अर्जुनविषादयोग
Chapter 1
Arjuna Visada Yoga
Arjuna's Dilemma · 47 verses
This first chapter sets the scene for the whole Gita. It is traditionally called Arjuna Vishada Yoga, the yoga of Arjuna's sorrow.
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The blind king Dhritarashtra asks his aide Sanjaya what happened on the field of Kurukshetra, where two armies have gathered to fight. Sanjaya narrates. Duryodhana, the Kaurava king, surveys the Pandava army and names the leading warriors on both sides. Conches are blown, first by Bhishma, then by the Kauravas, then by Krishna, Arjuna, and the Pandava leaders. The sound is huge and terrifying. Arjuna asks Krishna to drive his chariot into the space between the armies so he can see who has come to fight. There he sees his own relatives, teachers, and elders standing on both sides. His body fails him: his limbs give way, his mouth goes dry, he trembles, and his bow slips from his hand. He refuses victory, kingdom, and pleasure. He argues that killing his kinsmen will destroy the family's lasting duties, called kula-dharma, and bring great wrong. He sinks down in grief. The schools differ on how to read this collapse; Advaita Vedanta and the Modern reading, for example, frame his crisis in their own ways. The chapter ends with Arjuna silent, the question still open.
Contentsश्लोकाः
- 1Before the war is named, the ground is called the field of dharma.
- 2Duryodhana goes to his teacher, and his nerve is already wavering.
- 3Duryodhana points his teacher Drona toward the Pandava army and, beneath the request to look, works to move him to fight in earnest.
- 4Bhishma begins naming the great warriors on the Pandava side, men whose strength makes the opposing army something to reckon with.
- 5Sanjaya continues the roll call, naming six more great warriors who stand on the Pandava side.
- 6Duryodhana names a last cluster of Pandava warriors and calls them all great chariot-warriors.
- 7Duryodhana turns from the enemy's champions to his own side, and begins to name the leaders of his army to Drona.
- 8Duryodhana names the great fighters on his own side, counting his commanders one by one.
- 9Duryodhana sweeps the rest of his army into the count: many more heroes, variously armed, all skilled in war and ready to die for him.
- 10Duryodhana sizes up the two armies for his teacher, calling his own Bhishma-guarded host one way and the Pandavas' Bhima-guarded host the other.
- 11Duryodhana orders every warrior to hold his assigned station and guard Bhishma, the commander at the center, above all.
- 12Bhishma, the grandsire of the Kurus, roars like a lion and blows his conch to lift Duryodhana's spirits.
- 13In answer to Bhishma's conch, the whole array of Kaurava instruments breaks out at once, and the sound becomes overwhelming.
- 14Krishna and Arjuna, on a chariot of white horses, blow their divine conches in answer to the Kaurava side.
- 15Sanjaya turns to the Pandava side: Krishna blows the Panchajanya, Arjuna the Devadatta, and Bhima the great conch Paundra.
- 16King Yudhishthira sounds the Anantavijaya, and Nakula and Sahadeva sound the Sughosha and the Manipushpaka.
- 17Sanjaya names more of the great warriors standing with the Pandavas: the master archer king of Kashi, Shikhandi, Dhrishtadyumna, Virata, and the never-defeated Satyaki.
- 18Drupada, the sons of Draupadi, and Abhimanyu sound the last conches in Sanjaya's roll-call of the Pandava side.
- 19The conch-blast of the Pandavas rang through sky and earth and tore the hearts of Dhritarashtra's sons.
- 20At the very edge of battle, Arjuna, his banner bearing Hanuman, takes up his bow and turns to Krishna.
- 21Arjuna asks Krishna, who is driving his chariot, to station it in the open ground between the two armies.
- 22Arjuna gives his reason for halting between the armies: he wants to see clearly the men who have come to fight him.
- 23Arjuna asks to see the warriors who have come, resolved, to fight for Duryodhana.
- 24Addressed by Arjuna, Krishna drove the splendid chariot forward and stationed it in the open space between the two armies.
- 25Krishna halts the chariot before Bhishma, Drona, and the gathered kings, and tells Arjuna to look upon these Kurus, his own people.
- 26When Arjuna looks across the field, he sees not soldiers but his own family standing on both sides.
- 27Arjuna sees fathers-in-law and dear friends among the kinsmen on both sides, and is overcome by pity into sorrow.
- 28Looking out at his own kinsmen gathered for battle, Arjuna begins to break, and his limbs fail and his mouth goes dry.
- 29Arjuna reports the physical collapse that overtakes him as he looks at the armies: his limbs give way, his mouth dries, his body trembles, and his hair stands on end.
- 30The bow slips from Arjuna's hand, his skin burns, and he can no longer stand: his grief is shutting his body down from the inside.
- 31Arjuna reads adverse omens around him and his own reasoning within, and from both he concludes that this war can bring no good.
- 32Arjuna refuses the very prizes the war would win him: victory, kingdom, and the pleasures they bring.
- 33Arjuna names the contradiction at the heart of his collapse: the very people he was fighting to win the kingdom for are the ones now standing against him in battle.
- 34Arjuna names, one by one, the kinsmen who stand against him on the field.
- 35Arjuna will not strike back at the Kauravas even if they slay him, and not for any prize, the three worlds or the earth.
- 36Arjuna says that killing the sons of Dhritarashtra would bring no joy, only sin upon those who do it.
- 37Arjuna draws his verdict: it is not right to kill our own kinsmen, and no happiness could come of it.
- 38Greed has blotted out their discernment, so they see no fault in destroying the family and no sin in betraying friends.
- 39Arjuna argues that because he plainly sees the evil in destroying the family, the wise thing is to turn back from the war.
- 40Arjuna warns that when a family is destroyed, its ancient duties die with it, and lawlessness takes their place.
- 41When a family's righteous order collapses, its women fall away from right conduct, and the boundaries between the social classes begin to dissolve.
- 42Arjuna warns that the mixing of classes would drag both the destroyers and the family into a hellish state, and would leave the ancestors fallen for want of their rites.
- 43Arjuna names the end result of the breakdown he fears: when the family-destroyers do these deeds and the social orders intermingle, the ancient duties of caste and family are wiped out.
- 44Arjuna names his last fear: that those whose family duties are destroyed are bound to dwell in hell.
- 45Arjuna turns the charge on himself, calling his own readiness to fight a great sin born of greed for a kingdom.
- 46Arjuna says he would rather be killed unresisting and unarmed than fight, and with that he lays down his bow.
- 47Arjuna lets fall his bow and arrows and sinks down on the seat of the chariot, his mind overwhelmed with grief.