Mahabharata Characters 38 – Arjuna 01 – Diligence is essential for attaining excellence

This talk is a part of the “Fascinating Mahabharata Characters” series. To know more about this course, please visit: bhakticourses.com

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna Welcome back to the Mahabharata character series We are now going to Discuss about The person who is The central Hero of the Mahabharata Of course all the five Pandavas are heroes But among them Arjuna Is the central hero He is His actions are described practically more Than anyone else in the Mahabharata He played the most pivotal role In the Kurukshetra war And he was The most intimate friend of Krishna Who is the supreme lord And it was to him That the Bhagavad Gita was spoken So He is an extraordinary character And We will be discussing about His life Now wherever The Incidents about his life have been discussed In connection with other characters’ incidents And we will Not go into the detailed narration of those incidents We will focus more on Just analysing them from his Perspective And then we will move forward So now the name Arjuna Means Spotless So it is Whose fame is spotless It also means one who is Who Because of the spotless fame Glows like silver So Arjuna was also known as Krishna And Draupadi was also known as Krishna Because Krishna Also refers to the complexion, darkish complexion So Arjuna had Many names One of his name was Phalguni Phalguni because he was Born when the star Phalguni was there in the ascendant And then One of his name was Jishnu Jishnu means one who Conquers over his enemies Vishnu is all-pervading So Jishnu is One who is all-defeating So Krishna and Arjuna are Vishnu and Jishnu And then Of course in the Vishnu Sahasranam Jishnu is also used as the name of Lord Vishnu But specifically in the Mahabharata It is referring to Arjuna The supreme lord is in one sense Sarvanamavan So he can have all names Another of his name is Kiriti Now Arjuna mentions all these names To the Uttarakumar, Bhuminjay In Matsya When he The Matsyakumar Bhuminjay when he goes out to fight with the Kura army Towards the end of the Incognito exile He discusses past time So then Arjuna’s various names are narrated And they Describe his illustrious activities So Kiriti He had a celestial diadem A crown which he would wear on his head And it was presented by the Devatas to him Very special Then one of his name is Shweta Vahan Shweta Vahan is his Horses which were his Vahan Very Shweta, very white In complexion So Vibhatsu is one who Fights fairly and at the same time Is also fierce Vijaya is one who is victorious Then Partha Of course the son of Prutha One who can fight with both arms With equal expertise Ambidextrous as it is said in English Then Dhananjaya One who is a conqueror of wealth Gudakesha, one who has conquered Oversleep, Kapidhwaja Parantapa, Gandiva Kapidhwaja is one who has Hanuman Monkey as his flag Parantapa is one Who Actually destroys his enemies Chastises and defeats his enemies Gandivi, who is The carrier of Gandiva So Krishna has many Names among his devotees also have many Names and this is an extraordinary Name of The eminent devotee of Krishna Arjuna So Arjuna Here in the Mahabharata has His entry into The world with the Celebration of the Devatas Arjuna is born actually Before his birth Kunti and Her husband Pandu perform Austerities and they Ask that actually Let the Greatest of the gods Indra The king of the gods he is considered to be Among the administrative gods So let them Him give us a son And we should purify ourselves They perform austerity and then as the Expansion of Indra Arjuna is born And this is among all the gods Indra shines supreme Similarly among all the Not just the Pandavas But among all the warriors on the earth It is Arjuna Who shines supreme So there are Maharathis, there are Atirathis But in the whole Kurukshetra War in fact he is the Only Atimaharathi So he is a peerless Warrior And Now of course in different places the specific meanings Of these words Maharathi and Atirathi they are given But the important point is that Irrespective of the Specific Quantification for describing this The important point is That his glories were unique In terms of his Military war, military skills Especially his archery skills Now significantly he was Very powerful Even in his In other Using other weapons also But he was outstanding Unparalleled in Archery So now Arjuna Is as I said the celebration Jubilant, the demigods Blow trumpets And there are celebratory sounds When he eventually takes birth After Pandu Pandu and Kunti perform austerities Then Indira comes and gives a child to Kunti And then eventually After the pregnancy he is born So after he takes birth He along with the other Four Pandavas They return to the Kingdom of Hastinapur Where Bhishma is now Taking care And Dhritarashtra is the Caretaker king and Bhishma is actually Looking after all the administration And there when eventually they Enter into Drona’s academy So Arjuna outshines Everyone else And he doesn’t Outshine because of his natural talent But he also outshines because of his Extraordinary dedication Far more Than that of anyone else In general People think that talent Is what Is critical And some people say I have talent, I don’t have talent Yes talent is critical But along with talent For the development of talent so much work is required Otherwise one cannot become Expert