Krishnas Disarming Introduction – Gita Verses 5 Chapter 1 Verse 14

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
We could say it’s a very exciting, dramatic scene. If we were in the middle of something like a sports match, then we would say that the sports match is about to begin and it’s a war.
It’s interesting that in this war, the overall spirits are high. So the first chapter has 46 texts and we have come to the 13th text now. So in the 14th text, the focus of the narrative camera, the narrative lens, comes to the side of the Pandavas.
And among them, it starts with two characters. Here, it’s interesting the contrast between Duryodhana’s vision and the narrator’s vision, that is the character Sanjay, who is narrating this to Duryodhana’s vision and the narrator’s vision. Duryodhana completely overlooked Krishna.
He didn’t even mention Krishna at all, whereas Sanjay begins with Krishna. So this verse is saying that on the other side, on a beautiful, a majestic chariot here, a majestic chariot with white horses. There are two people, Madhava and Pandava.
So now one of the characteristics of older civilization in general and especially of the Indian civilization is that each character has many names. And at different times, the same character is referred to by different names. And sometimes the commentators here go into why this particular name is used for this character at that particular point.
So we won’t go too much into that. But here, the Gita, sometimes it’s easy to forget that it is a poetic book. And the two names used for the two characters are rhyming, Madhava and Pandava.
So Madhava is the name of Krishna and Pandava is here referring to Arjuna. Now, Pandava, there are five brothers on their side. So all five could be referred to as Pandavas because Pandava basically means son of Pandu.
Pandu was their father. So Pandavas in plural is the sons and Pandava is one of the sons. So which is the son? That is implicit because if somebody has known the Mahabharata, then they will know with Krishna is going to be Arjuna.
Actually, this is one challenge with poetry. The poetry is actually very difficult to translate. It’s almost non-translatable.
Because we could translate text, we could translate words. You could find the equivalent meanings of words from here to there and put those words. That’s all fair enough.
But when it comes to poetry, there’s so much more going on over there. And defining the exact equivalent words, find the denotations and the alliterations and all those poetic ornaments. So that’s quite difficult to figure out.
But I am also familiar with the Sanskrit. That’s why when we are talking, I was talking about from that perspective. It’s a good reminder that it’s called the song of God.
So it’s more like a philosophy through poetry. It’s philosophical wisdom through a poetic composition. So there are some poetic properties.
But anyway, without going too much into that, what is happening is these two characters are there. And we had discussed how he mentioned Karna even when Karna was not present over there. And he failed to mention Krishna even when Krishna was present right there.
This is a universal fact of psychology. We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we think they matter to us.
So our vision, things as they are, will be there. But the way we see the things as they matter to us. But as we think they matter to us.
So how we see things. That’s vision over here. Vision could be many things.
So for Duryodhana, Krishna doesn’t seem to matter at all. But in the big picture, Krishna is going to matter a lot. And that’s why this text is beginning with Krishna himself.
And now if you go back to the theme that, okay, is the place going to have some influence? It seems to be that there are many positive omens, positive signs for the Pandava side. And we’ll come to that one by one. But one of them here is the word Madhava.
Madhava, it literally means the lord of fortune. The one on whose side is fortune. So it’s a bit more poetic.
Fortune is often considered to be a goddess and lord of the goddess of fortune. But you could put it simply. So this indicates that, hey, that is a powerful side.
So and then it is described that what are they doing? They also blow their conscious. So basically here there is no talking right now. The talking was on the other side.
Both of them, Krishna and Arjuna, they both blow their conscious. So it’s interesting here that generally it is the warriors that blow the conscious. The charioteers don’t usually blow the conscious.
Subsequently, in the subsequent list that will be given of who all blow the conscious. It’s a list of the warriors mentioned. The charioteers are not mentioned.
So although Krishna is in one sense, he’s a charioteer over here. He is not an ordinary charioteer. Krishna as the charioteer, it is not as a profession.
There’s no profession. There is no compulsion. It is not that there was a gun at his head and you have to be my charioteer.
It is simply out of affection that before this war began. Now if you go a little bit into the history, Krishna, we’ll talk about Krishna’s position a little later. But Krishna is the divine descendant to the world.
And he is descended in a particular dynasty. So both these people, if you could say the Pandavas and the Kauravas, they are both in the same dynasty. They are in one dynasty.
And then there is, and Krishna has appeared in another dynasty. I won’t go into the names of the dynasties so much over here. But here Krishna has appeared.
And this dynasty is related. They have relationship with both sides. So in those times, often the relations were established through marriages.
And marriages between different royal families would happen so that there would be a military alliances also. So they were related on both sides. So Krishna said that before the war when both sides approached him to seek his help.
