In the previous episode, we had witnessed Arjuna losing his composure and buckling down under his emotions upon seeing all his relatives and friends around him on either sides of the Kurukshetra battlefield. As Arjuna gets carried away by his emotions, his powerful “Gandipa” bow automatically falls down from his hands, as his shoulders start to tremble. His tongue runs out of words and is not able to talk about anything. Tears start continuously rolling down from his eyes as he starts weeping profusely. Even though Arjuna was the one earlier who assured Yudishtra that going ahead with this war is the wise thing to do, this same Arjuna starts to panic upon seeing everyone around! Now Arjuna asks Bhagawan Krishna as to why should he even fight this battle and kill everyone present there. What is the use of ruling a kingdom without a single family member alive? What if he is completely held accountable for the “massacre” of his entire set of family members on the pretext of a war? How will the world see Arjuna post this massacre? Won’t Arjuna be known in the future for all the bad reasons of destroying his own family for his own selfish needs of ruling a kingdom and to enjoy all the luxuries associated with it? These are the questions that are running in Arjuna’s mind as he is asking them one by one to Bhagawan Krishna.
“Yetan na hantum icchaami ghnatopi madhusudhana!
Api trilokhya raajasya ye tah kim na mahi krute!!”
Saying thus through the above shloka, Arjuna finally declares at the end of his mini accord that even if all these people stand around him in the opposite direction, he will not take his bow and fight them. Let them come and fight against him! Let them come and cut him into pieces! But Arjuna is going to be determined to resist everything and even be prepared to sacrifice his life for them!
As Arjuna laments like this, Bhagawan Krishna is silently listening and laughing within Himself! This is the same situation in which many of us are as well in today’s life! We do so many things for so many people! We do so many things to make people happy! However, we never do these so many things towards Bhagawan, who is just a mute spectator, seeing all what we’re doing! However, when people turn against us, we get extremely upset and start panicking! This is when we’ll start coming towards Bhagawan, isn’t it? This is exactly the same thing that Arjuna is doing here as well – Till this point, he has been working towards so many people, but little did he know that he has to do his duty with dedication towards Bhagawan. Now when all his people have ditched him and are standing in front of him to fight him down, Arjuna is lamenting to Bhagawan Krishna!
Moving on further, Arjuna laments more thus, “Oh Krishna! If I end up destroying all these people, I’ll be destroying my whole family! Hence, the “Dharma” that is associated with our family will abruptly come to an end! After these people, who will carry forward our “Kula-Dharma”, which has been exercised for so many generations now? All the women in our family will become widows! Isn’t this a ghastly situation to even see with our own two eyes? In this battlefield as lakhs of people die, how would we know whose son or father or grandfather has died here? On what basis will the next generation do the “Pitru-Dharma” towards all the departed souls? Thus, if the requisite “Dharma” is not done properly towards the “Pitru-Devatas”, they would fall upside down into this earth again, won’t they? Oh Keshava! I do not want to be a party to this blunder to my family! Should all of us go to the treacherous “Naraka Lokha” by committing such a sinful act and a heinous crime?”
Lamenting thus, Arjuna starts weeping bitterly! His “Gaandeepa” bow automatically falls from his hands and tears start rolling down his eyes like a river! Arjuna falls down thus, onto the middle level of the chariot from the top, even as Bhagawan Krishna is still looking at Arjuna with a beaming smile! With this, we come to the end of the first “Adhyaaya” called “Arjuna Vishaada Yoga”, wherein we’ve seen how Arjuna laments to Bhagawan Krishna with all his worries staked up inside him! So for today, let us understand up to this point and in the next episode, we shall commence Bhagawan Krishna’s extremely important reply to the lamenting of Arjuna! Stay tuned for an important accord! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 