in anything So although Arjuna had extraordinary talent But he worked tirelessly Once he was Having food in his Gurukul And there was a lantern burning over there And a sudden gust of wind Caused the lantern to get Extinguished And his hand Unerringly went to the food And it kept eating the food And Arjuna was so absorbed in thinking About archery And how he could become a better archer That it suddenly struck him That if I can eat food in the dark Then why can’t I shoot arrows in the dark At that time He would practise all day But when night would come he would think Now it’s dark how can I shoot arrows How can I practise archery He thought just as I can shoot Then I can find archery also And then from that time he started Using sound As A means for Detecting the presence of target Detecting the movement of targets and shooting arrows And that way he could Shoot even when there was darkness All around him So shooting at Targets That are invisible is Formidable accomplishment And shooting at them accurately Is even more difficult but He, Arjuna became accomplished in that So Nahi supta se silmase pravichanti mukhe Mrugaha That although the lion is the king of the forest That doesn’t mean that the Deer will just gladly Come into the mouth of the lion The lion has to chase After deer Similarly even if we are Like lions The lion has strength As a natural gift We may also have some talents as a natural gift But then we have to work And even if we don’t have extraordinary talents Still by working we can improve whatever we have So Arjuna is celebrated as the greatest Archer but we should not forget His tireless work In improving And perfecting his skill And As Arjuna became the Champion Archer He won the heart of his teacher Not just because of his talent But also because of his dedication And we discussed some of the tests which Arjuna was subjected to By Drona and how he came out with flying colours He Drona pretended To be caught by a crocodile And all the other students panicked but Arjuna Carefully, immediately shot an arrow Carefully ensuring that Drona was not injured But the crocodile was killed And Drona became pleased by that And Arjuna Led the Pandavas eventually In getting a Guru Dakshina For Dronacharya That Guru Dakshina was To have Drupada as a Captive And although Drupada’s army was formidable Just the five Pandavas went And they just overpowered completely And Drupada was arrested and brought And Dronacharya was extremely Satisfied to see the Skill of the Pandavas and especially Of Arjuna So Arjuna was the Intermediate among the five Pandavas He was the youngest among the sons of Kunti And among the five he was Intermediate but in terms of talent And in terms of archery skill He was unparalleled So He of course Shown in the martial exhibition Which Drona had conducted also till Karna came along and then there was a dispute Karna equalled Drona’s Performance although Karna initially Said that I will excel Whatever Karna, Arjuna has done But when the actual time for exhibition came Karna was able to equal whatever Arjuna had done and Karna and Arjuna Wanted a face to face contest Both wanted it But somehow at that time the sun set And that didn’t take place So from that time One of the defining Threads of the Defining relationships In terms of Antipathetic relationships Opposite relationships like inimical relationships Is between Arjuna and Karna. So Yudhishthir is the King, he is Dharmaraj and from the Opposite side Duryodhana is the king But the primary animosity is not Between Yudhishthir and Duryodhana It is there between Duryodhana and Between Bhima and Duryodhana So similarly Arjuna is the formidable warrior And their primary enmity is between Karna and Arjuna So that rivalry comes up Surfacing again and again throughout the Mahabharata.
So now if we keep A track Who is better, was Arjuna better Or Karna better So if we have a scorecard And we have a Match. So then at the martial exhibition Arjuna and Karna Both of them equal here. So the score would be Arjuna 0, Karna 0 Then when the Pandavas Went to defeat Drupada.
Before that The Kauravas had gone Because this was a Dakshina Which Drona Had to be given. And the Kauravas They wanted to show that We can do something. Although In terms of talent and skills They had been outshone by Arjuna But he thought we will win the war And it went along And at that time Karna also went along because by that time They had become, Karna and Duryodhana had become close friends So They went but they were Surprised and overwhelmed by the Strength of Drupada’s army.
So at that time The hundred Kauravas With Karna fought against Drupada and Drupada Defeated them. And the five Pandavas went and they defeated Drupada So by inference We can see that the person Whom Drupada defeated The person who defeated Karna Was defeated by Arjuna That means Arjuna turns out as Superior to Karna. So here we have the score Arjuna 1, Karna 0 So then We also have the next incident The Pandavas came back to the Kingdom and then when The enthronement was to be Done, at that time because Yudhishthira Was much more popular, Yudhishthira Was declared as the prince regent and Duryodhana could not tolerate this And he conspired to have The Pandavas sent to Khandava Sorry, to send to Varanavarth And burnt over there So there The Pandavas Escaped we discussed And while they were going through the forest There were many obstacles they faced.
