Bg 1.42
saṅkaro narakāyaiva kula-ghnānāṁ kulasya ca
patanti pitaro hy eṣāṁ lupta-piṇḍodaka-kriyāḥ
Bg 1.43
doṣair etaiḥ kula-ghnānāṁ varṇa-saṅkara-kārakaiḥ
utsādyante jāti-dharmāḥ kula-dharmāś ca śāśvatāḥ
Bg 1.44
utsanna-kula-dharmāṇāṁ manuṣyāṇāṁ janārdana
narake niyataṁ vāso bhavatīty anuśuśruma
Bg 1.45
aho bata mahat pāpaṁ kartuṁ vyavasitā vayam
yad rājya-sukha-lobhena hantuṁ sva-janam udyatāḥ
Bg 1.46
yadi mām apratīkāram aśastraṁ śastra-pāṇayaḥ
dhārtarāṣṭrā raṇe hanyus tan me kṣema-taraṁ bhavet
Bg 1.47
sañjaya uvāca
evam uktvārjunaḥ saṅkhye rathopastha upāviśat
visṛjya sa-śaraṁ cāpaṁ śoka-saṁvigna-mānasaḥ
Om Tatsaditi Srimadbhagavadgitasu Upanishadsu Brahmavidyayam Yogashastre Srikrishnarjuna samvade Arjunavishadayogo nama prathamodhyayah
41. By the prevalence of impiety, O
Krishna, the women of the family become corrupt; and women being
corrupted, O descendent of the Vrishni-clan, there
arises "intermingling of castes" (VARNA-SAMKARA) .
42. 'Confusion of castes' leads the slayer
of the family to hell; for their forefathers fall, deprived of the
offerings of PINDA (riceball) and water (libations) .
43. By these evil deeds of the 'destroyers
of the family, ' which cause confusion of castes, the eternal
religious rites of the caste and the family are destroyed.
44. We have heard, O Janardana, that it is
inevitable for those men, in whose families the religious
practices have been destroyed, to dwell in hell for an unknown
period of time.
45. Alas! We are involved in a great sin,
in that we are prepared to kill our kinsmen, from greed for the
pleasures of the kingdom.
46. If the sons of Dhritarashtra,
weapons-in-hand, slay me in battle, unresisting and unarmed, that would
be better for me.
Sanjaya said : 47. Having thus spoken in
the midst of the battlefield, Arjuna sat down on the seat of the chariot,
casting away his bow and arrow, with a mind distressed
with sorrow.
Thus, in the UPANISHADS of the glorious Bhagawad Geeta, in the Science of the Eternal, in the scripture of YOGA, in the dialogue between Sri Krishna and Arjuna, the first discourse ends entitled: THE YOGA OF THE ARJUNA-GRIEF
Continuing the argument in the previous
verse, Partha declares the consequences that will follow
when the true moral integrity of the families is
destroyed. Slowly the morality in the society will wane and there
will be an "admixture of castes." Caste is a word, which, in its perverted
meaning, has
recently come in for a lot of criticism
from the educated; and they, no doubt, are all justified, if
caste, in reality, meant what we understand it to be in our
society today. But what we witness around us, in the name
of caste, is the ugly decadence into which the Hindu
way-of-living has fallen. Caste, in those days, was
conceived of as an intelligent division of the available
manpower in the community on the basis of intellectual and
mental capacities of the individuals.
Therefore, when they talk so seriously about the inadvisability of
"admixture of the castes," they only mean what we
already know to be true in our own social pattern: an engineer in
charge of a hospital and working in the
operation-theatre as a doctor would be a social danger, as much as a
doctor would be if he is appointed as an officer for planning,
guiding and executing a hydro-electric scheme!
When the general morality of society has
decayed; the young men and women, blinded by uncontrolled passion, start mingling without restraint. …It is attractive and poetic, indeed, to
conceive of the dead as watching over their survivors and observing
their ways of living from the balcony of their heavenly
abode! It would certainly be as painful as the pains of
hunger and thirst to
them if they were to find that their
survivors were deliberately making a jungle of their
laboriously laid gardens. Understood thus, the entire stanza
appears to be very appropriate.
…In India, the sages discovered and
initiated a culture that is spiritual, and this spiritual culture is
maintained and worked out through religious practices, and
therefore, culture and religion are, to the Hindu, one
and the same. Very rarely we find any mention of the term
culture, as such, in our ancient literature. More often
we meet with the insistence on and the mention of our
religious
practices. …Dharma comprises those divine
values-of-life by living which we manifest more and more the
essential spiritual being in us. Family-Dharma
(Kula-Dharma) is thus nothing but the rules of living, thinking,
and acting in a united, well-planned family.
...In these words, we can detect in Arjuna
almost the world's first conscientious objector to war!
…Here, Arjuna declares his FINAL opinion
that, under the circumstances narrated during his
long-drawn limping arguments, it is better for him to die in
battle unresisting and unarmed, even if the Kauravas were to
shoot him down, like a hunted deer, with a dozen
arrows piercing his royal body!
The word that Arjuna uses here is
particularly to be noted; the texture of the word used is, in itself,
a great commentary upon the thought in the mind of the one who has made the statement. Kshema is the
material and physical victory, while Moksha is the
spiritual Self mastery. Though Arjuna's arguments were all
labouring hard to paint the idea that to have fought
that was was against the spiritual culture of the
country (Moksha), he himself stated in his conclusions that not
to fight this war would be a material blessing (Kshema)
inasmuch as an escape from the battle-field now is to
gain, perhaps, sure physical security!! In short, anxiety for the
fruit-of-his-action (victory in
battle) demoralised Arjuna and he got
himself into an 'anxiety-state-neurosis.'
The concluding stanza of this chapter
contains the words of Sanjaya in which he gave the running
commentary of what he saw on the battle-field. Exhausted
by his weary arguments, Arjuna, completely shattered
within, sank back on the flag-staff in the open chariot,
throwing down
his kingly weapons.
The Geeta Sankalpa vakya (Epilogue) is a
beautiful statement of pregnant words conveying a
wealth of details regarding the very text-book.
Sreemad-Bhagawad-Geeta has been considered here as an
Upanishad-nay, each chapter in the Geeta is considered as an
Upanishad; and among the eighteen Upanishads, together
constituting the Divine Song, we here end the first of them
entitled "THE YOGA OF ARJUNA'S DESPONDENCY." These
chapters are called Upanishads because these are
declarations concealing such deep significances that a
hasty reader will miss their full import unless he does long
and intense meditation over the wealth of suggestive meaning that lies concealed behind the simple-looking
stanzas. As in the Upanishads, here also we need the help of a
sympathetic teacher who can train us in the art of
opening the seven hundred lockers in the treasure chamber of
the Geeta. Upanishad is a word indicating a literature
that is to be studied by sitting (shad), near (upa) a
teacher, in a spirit of receptive meekness and surrender (ni). The
contents of the scriptural text-books are, all over the
world, always the same. They teach us that there is a
changeless Reality behind the ever-changing phenomenal world
of perceptions, feelings and understanding. For learning and living the Geeta, the
Arjuna condition is the initial Sadhana.
Om Om Om Om Om
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