I
Born into the royal Kuru dynasty of Northern India thousands of years ago, the prince Dhritarashtra was blind from birth. In an age when a king was expected to lead on the battlefield as well, this precluded him from inheriting the throne, and the kingdom was passed to his younger brother Pandu, “The Pale One”. But who in this ancient tale of intrigue would inherit after Pandu? That depended on which of the two brothers had an heir first, Dhritarashtra or Pandu.
Under pressure to see their own offspring reach the throne, the brothers now competed to produce an heir. When Pandu’s wife gave birth to a child, Dhritarashtra’s wife, Gandhari, pounded her stomach in frustration and gave birth to a hardened mass of grey flesh. She appealed to the mystic Vyasa, who produced 101 embryos from the mass, each engineered to become a brutal warrior.
1 The first to emerge from his artificial uterus vessel after two years of incubation was named Duryodhana, meaning “dirty fighter”.
Upon Duryodhana’s birth, he began to bray like an ass. Hearing that sound, asses echoed his cries, jackals howled and vultures screamed. The wind blew furiously, while raging, fierce fires sprang up around the city. When such omens appear at the birth of a child, the royal seers revealed, the child will be the exterminator of his own dynastic line.
Some years later, King Pandu died unexpectedly and the Kingdom of Kuru reverted to Dhritarashtra. But Pandu had five sons, now young princes, known as the Pandavas. Among them, the warrior Arjuna grew up to be an archer of unequalled prowess and dexterity. Kings feared him, warriors revered him, and parents would tell their children of his valour and exploits.
Duryodhana’s natural rivalry with his cousins, the sons of Pandu, turned to deep-seated hate. He attempted first to poison one of the brothers, and upon failing he conspired to burn all five alive in a fortified, highly flammable palace, specifically designed to trap them in billowing flames. Finally, through trickery in a rigged game of dice, the power-hungry and ambitious Duryodhana succeeded in depriving the Pandavas of everything they owned: their extensive land, property, titles, wealth, horses, weapons, and even the jewels and royal garments they wore.
Laughing loudly, one of Duryodhana’s brothers then dragged the Pandavas’ wife, the beautiful and accomplished Draupadi, by her hair into the royal court. He tried, unsuccessfully, to strip her naked. In that terrible assembly, the Pandavas vowed to find justice. In the end, the elderly Dhritarasthra and his sons exiled the Pandavas from the kingdom for thirteen years.
When the Pandava princes returned from exile, they requested their land back—or at least, a humble grant of five hamlets. But Duryodhana declared he would not bequeath them so much as a pinprick of land.
War now seemed inevitable, with all the kings of the earth taking sides. Duryodhana amassed an immense army on the great plains of Kurukshetra. The army of the Pandavas was smaller, but nonetheless formidable. Elephants, chariots, cavalry and infantry now faced each other in military formation as far as the eye could see. The two armies were about to converge.
Faced with imminent battle, Arjuna turns to Krishna, his friend and charioteer, and asks him to drive the chariot between the two armies, so that he may see the faces of those who have chosen to fight for the sons of the blind king.
Krishna is the complexion of a dark blue sapphire or a monsoon raincloud, and his beauty enchants the heart. Dressed in armour and precious gems, he’s regal. He’s also steady and wise. Unwavering.
An unequalled archer, Arjuna is tall, handsome, strong and powerful. He’s valiant and heroic, with “the gait of a lion”. Idealized by the public, he’s also a little brash and boastful. Arjuna isn’t so steady as Krishna.
As requested, Krishna directs the chariot between the two armies. There, among the great generals and kings of the earth on both sides, Arjuna sees his teachers, uncles, cousins, fathers-in-law, grandfathers, brothers, nephews, sons, grandsons and friends. Setting eyes on those he holds most dear, ready to forsake their lives, Arjuna hesitates. He suddenly grasps the full horror of what he is about to do. Overcome by grief, Arjuna’s world begins to collapse into crisis.
Arjuna turns to his friend, Krishna. For the first time, he begins calling into question his strongly held beliefs. Does he really care for victory? Not anymore. Not at this cost, anyway. Is he even entitled to fight and slay the sons of the elderly Dhritarashtra? He is not so sure anymore, in spite of their covetous ambition and deceit. Will killing them lead to happiness? He thinks not.
“I do not desire victory, nor a kingdom, nor happiness. What is the use of pleasures or purpose in living?” he declares. Arjuna is reeling from the shock of one who has suddenly seen the falsehood of his perception and thus the madness of this world.
The dark night of the soul is a term used to describe a collapse of perceived meaning in life. This is what Arjuna now faces: his narrative, or life story, has suddenly been ruptured by events. All his notions of who he is and what he is supposed to do have fallen around him, and he is cast adrift in darkness. Everything looks void and meaningless.
Tormented by sorrow and confounded by doubt, Arjuna now finds himself paralyzed. He no longer knows what to do. Looking to the future, he sees only signs of chaos and terrible reversals.
“O Krishna, seeing my relations standing nearby ready to fight, my limbs have become heavy and my mouth has become dry,” he says. “My body trembles and the hairs on my body stand on end. My bow, the Gandiva, slips from my hand and I feel my skin burning. I find myself unable to stand steadily and my mind seems to be reeling.”
The once formidable warrior Arjuna now sits down in his chariot, having cast aside his bow and arrows. Sapped of his former strength and will, Arjuna longs to retreat from life. He even wonders whether he should maybe rush into battle unarmed and be cut down by his enemies without fighting back. Alternatively, he could quietly leave the battlefield now, before war has begun, and take up life as a beggar.
Arjuna finds himself in an abyss of despair. He is unable to cope with what has arisen in his life. He finds himself entirely helpless, unable to pull himself out of his grief. His troubled eyes full of tears, he says to Krishna, “I shall not fight!” and falls silent.
2This sudden crisis that Arjuna experiences doesn’t occur in the privacy of his home or within a solitary forest during his exile. It happens in the middle of a battlefield, at the most critical time for action. This is a very public meltdown in front of Duryodhana and all the kings of the earth, who look on at this unexpected turn of events in utter disbelief.
If ever there was a personal crisis, it doesn’t get much more dramatic than this. It’s with this acute crisis that the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most important yoga texts from ancient India, begins.