is necessary that men should do the works of their respective castes, and these works do not operate as karma to the detriment of the future life of their souls if they perform them not from selfish motives but as offerings made in perfect unselfishness to the Lord. This is the doctrine of Karma-yōga, discipline of works, which is declared to lead the soul of the worshipper to salvation in the Lord as effectually as the ancient intellectualism preached in the Upanishads and the Sāṃkhya philosophy. But there is also a third way to salvation, the way through loving devotion, or bhakti, which is as efficacious as either of the other two; the worshippers of Śiva had already preached this for their own church in the Svētāśvatara Upanishad. Besides treating without much consistency or method of many incidental questions of religious theory and practice, Kṛishṇa reveals himself for a few instants to Arjuna in his form as Virāj, the universal being in which all beings are comprehended and consumed. Finally Arjuna is comforted, and laying the burden of all his works upon Kṛishṇa, he prepares in quiet faith for the coming day of battle.
There are four main points to notice in this teaching. (1) The Supreme God, superior to Brahma, he who rules by grace and comprehends in his universal person the whole of existence, is Vishṇu, or Hari, represented on earth for the time being by Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva. The author
