Gita 01.12 – The valorous grandsire stops the politicking

Thank you here here in this verse the Bhagavad Gita transitions from discussion to action of course we could say that discussion is also a form of action but in a war action basically means starting off with the war or the activities directly signaling the commencement of war so the Bhagavad Gita is prominently discussion it begins with a discussion question in 1.1 1.2 is action where Duryodhana goes to Drona on seeing the formidable military formation of the Pandavas after that in the next verse onwards, 3rd to 10th Duryodhana is assessing the two sides and 11th of course also includes this assessment and now 12th is it is going on but Bhishma the archer has described Bhishma feels enough is enough, all this politicking Duryodhana is thinking oh whose name should I mention first, whose names have I forgotten to include and he wants to ensure like a diplomat that everybody is encouraged and included in the war effort, feels included so Bhishma thinks that all this is enough now let us just begin the action Bhishma is actually a devotee, great devotee and he wants to see how Krishna will wonderfully protect his devotees so at a Kshatriya level there is a natural Kshatriya thrill that comes when one has the opportunity to exhibit one's Kshatriya prowess and to deal with opponents especially for those who are heroic just like sportsmen feel, sports stars feel a thrill when they have the opportunity to perform so at that level Bhishma is eager but actually Bhishma is not a Kshatriya, he is an exalted devotee and at the level of a devotee he is eager to get on and to see how despite the heavy odds against the Pandavas in terms of numerical strength as well as in terms of number of warriors number of elderly, experienced and powerful warriors being more on the side of the Kauravas than the Pandavas how will Krishna protect his devotees and ensure their victory is what Bhishma is eager to see and that actually can be an exclamation for the apparent we could say discourtesy or impoliteness in the sense that he does not let Drona respond to Duryodhana's statements now we don't even know whether Duryodhana has actually at the 11th verse completed the whatever he wants to say, more or less it does seem he has spoken about both parties and he has called upon his warriors in Ainesh and Sarveshu called upon all his other warriors also to stay at their posts and protect Bhishma by fighting from their respective posts so we could say that he has completed his speech but then actually he spoke to the Acharya he went to Dronacharya so normally when one person is speaking to another person, the third person should not interrupt the conversation but should let the second person give an opportunity to respond so there is no opportunity here for Drona to respond to Duryodhana's speech because Bhishma plays the conscience blows his conscience now actually Drona is also able to see the games in one sense the diplomatic games that Duryodhana is trying to play and both actually Drona and Bhishma their hearts are joined in one way that their duty calls them to go against their heart's desire so their duty is that because they are connected with the Kuru government the Kuru dynasty at an external level that is the reason they have been maintained by the Kuru dynasty so they have to fight on behalf of the Kuru dynasty of course the internal reason they are doing so, especially Bhishma because Krishna wanted him to do so Krishna wanted him to fight on behalf of the opponents of the Pandavas so that it could be demonstrated to the world that no matter how virtuous, no matter how valorous a warrior may be if that warrior fights against the cause of God then that person will be lost so Bhishma was virtuous and valorous he was learned in scripture he was learned in warfare he experienced the Mahabharata illustrates that because he was on the side against God he would be defeated now Drona also had a similar compulsion so in one sense Bhishma and Drona had a similar heart and Drona also he could infer that he would not have wanted for any prolonged diplomatic discussion to go on he would also want the action to get on so in one sense Bhishma is not disrespecting Drona in any way by suddenly blowing the conch and he is the commander now what are discussions might be going on among different people because when the commander calls just like in a military the army general calls attention then whoever else might be talking they have to stop and they have to come into the posture so Bhishma now says that is enough discussion let's start the war now actually this response Duryodhana does not see it as a interruption he actually sees it as a success in one sense because his whole goal was to ensure that his warriors are eager to fight and he is able to he feels as if he has successfully done that because Bhishma is now blowing his conch shell and Bhishma is blowing his conch shell quite vigorously so he thinks that ok all my skillful speech has borne fruit and now Bhishma is imbued with the fighting