Beach 8: One's Nature vis-à-vis one's Duty

Wave 2: The Secret of Secrets from the bhagavad-gItA

Drop 1: The five arguments of Krishna

The story of Arjuna's hesitations at the start of the Great War between the Pandavas and the Kauravas is a well-known episode from the mahA-bhArata. It was Arjuna's confusion and psychological collapse at the crucial moment that occasioned the preaching of the bhagavad-gItA by Lord Krishna, who had condescended to be the princes's charioteer in the 18-day war. The various arguments that Lord Krishna advances to dispel the confusion of Arjuna can be classified as follows:

There are a few other arguments like the commonsense one, which says that whoever is born has to die and so forth. But Krishna does not stay long on these minor arguments. The five major arguments however, are unified and crystallised in the eighteenth chapter and brought to a consummation in the carama Sloka (Verse No.66) of that chapter.

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April 10, '99 Copyright Ó V. Krishnamurthy