Abstract

The Vedānta philosophy has its roots in scriptural sources, specifically, in three canonical texts, viz. the Brahmasūtra-s by Bādarāyaṇa, which is called nyāya-prasthāna or tarka-prasthāna; the Upaniṣad-s, which are called the śruti-prasthāna; and the Bhagavadgītā, which is regarded as the smṛti-prasthāna. Thus, like the first two constituents of this trio, the third one has a tangible legacy of commentarial tradition; as almost all well-known advocates of the Vedānta schools have commented on these three sourcebooks. In this paper, an attempt has been made to give a brief sketch of such commentarial tradition of the Bhagavadgītā, starting with its commentary by Śaṃkara to the other major commentaries available up to the 15th–16th centuries. While each of these commentaries finds support in the text for their respective philosophical doctrines, an impartial evaluation, with support of modern scholars, shows that none of the commentaries can claim to represent faithfully the true intent of the text, and that the true import of it can only be had if the text is judged from its literary and historical point of view.