojha, he said, had included Gita-karika in his commentary. The karika has approximately 200 shlokas.
In the second session, Dr Kuleep Kumar of Himachal Pradesh Centra University, Dr Suryakant Tripathi of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gorakhpur University, Dr Mamata Mehra of Magadha University, Dr Jaya Saha ofr Tripura University, Dr Madhav Gopal of Bharati College, Delhi University and Dr Devendra Pal of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gorakhpur University participated. The session was chaired by Prof. Saroj Kaushal.
The meeting was organised and coordinated by Dr Lakshmi Kant Vimal and Dr Mani Shankar Dwivedi of Shri Shankar Shikshayatan.