Gita 02.02 – Arya – Spiritual denotation, historical concoction and modern connotation

Bhagavad Gita 2.2 Sri Bhagavan Vacha Kutasthva Kashmala Vidam Vishame Samupastitam Anarya Jushtama Svargyam Akirti Karam Arjuna Here Krishna begins to speak a full verse for the first time in the Bhagavad Gita Yes One and a half verse in 1.25 but the full verse beginning with Sri Bhagavan Vacha comes for the first time over here here also Krishna will just speak two verses and Arjuna will speak and then Arjuna surrenders and then Krishna will start speaking in at length and then Krishna's speech will be the major part of the Bhagavad Gita That's why the book is called as Bhagavad Gita The Words of God The Song of God Sri Bhagavan Vacha While referring to the other characters referring to them by their given names Sanjay Vacha Arjuna Vacha Dhritarashtra Vacha These are three speakers in the Gita The fourth is Krishna and by speaking about Krishna he doesn't use the word Krishna he uses the word Sri Bhagavan By that he conveys that actually the who may seem to be like an ordinary human being seated on a chariot just like there are so many other thousands of people who are in the battlefield seated on the chariots so this person who seems ordinary is actually extraordinary he is not just extraordinary he is a supreme person that is conveyed by Sri Bhagavan Vacha God himself speaking and what does he say here Kutasthva Kashmala Nidam Vishame Samupasthitam from where oh Kutasthva Kashmala Nidam where does weakness come upon you Vishame Samupasthitam at this time of crisis at this time of trial when strong people like you need to be strong where does this weakness come from Anarya Jushtham it does not behoove those who are Aryans Asvargyam it does not lead to heaven Akirtikaram Arjuna it will lead rather to infinity so here Krishna is appealing to the substance of Arjuna's character the core of his manhood as you can see by saying that where does this weakness come upon you so where does it come from means it's not normally expected to be there sometimes when we say oh where does this dirt come from if we see a whole room to be clean and then we see a particle of dirt we say it doesn't belong here where does it come from so that is the mood here when Krishna says where does this weakness come from it does not belong here to you oh Arjuna you are an Arya you are a person who knows the value of life we'll discuss about the word Arya later and what does it mean from the context that you are a person who acts honorably by which he can attain heaven in the next life and you act honorably by which you can attain fame in this life but this is considered to be the success trajectory for a Kshatriya live honorably live heroically live in such a way that you get fame in this life and you get heaven in the next so that multi-life career chart of a Kshatriya is what Krishna draws out and he says Arjuna you are meant to you are a person of strong character now you are meant to follow this career chart now why are you behaving in an unbecoming way don't let this weakness come upon you that means when he says that where does this weakness come from he wants to underscore that this sort of weakness this sort of debilitating emotionality is not expected of you it is not constitutional to your strength your metal your character as a Kshatriya so it is uncharacteristic and therefore don't let it come to you it's foreign to you it's alien to you Arjuna and push it away drive it away this does not be who those who are Aryans now the word Arya has a philosophical meaning it has a historical meaning and then it has got a modern day connotation let's look at historically there has been this theory created by the European Indologists of Aryan race that came from somewhere somehow to India and overcame the Indian population and ruled over India so those people who somehow came from somewhere at some time are called as Aryans so this theory does two things first is it splits Indians among Aryans and Dravidians and puts instead of letting Indians be a harmonized unit it divides them into an internecine conflict and further because the Aryans came into India from elsewhere and the Aryans brought culture and literature and many of the glorious things that India is proud of that Indians can be proud of in their cultural heritage so basically whatever Indians can be proud of that gets attributed to outside India to wherever the Aryans came from and in this way India's national heritage is stolen away from India and in that way the Europeans could maintain their superiority complex could maintain their idea that we are historically superior to you because our civilization is greater and as a further twist to this entirely we brought Nazism the Nazi political party and Hitler to power and Hitler once he came to power he break havoc on his countries minorities and around the whole world at large so the point is throughout this discussion is that actually when Prabhupada was asked Prabhupada said that actually we need to focus on the essentials and Prabhupada was asked about various historical questions he focused on the essentials and the essentials is that we are souls and we want to return back to Krishna so historically the meaning of the word Aryan was that Aryan race which came to India and which went to Europe also and contemporaneously in recent history the word Aryan has come to me the ideals of Nazi Germany is of Hitler's bloodthirsty notions of history so the ideal embodiment of virility that's what the Nazis reduced him to and loves the Aryans Prabhupada gives the spiritual meaning of the word Aryan when he says that Aryans are for those who know the value of life and build a civilization based on spiritual values on fostering spiritual progress so the difference between the conflict between the spiritual and genealogical meaning of the word Aryan came forth in Bhaktislaan Siddhartha disciples preaching in German just before the first world war second world war so Nazis were very interested in anything Indians but when they read that Bhaktislaan Siddhartha taught that the Aryans were not any particular race but they were people who had a particular kind of consciousness and they said that this teaching goes completely against our Nazi teachings actually they persecuted Bhaktislaan Siddhartha disciples and those disciples had to flee from Germany to save their lives anyway coming back from history to our study of Marwadita the point is that Krishna uses the word Arya he uses it to refer to a person who knows the values of life and acts accordingly and in the context what it means is Anarayushtam oh Arjuna why are you acting in a way that does not befit an Arya that befits an Anarya you are actually in a cowardly way flinching from war fleeing from war and this certainly does not become you so Aryans are not just a particular race a particular color of eyes or a particular genes or belonging to a particular nation or race the state of consciousness and at the initial level it may refer to those who do who follow Arya Dharma and are stayed around this path of progress that can be gradual progress by going to heavens or it can be rapid progress by going towards the spiritual world directly the whole purpose of the Bhagavad Gita is to actually help to instill in people the values that defined in Aryan due to negative annotations presently of the word Aryan we avoid the word Aryan but the point is Bhagavad Gita infuses those timeless spiritual values that bring depth and value and meaning to human life and that enable us to act honorably even against even amidst distracting tempting and testing situations so Krishna is telling Arjuna act honorably don't succumb to this weakness this weakness is alien to you therefore drive it out thank you.