The Gita: For Children E-Book

Roopa Pai

• Herausgeber: Swift Press
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 306

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

'The truth is, Partha,' Krishna said, 'that there is no "better" path. Both paths – the path of knowledge and the path of action – work just as well. It is up to you to pick the one that you are suited to' The Bhagavad Gita is a profound book from India that people have cherished for over 2500 years. It emphasises kindness and understanding when we make mistakes, and tells a compelling story about Prince Arjuna and his friend Krishna. They engage in a crucial conversation about the war against the most powerful and dangerous enemy of all – the one that lives within our minds. Roopa Pai's spirited, one-of-a-kind retelling is engaging, easy to grasp, and leaves a lasting impact. After you finish reading, you'll find yourself contemplating its wisdom and feeling a sense of inner strength.

Leseprobe

Bengaluru-based author, columnist and speaker, Roopa Pai is one of India’s best known children’s authors. Many of her books, which cover a wide range of topics including popular science, history, economics, medicine and sci-fi fantasy, are bestsellers, and are enjoyed as much by adults as by children. Her most popular book, the award-winning The Gita For Children has been translated into many Indian languages and is listed by Amazon India as one of the ‘100 Indian books to read in a lifetime’. Her TEDx talk ‘Decoding the Gita: India’s Book of Answers’ has received close to two million views to date.

When she is not writing, Roopa can be found teaching short introductory courses on ancient Indian wisdom to both children and adults. This computer engineer also leads groups of children and young people on history and heritage walks across her city, as part of her work as director of BangaloreWalks, a company she co-founded.

Sayan Mukherjee is a multidisciplinary illustrator from Kolkata, India. His work includes paintings, book covers, animated frames and much loved children’s picture books drawn using various mediums. Sayan is also a muralist and has created expansive feature-scapes across India. A passionate visual storyteller, he uses bold, vibrant colours to reimagine the world around him uniquely. You can know more about his work at www.sayanart.net.

SWIFT PRESS

This edition first published in India by Hachette India 2022

First published in Great Britain by Swift Press 2022

Originally published in India by Hachette India 2015

Text copyright © Roopa Pai 2015, 2022

Illustrations copyright © Sayan Mukherjee 2022

Book design by Neelima P Aryan © 2022 Hachette India

The right of Roopa Pai to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Page 31: Quote from To Kill a Mockingbird copyright © 1960 by Harper Lee, Grand Central Publishing, Hachette Book Group USA

Page 34: Quote from Cosmos © 1980 by Carl Sagan, The Random House Publishing Group USA

Page 167–8: J. Robert Oppenheimer quote from atomicharchive.com

Page 169: Quote from Trinity Test, July 16, 1945, by eyewitness Brigadier General Thomas F. Farrell from nuclearfiles.org copyright © Nuclear Age Peace Foundation 1998–2015

Typeset by Manmohan Kumar, New Delhi

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 9781800751798

eISBN: 9781800751804

To the readers of this book. . .

Good luck finding the Krishna inside you – it won’t be easy, but they say He is totally worth it

CONTENTS

So What’s the Big Deal About the Bhagavad Gita?

The Concatenation of Events That Led up to the Conversation

Three Last Things (Promise!) Before We Plunge into the Conversation

1. In Which the Stage Is Set for the Conversation

In Which the Warrior Leaves the Field (At Least in Spirit)

2. In Which Krishna Gives Arjuna a Stern Talking-to

In Which Krishna Shares with Arjuna a Killer App for Contentment

3. In Which Krishna More or Less Blocks Arjuna’s Escape Route

In Which Krishna Whips the Veil off Two Vile Villains

4. In Which Krishna Reveals That He Is a Little Unusual

In Which Arjuna Learns That Exercise Is a Valid Form of Worship

5 In Which Krishna Plugs Another Loophole

In Which Krishna Describes the Happy Man – Again

6. In Which Krishna Explains the Importance of Me-Time

In Which Arjuna Learns That Just Trying to Be Good Can Win You Brownie Points in Your Next Life

