Why does the Gita not have any Duryodhana uvaca though he speaks several verses?
Anwser Podcast
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Thank you The Bhagavad Gita has Sanjay Vacha, Dhritarashtra Vacha Shri Bhagwan Vacha Arjuna Vacha but it does not have any Durudhana Vacha although Durudhana also speaks several verses especially in the first chapter Answer Answer My understanding is it’s simply because of it’s a literary style just like in English we have what we call as direct speech and indirect speech when we have direct speech what we do is he said comma and then we put something in double quotes and sometimes he said that and we just move on and we do not put double quotes he said that we can meet him there he said we can meet him there in that case it is in double quotes so usually if you see in a novel or somewhere where there is conversation if something is in direct speech then it is often put in a new paragraph a new person speaking is put in a new paragraph but something is in indirect speech then it is not put in a new paragraph it just continues in the same paragraph I went to the room and asked Ravi where his brother was he replied that he had gone out to the market we just go on in one paragraph because there is no direct speech over here so like that in Sanskrit there are no double quotes to indicate direct speech starting of direct speech or the ending of direct speech but there are these markers of speech or attributing statements such as Shri Bhagwan watch or Arjun watch or whatever so Dhrudana when he speaks his speech comes in indirect speech we could say that in that sense so therefore there is no distinct Dhrudana watch over there sorry Dhrudana watch over there so what is 1.2 in the Gita that is the third verse which Arjuna is which Dhrudana is speaking before that basically in the sentence itself it is included that on seeing the military formation of the Pandavas Dhrudana went to Drona and he spoke on seeing this Duryodhana he went to Dronacharya and he spoke that so that is actually coming within the sentence body itself within the verse body itself and what follows is Duryodhana speaking but that is from the point of view of we could say literary grammatical structure another way of looking at it is that there is a symmetry in the Bhagavad Gita that is there are two conversations going on and those two conversations indicate two different impacts Krishna speaks to Arjuna and then Sanjay speaks to Dhritarashtra Arjuna is submissive so Arjuna becomes enlightened by Krishna’s message Dhritarashtra is attached and therefore although Sanjay speaks the same message to Dhritarashtra there is no effect on Dhritarashtra so basically the if you look at overall in the Bhagavad Gita there are four characters so the one conversation illustrates how a receptive heart is benefited by Gita’s message the other conversation illustrates how attached heart is not benefited by Gita’s message and in that way essentially the qualification for receiving Gita’s message is also demonstrated through the submissiveness of Arjuna and the blindness caused by attachment of Dhritarashtra so in that sense the Gita it keeps its literary structure which involves four characters and two conversations that also demonstrates the varying effect of that conversation based on the receptivity of the hearer so that symmetry which is actually a very very significant feature of the Gita just like the first verse begins with the question what happened on the battlefield and the last verse ends with a prophecy of what is going to happen there is a symmetry between the beginning and ending so that symmetry will be disrupted if there is a fifth character speaking so so in a sense there is Krishna and Arjuna speaking and then there is the focus moves so there is the major Kurukshetra was mostly described as a conversation between Sanjaya and Dhritarashtra and within that it focuses on Krishna and Arjuna at least in this section so that there is a focus on the Gita itself and not on other characters who are not going to play a major role in the Gita and this two level conversation demonstrates the effect of transformation or absence of transformation