Arjunas Unbearable Agony- Gita Verses 7 Chapter 1 Verses 26 – 30

Again, please.
Thank you very much. We are in the middle of the first chapter, which has 46 texts. So, we are right in the middle, in text 26 now.
So, among the two armies, Krishna and Arjuna have come in the middle. So, Krishna is here as the charioteer, Arjuna to him, and Arjuna from here is observing everyone, and what he’s seeing is described. So, he saw, and what did he see? He saw an entire array of generations.
It was a war that was not just spanning, not just between cousins. This war was, at one level, a fratricidal war, because brothers or cousins were fighting, but it was not just cousins. Now, he’s using the more intimate word here, brothers, but then above, then there were fathers.
He’s using the word fathers generically, they are from his father’s generation. Arjuna’s father is not alive, but then there is his grandfather’s also. Bhishma is there, and there are some other people from his generation, and then his sons.
Arjuna does not have many sons. He has two sons mainly, but there are so many others who are just from my son’s generation, so they’re like my sons. And this way, as he’s seeing all this, there are, at least with respect to some of them, there are even grandsons over there.
So, it’s so many generations of characters he’s seeing. Now, we could go into the list of the names of who is from which generation, but that’s for those who are interested in the history. But our interest here is primarily on the emotional impact that for Arjuna, he sees, he knows that there’s going to be a war, and he’s going to know that he knows that the war is going to be between family also.
At the reality, the gravity, the brutality of it all, it registers in his mind when he sees. So, apatra apashyat, when he sees, on seeing the reality of it, the gravity of it, the brutality of it, it all registers. And at that point, how does it impact him? In one sense, we will look at this particular dilemma a little bit more about the heart-wrenching aspect.
Let’s see what Arjuna speaks further. So, Arjuna’s speech contains several things. So, right now, he’s not spoken.
It’s just, so we know the Gita is a conversation between Sanjay and Dhritarashtra, within which there’s a conversation between Krishna and Arjuna. So, periodically, it’s like a background, the narrative steps backward. So, generally, when two people are speaking, just their speech is described.
But when people do something, okay, you walk from here to there. So, describe that, the narrative steps backward. So, the narrative stepped backward over here.
Now, it is Arjuna’s, what he’s seeing is described, and then what he’s feeling is described briefly, but then it’s like the stage is given to Arjuna, so that his words reveal his feelings. So, Taan Sameeksha Sakaunteya. In this series of verses, vision is emphasized quite a bit.
That vision is, in one sense, external. From outside, vision can affect our emotion. Vision can affect our intention.
Vision can affect our discretion. So, we will talk about this in terms of the Gita’s model of the self. Emotion is associated with the mind.
Discretion is associated with the intelligence, and intention is associated more with the soul, the person. The person decides what I’m going to do. So, all of these can be affected.
I may be rushing, say, to a meeting, and if I see on the side, somebody, maybe a beggar lying wounded, or a small child with a swollen belly and matchstick-like arms and a sunken face, I may just stop, maybe I should give some food to this child. So, our perception affects us. So, our vision, eventually, these affect our action.
So, here it is Arjuna’s Taan Sameeksha Sakaunteya. He saw Sarvan Bandhu Navastatan. He saw that all of them are relatives over there.
So, he became overcome by great emotion. So, overwhelming emotion came over him. And that emotion, what was that emotion? Vishidan.
It is described as lamenting. There’s lamentation, and that lamentation, with those, he started speaking out. So, this is the transition from perception to emotion.
Now, sometimes, when we see a person coming to a particular situation, we can even see that the person is visibly affected. Some people may try to put a stoic face, some people are shaken. So, in one sense, the narrator is telling that there is a visible effect on Arjuna.
He is overwhelmed. But when a person is emotionally affected by something, he doesn’t really know. Okay, they are affected, I know.
This situation affected them. But what are they thinking? What exactly affected them? Now, we get a glimpse into his heart. We see the emotion, but what is the exact cause of the emotion? That is what will be articulated in the subsequent verses.
So, here we have Arjuna uvaca. So, whenever the Gita starts speaking, uvaca is said. That phraseology comes often.
Arjuna uvaca, krishtve mam svajanam krishna, yutsum samupasthitam, idanti mama gathrani, mukham cha parishushyate. There are a series of verses. Let’s read all of them and then we will discuss the meaning.
It concludes his description of his condition in this verse. Here, if you look at the verses, Arjuna is describing his condition, Arjuna’s words, if we consider. So, first two, he describes his physical symptoms.
Now, these physical symptoms in any person, if we hear them, my limbs are trembling, my skin is burning, we will be concerned. We understand that this person is severely affected. But what makes it even more significant is that these are in a warrior.
Now, warriors warriors in some ways have to be, they have to be tough. A tough means that they have a great capacity to both endure pain and also conceal pain. Endure pain in the sense, it’s just a part of the job.
They are going to get injured, they’re going to get wounded and conceal pain means sometimes even when pain is there, they won’t show it because that is seen as a sign of weakness. You say two people are playing a boxing match and one boxer just throws a punch and that just touches the knee of the other, the jaw of the other person and the other person will say, oh, some injury over here from the past. I can hit it here, hit where it hurts.
