An Explication of the Writings on the Bhagvad Gītā in the Published Works of Simone Weil

Abstract

<p>Simone Weil's writings on the Bhagavad Gītā are, for the most part, scattered throughout her notebooks, posthumously published under the title Cahiers. The present study is an attempt to gather her references and notes on the Gītā and to present them as a coherent whole. It is an attempt to make clear from other of her writings what she meant in her references to this classic scripture of the Indian religious tradition and to see her interpretation of it in terms of the rest of her thought. It is not a critical analysis of her interpretation. The question of the validity of what she says about this text, and, indeed, of the Indian religious tradition as a whole, will be left to a further study.</p>