The Bhagavad Gita by Edward Viljoen

Author:Edward Viljoen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

A Book of War for Times of Peace

Killing these

Must breed but anguish, Krishna! If they be

Guilty, we shall grow guilty by their deaths;

Their sins will light on us, if we shall slay

Those sons of Dhritirashtra, and our kin;

What peace could come of that, O Madhava?1

For if indeed, blinded by lust and wrath,

These cannot see, or will not see, the sin

Of kingly lines o’erthrown and kinsmen slain,

How should not we, who see, shun such a crime—

We who perceive the guilt and feel the shame.

—Bhagavad Gita 1:382

Mohandas Gandhi called the Bhagavad Gita a book of priceless worth.3 He referred to it for guidance and recited certain verses from it as daily prayers. He first encountered the Bhagavad Gita in 1889 when he was twenty years old while studying law in England. Fellow students introduced him to Sir Edwin Arnold’s English version of the Bhagavad Gita, The Song Celestial. The Bhagavad Gita quickly found its way into Gandhi’s heart and became part of the inspiration for his teaching of nonviolence, even though the Bhagavad Gita seems to advocate fighting. Gandhi took the Bhagavad Gita as a metaphor, without denying that a historical battle may have taken place. Gandhi asserted that although the Bhagavad Gita is set at the beginning of a war, and that the opening chapters clearly speak in favor of war, its teachings when practiced lead unquestionably to nonviolence, peace, introspection, honor, devotion, and selfless service. Gandhi read the Bhagavad Gita in the context of its time when war was a standard method of resolving disagreements. He thought that the idea of war might seem brutal to some today, just as the habit of drinking milk today might seem cruel and barbaric to some in future generations. The question of how to conduct oneself in each age, he believed, must be answered within the norms of that age.

Even though Lord Krishna urges Prince Arjuna to do his duty as a warrior in a time of war, the Bhagavad Gita moves swiftly away from the subject of warfare and offers neither military strategy nor combat advice. Instead, it delves into spiritual ethics, the practice of devotion, and knowledge of the Divine. It is indeed, as Gandhi suggests, difficult to imagine how studying the Bhagavad Gita could lead to violence. How, then, do we reconcile its message of union with the Divine and its placement on the eve of a fierce battle? Eknath Easwaran argues that the Bhagavad Gita is not properly part of the Mahabharata. Instead, he asserts that it was likely inserted into the epic poem, and that its message does not develop the story of war but is somewhat at odds with it.4 Notably, the outcome of the battle is not happiness but loss and regret. So, if the Bhagavad Gita is to be taken as in favor of war, it is important to consider the heartbreaking outcome: the destruction of almost everyone. In that regard, its message may be thought of as a warning about the tragedy of war.

The

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