7. In Which Krishna Reveals That He Is Everywhere, and That Means Everywhere

In Which He Who Is Beyond Classification Indulges in a Bit of Classifying

8. In Which Krishna Reveals His Address and Provides a Roadmap for Getting There

9. In Which Krishna Lets Arjuna in on the Great Secret

10. In Which Arjuna Demands – and Gets – a Very Long List

11. In Which Krishna Grants Arjuna’s Wish – and Scares Him Silly

12. In Which Krishna Gives Arjuna the True Devotion 101

13. In Which Krishna Unravels a Deep and Complex Mystery

14. In Which Krishna Provides Us with the Perfect Excuse for All Our Faults – ‘It’s Not Me, It’s My Nature!’

15. In Which the Conversation Takes an Unusual Turn – and Goes Topsy-turvy

16. In Which Krishna Recommends That You Keep Your Demons Locked up – or Else

17. In Which Krishna Holds Forth on a Variety of Subjects – in Triplicate

18. In Which Arjuna Asks His Final Question

In Which Arjuna Learns to Tell Nectar from Poison

In Which Arjuna Learns That He Must Respond When Nature Calls

In Which Arjuna Receives a Precious and Unexpected Gift

In Which the Warrior Returns to the Field

Epilogue

A Note from the Author

Acknowledgements

Select Bibliography

So What’s the Big Deal About the Bhagavad Gita?

You’ve heard of it, you’ve studied about it in History class, you’ve seen it take centre stage in court scenes in old Bollywood movies (Remember? When the actor standing in the witness box places their right hand on it and vows to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?). And you’ve often wondered why so many people get all solemn and dewy-eyed and worshipful about a book that, last time you checked, looked like the most difficult thing anyone could ever read. Well, let’s find out, shall we? But first, let’s figure out what you really know about the Bhagavad Gita (or the ‘Gita’ for short). All you have to do is tick the right option in the questions given below.

1. What is the Bhagavad Gita? Is it...

a. A Sanskrit poem composed in India at least 2,500 years ago, the title of which literally means ‘The Song of the Lord’?

b. One of the holiest books of the Hindus?

c. A small part of an Indian epic poem called the Mahabharata?

d. A conversation between two friends called Krishna and Arjuna?

e. A book of wisdom about how to live a good, righteous and happy life?

f. All of the above?

Did you pick ‘f’? ‘All of the above’? Congratulations! That’s the right answer!

And now that we have established that the Bhagavad Gita is part of the Mahabharata, we can proceed to the next logical question.

2. What is the Mahabharata? Is it:

a. The world’s longest epic poem, composed about 2,500 years ago?

b. One of India’s two great Sanskrit epics (the other being the Ramayana)?

c. The story of a Great War between two sets of cousins, the five Pandavas (aka the good guys) and the hundred Kauravas (aka the not-so-good guys)?

d. A set of stories within stories, so intricately interwoven that very few people can claim to know all the stories and all the characters in it?

e. The inspiration for innumerable books, a super-hit television series, and countless movies, plays and folk songs in every Indian language (and many foreign ones)?

f. All of the above?

Of course you picked Option f again, and of course you’re right. But now let’s get into the details a little bit and see how you fare (Fun fact: There isn’t an Option f anymore!).

3. The Mahabharata, which the Bhagavad Gita is part of, is made up of 18 Parvas, or books, each of which is further divided into chapters. How many chapters does the Gita itself have?

a. 3

b. 15

c. 18

d. 223

4. Just like the rest of the Mahabharata, the Gita is composed entirely in two-line verses, or couplets, called ‘shlokas’. In all, the Mahabharata has more than 100,000 shlokas. How many of these make up the Gita?

a. 22,300

b. 700

c. 43,455

d. 1,278

5. Which Parva of the Mahabharata is the Gita a part of?

a. The 6th

b. The 16th

c. The 1st

d. The 18th

Okay, let’s take a break here to tell you the right answers so far.

