Gita 01.23 Virtue doesn’t count when determining the military count in a fight

Thank you Bhagavad Gita 1.23 1.23 1.23 Arjuna is saying I want to see those who have come here to fight 1.23 I want to see 1.23 1.23 those who have assembled here 1.23 the son of Dhritarashtra is 1.23 is vicious, is evil minded is misled has got a evil intelligence so it's interesting Duryodhana is referred to here as 1.23 1.23 the Dur Dur rhyme is there in the verse 1.23 by fighting for him, they are desiring his good 1.23 so the point of this discussion is that 1.23 1.23 I want to see who is fighting 1.23 I want to observe 1.23 1.23 those who have assembled here we discussed earlier about how Arjuna already knew who was assembled so his desire to see who was assembled can seem a little confusing the point is he is desiring not so much to see the people but to see their disposition 1.23 he knows that Duryodhana himself is evil minded 1.23 who could be so many people who have assembled to desire desiring his good Duryodhana had earlier said that he would much that 1.23 he said that there are many who are ready to fight for me 1.23 for my sake they are out there to fight for me and lay down their life for me in fact so similarly Arjuna is saying who is there who all are there ready to lay down ready to for the good of Duryodhana who are ready to out here to fight so what is the point of this verse if you consider the first three previous two verses seem to be saying the same thing 1.23 with whom do I have to contend in this battle of arms before that 1.23 so he is saying please position my chariot in between the two armies so that who is here to fight with whom I have to fight it is not just a fight that is going on Arjuna is not simply a commentator who is observing he has to be actively fighting and he here decides how should he be actively fighting through so he has to go about fight against his opponents but now in this verse the thrust is they have assembled to assist the evil minded son of Dhritarashtra so Arjuna is speaking and his curiosity at one level is who all will want his good how many people will be wanting to fight on the side of someone who is evil like this Dhritarashtra said it's surprising in the world how many people side with the evil at the time of reckoning we all have to we are all accountable for our actions and while there are always moral conflicts while there have always been throughout history conflicts over good and bad that have gone on but certain moral conflicts are much more serious than others and amid such serious conflicts it is important that we learn to stand for the side of virtue of course we could say that in every moral conflict things are never black and white there are always shades of grey yes there will be but there are shades of grey but not everything is in the shades of grey there are many things which are black and white also so we need to situate ourselves in such a way that we can actually work fruitfully constructively for moving forward in our life during our overall life journey and if we choose the side of wrong then there are serious consequences so the Pandavas cause was clearly virtuous the Kauravas was clearly problematic and yet here we have the Pandavas suffering and and the number of people who joined the Kauravas were more at one level it was due to Duryodhana's shrewd political alliances second was that Duryodhana was in the position of power and generally most people would like to bet on the winning horse so if we could have someone bet so most likely they felt that the person who is in power that is the person who is likely to win and thus they decided to support him after all why not whom do they expect to win generally the person who is who is working who has the who has the royal power who has the royal treasury who has the royal army that is the person who is likely to win so most people ended up siding with Dhritharashtra's son Duryodhana and for the Pandavas they were not idealists but the healthy dose of realism which is required could sometimes be very disappointing and in this case what happened to them was they realized that something is seriously wrong how did so many people end up doing so many things so going so much on the wrong track so eventually now at one level it is they know who has allied with whom but they also want to see Arjuna wants to see how committed they are to that cause because if if we are not convinced about something then we will be half-hearted in doing that thing so knowing that Duryodhana's cause was evil were people wholehearted in their commitment to him or were they half-hearted this was what he was trying to discover and that's why he wanted to observe who are the people on the opposite side what exactly is their disposition and thus he raised the question here and in these three verses his request that he be allowed to see who is fighting he be allowed to see who actually is out there waiting to fight with him that became evident and now in the next verse Arjuna Krishna will respond through his actions and his words which we will discuss in our future.