One of the obstacles Was the demon Hidimba. Apart from that There was also, the obstacles can come From many sources We can have obstacles coming from humans We can have obstacles coming from people Who are lower than the humans like the Rakshasas In terms of consciousness And we can have obstacles coming from people who are higher Than humans So Bhima Faced the obstacle of Hidimba And then The Pandavas Are so expert that whatever Obstacles they faced, they actually Converted them into opportunities So of course Bhima killed Hidimba But then Hidimba was attracted to him And through the union Of Bhima and Hidimba, Ghatotkach was born And Ghatotkach was One of the most Powerful warriors in the Kurukshetra war And he played a decisive role A very significant role In helping Arjuna And we will discuss that when that time Comes So in the Kurukshetra war Now as the Pandavas Went forward, they were going by They just came close to a river Now The Pandavas have been almost like Exiled, not by official sentence But the palace Where they were staying, it was burned And they were supposed to be dead And they were fleeing to stay discreet So now they had no Possessions, no guards And it’s going along And suddenly a roaring voice Said stop You humans are not allowed to come In this area At the night this place is meant for The sporting of the Yakshas, Gandharvas And other higher beings Only in the first part of the night, the twilight Can the humans go by here Stop and go away from here And as the Pandavas Were stopped, Arjuna He had a torch With him And suddenly they saw that Some effulgent figure came And flew up into the sky And then descended on a chariot And had a big Bow in his hand And that person Says I am the Gandharva Angarparna and I am a king of the Gandharvas And you are not allowed to come here Get out of here So he said The Pandavas said We are going to cross this river And we are travelling at night And we have to cross right now And they said what is this idea of Proprietorship, this is the earth And nature does not belong to anyone So kindly Allow us to go Now Pandavas were humble But still they were firm, Angarparna was Intoxicated And he said Either allow You either flee Or I will destroy you And the Pandavas did not relent Suddenly he started shooting Arrows, now with the Pandavas Kunti was there, they are not married till now So Kunti is still there And he shot arrows Now as he shot With blinding speed he shot 100 arrows And Now The Pandavas did not have any weapons right now So what they did is He just took, he had his torch And he just moved the torch with blinding speed And just by that torch He repelled Angarparna was shocked He started shooting more arrows And Arjuna repelled, he says So Oh powerful one You know that you are a higher being And you can attack the humans Humans cannot counter you But You are being atrocious And therefore you will be countered And I will use a weapon Which is celestial He says this was given to me by Drona Who was given it by Agniveshya Who was given to it by Vibhishpati And like that This weapon is coming down From the gods And he says I will use this weapon And I will overpower you Saying this as the Gandharvas Preparing to shoot further arrows Arjuna Actually used his torch He did not have a bow and arrow, he used the torch itself And he Shot the arrow He infused it with mantras So now When we talk about celestial weapons How would the celestial weapons Act? Actually They would Act by the power of Krishna Or the power of the devatas Or of Krishna And normally they would use an arrow To be discharged But the power that came to them Was not because of the arrows The power was because of the invocation Of the higher devatas And their particular weapons So that power was discharged Through the medium of a Arrow, but it was not necessary So in this case Arjuna invoked That weapon and he discharged it without an arrow And that Weapon Was just blazing and Blinding and just went and hit Angarpada and he was knocked out His chariot was burned and he fell unconscious On the verge of Practically death And Arjuna went there and caught him Arrested him and brought him in front of Yudhisthira And he was just Looking groggy, slowly came back to Consciousness So at that time A celestially beautiful damsel Appeared over there And she raised her hand and said I am Kumbinakshi and I am the wife Of Gangarpada I beg you please forgive him Please release him So He is unnecessarily hofty So as he came back to consciousness Yudhisthira said Who will attack or kill a person Who is having no weapons Who has lost his senses Who is barely conscious And who is being protected by his wife Whose life is being Requested to be spared by a woman So He said Go away and do not obstruct others Like this And then Gangarpada, he was humbly looking at Yudhisthira and he said thank you And he turned towards Arjuna and he said Your power is formidable So Please Allah thank you for saving My life and I will I would like to Offer you something in return So He said that Actually your feat In burning My chariot and knocking me down Is so extraordinary Because my chariot was so beautiful I was known as Chitraratha But now because my chariot has been burned down I will accept the name Dagdharatha, I will be known This is your glory And he said I would like to give you a special knowledge Called Chakshushi