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VerseThe Delight of Krishna

Verse 1·24

Arjuna will not fight for kingdom or pleasure

Verse

सञ्जय उवाच

एवमुक्तो हृषीकेशो गुडाकेशेन भारत ।सेनयोरुभयोर्मध्ये स्थापयित्वा रथोत्तमम् ॥

evamukto hṛṣīkeśo guḍākeśena bhāratasenayorubhayormadhye sthāpayitvā rathottamam

Sanjaya said: Thus addressed by Gudakesha (one that has overcome sleep, Arjuna), Hrishikesha, O Bharata, having stayed that best of chariots between the two armies, in front of Bhishma, Drona and all the princes of earth, said: “O Partha, behold these Kurus gathered together.”

Gītā 1·24

War typifies and embodies physically the aspect of battle and struggle which belongs to all life, both to our inner and our outer living, in a world whose method is a meeting and wrestling of forces which progress by mutual destruction towards a continually changing adjustment expressive of a progressive harmonising and hopeful of a perfect harmony based upon some yet ungrasped potentiality of oneness. The Kshatriya is the type and embodiment of the fighter in man who accepts this principle in life and faces it as a warrior striving towards mastery, not shrinking from the destruction of bodies and forms, but through it all aiming at the realisation of some principle of right, justice, law which shall be the basis of the harmony towards which the struggle tends.

CWSA 19 · Essays on the Gita · p. 52

From The Delight of Krishna · Bhagavad Gītā · in the light of Sri Aurobindo · incarnateword.in