Gita 01.23 – How the evil got so many allies

Thank you Gita 1.23 Gita 1.23 So here Arjuna is elaborating on his request to Krishna to place his chariot between the two armies and this request which began in 1.21 continued through 22 will conclude in 23 so he is saying Yotsyamanan Yuddha is fighting, Yotsyamanan is those who will be fighting Yotsyamanan Aveksheham I want to see those who will be fighting Avekshe let me see I want to see those who have assembled here those who have assembled here Dhartarashtrasya Durbuddher the sons of Dhritarashtra so now they are Durbuddher especially Duryodhana was very evil minded so Durbuddher means their intelligence is there but Durbuddher his intelligence is misdirected Yuddhe Priyajkir Shavaha so Yuddhe for the sake of fighting Priyajkir Shavaha those who are desiring his good those who have acted as his well wishers and have decided to fight on his side I want to see them so we know that the Pandavas cause was clearly righteous they had earned the kingdom by their own virtue first of all the kingdom was theirs because Pandu had been the king and the kingdom would have gone to their son Pandavas but then because the Pandavas were thought to have been burned in the Varanavath fire the kingdom came to the Kauravas Dhritarashtra continued to rule and Dhritarashtra became the unofficial ruler doing whatever he wanted without ever being stopped by the weak minded Dhritarashtra and thereafter when the Pandavas got married to Draupadi then Dhritarashtra called them back recognizing that they were allied with the powerful Drupada now and he gave them half the kingdom although he gave them half it was actually just a barren half the Khandavprastha so the Pandavas by their virtue converted that into Indraprastha magnificent flourishing kingdom and then by using their military forces they actually subdued the kings all over the world and performed the Rajasuya Yajna Dhritarashtra was like acknowledged the emperor of the whole world so all this they had done by their skill and their virtue and the Kauravas unfairly viciously deprived them of their entire kingdom and how was Dhritarashtra there Dhritarashtra never gave up the greed which had caused him to be envious of the Pandavas and the Pandavas were so gracious that although Dhritarashtra had tried to assassinate them several times Dhritarashtra was ready to live peacefully but Duryodhana was not ready to settle with to live good things as they were actually because Yudhishthira was older to him and because Pandu had been the king so it would have been expected that Yudhishthira would become the king and Duryodhana would be no more than just a member of the royal family but Duryodhana had got half the kingdom and he should have been satisfied with that but Durbuddhir he was so foolish at one level evil at another level foolish is one who doesn't know what is the right thing to do and acts in a stupid way, sometimes foolish things are also harmful but often foolish things are just done out of ignorance because they don't know better whereas evil people do wrong things knowing that they are wrong and knowing that they will hurt others still they do it because their selfish desires are so dear to them that they are ready to do anything to fulfill those selfish desires now in the case of Duryodhana he was that kind of Durbuddhir so he deliberately organized a whole conspiracy in which Yudhishthir was allured to gamble and was caused to lose everything and as of that a loss of everything was not bad enough Duryodhana viciously insulted and dishonored Pandava's wife Draupadi so there could be no doubt about the fact that the Pandavas that the Kauravas especially Duryodhana was Durbuddhir and even while the Pandavas were in the forest many sages counseled Duryodhana to seek peace either by giving the kingdom back to the Kauravas, giving their kingdom back to the Pandavas or at least after the Pandavas had completed their period of exile to give them the kingdom back at that time at least but Duryodhana stubbornly and stupidly and super super seriously means arrogantly refused to heed any good counsel, even Krishna's counsel he rejected so he was Durbuddhir and when he was so stupid, so malicious so evil so it was a matter of surprise that so many kings allied with him we know that Duryodhana had 11 Akshahunis where the Pandavas through their allies got 7 Akshahunis that means kings who were the commanders of substantial forces, the 11 Akshahunis did not come just from Duryodhana's own kingdom from his army most of it came from other kings and the fact that so many kings allied with the evil Duryodhana itself was surprising and the reasons for this were many first of all Duryodhana was an excellent spin doctor he could twist the story around and he could even make the what make himself seem like not a victimizer but just a bystander and the Pandavas had brought the grief upon themselves so Balramji also initially when the Pandavas were in Arunansi's robes and Balram saw them he was furious but when they and he said that he was very angry with the Kavaravas for the way they had insulted the Pandavas but again after that towards the end of the war of exile when the Pandavas met the Vijayadavas, Krishna and Balram so at that time Balram urged the Pandavas to exercise caution and he said it had been your fault that you lost the kingdom, you can't blame the Kavaravas for that at one level of course Balram is the supreme lord and his activities are transcendental but at another level Madhurudana had told his own version of the story and he had influenced many people by that so first is he was a good spin doctor by which he spun himself a good yarn a yarn which depicted him in good light further he also was in power and he had the state resources with him the state's prestige with him and many of the allies, some of the allies allied with him because of the not because of the cause that he was fighting for but because they were like minded some kings were evil and they wanted someone evil to be in charge so that they could continue their evil activities but beyond that there were many who were obliged like Bheeshma Drona Bahalika they were all obliged to fight Bahalika was the was the step brother of Bheeshma and he too like Bheeshma had been obliged to protect the ruling dynasty of the Kuru kingdom so Arjuna is saying over here does Duryodhana have so many well wishers Duryodhana that I know of is so cruel so why would anyone have well wishers like this and I want to see who are the people who are ready to fight with him and how determined are they to fight so for example Arjuna could not still digest the fact he will express his opinion later second chapter when he says how will I fight with my grandsire how will I fight with my teacher Drona or Bheeshma it seems impossible to me I can't fight like this so of course in your Kshatriya duty you would have to fight but he did not feel much fighting spirit especially when it came to fighting with his elders worshipable elders and here he is asking that what about those warriors have they also come here or they are elsewhere so he is about to start the war and he wants to see to what extent this conflict between family will go that's why he wants to see how much fighting spirit do these warriors have and he asks Arjuna Arjuna asks Krishna please let me see who is there on that side.