Gita 02.01 – Arjuna’s analysis only aggravates his agony

Bhagavad Gita 2.1 tam tatha krupaya avishtam Sanjay is speaking here in the previous chapter he has described how Arjuna sat down putting aside his bow and arrow expressing through his actions that he was no longer ready to fight and while he was sitting down like this at that note sometimes chapter if we read good novels novels have a cliffhanger ending say the robber entered into the house and victim was fast asleep and then the robber raised a knife to plunge into the belly of the victim and suddenly the victim opened the eyes and screamed and then chapter ends at that particular point and you just can't resist moving forward to see okay what happened afterwards they are called cliffhanger endings literally the word means that say the hero has hero has been in a fight with the villain and the hero has been thrown off a mountain cliff and is barely hanging on to the edge of the cliff with the fingers and at that time the villain now comes to stamp on the fingers of the hero and make the hero lose the grip and fall and die so that's a cliffhanger what will happen next that's a cliffhanger ending so the first chapter of the Gita ends on something like cliffhanger the whole army both the armies are ready for war and suddenly the main warrior the foremost archer decides I will not fight puts aside his bow so one just can't resist what happens next going to find out so here Sanjay continues the next chapter now of course when Krishna spoke the Bhagavad Gita at that time there were no atah prathamo adhyaya atah dvitiyo adhyaya it is a flowing conversation Vyasadeva subsequently divided it into chapters and when he divided it into chapters different commentators have given different names to the chapters second chapter is in many Sanskrit versions named as Sankhya Yoga Prabhupada names it following in Bhaktivinoda Thakur contents of the Gita summarized in one sense the whole Gita is condensed in this chapter and as we move forward we will see how that is so so here what happens is Arjuna is grievously lamenting and when he is lamenting Krishna will start speaking so that tam tatha kripaya vishtam so now till and focus was on Arjuna now the camera is shifted to Krishna and Arjuna is now not the subject of action he is the object of action subject of action means one who does the action object of action means one who receives the action so tam so unto him that is Arjuna tatha kripaya vishtam who was overwhelmed by kripaya by compassion by overwhelming emotion so kripaya paraya vishtam visheedhanidham abhravid that had come in the first chapter also tan samikshya sakaunteya sarvaan bandhu navasthitan kripaya paraya vishtam visheedhanidham abhravid so 1.27 said that Arjuna on seeing the opponents was overwhelmed by kripaya by great compassion so there were many emotions going through in Arjuna's reasoning but the emotion that is mentioned in the framing that means just just like a photo is framed on all sides the frame surrounds the photo similarly the framing verses for Arjuna's speech indicate that the prominent emotion was kripaya he was over kripaya paraya vishtam was mentioned in 1.27 and again in 2.1 it is mentioned tam tatha kripaya vishtam so it's important to understand that actually Arjuna was not overwhelmed by any cowardly fear of dying in the battle that many times warriors they become turncoats not warriors soldiers they become turncoats and they flee from the battlefield and such deserters actually are often severely punished the court martial by the army court and often they are severely punished because on the battlefield all the soldiers are supposed to be comrades who can depend on each other so that they watch each other's back and they protect each other so if one of them just leaves and goes not only does the other soldiers become unprotected but also they become disheartened and it is actually a very great disservice a great sense of great disloyalty and Arjuna had nothing of that sort so the Bhagavad Gita is very clear that Arjuna was not overwhelmed by cowardly fear or anything like that it was Krupaya oh why should so many people fight and die why should we kill our own loved ones so Krupaya Vishhtam Ashuru Poornakul Ekshanam so this Ashuru is tears Poornakul Ekshanam Ekshanam is the eyes the same eyes that had been beholding the Kauravas and their forces that had beheld Bhishma and Drona in their chariots and the eyes that had been the means for the input of the perceptions that caused confusion for Arjuna now those eyes have become filled with tears so sights went inside and now tears are coming out and what are the tears Ashuru Poornakul Ekshanam the eyes are brimming with tears so actually when Arjuna first spoke the tears Arjuna doesn't mention the tears he says Dushtve Mamsu Janam Krishna Yudh Sum Sava Pastitam Siddhan Timav Ganga Trani Mukham Cheparishushyati my limbs are trembling my mouth is drying Vipatushcha Sharire Romaharshischa Jayate Gandivam Shramsate Hastat Tvakjayu Paridhayate so Vipatushcha Sharire there is actually trembling which is happening in my body Romaharshischa Jayate that my bodily hair are standing on end Gandivam Shramsate Hastat Gandiva is slipping from my hand and Tvakjayu Paridhayate my skin is burning so basically Arjuna describes six symptoms Siddhan Timav Ganga Trani so the quivering of the limbs the drying of the mouth the trembling of the body the rising of the bodily hair the slipping of the Gandiva and the burning of the skin so these are quite these are severe strong symptoms of something being seriously wrong but in these symptoms tears are not described so Arjuna spoke and as he spoke the gravity of the situation sank more and more into him the cruelty of the imminent fight it became so overwhelming for him that tears started coming from his eyes so Ashru Poorna Kulekshanam and then what happened as he was like this Vishidantam and he was lamenting so there was actually at one level there was compassion but along with the compassion there was lamentation why lamentation because as it will become apparent in Arjuna's subsequent speech that there was no easy way out of the situation for him he had decided not to fight but he knew not fighting was also not a very feasible alternative and that will become apparent when Krishna speaks also but Arjuna at the back of the mind knows this is against Kshatriya codes so he just doesn't know what to do so although Arjuna has given his reasoning and the reasoning has its validity but actually his reasoning has not led him out of confusion it has actually made him go deeper into confusion and that has led to actually tears coming but there were no tears also for a Kshatriya warrior to cry it takes a lot to make a warrior cry but he was crying being overwhelmed by the impending crisis that he will have to confront now and not knowing how to confront it so Madhusudana the lord of Madhu Krishna he spoke so Madhusudana one who is the killer just as Krishna killed the Madhu demon similarly Krishna it is expected Sanjay indicates to Dhritarashtra Dhritarashtra might have got his hopes raised high because he knows that in the Kaurava side Arjuna is the most formidable warrior and if Arjuna decides not to fight then the odds change dramatically in favor of the Kauravas so as he is getting his hopes up Sanjay checks him and says this is actually Madhusudana the demon who the killer of the demon Madhu is there on Arjuna's chariot and just as he killed the demon Madhu similarly he will kill even the demoniac doubts that Arjuna is going through idam vachaham vacham vacham he speaks so in the next two verses Krishna will speak for the first time in full verses in the Gita so earlier here he has spoken two lines watch so that was in 1.25 very briefly he spoke see all the Kurus are assembled here but now Krishna will give some words to check Arjuna from his terrible course of action which he has planned and that's how the conversation of the Gita will begin so here the important point is that Arjuna became so overwhelmed by first his perception and then his discretion it was actually a monologue not a discussion only he was speaking and that was he was trying to in one sense rationalize his decision of not fighting and that rationalization only increased his confusion it is Krishna's illumination enlightenment that will free him from that confusion that we will see in the future verses of the Gita.