Bhagavad-gita in genesis of russian mentality

The article analyses two contradictory attitudes appropriate to the Russian philosophical thought, namely, attitudes towards the Vedic knowledge on the whole and the Bhagavad-Gita in particular. Such divergence of opinions is actually observed in the following question: to what extent can the Bhagavad-Gita concepts be valid for the Russian mentality and traditional culture? Upholding the priority of the national identity, one of these two views seems to be quite opposed to spreading extensively the Vedic conception, with the Bhagavad-Gita representing its philosophical peak. The other view, on the contrary, maintains the Vedic science universal values apparently common to all mankind and emphasises its relevance to the development of an integral Russian personality. Supporting the latter viewpoint, the author has carried out a comparative historical philosophical investigation to correlate the main concepts of the Old Indian Bhagavad-Gita with theories proponed by outstanding Russian philosophers of XVIII-XIX centuries. First of all, the author focuses upon the ethical doctrine developed by L. Tolstoy, one of the most influential Russian thinkers, who summarised his ethical search by a thoroughly grounded conclusion about «an eternal and universal basis of all true philosophies and religions, which is a metaphysical religious concept of Krishna». Tolstoy's panmoralism was founded on the ontological postulates of the soul and body's interrelation and interaction, which are per se identical to some specific texts of the Bhagavad-Gita. A striking similarity can also be observed in the gnoseological methodology proper to both L. Tolstoy and the Bhagavad-Gita, particularly the one concerning a concept of intuitive cognition and the philosophy of «revelation». Finally, a significant correlation can be revealed in their stating a firm interdependence between the qualification of the subject of cognition and a moral potential of his personality. An unquestionable innovative character of the investigation can be proved by the discovery of the true identity of the Bhagavad-Gita metaphysics with fundamental theses of P. Chaadayev's philosophy of «an external force». P. Chaadayev deserved to be recognized as the first Russian «professional» philosopher, who specified the Russian philosophical thought. His insights, which concern the nature of the human mind and its connection to Super-consciousness, straightly correlate with the Bhagavad-Gita anthropology and are particularly amazing. Later, Chaadayev's concepts were fruitfully developed in philosophical works by A. Khomyakov and V. Solovyov, who put forward and grounded an integral metaphysical teaching about love as the determinative category of the universe, which, in fact, agrees with the Bhagavad-Gita conception. The revealed onto-gnoseological parallels led the author to essential conclusions about the centuries-old genetic philosophical succession of the modern Russian mentality taking its roots in indivisible transcultural knowledge of the world's absolute laws. This knowledge lies beyond the dependence upon national, religious and other external «bodily» identifications in socio-cultural context.

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