Krishna said that, Krishna had a brother Balram, he just stayed out. He said, I’m going to be neutral. Krishna said, this war is too important.
I won’t stay out. But he said, I will offer my army on one side and I will be there on the other side. I won’t be using any arms.
So when Duryodhana from the Pandava side, Kaurava side had gone. He thought, what is the use of one person as compared to an army of thousands and thousands of people. And that person is also saying, I’m not going to fight.
So what’s the use? So he was bursting with eagerness to choose. But Krishna, what do I do? So Krishna just curved his enthusiasm. He said that, wait a minute, both of you come for my help.
But I saw Arjuna first. So what had happened was Krishna, you could say, had been lying down. It’s too long.
So Krishna had been lying down on bed. And then Duryodhana came and just stood. He stood at his head.
And Arjuna stood at his feet. Now standing at his feet is a sign of humility. So when Krishna got up, he saw Arjuna first.
And Duryodhana said, I was here first. I should have the right to choose. Krishna said, okay.
I saw Arjuna first. Anyway, Arjuna is younger to you. Let him choose.
Duryodhana was gritting his teeth, no. And then Arjuna said, Krishna, I choose you. And Duryodhana said, what a fool.
What a loser. No intelligence at all. But externally, oh, okay.
Then I’ll have to settle for the army. Just put on a facade and he came back. But here when Arjuna chose Krishna, Arjuna chose Krishna primarily because he knew that Krishna is the source of wisdom, the source of power.
He’s the source of fortune. Arjuna preferred that personal connection, that over material profits. And at that time, when Arjuna made that choice, he also requested Krishna that can you be my charioteer? So now when Arjuna made this request to Krishna to be a charioteer, this request to be a charioteer, it could have been seen as a sign of disrespect.
He’s a formidable emperor, formidable king. He is not only a king, he’s like a kingmaker. He is very powerful.
You’re asking him to be a charioteer. But Arjuna and Krishna had a very affectionate relationship. And Krishna had been a charioteer for Arjuna also.
So this request, so there are two things. He chose Krishna because of his affection. He loved Krishna, he had trust in Krishna’s power.
He had that vision to understand Krishna’s position. He says Krishna even without weapons, even if he does not fight, his wisdom is huge and his insights will be huge. And then he asked him to be a charioteer because they were already a team.
He wanted to be with Krishna. A warrior cannot just have time with other warriors constantly. But he asked him to be a charioteer out of his friendship.
I want to be with you constantly, even in the war. And also because Krishna was an expert charioteer. Krishna of course was an expert in many things.
But the point is that here the Gita introduces God, Krishna, in a disarmingly humble position. That his God is not high up in the sky, reigning in the heavens. This is not to minimize any other tradition.
But see if you consider the biblical tradition, in the beginning was the world and the world was God. So the idea is God is existing high above, majestically. And there are some mysterious mystical revelations.
Generally there is a conception of God high up in the sky, almighty. But here the idea of God is such an endearing vision of divinity. That God, the normal idea is that we humans are here.
And God is way up here somewhere, high up. But here in one sense you could say, in the chariot’s position, the human is above and God is below. So the human is Arjuna and the divine here is Krishna.
So this is a very endearing, puzzling, intriguing, whatever word you want to use. Intriguing way of position that Krishna has. And in a movie often, how the main star comes, often people put a lot of thought into that.
Maybe it’s a warrior, the warrior comes charging in to save a damsel in distress. Or to beat up some thugs. Generally it’s a dramatic entry and especially if it’s a theater release movie, people cheer and they explode with joy when they see the hero.
So here the hero’s entry in the Mahabharata is described in the most unexpected way. There’s a magnificent chariot and he’s there on the chariot. But he is the chauffeur.
He’s not the warrior. Hey, what’s going on? So it’s a very fascinating way of introducing the main character. The song of God, but God’s introduction is in a disarmingly humble way.
In a disarmingly humble position, unassuming position we can say. Let’s do a quick recap. We just focused on one verse today, the 14th text.
And discussed three main points. The first was that how the narrative lens is focusing on Krishna. And that indicates that the narrator Sanjay’s vision is different from Duryodhana’s vision.
Duryodhana completely overlooked, whereas Sanjay didn’t. Sanjay looked first and foremost at him. And the second we discussed the history of how Krishna and Arjuna were together.
Krishna and Arjuna together in the distinct position that Krishna is the charioteer. And third is we talked about the intro to the central character, to God. He is so disarming over here.
He comes in such an intriguing position as not the supreme being, but as subordinate to a human being out of affection. So we’ll continue in our next session. In Shyamanpur’s Maharaj Darshan, he is reading the book of Kunti’s Prayers.