Verse 2·2

श्रीभगवानु वाच

कुतस्त्वा कश्मलमिदं विषमे समुपस्थितम् ।अनार्यजुष्टमस्वर्ग्यम् अकीर्तिकरमर्जुन ॥

kutastvā kaśmalamidaṁ viṣame samupasthitamanāryajuṣṭamasvargyam akīrtikaramarjuna

The Blessed Lord said: Whence has come to thee this dejection, this stain and darkness of the soul in the hour of difficulty and peril, O Arjuna? This is not the way cherished by the Aryan man; this mood came not from heaven nor can it lead to heaven, and on earth it is the forfeiting of glory.

Compiled rendering · Anilbaran Roy

His translation

KRISHNA Whence hath this stain of darkness come upon thee in the very crisis & the stress,O Urjoona, this weakness unheavenly, inglorious, beloved of unAryan minds? Fall not into coward impotence, O Partha; not on thee does that sit well; fling from thee the miserable weakness of thy heart; arise, O scourger of thy foes.

Essays on the Gita

The answer of the divine Teacher to the first flood of Arjuna’s passionate self-questioning, his shrinking from slaughter, his sense of sorrow and sin, his grieving for an empty and desolate life, his forecast of evil results of an evil deed, is a strongly-worded rebuke. All this, it is replied, is2·3 confusion of mind and delusion, a weakness of the heart, an unmanliness, a fall from the virility of the fighter and the hero. Not this was fitting in the son of Pritha, not thus should the champion and chief hope of a righteous cause abandon it in the hour of crisis and peril or suffer the sudden amazement of his heart and senses, the clouding of his reason and the downfall of his will to betray him into the casting away of his divine weapons and the refusal of his God-given work. This is not the way cherished and followed by the Aryan man; this mood came not from heaven nor can it lead to heaven, and on earth it is the forfeiting2·2 of the glory that waits upon strength and heroism and noble works. Let him put from him this weak and self-indulgent pity, let him rise and smite his enemies!

“Whence has come to thee this dejection, this stain and darkness of the soul in the hour of difficulty and peril?” asks2·2 Krishna of Arjuna. The question points to the real nature of Arjuna’s deviation from his heroic qualities. There is a divine compassion which descends to us from on high and for the man whose nature does not possess it, is not cast in its mould, to pretend to be the superior man, the master-man or the superman is a folly and an insolence, for he alone is the superman who most manifests the highest nature of the Godhead in humanity. This compassion observes with an eye of love and wisdom and calm strength the battle and the struggle, the strength and weakness of man, his virtues and sins, his joy and suffering, his knowledge and his ignorance, his wisdom and his folly, his aspiration and his failure and it enters into it all to help and to heal. In the saint and philanthropist it may cast itself into the mould of a plenitude of love or charity; in the thinker and hero it assumes the largeness and the force of a helpful wisdom and strength. It is this compassion in the Aryan fighter, the soul of his chivalry, which will not break the bruised reed, but helps and protects the weak and the oppressed and the wounded and the fallen. But it is also the divine compassion that smites down the strong tyrant and the confident oppressor, not in wrath and with hatred,—for these are not the high divine qualities, the wrath of God against the sinner, God’s hatred of the wicked are the fables of half-enlightened creeds, as much a fable as the eternal torture of the Hells they have invented,—but, as the old Indian spirituality clearly saw, with as much love and compassion for the strong Titan erring by his strength and slain for his sins as for the sufferer and the oppressed who have to be saved from his violence and injustice.

The Synthesis of Yoga

We see in the teaching of the Gita how subtle a thing is the freedom from egoism which is demanded. Arjuna is driven to fight by the egoism of strength, the egoism of the Kshatriya; he is turned from the battle by the contrary egoism of weakness, the shrinking, the spirit of disgust, the false pity that overcomes the mind, the nervous being and the senses,—not that divine compassion which strengthens the arm and clarifies the knowledge. But this weakness comes garbed as renunciation, as virtue: “Better the life of the beggar than to taste these blood-stained enjoyments; I desire not the rule of all the earth, no, nor the kingdom of the gods.” How foolish of the Teacher, we might say, not to confirm this mood, to lose this sublime chance of adding one more great soul to the army of Sannyasins, one more shining example before the world of a holy renunciation. But the Guide sees otherwise, the Guide who is not to be deceived by words; “This is weakness and delusion and egoism that speak in thee. Behold the Self, open thy eyes to the knowledge, purify thy soul of egoism.” And afterwards? “Fight, conquer, enjoy a wealthy kingdom.” Or to take another example from ancient Indian tradition. It was egoism, it would seem, that drove Rama, the Avatara, to raise an army and destroy a nation in order to recover his wife from the King of Lanka. But would it have been a lesser egoism to drape himself in indifference and misusing the formal terms of the knowledge to say, “I have no wife, no enemy, no desire; these are illusions of the senses; let me cultivate the Brahman-knowledge and let Ravana do what he will with the daughter of Janaka”?

