Gita 01.11 – The manipulator misses the one who matters most

Thank you nishma meva dhirakshandu bhavantah sarva evadhi this is Bhagavad Gita 2.11 here Duryodhana is now calling out to his various other warriors and this turns out to be the last statement that he makes in the Gita after this Nishma will blow his conch shell and thereafter events will move swiftly till Arjuna breaks down and then the Bhagavad Gita's narration will start so here he is speaking ayaney ishu others sarve ishu so all others who are there wherever you are situated whichever part of the army you are positioned in whatever your strategic role is all of you are important he is giving an sense of importance, sense of inclusiveness to all the participants, all the warriors at your post in your positions and your roles are also important what are you going to do bhishma meva abhirakshantu bhavantaha sarva evahi please you have to protect bhishma bhishma meva abhirakshantu systematically properly abhirakshantu from all sides certainly eva bhavantaha he is using a respectful second person address sarva evahi all of you bhavantaha so now Duryodhana is shurud and he knows that he has to ensure that all his warriors feel motivated and inspired to fight he has mentioned a few by name then he has to express his confidence in them indirectly by stating that there are forces are huge far greater than that of the Pandavas and now he is stating that whatever your position is in the war its important and from that position you can protect bhishma so there was no doubt that bhishma was by far the foremost warrior on Duryodhana's side and he Duryodhana also had to protect the sense of honour of the warriors who were chosen to fight on his side so a cricket team may have a champion and that champion may have a distinct position but that does not mean that other players are to be just considered entirely unimportant they also have their roles to play so like that Duryodhana is telling that all of you bhavantaha respected ones, you also have a role to play bhishma me va abhirakshan to please protect bhishma from all sides so now there is also a slight concern in his mind that bhishma is now old although he is still sharp, still skilled still strong but still despite it all, age does take its toll and because of the age there might be lapses in his alertness and when there are lapses in his alertness the enemy may take advantage of that and may wound him or overcome him or kill him and that shouldn't happen and that's why the other warriors also have to play a duty now the other warriors know that as long as bhishma is commander they have to fight under him they have to obey him and they have to protect him so in that sense they won't find it demeaning but their role being denied their value being downplayed that is something which they would not appreciate so bhavan our respected ones, our warriors your position is also important to do the nice thing and for you it is important to be in your positions and we don't want the enemy to penetrate our ranks from anywhere bhishma is the commander and he will definitely protect his position but he cannot be there everywhere and then he may penetrate into our ranks from your position and then may attack from behind and catch bhishma off guard therefore it's our duty to protect him so durodhana is doing both things over here he is conveying to his warriors that he values them at the same time he is also conveying to bhishma that yes I hold you in a central position so that way he is trying to ingratiate himself to both and through that he is trying to make sure they all fight for him so here we see that durodhana uses various precise words to try to play a word game and try to make the characters do what he would like them to do now we do see that bhishma fought on some occasions when he was directly fighting with the pandavas he fought a little softly not trying to kill the pandavas immediately but at other times when the fighting had become very fierce and when his honour was at stake in the sense that durodhana was accusing him of partiality towards the pandavas bhishma did fight very fiercely but that fierce fighting of bhishma was only externally due to durodhana's coding. Internally he had an intimate bond of love with krishna and was simply doing what krishna wanted him to do by which he could demonstrate to the world krishna's love for his devotees so for example when he took a vow on the on the 8th evening that tomorrow i'll kill the pandavas with these five arrows he knew that even while imbuing the arrows with mystic powers krishna would not allow the pandavas to be killed and he was eager not to discharge those arrows to kill the pandavas but he was eager to see how krishna would protect the pandavas and the next morning when he came to know that krishna had asked arjuna to come and ask durodhana for the charity of those five arrows then he also understood this was krishna's expertise and then he took another vow either i'll kill arjuna or i'll make krishna lift weapons to protect him and again that was also done by him to show to the world how the lord considers his devotees more important than his word that yes he has to protect his word as a kshatriya and for any honourable person one's word of honour is very important but even more important is the love for his devotees and for the sake of that he was even ready to break his word of not lifting weapons in the kurukshetra war and he lifted the chariot wheel to protect arjuna akin to his sudarshan chakra so bhishma now he is starting off the fight he is going to cut off the speech of of durodhana and he is going to speak he is going to blow his conch shell all that is not because durodhana has manipulated him although durodhana will congratulate himself thinking that oh i had done this sanjana and harsham will be described in the next verse but it's all because of his own inner reciprocation with krishna and that krishna factor is completely left out of the calculations by durodhana because he is simply thinking in terms of material martial terms and therein because krishna is not going to fight he is not going to lift weapons he thinks krishna as a non combatant to be a non entity but krishna whether he is a combatant or non combatant is a supreme entity and that actually neglecting krishna is the fundamental blunder of durodhana and when he is doing all his word jugglery trying to appreciate and include everyone he forgets the most important person.