Bhaja Govindam – An Overview

Bhaja Govindam

Seek Govinda – Seek God

“Seek Govinda, Seek the God, Bhaja Govindam”, in this refrain comprising of the two words, “Bhaja” and “Govindam”, Sri Sankara Bhagavatpada, has summed up in a nutshell, as it were, the entire preaching of Vedanta and religion for the redemption of mankind. It gives us the key for entering into the realm of Bliss, the abode of Govinda and for terminating the misery of life we are in at present.

In thirty-one, simple sweet and lucid Slokas, giving homely analogies and illustration for our easy understanding, Sankara tells us about the fallacy and futility of our life; and Sloka by Sloka, he removes veil after veil, dispelling our ignorance, illusion and delusion (moha) and showing us where the remedy for all our misery lies. The poem is therefore, also called Moha Mudgara. He touches all aspects of our life, how these blind and bind us, plunging us deeper and deeper into the abyss of ignorance and misery. He wants each one of us to cultivate a discerning and discriminating eye (viveka) to distinguish the permanent from the transitory, the real from the unreal, to practise dispassion (vairagya) for wordly attraction and distractions, to cultivate devotion for realizing Govinda, the abiding Truth, and thus getting released from the misery and bondage of this phenomenal existence.

Jagadguru Adi Sankaracharya is undisputedly the greatest philosopher that India, or the world, has ever produced. He is unique in the history of the world as he combined in himself the attributes of a philosopher, a devotee, a mystic, a poet and a religious reformer. Though he lived twelve hundred years ago, India and the world feel the impact of the life and work of this spiritual genius even today.

As per the promise given in the Gita that God would descend on earth whenever righteousness and all that is dependent upon Dharma is on the decline, Sankaracharya appeared on the Indian scene at a time when moral and religious chaos had overtaken the country.

Sankaracharya was born during the 8th century. By those times Buddhism was widely spread in the country but in a very much changed form from that of the pure and simple ethical teachings of the master. Jainism also had its influence and wide following. Both the religions as per common comprehension i.e as per layman’s understanding were bereft of the concept of God, with the result that atheism was becoming the vogue and the general creed of the people. Hinduism itself was broken up into numberless sects and denominations, each opposed to and intolerant of the other. The religious coherence in the land was lost and, besides, many unwholesome excrescences such as the vows of the Salvas and Vamachara of the Saktas, Ganapatyas, Sauras and Bhagawatas which crept in, were corrupting the purity and the spirit of the religion. What the times needed was an integration of all thought so as to stop the waning of the eternal principles of dharma, to arrest the religious decadence, disharmony, and discord mounting up among the various sects of the Hindus and bringing about a moral religious and spiritual harmony, integration and renaissance in the land. Such a mighty and stupendous task only God could do.. and Sankara came, and undertook it and accomplished it too.

During the brief span of 32 years of life, Sankara firmly established the Advaita Vedanta philosophy as the essential unifying basis of the Hindu religion. He brought about religious harmony, spiritual coherence and moral regeneration of the country.