Other writings

“Arise, arise, O Bhemasena, wherefore sleepest thou like one that is dead? For nought but dead is he whose wife a sinful hand has touched and lives.”, or the reproach of Krishna to Arjoun for his weak pity which opens the second surga of the Bhagavadgita. Or again hear Krishna’s description of Bhema’s rage and solitary brooding over revenge and his taunting accusations of cowardice: “At other times, O Bhemasena, thou praisest war, thou art all for crushing Dhritarashtra’s heartless sons who take delight in death; thou sleepest not at night, O conquering soldier, but wakest lying face downwards, and ever thou utterest dread speech of storm and wrath, breathing fire in the torment of thine own rage; and thy mind is without rest like a smoking fire; yea, thou liest all apart breathing heavily like a weakling distressed by his load; so that some who know not even think thee mad. For as an elephant tramples on uprooted trees and breaks them to fragments, so thou stormest along with labouring breath hurting earth with thy feet. Thou takest no delight in all the people but cursest them in thy heart, O Bhema, son of Pandou, nor in aught else hast thou any pleasure night or day; but thou sittest in secret like one weeping and sometimes of a sudden laughest aloud, yea, thou sittest for long with thy head between thy knees & thy eyes closed; and then again thou starest before thee frowning and clenching thy teeth; thy every action is one of wrath. Surely as our father Sun is seen in the East when luminously he ascendeth, & surely as wide with rays he wheeleth down to his release in the West, so sure is this oath I utter and never shall be broken. With this club I will meet & slay the haughty Duryodhan’, thus touching thy club thou swearest among thy brothers. And today thou, thou!, thinkest of peace, O warrior! Ah yes, I know the hearts of those that clamour for war, alter very strangely when war showeth its face, since fear findeth out even thee, O Bhema! Ah yes, son of Pritha, thou seest adverse omens both when thou sleepest & when thou wakest, therefore thou desirest peace. Ah yes, thou feelest no more the man in thyself, but an eunuch & thy heart sinketh with alarm, therefore art thou thus overcome. Thy heart quakes, thy mind fainteth, thou art seized with a trembling in thy thighs, therefore thou desirest peace. Verily, O son of Pritha, wavering & inconstant is the heart of a mortal man, like the pods of the silk cotton driven by the swiftness of every wind. This shameful thought of thine, monstrous as a human voice in a dumb beast, makes the hearts of Pandou’s sons to sink like (shipwrecked) men that have no raft. Look on thine own deeds, O seed of Bharat, remember thy lofty birth! arise, put off thy weakness; be firm, O heart of a hero; unworthy of thee is this languor; what he cannot win by the mightiness of him, that a Kshatriya will not touch.”

The choice by a subject nation of the means it will use for vindicating its liberty, is best determined by the circumstances of its servitude. The present circumstances in India seem to point to passive resistance as our most natural and suitable weapon. We would not for a moment be understood to base this conclusion upon any condemnation of other methods as in all circumstances criminal and unjustifiable. It is the common habit of established Governments and especially those which are themselves oppressors, to brand all violent methods in subject peoples and communities as criminal and wicked. When you have disarmed your slaves and legalised the infliction of bonds, stripes and death on any one of them, man, woman or child, who may dare to speak or to act against you, it is natural and convenient to try and lay a moral as well as a legal ban on any attempt to answer violence by violence, the knout by the revolver, the prison by riot or agrarian rising, the gallows by the dynamite bomb. But no nation yet has listened to the cant of the oppressor when itself put to the test, and the general conscience of humanity approves the refusal. Under certain circumstances a civil struggle becomes in reality a battle and the morality of war is different from the morality of peace. To shrink from bloodshed and violence under such circumstances is a weakness deserving as severe a rebuke as Srikrishna addressed to Arjuna when he shrank from the colossal civil slaughter on the field of Kurukshetra. Liberty is the life-breath of a nation; and when the life is attacked, when it is sought to suppress all chance of breathing by violent pressure, any and every means of self-preservation becomes right and justifiable,—just as it is lawful for a man who is being strangled to rid himself of the pressure on his throat by any means in his power. It is the nature of the pressure which determines the nature of the resistance. Where, as in Russia, the denial of liberty is enforced by legalised murder and outrage, or, as in Ireland formerly, by brutal coercion, the answer of violence to violence is justified and inevitable. Where the need for immediate liberty is urgent and it is a present question of national life or death on the instant, revolt is the only course. But where the oppression is legal and subtle in its methods and respects life, liberty and property and there is still breathing time, the circumstances demand that we should make the experiment of a method of resolute but peaceful resistance which while less bold and aggressive than other methods, calls for perhaps as much heroism of a kind and certainly more universal endurance and suffering. In other methods, a daring minority purchase with their blood the freedom of the millions; but for passive resistance it is necessary that all should share in the struggle and the privation.

कुतस्त्वा कश्मलमिदं विषमे समुपस्थितम् । अनार्यजुष्टमस्वर्ग्यमकीर्तिकरमर्जुन ॥ क्लैब्यं मा स्म गमः पार्थ नैतत् त्वय्युपपद्यते ।

Writings in Bengali

কুতস্ত্বা কশ্মলমিদং বিষমে সমুপস্থিতম্।
অনার্য্যজুষ্টমস্বর্গ্যমকীর্ত্তিকরমর্জ্জুন॥২॥

“হে অর্জ্জুন! এই সঙ্কট সময়ে এই অনার্য্যের আদৃত স্বর্গপথরোধক অকীর্ত্তিকর মনের মলিনতা কোথা হইতে উপস্থিত?

শ্রীকৃষ্ণের উত্তর

শ্রীকৃষ্ণ দেখিলেন অর্জ্জুন কৃপায় আবিষ্ট হইয়াছে, বিষাদ তাহাকে গ্রাস করিয়াছে। এই তামসিক ভাব অপনোদন করিবার জন্য অন্তর্য্যামী তাঁহার প্রিয় সখাকে ক্ষত্রিয়োচিত তিরস্কার করিলেন, তাহাতে যদি রাজসিক ভাব জাগরিত হইয়া তমঃকে দূর করে। তিনি বলিলেন, দেখ, ইহা তোমার স্বপক্ষের সঙ্কটকাল, এখন

The Arya — text not in the CWSA

* Gita II. 1–38.

Evening talks

Anilbaran’s Note: Most Probably Arjuna meant ārya jāti, as is evidenced from Sri Krishna’s answer where he explains the ideas of the Aryans.