🕉 BHAGAVAD GEETA [TEXT 1.1]

🕉 BHAGAVAD GEETA  

[Text] ... 1.1

🕉 धृतराष्ट्र उवाच ।

धर्मक्षेत्रे कुरुक्षेत्रे समवेता युयुत्सवः ।

मामकाः पाण्डवाश्चैव किमकुर्वत सञ्जय ॥ १-१॥

dhṛtarāṣṭra uvāca

dharmakṣetre kurukṣetre samavetā yuyutsavaḥ

māmakāḥ pāṇḍavāścaiva kimakurvata sañjaya

Having assembled on the field of righteousness, on the field of the Kurus, eager for battle, what did my own ones and the sons of Pandu actually do, O Sanjaya?

Analysis/Interpretation

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The Kurukṣetra is the field of war where all the forces of good and evil operating in the political sphere of ancient Bharatvarsha of the times have assembled to exert their powers and perpetuate their influence. It is also the field of righteousness where Dharma seeks to establish itself through the divine incarnation Shree Krishna, verily God Himself. Krishna has earlier destroyed demons and dastardly despots but here a bigger challenge poses itself, the annihilation en masse of the consolidated evil of India. Upon it depends the future of India and of the world for it is a seminal moment in history when the synthetic wisdom of age-old India must be delivered and sustained for the future preservation of the world. The hour is ripe for the fulfilment of the Vedas when a harmony of the erstwhile apparently discordant notes of the Sanatan Dharma will be struck by the Lord Himself in incarnate human form.

The Kurukṣetra has historically been holy as the site where gods and goddesses have had their sacrificial rites offered them. And it is here that this war is being fought to further that tradition.

Swami Gambhirananda writes, "In the Jaabaala Upanishad it is said: 'Kurukṣetra is for the gods the resort of the gods; and for all the creatures it is the abode of Brahman, place of liberation, salvation.' In the Satapatha Braahmana, too, we have: 'Kurukṣetra is indeed the place of sacrifice to the gods.' "

Dhritarashtra [holder of the state] was born blind. Thus, though in terms of seniority of age he ought to have been heir apparent to the throne of the Kurus, he was denied kingship on account of his visual handicap and younger brother Pandu was crowned king in the fullness of time. This became the seed of dissension in the family which eventually evolved into the fratricidal war on the field of Kurukṣetra.

Dhritarashtra kept nursing his sense of deprivation while Pandu reigned. But upon Pandu's untimely death sovereignty fell on him for the interim period till Yudhishthhir, the eldest son of Pandu, came of age. However, when the hour arrived, a feudal feud broke out between the rival claimants to the throne, Yudhishthhir and Duryodhan, the latter who was Dhritarashtra's eldest son, plotting to deny the eldest Pandava his legitimate right to the throne. A truce was made by partitioning the kingdom between the rival claimants and peace reigned for a while before the wily Shakuni, maternal uncle to the Kauravas, plotted in a game of dice to deprive the Pandavas of their kingdom and saw to their exile in the forest. When the stipulated term of twelve years in exile and a thirteenth year incognito was over, Duryodhan refused to hand over even a needle-point bit of land to the Pandavas. When Shree Krishna's mission as mediator for peace failed, war became inevitable.

Dhritarashtra's long-nursed and failed ambition now got hold of son Duryodhan who brought a calamitous course upon the family and the entire nation. His eagerness for war got the better of his sanity and precipitated upon Aryavarta a peril from which there was no escape. The warriors were assembled at Kurukṣetra awaiting their fatal end and, yet, father and son both remained impervious to any sense of sanity. Dhritarashtra was in point of fact fearful lest the war was called off at the last moment and his long-nursed dream of being sovereign ruler of the Kuru clan, now vicariously through his son, was not realised. This sense of egocentricity is evident in the first shloka itself. 

Dhritarashtra asks Sanjay anxiously as to what his own ones (sons) and the sons of Pandu are doing on the battlefield. 'Own ones' -- mark the words, the sense of 'me' and 'mine' even in this hour of dire distress. This sense of bodycentric, egocentric identification with Duryodhan and company as opposed to the relatively distant relation with the Pandavas creates the dualistic tension that leads to war in the eventual sense. So it does here. 

Dhritarashtra, blind as he is in his physical eyes, is blind as well in his psychological and spiritual eyes. His flawed judgement, his partial administrative conduct and his indiscriminate love for his wicked sons to the detriment of his subjects form the motive-force for the gruesome developments in the making. From ego-centricism to edge of sword is but a hair's breadth often in consequential terms even as breath separates the living from the dead on the battlefield by not more than a moment so often. 🕉

Written by Sugata Bose