PASSAGE FOR STUDY

The Doctrine of Reincarnation in the Bhagavad-Gita

The quintessential Indian epic is the Mahabharata. As in the Iliad, the story concerns a war that has distant roots in historical events given mythic dimension by the passage of time. Also an oral work, the Mahabharata was composed over a much longer period of time than were the epics of other traditions, becoming in the process a unique storehouse of Hindu culture. Its main story has been so enlarged and embellished over the centuries that the range of the resulting massive work far exceeds that of any single Western poem. The Mahabharata contains not only the seeds of most classical Indian poetry and drama, but also one of the world's major religious documents as well, the Bhagavad-Gita.

Although the original language of the poem is Sanskrit, it has been translated into the other languages of India since the sung narrative was written down, sometime around A.D 400. Knowing the meaning of the Sanskrit title gives some sense of the poem's significance: "maha" means great and "Bharata," the name of the progenitor of the race, came to be the name for India itself. Thus the title announces the great story of India. Indeed, scholars believe they can see references in the poem to the founding of Indian civilization through the competition that seems to have taken place between different tribes moving into the valleys of the Indus and Ganges Rivers in about 1200 B.C. Centuries later, the bards who sang of the past turned the story of this competition into poetry. Because it is a work of the imagination rather than a record of history, the Mahabharata does not relate an accurate narrative of rival tribes, but like all epic poems, personalizes their conflict instead. Out of dimly remembered history the work distills primal universal themes, recounting a tale of sibling rivalry and family strife that culminate in a war between cousins for the legendary kingdom of Kurukshetra.

The main hero of the poem, Arjuna, comparable to Achilles in many ways, is a brilliant warrior who suddenly has doubts about the virtue of war. In the portion of the Mahabharata known as the Bhagavad-Gita (meaning the Lord's Song), Arjuna seeks a justification for shedding the blood of his relatives. The Lord in question is Krishna, one of the incarnations taken by the god Vishnu. The Hindu religion teaches that existence is cyclical; gods and human beings may change form and re-enter the world in different ages, moving along an endless continuum of time. Here Krishna presents himself to Arjuna as his charioteer. Anguished by his obligation to fight his cousins, Arjuna halts his chariot in the middle of the field of Kurukshetra before the battle begins. With tears in his eyes, he asks Krishna to explain how it can be right for him to shoot his magic bow in such circumstances. Arjuna receives from his "charioteer" the essence of Hindu philosophy so that he is prepared spiritually to act as his duty ("dharma") requires.

The Bhagavad-Gita consists of eighteen chapters in which, while action is suspended, Krishna instructs Arjuna--and the audience--in the discipline ("yoga") appropriate to the warrior. Here is the portion of the second chapter, as recently translated by Barbara Stoler Miller, in which Krishna explains why it would be cowardly of Arjuna not to fight.

Excerpt from The Bhagvad-Gita You grieve for those beyond grief, and you speak words of insight; but learned men do not grieve for the dead or the living. Never have I not existed, nor you, nor these kings; and never in the future shall we cease to exist. Just as the embodied self enters childhood, youth, and old age, so does it enter another body; this does not confound a steadfast man. Contacts with matter make us feel heat and cold, pleasure and pain. Arjuna, you must learn to endure fleeting things--they come and go! When these cannot torment a man, when suffering and joy are equal for him and he has courage, he is fit for immortality. Nothing of nonbeing comes to be, nor does being cease to exist; the boundary between these two is seen by men who see reality. Indestructible is the presence that pervades all this; no one can destroy this unchanging reality. Our bodies are known to end, but the embodied self is enduring, indestructible, and immeasurable; therefore, Arjuna, fight the battle! He who thinks this self a killer and he who thinks it killed both fail to understand; it does not kill, nor is it killed. It is not born, it does not die having been, it will never not be; unborn, enduring, constant, and primordial, it is not killed when the body is killed. Arjuna, when a man knows the self to be indestructible, enduring, unborn, unchanging, how does he kill or cause anyone to kill? As a man discards worn-out clothes to put on new and different ones, so the embodied self discards its worn-out bodies to take on other new ones. Weapons do not cut it, fire does not burn it, waters do not wet it, wind does not wither it. It cannot be cut or burned; it cannot be wet or withered; it is enduring, all pervasive, fixed, immovable, and timeless. It is called unmanifest, inconceivable, and immutable; since you know that to be so, you should not grieve! If you think of its birth and death as ever-recurring, then too, Great Warrior, you have no cause to grieve! Death is certain for anyone born, and birth is certain for the dead; since the cycle is inevitable, you have no cause to grieve! Creatures are unmanifest in origin, manifest in the midst of life, and unmanifest again in the end. Since this is so, why do you lament? Rarely someone sees it, rarely another speaks it, rarely anyone hears it-- even hearing it, no one really knows it. The self embodied in the body of every being is indestructible; you have no cause to grieve for all these creatures, Arjuna! Look to your own duty; do not tremble before it; nothing is better for a warrior than a battle of sacred duty. The doors of heaven open for warriors who rejoice to have a battle like this thrust on them by chance. If you fail to wage this war of sacred duty, you will abandon your own duty and fame only to gain evil. People will tell of your undying shame, and for a man of honor shame is worse than death. The great chariot warriors will think you deserted in fear of battle; you will be despised by those who held you in esteem. Your enemies will slander you, scorning your skill in so many unspeakable ways-- could any suffering be worse? If you are killed, you win heaven; if you triumph, you enjoy the earth; therefore, Arjuna, stand up and resolve to fight the battle! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Be intent on action, not on the fruits of action; avoid attraction to the fruits, and attachment to inaction! Perform actions, firm in discipline, relinquishing attachment; so seek refuge in understanding--pitiful are men drawn by fruits of action. Disciplined by understanding, one abandons both good and evil deeds; so arm yourself for discipline-- discipline is skill in actions. Wise men disciplined by understanding relinquish the fruit born of action; freed from these bonds of rebirth, they reach a place beyond decay. When your understanding passes beyond the swamp of delusion, you will be indifferent to all that is heard in sacred lore. When your understanding turns from sacred lore to stand fixed, immovable in contemplation then you will reach discipline.

Questions for Discussion

1. How would you characterize the relationship between Krishna and Arjuna?
   
2. What metaphors does Krishna use here? What is their function?
   
3. How does the heroic code to which Arjuna must adhere differ from that which governs Achilles and the other warriors of the Iliad?
   
4. What is the nature of violent action according to the Bhagavad-Gita? How would you compare the nature of violence in the other works you have been studying?
5. What is the difference between "action" and the "fruits of action"? What degree of responsibility does the hero have for his actions, according to this teaching of Krishna's?

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