Pehla Adhyay- First chapter: Arjun’s anxiety to start the war.

The first chapter begins with Dhritrashtra asking Sanjay to tell him what is happening at the war. Sanjay is the King’s minister who has the capability to see beyond what the physical eye can normally see. He starts with telling the king who is at the war field, and who is on whose side. He says that the war is about to start, his says everyone has blown there conch shell (this was the indication of starting of the war in early India) the war is about to start, when Arjun starts to get anxious.

Before we move on, you all need to know about krishn. Krishn was a incarnation(avatar) of Lord Vishnu, and he was a complete incarnation. He was a cow-herder in the early life and then became prince and king of Mathura. He was the cousin of pandavs and kurus. He is a very important figure in Hinduism, to write about him will require a whole blog itself, so only few details are given about him. Before the war was about to start, Yudhistr(eldest of pandav) and Duryodhan (eldest of karav) went to him. Krishn said that one of you can have my army, the other one can have me. Duryodhan wanted the army and yudhistr, krishn himself. From thereon, krishn became the charioteer of Arjun.

Now, Arjun asks Krishn to please move him in between the army. After he is situated there, he asks Krishn, why are we killing these people. Arjun says “Seeing these people standing there, my heart is growing anxious and my mouth is getting dry, I can’t even hold my own bow, it keeps slipping from my hand. I can’t even stand.” One very important thing that Arjun says is “Hey Keshav, I see my end goal, but I don’t really want to kill my own clan to get there”. This is a very peaceful message which Arjun says, he is anxious, he doesn’t want to kill his own men or his cousins for land, for whatever wrong was done with his brothers. This is hard to see now, where people would get anxious about killing others, people are killing people by just seeing the end goal in sight. This is very evident in Arjun’s next line “Hey Govind, I don’t want land, or a good life. Because the people I am fighting for have left everything they have to fight with me or against me.” Arjun says “even if I get all the heaven by killing my own uncle and cousins, I will not do it. Even after killing my own cousins, what happiness will I get, I will still get sin for killing them, so why kill them? That is why I am saying that killing my own cousins is not something I want to do.”

After Arjun’s lamentation and argument is done with, he puts his bow and arrows down, and sits dejectedly in his chariot. As a reaction to this, Lord Krishn then steps down from his seat, walks up to Arjun, and begins his response. At first, it is a biting encouragement and pep talk, reminding the warrior of his duties as a Kshatriya, which then continues into the deep, philosophical discourse as it does, and becomes a gem of scriptures, one of the most influential, and the principles of this, we shall continue in the next post.

The Mahabharat – A Background to the Gita.

This Epic story takes place thousands of years ago in ancient India. It is a tale of how one family goes to war against each other over a kingdom. On one side are the five Pandav brothers with their faith in lord Krishn, and on the other side are Kaurav brothers, knee deep in their own vices, who number in the hundreds. The story starts when the sons of guru Vyasa are born. Vyasa is the son of satyavati, she was the wife of shantanu. The eldest son of Vyasa is Dhritarashtra is born blind. The second son Pandu, is born pale and unhealthy. The third son of vyasa is fine, but is a son of a maid. All three are trained well in the gurukul, but when the time comes for the crowing of the king. The eldest son could not become the king because he was blind, so Pandu is crowned king. And this sparks the whole jealousy within Dhritarashtra.

Skip a few years, Pandu gets married to two women, Kunti and Madri. Kunti gives birth to 3 sons, Yudhisthir, Bhim, Arjun. And Madri to two, Nakul and Sehadev. Dhritarashtra gets married to Ghandari, who has 100 sons, eldest being Duryodhan. Unfortunately Pandu together with Madri, dies in the forest in an accident, and Dhristarashatra is crowned king, being the only successor since the kids are still young.

Eventually the kids grow old, Yudhisthir asks for his right as the next king because he is the son of Pandu who was originally crowned king, and Duryodhan says he is the next king because he is the son of the king. This leads a lot of argument, but Duryodhan is crowned the king because Dhritarashtra’s love for his son gets in the way. Pandava (kunti and the her 3 kids together with Madri’s 2 sons) are sent to a house to live while Duryodhan is crowned king. Duryodhan plans to set this house on fire and does so but Pandava escape, and go into hiding.

Pandava come back from hiding to hastinapur, though they were presumed dead. They ask for their share, and are given the barren land of Indraprastha. They work hard and make it a big city with a beautiful palace. Duryodhan gets angry and jealous, and invites the pandav brothers on a game of Chausak (gambling). In this game the eldest Pandav brother, Yudhisthir, loses his entire kingdom in a gambling game against his brother, and are exiled for fourteen years into the forest, with the condition being that if they’re ever recognized, The exile would be extended. When the time comes for the kingdom to be surrendered, the Kaurav brothers refuse, and this ultimately leads to war. During this war, Lord Krishn had agreed to be the charioteer of Arjun, a pandav brother and a powerful archer and warrior.

When the time for battle is near, Arjun asks Krishn to drive his chariot in between the two armies, so that he may see the armies opposing him. When he sees his brothers, uncles, respected elders, teachers, he becomes heavy hearted, and tries to debate with god (Krishn), arguing that it is better not to fight. It is under these circumstances, that Lord Krishn passes the Gita down to Arjun.

Through the following weeks, Saksham and I will go through the Gita, chapter by chapter, taking the most important bits and pieces, explaining them in a language so that laymen can understand.

Hello everyone!!!

This blog is a project started by three college/university students: Saksham Varshney, Tamara Edwards, and Mit Solanki. The main theme of this blog is basically comparative religion, between the Bible, and the Bhagvad Gita. The objective of this blog is to discuss various aspects, important verses, found within these two scriptures, and try to explain them to our readers, in a way they can understand. On the other hand, this is also our attempt to better understand our own religion, as well as the religions of our friends and neighbors, sharing common insights along the way. We sincerely hope that you  enjoy this ride, as well as learn something from our adventure.

Thanks

The writers.