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INTRODUCTION TO SANATSUGATIYA
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The Sanatsugatiya, is, like the Bhagavadgita, one of the numerous episodes of the Mahabharata 1. It is true, that it, has never commanded anything like that unbounded veneration which has always been paid in India to the Bhagavadgita. Still it is sometimes studied even in our days, and it has had the high distinction of being commented on by the great leader of the modern Vedantic school--Sankarakarya 2. The Dhritarashtra purports to be a dialogue mainly between Sanatsugata on the one side and Dhritarashtra on the other. Sanatsugata, from whom it takes its name, is said to be identical with Sanatkumara, a name not unfamiliar to students of our Upanishad literature. And Dhritarashtra is the old father of those Kauravas who formed one of the belligerent parties in the bellum plusquam civile which is recorded in the Mahabharata. The connexion of this particular episode with the main current of the narrative of that epos is one of the loosest possible character--much looser, for instance, than that of the Bhagavadgita. As regards the latter, it can fairly be contended that it is in accordance with poetical justice for Arguna to feel despondent and unwilling to engage in battle, after actual sight of 'teachers, fathers, sons,' and all the rest of them, arrayed in opposition to him; and that therefore it was necessary for the poet to adduce some specific explanation as to how Arguna was ultimately enabled to get over such natural scruples. But as regards the Sanatsugatiya, even such a contention as this can have no place.
For this is how the matter stands. In the course of the negotiations for an amicable arrangement 3 between the Pandavas and the Kauravas, Sangaya, on one occasion, came back to Dhritarashtra with a message from the Pandavas. When he saw Dhritarashtra, however, he said that he would deliver the message in the public assembly of the Kauravas the next morning, and went away after pronouncing a severe censure on Dhritarashtra for his conduct. The suspense thus caused was a source of much vexation to the old man, and so he sent for Vidura, in order, as he expresses it, that Vidura might by his discourse assuage the fire that was raging within him. Vidura accordingly appears, and enters upon an elaborate prelection concerning matters spiritual, or, perhaps, more accurately quasi-spiritual, and at the outset of the Sanatsugatiya he is supposed to have reached a stage where, as being born a Sudra, he hesitates to proceed. After some discussion of this point, between Vidura and Dhritarashtra, it is determined to call in the aid of Sanatsugata, to explain the spiritual topics which Vidura felt a delicacy in dealing with; and Sanatsugata is accordingly introduced on the scene in a way not unusual in our epic and puranic literature, viz. by Vidura engaging in some mystic process of meditation, in response to which Sanatsugata appears. He is received then with all due formalities, and after he has had some rest, as our poem takes care to note, he is catechised by Dhritarashtra; and with one or two exceptions, all the verses which constitute the Sanatsugatiya are Sanatsugata's answers to Dhritarashtra's questions 4.
Footnotes :
1. Mahabharata, Udyoga Parvan Adhyaya.
2. Madhavakarya, in speaking of Sankara's works, describes him as having commented on the Sanatsugatiya, which is 'far from evil (persons)' [asatsuduram]. Sankara-vigaya, chapter VI, stanza 62.
3. See supra.
4. After this dialogue is over, the dawn breaks, and Dhritarashtra and the Kaurava princes meet in general assembly.
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