Gita 01.29 – The inner attack of emotions does what no outer attack of enemies could have done

Later. Thank you.

Bhagavad Gita 1.29 Bhagavad Gita 1.29 Here, Arjuna is continuing to describe his reaction to the perception of the imminent war that is about to take place between relatives. My whole body is trembling. The hair is standing up on end.

The Gandiva is slipping from my hand. My skin is burning. The emotional and the physical are intimately related and when we have strong emotions they result in physical effects.

So, at a gross level when we are very very heartbroken we may cry, when we are very happy we may laugh. These are physical reactions to emotions or physical expressions of emotions we could say. There are similarly when there is great grief or great horror or great shock, at that time also there are certain emotions and later on it will be said that Ashikar Arjuna's eyes are also filled with tears.

Ashurpurna Kulekshana will come later. But here the most significant feature of this reaction is the Gandivam Sramsate Hastad. The slipping of the Gandiva bow.

Why is that so significant? Because for a warrior the bow is almost like a part of the body. It's not just something external which one carries but because the bow is what defines, the weapon is what defines a warrior and the weapon is where the warrior excels and exhibits one's excellence. Therefore the warrior, for the warrior the weapon becomes like a bodily limb and just as one normally doesn't give up a bodily limb unless it's weared off by some terrible assault.

similarly for a warrior it's almost never that the warrior gives up a weapon and yet we see here that Arjuna is giving up his weapon and the gravity of the situation of Arjuna having his bow slipping aside can be understood from the fact that actually Arjuna had taken a vow that he would never give up his Gandiva bow never put aside his Gandiva bow when confronted with aggressors unless of course he was faced with Brahmanas or Vishnu or those devoted to Vishnu, something like that key point was that no hostile enemy would make him put aside his Gandiva and so much so that on the 17th day of the war when Yudhishthir Maharaj had been defeated and wounded and humiliated by Karna and had to retreat to the tent for recovery at that time Yudhishthir's solace was that Arjuna will kill Karna and thus avenge my humiliation but when Arjuna came to see Yudhishthir before he went to attack Karna, Yudhishthir was very upset outraged and he called Arjuna by very harsh words and he condemned Arjuna but then one of the condemnations he offered was what is the use of your Gandiva bow if you have not killed that Suta you better give your Gandiva to someone else Bhima or someone else and they will do the work of killing Karna so now Yudhishthir was a venerable elder brother for Arjuna Arjuna respected Yudhishthir so much that Arjuna did not speak against him even when Yudhishthir blundered terribly in the gambling matches, lost everything made himself and his brothers enslaved and even when Draupadi was summoned and disrobed so even through it all Arjuna remained silent through that Arjuna remained silent so one could say that in the presence of Bhima Arjuna remained silent but the actual truth is that Arjuna was so bound to his vow that he could never ever put aside his bow and so he actually felt it an impugning on his honour that somebody had asked him to put aside his bow and he raised his sword to attack Yudhishthir to kill Yudhishthir for having insulted him by having asked him to put aside his bow and yet now it was only because of Krishna's timely intervention and Krishna explained how vows are contextual and Krishna resolved the whole issue in a very expert way saying that you can just dishonour Yudhishthir and dishonour is just like death for honourable person and then you can praise yourself and that way the whole situation will be settled but the point here is that from the Kshatriya point of view there is no need to be squeamish those who are doing service where they have to fight in order to defend now of course they shouldn't be indiscriminators the job of protection needs to be entrusted to those who are capable of protecting those who are capable of protecting they should also be from their side sensitive that that which is violent is not mistaken to be inconsequential and that they don't use violence as a first resort but still for those who are martial protectors of society violence is a fact of life in such a situation actually when violence the Kshatriyas cannot be squeamish and yet that Arjuna whom no enemy could have made him put down his bow the external enemy couldn't have made him do that but the internal enemy that was the overwhelming agony at the prospect of having to fight a war in which his own relatives would be there the as it was said earlier that is that overwhelming emotion completely shook Arjuna to the core and he describes here Gandhi that actually his Gandiva bow is slipping from his hand indicating thereby that he is actually therefore he is actually terribly overwhelmed so Kshatriya is not afraid of wounds Kshatriya is not afraid of blood Kshatriya is not afraid of even the greatest and most dangerous of enemies but even such a Kshatriya can get overwhelmed by by inner confusion inner attack of emotions and how the wisdom of the Gita enables Arjuna to sustain and counter this attack that will be discussed in the narrative of the Gita. Thank you.