And by this knowledge you will be able to see far more than humans In fact You will be able to see even at a distance And this is the knowledge That differentiates Gandharvas from humans Making them superior And He said I would like to also give you Some special weapons So Arjuna said No I don’t want any charity from you And if you are giving it to me because I spared your life No, actually it is my duty The king told me that you should spare your life And that’s why I am doing it So The Gandharva smiled And he said No, do not think of this as a payment Think of it as a fair exchange And he said I would like to learn The knowledge of discharging the celestial weapon Which you have and I will give this knowledge in return And Actually the Gandharva was quite Humble and one sense Here also To some extent his godly nature His disposition is shown Sometimes if a warrior is defeated the warrior may feel humiliated And because of that humiliation That warrior may just Blast out, blaze out But he did not do anything like that So he very humbly Agreed to Offer his respects and then have some Reciprocations And eventually the exchanges Took place and then He said that actually Normally Gandharva will not be able to Gandharva will not be defeated by a human But because you were Practising the vow of celibacy So At that time Pandavas were not yet married So except for Bhima who was married Didn’t be So because of that you were able to Overpower me and of course you have Archery skills and celestial Knowledge of celestial weapons And then he said also he gave one more advice He says King should Always be advised by a priest And the more qualified And elevated the priest The greater will be the fortunes of the king Therefore seek a priest out Immediately and then he suggested the name of Dhaumya and as soon afterwards The Pandavas went and they went Dhaumya, Dhaumya was Vaishnava, he saw that He had Vaishnava marks on his body and he saw that the Pandavas Also had Vaishnava marks He was pleased and when the Pandavas requested He accepted So This is In the forest, one of the first Exhibitions of Arjuna’s prowess And then as the Pandavas Were going through the forest Then eventually they came to The abode of Drupada, that is Panchala Raj and there Draupadi’s swayamvar was there And there was Arjuna’s Glorious moment Where Arjuna Won The hand of Draupadi Proving his superiority over all The other warriors, none of the other warriors Could Win the hand of Draupadi Most of the warriors couldn’t even Lift up the bow Those few who were able to lift, they were not able to thread it Those threads, so normally The bow is kept like this, so a thread Has to be pressed from here to there and for that The bow has to be bent slightly, that requires Strength, so they were not able to thread it And even those Who were able to thread it Even if they shot No, their shot was not able to Go anywhere near the target, even for those who went Near the target, it still missed the target So here Karna also came Forward, now when Karna came forward like this It was a Not a, it was an inadvisable thing to do Because Karna’s Parentage was always Suspect, although he had Been given Honour by Duryodhana And he had the Position of a king, people Did not always accept him as a Kshatriya And therefore As he kept Marching forward to participate Now what exactly Happened, there are different versions Because the Mahabharata is a very old Book and because it’s such A giant book that sometimes There are Multiple renditions which are there Which vary slightly They are called recensions So This may happen because of just the human element Of error at that time, there is no printing process So you could not Xerox copy Or print it, so sometimes While transcribing some errors could come up And basically there are some Various factors, there are recensions That are there, and recensions We have to look at it carefully So Madhvacharya in the Mahabharata says that Actually when Karna came, he competed And even when he Competed, he missed the target He came very close to hitting the The target, but he missed it He came to the closest Among all the others Still he missed And that is what is also told in the Mahabharata That’s what Madhvacharya has written, this is also What is said in the Critical edition of the Mahabharata A critical edition of a book Is the edition that scholars prepare Based on Looking at various Manuscripts that are available And then looking at the variations that are there In the different manuscripts and then trying to arrive At a conclusion which was the Original manuscript What was said in the original document And they try to arrive at it through a process of inference This seems to be right, this does not seem to be right This is unlikely And it is an elaborate Process And of course It cannot always be reliable But often it comes to A reasonable approximation of What the original may have been And the sort of inductive method These are scholarly methods They can be used as long as they do not contradict What we have learned from the Traditional sources, that is the Parampara So Both from a traditional perspective Which is Mahabharata And from the academic perspective Basically it is said that Karna competed and he lost Because he did not hit the target But in any Popular edition of the Ramayana Of the Mahabharata It is often said that