Religion - - Posted on May, 15 at 1:40 pm
The Gita is certainly amongKrishna and Arjuna in the battlefield of Kurukshetra the most revered sources of Hindu doctrine and ethics. Its acceptance in all sections of Hindus is total and complete. It is regarded as the holiest of books and the ideas contained in it have inspired philosophers, teachers, kings and the laity and have helped them tide over the vicissitudes of life for over two thousand years. At its core is the art and science of living a contented life fully and well. In it is the very distilled essence of the knowledge of the scriptures that came before it.
A chapter in the Mahabharata with 750 Shlokas under eighteen Adhyayas, the Gita begins with the perplexity and disgust of Arjuna as he sees family, friends and men standing at the ready for mutual slaughter, as it were. And it is in the midst of this dramatic scenario, with the two sides in battle positions, as the trumpeting of elephants and blowing of conches rent the air, that Krishna expounds the tenets of Hindu Dharma to Arjuna. Krishna speaks throughout the Gita as God. The distraught Arjuna, arms crossed and bow thrown off the chariot, listens intently and asks questions, clearing his self-doubt as he receives answer after lucid answer from God in person. Krishna intersperses his answers with beautiful metaphors, especially while dealing with more abstruse ideas.
Setting this great philosophical dialogue in the midst of a battlefield amid war cries and drawn swords has posed a difficult contextual problem for ages. That the great battle of Kurukshetra did take place and an entire clan was wiped out even after the revelation of the Gita has sometimes raised doubts if this divine discourse justified violence. In the words of Rajaji, “To take the battle of Kurukshetra literally and to interpret all that is said in the Gita in the light of the motive of the particular scene would not only not help the student to understand the Gita aright, but may even lead him to error. It is true that the teachings in the Gita being of universal validity would also be applicable to the Mahabharata scene and must help to solve Arjuna’s problems and doubts. But we shall fail to understand the teaching aright if we are obsessed by the particular scene and seek to interpret the general by the particular. It is a common practice in Sanskrit literature to provide great works with such or other prologues. It would be a cumbersome process to convert the whole of the Mahabharata story into a sustained allegory in order to save the Bhagavad Gita from being an incitement to violence. We should forget the battle-scene when we study the Gita as a scripture of Sanatana Dharma.”
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