That’s the standard strategy confrontation. Hit the other person where they’re the weakest and then you can destroy them from there. Therefore, it is important for warriors to conceal their pain.
Even if there’s some injury, at least in the middle of the battlefield, don’t show the injury, don’t show the pain. That way the opponent will think, yeah, this person is still strong and formidable and will not swoop in for the kill. The vulnerability is immediately they will be exploited.
So now what is significant is that Arjuna is in the middle of the battlefield. So it’s not just, if you consider Arjuna’s situation, he is on the battlefield and he’s not just on the battlefield, he’s not just one of the soldiers on the battlefield, he’s a leader on the battlefield and he’s in the middle of the battlefield. That means you could, this is the point of maximum visibility.
At this point, when he’s describing all these things, now he could say he’s speaking this to Krishna and other people are at a significant distance. They’re not hearing it. Even if we grant that, still the point is these things are happening to him and he’s not saying that I’m trying to control them.
He’s just beyond my control. When he’s describing these physical symptoms, this indicates the immensity of the impact that is there. For a warrior itself, if that warrior is showing pain, that indicates that there must be some real big pain over there.
And a warrior on a battlefield, a warrior who is a leader and who is in the middle, where everybody, his forces, the opposing forces, the opposite forces, they will swoop in for the kill. If his forces see it, they may become demoralized. But in spite of all that, Arjuna, when he is, this immensity of the impact that is described over here, it is, there’s clear visible physical symptoms that can talk, give us a hint of the severity of the angst.
So, the impact is physical symptoms. Sometimes we do understand how much a person is in pain from the physical symptoms. So, this is setting up the stage for the subsequent discussion.
So, Arjuna is having severe problems, is in immense pain. And this is basically conveyed through the two verses 28 and 29. He was fearless and he was fearless.
You could say, you could add that he is not just a leader, he was the leader, the biggest warrior. So, the fourth factor over here, which shows the extraordinariness of the pain that he’s going through. And in this situation, now he’s articulating, okay, what’s affecting you so much? I can see that you are, you’re overwhelmed, but what caused it? That he describes in the 30th text.
So, he’s telling, my mind is reeling. It’s just, I’m shocked. I can’t stay here.
Why can’t you stay here? He’s saying that I’m seeing causes of inauspiciousness everywhere. Everywhere. Viparitanikeshava.
So, causes of inauspiciousness. What it means is, he’s seeing that it’s all terrible over here. So, like sometimes when, say we are going down a dark alley alone and something inside us tells us, don’t go there.
I’ve got a bad feeling over here. So, I’ve got a bad feeling. So, he’s telling that I’ve got a terrible feeling, not just one.
I can see that everything, what I’m seeing, it’s terrible. So, causes of inauspiciousness here, it means that if I am at a particular place over here and if I see that the road ahead, there might be, he will talk about, let’s assume there are two roads, but if there are whatever roads are there over here, if all that one sees is that there’s disaster, maybe there is a building collapsing, there is an earthquake occurring or whatever it is. There are all kinds of disasters everywhere.
And maybe there is a snake over here. Maybe there is a flood coming in over here. These are all signs that there’s big danger over here.
And the question is, how did all this happen? I’m seeing all signs of impending disaster. So, inauspicious might seem to be like, inauspicious might seem like a more religious kind of word, but you could use the word, I’m seeing impending disasters all around me. And the tendency is, he has come there to fight.
But his feelings, what is the point of this fight? So, it’s just horrible. He says, I’m unable to stay over here. So, it’s almost his tendency is, the better I leave from here.
I can’t stay. He’s not physically going away, but he’s saying, I just can’t stay here. So, the subsequent verses will describe, what is he seeing as inauspicious over here? What are the disasters that he is seeing that is affecting him so much? But generally, if we consider the language of negotiations, sometimes when there is like a loose situation, loose situation, no matter what I want to do, I just end up losing.
Then, I’m out of here. Just get out. I don’t want to be a part of this itself.
So, that’s, I just want out of here. That’s what he’s telling in this particular text. So, in this particular series of verses, we discussed mainly three points.
First is, he talked about how, what was Arjuna’s perception. His perception was that this was not just a fratricidal war, but like a multi-generational fratricidal war was about to happen. A war among brethren, among the family itself.
And when he sees this, then there is a effect that is emotional, and that is conveyed through the physical symptoms. So, the physical symptoms that are there, they are alarming in themselves, the limbs are trembling, the skin is burning, but they’re all the more so, they’re alarming in anyone, but even more, all the more so in a warrior. So, the immensity of the agony that he’s going through, you can say that he’s, it’s all the more so because he’s a warrior.
He’s a leader, because he’s not just a leader. He is, he is the leader. He’s a peerless, he’s a peerless warrior.
And he’s in the middle, the point of maximum visibility. So, the emotions are so high that he’s just not able to control them. And then, he’s telling not only how he’s feeling, but he’s also telling out what he’s thinking of doing.
He says this, I see only disasters. I don’t see any good anywhere. Therefore, my mind is really, I just can’t stay over here.
So, this is like an almost existential angst for him. We’ll talk about how it is existential, but at this point, it was, it’s, you can say, at this point, it’s an emotional angst, an unbearable emotional angst. And he just feels, what am I doing over here? So, it’s for him, he’s seeing a lose-lose situation.

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