Karna was not Allowed to compete As he was coming forward When he stopped, Draupadi said that I will not marry the son of a Suta And therefore He would not be allowed to compete He felt mortified by this Humiliated, laughed in humiliation And he came back This is how it is depicted Now this may seem to be like a Casteist slur But the important point is That It is a swayamvar of Draupadi Swayamvar Means the very name indicates Her own choice So now She might set up some Criteria As a guide for making the choice But the first and foremost point Of swayamvar is that it is her choice So her Choosing is the overriding Factor And if she does not want to choose a particular Competitor That is her freedom So mixing this With other issues Which are not really so important That is not the point The total convention at that time was There would be marriage Within the caste Brahmana would marry Brahmani Kshatriya would marry Kshatriya And this was not just Because of some restriction in marriages But that is how the compatible matches Were most likely Because People have certain dispositions So if a Kshatriya Man marries a woman Who has a Brahmanical disposition Then that woman will not be able to serve As a king’s wife Properly She will not be able to do queenly duties And similarly If a man has a Either way or whatever There is a mismatch. If a man has a Shudra And the wife is a Kshatrani Things will be a mess Now again when we are talking about About these castes It is not by birth It is by qualities So even on the point of your qualities It is important that There is compatibility And often If the person is born In a particular family That could be One predictor of his qualities Now in the Mahabharata’s time only the caste system Had become solidified Fossilised And not in a positive sense In a negative sense So Krishna also Talks about it That by the power of time That things have gone down, things have become degraded Sri Vishnu also says that Actually Originally when there were no caste marriage Or the Primary parameter for determining Is behaviour when he talks with Various Learned conversations that are there especially with Nahusha This is what he mentions So the important point is that Here Draupadi was basically following The broad social convention That she is a Kshatrani And she is expected to marry a Kshatriya So she And moreover it is her swayamvar And in the swayamvar She has to choose a bride So now actually Karna certainly He was hurt over here And he must have felt humiliated But the point is that It was his presumptuousness Assuming that he would be allowed to compete And not checking Whether he would be allowed to compete or not That is what caused the Wound for him So rather than Seeing this as a Insult that was done to him By Draupadi he could have seen it More as a recognition that That in this particular Situation I have to act with more caution It is always easy to Blame others and by blaming others To exempt ourselves Of what we could have done To avoid the situation becoming so bad So Every world situation Has its own quirks No world is perfect So we have to live in a imperfect world And we have to live in such a way that we make things better for us Not worse for ourselves And in general we live More comparatively not more Disharmoniously So now after that Arjuna was asked to compete Because now all the Kshatriyas failed So then Arjuna Got up And now according to some version of the Mahabharata It said that Arjuna asked permission He said to Drupada That this is a crime work for Kshatriyas Is a Brahmana allowed to compete And Drupada looked curiously So this Brahmana’s body Was well formed and he had actually The elegance of a Kshatriya himself So he said yes the Brahmanas are actually superior To the Kshatriyas and surely a Brahmana Can compete And Arjuna marched up to the dais And just in one Smooth motion he picked up the bow And he strung it He actually Before that he circumambulated the bow and offered his respects And then he strung it Pickled up And in a single fluid motion he shot the arrow And it went and Hit the target And Drupada was won It was a majestic victory for Arjuna Of course he was in disguise And nobody came to know about it But he was Arjuna So then Drupada came And offered the garland And all the kings erupted in anger At that time The kings were headed by Karjuna and Sorry by Karuna and Shalya.
So there is a faceoff between Bhima and Shalya and Bhima eventually bested Shalya There is a faceoff between Karuna and Arjuna And Karuna initially Fought light, shot arrows lightly But Arjuna countered all of them And with such strength and skill And spirit, Karuna was stunned And he shot back And Arjuna countered all of them And he said, who are you? Arjuna refused to reveal his identity And eventually Karuna desisted from fighting He said, the military power of a Kshatriya is always lowered to the Spiritual power of a Brahmana And here also there was a faceoff between Arjuna and Karuna And basically it came out equal So the score still remains As it was from the previous challenge Arjuna 1, Karuna 0 And here Arjuna 1, Draupadi And it was in this Draupadi Swayambhar Incident that The first meeting between Arjuna and Krishna Happened and that lifelong Friendship was forged thereafter How things happened thereafter We will discuss in our next session Thank you. Hare Krishna