56 Raja-vidya: The King of Knowledge
parataram nanyat kiicid asti dhananjaya). Not only
does Krsna proclaim Himself to be the highest
authority, but this is also accepted by great sages
and scholars of Bhagavad-gita. If we do not accept
Krsna as authority and take His words as they are,
we cannot derive any benefit from Bhagavad-gita. It
is not dogmatic; it is a fact. If we study scrutinizingly
what Krsna says, we will find that it is right. Even
scholars like Sarikaracarya, who have different opin-
ions from the Personality of Godhead, admit that
Krsna is svayam bhagavan—Krsna is the Supreme
Lord.

Vedic knowledge is not a recent discovery. It is all
old revealed knowledge. Krsna refers to it as pura-
tanah, which means ancient. Krsna says that millions
of years before He spoke this yoga to the sun god,
and we do not know how many millions of years be-
fore that He spoke it to someone else. This knowledge
is always being repeated, just as summer, autumn,
winter and spring are repeated every year. Our fund
of knowledge is very poor; we do not even know the
history of this planet more than 5,000 years back,
but the Vedic literatures give us histories extending
millions of years ago. Just because we have no knowl-
edge of what happened 3,000 years ago on this plan-
et, we cannot conclude that there was no history
then. Of course one can disclaim the historical
validity of Krsna. One may say that Krsna, according
to Mahabharata, lived 5,000 years ago, and this being
the case, there is no possibility of His having spoken
Bhagavad-gita to the sun god so many millions of
years before. If I said that I gave a speech on the sun