spirit and therefore harsham his jubilation increased kuruddha pitamaha so kuruddha means elderly now Bhishma was the pitamaha in the sense that he was actually the grandfather's generation for the main protagonists of the Mahabharata the main protagonists were Pandavas who were against the Kauravas and both of them are in the same generation generation above them is Pandu Dhritarashtra Vidura generation above them is Vichitravirya Chitrangada both of whom have died now their father was Shantanu and Shantanu had another son that was Bhishma through his first wife Ganga so in that sense Bhishma is in the generation of their grandfathers so generally whenever the word pitamaha is used it generally refers to Bhishma itself now with the actually the Pandavas are around 100-120 years old in that range by this war Duryodhana even has his grandsons we will discuss more about that when we talk about Uttara in the later words so in one sense we could say even Duryodhana is the grandfather so he could be called Pitamaha but every discussion has a reference point everything is discussed from that reference point so the reference point is the Pandava Kaurava generation for that generation Bhishma is the Pitamaha and from that generation's point of view they themselves are 100 and they would be considered creaking old creatures by now in today's life but this was in a previous age although of course towards the end of that previous age people did have longer life spans so from their perspective 100 was still in the prime of youth whereas Bhishma with his age of 200 or so was much older and still he was fighting fit, extremely fit and he fought fiercely in the war that took place so the Bruddha is not in terms of any negative reference to indicate any kind of decrepitude or impotency that might have come of old age that was just a term to express respect that he is an elderly person and what did he do Simhanadam Vinadyochai Simhanadam so Nadam is a word associated with sound Simhan is lawyer so the lawyer-like sound was produced Vinadyochai which means loud so the loud sound the roaring of a lawyer so the conscious, they would be blown they would signal something important of a now we know of conscious being blown at the start of a aarti or end of aarti so the conch blowing often indicates the beginning of something important or something auspicious and it also is meant to invoke auspiciousness so here he is blowing his conch shell to signal the beginning of auspiciousness and naturally as per his Kshatriya status he has a not just a powerful physique he has a powerful chest powerful lungs Kshatriyas can give powerful speeches and command and they can also with their lungs blow the conch shell powerfully so Shankham Dagmam Pratapavan Dagmam, Shankha he blew and how did he blow the Shankha? Pratapavan Pratapavan means he is a very powerful person so Vana is often a describer used to indicate possession so Dhanavan refers to one who has wealth Bhagavan refers to one who has Bhagav one who has many opulences so Pratapavan Pratapa means valor one who has great strength so Pratap Pratapavan Pratap means one who does valorous deeds Pratapavan means one who is the possessor of the valor to do valorous deeds so and actually that possession is not just conch abstract he has done many many valorous deeds in the past so this verse has a strong glorification of Bhishma there is Simhanadam and then there is Pratapavan so both indicate valor and power Simha generally Simha lion is considered the king of animals later on in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna will say among animals and the king of the jungle that is the lion and the Mruga Indra Indra we generally think of in reference to God but Indra directly refers to the leader of the king so Mruga Indra refers to the Mruga is animals so the king of animals so and the lion roars all the other animals tremble in fear and flee or they may if they are not praying for the predator lion and if they don't flee then they will at least be very submissive and obedient so Bhishma is compared to a commander who is like a lion Simhanadam all the all the troops along with all the big big generals they all now immediately turn and we will see that this will bring a response from them following his blowing of conch shell they will also blow conch shell so essentially what this verse is stating here is that as so it's more or less from Duryodhana's perspective and therefore Sanjay is narrating but right now it is in Duryodhana's perspective so he says that Duryodhana was speaking various things as he was speaking suddenly he heard the blowing of the conch shell he looked up and hello jubilant Bhishma is ready to fight Sanjay and Harsham he looked and saw his elder of the grandfather and what was he doing Simhanadam so he was blowing the conch shell like a lion loudly and he was Chankham Pratapava was extremely powerful extremely formidable extremely valorous person the possessor of valor and power now signals the beginning of hostilities with the blowing of the conch shell thank you.