SrI: SrImathE SatakOpAya nama: SrImathE rAmAnujAya nama: SrImath varavaramunayE nama:
sañjaya uvāca
evam uktvā hṛṣīkeśaṁ
guḍākeśaḥ paran-tapaḥ
na yotsya iti govindam
uktvā tūṣṇīṁ babhūva ha
Sanjaya continued:
So speaking to Hṛishīkeśa[4. The 47th name of Vishṇu, lit. the “Ruler of the senses.”…], Gudākeśa[5. Epithetic for Arjuna meaning “the Sleepless”.] the Harasser of foes, saying to Govinda[1. The 189th and 543rd name of God…]: ‘I will not fight’, kept silent. Strange indeed!
(Arjuna said): ‘How can I slay venerable teachers, such as Bhīshma and Droṇa? The pleasures to which they are wedded, how am I better to enjoy, by taking their places? Pleasures, aye! Dripping with their blood! Let it be that we prepared for war and withdrew, and that the hosts of Dhṛitarāshtra put a violent end to us; for it seems to me more honorable to be killed by those not knowing right and wrong, than an unjust victory obtained by our destroying them.’ So saying, and reverently and most humbly approaching the feet of Bhagavān, Arjuna appealed to him thus: ‘What is decidedly the best for me, – Thy disciple and Thy-refuge seeker- deign to tell me.’ Finding Arjuna thus helpless by misplaced sentiments of friendship and sympathy; finding him mistaking a lawful kshatriya war to be unrighteous; and seeing him also suppliant, desiring to know what is Right (dharma); Bhagavān Paramapurusha thought that the infatuation under which Arjuna was laboring would not leave him unless the knowledge was imparted to him that the prosecution of a (lawful) warfare preceded by a knowledge of ātmā (soul)– but carried on without any interest in the result, would itself constitute the means to self-realization (ātma-prāpti). And in this manner was this Science of the Soul (viz. BHAGAVAD-GĪTĀ) introduced by the All-perfect and Supreme Spirit.
It is this that the verse:
“Gīta was introduced to Pārtha, who refuge sought, Fearing rights’ wrong, by misplaced love and pity caught,”[2. 5th verse, Yāmunāchārya’s Gītārtha-Sangraha.]
declared.
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