• The Bhagavad Gita has the same number of chapters as the Mahabharata has Parvas – 18.

• It has – surprise, surprise! – just 700 shlokas, less than 1 per cent of all the shlokas in the mother epic!

• It is part of the 6th Parva – yes, it makes an appearance quite early on in the story.

The question to ask, therefore, is this: How come a set of verses that is such a tiny part of India’s great epic, is better known than the epic itself? What exactly makes the Bhagavad Gita so important and so revered? Only one way to find out – on to the next question!

6. We’ve already figured out that the Mahabharata is about a Great War, and the Gita is a conversation between two friends called Krishna and Arjuna. When does this conversation happen?

a. In the days leading up to the Great War

b. In the days after the Great War

c. When the Great War is about to begin (like, at two minutes to start time)

d. Bang in the middle of the fighting

7. What is this l-o-o-n-g 700-shloka conversation actually about?

a. The glorious history of India

b. Battle strategy

c. Krishna telling a reluctant Arjuna why he should get up and fight the good fight

d. Superstar archer Arjuna telling his charioteer Krishna why he should drive faster

Another quick break, to reveal the right answers to Questions 6 and 7:

• The Gita conversation started just a few minutes before the Great War began, and since it wasn’t a short conversation, it almost certainly held everything up for a longish time. Yes, not the best timing for a long conversation, but there you go.

• It was mostly Krishna talking through the 700 verses, and he was essentially telling Arjuna to stop whining and start fighting the Great War.

Which, of course, leads us to the next set of questions. Except, this time, you are asking them.

8. You’re kidding me, right? So one friend tells another friend to stop complaining and get going, and takes some 700 verses to say it, and that conversation becomes one of the greatest books of wisdom in the world? Why?

Ah, that’s the real question, isn’t it? The short answer is that it is because Krishna also told Arjuna why he should fight, even though it was going to be the hardest thing in the world for him to go to war against his closest family.

9. Even so, that conversation was between them, and it had its part to play in their story. Why is something that happened in a story, even the longest epic poem in the world, considered so wonderful, so wise and so important even today?

That’s the interesting bit! You see, stories – especially old, old stories that still get told and read and discussed thousands of years after they were first written – are very often more than just stories. They are really parables, stories that contain within them hidden truths, lessons, morals and wisdom that we can all learn from. The Gita is one of the greatest conversations in the world to listen into, because what Krishna is telling Arjuna is really a message he is sending out to all of us, on how to live our lives in the most honest, best possible way.

The greatest stories are also allegories, which means that they work on many levels. On one level – the most obvious level – the story of the Mahabharata is the story of a Great War between two sets of cousins – one set noble, righteous, law-abiding and virtuous, the other corrupt, deceitful, crooked and unscrupulous. But on another level, the Mahabharata is about the battles that rage in our own minds and hearts each day, as we struggle to choose between what we know is right and good and difficult, and what we know is not-so-right, not-so-good and definitely way easier.

As humans – creatures that sit right on top of the evolutionary tree – we are special in many ways. But what makes us really unique is our ability to make choices – not only choices like pizza versus pasta or jeans versus shorts, but moral choices – right versus wrong, good versus bad, being nice versus being downright awful.

You would think that since we can tell so clearly who the ‘good guys’ are in our moral choices, it stands to reason that we should be backing them every time in our mind battles, but it is incredible just how often we let the bad guys win.

Each day, just like Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, we make excuses for our weaknesses on the battlegrounds of our minds and hearts, and whine about the right choices being too scary, too hard, too lonely, or just not as much fun. We become confused about what the right thing to do is, and wish we could run away from the battle rather than face its consequences. But unlike Arjuna, we often shut out the Krishna who lives in all of us – the still, small voice of our conscience that tells us, loudly and clearly, what we really ought to be doing – and end up doing what is convenient rather than what is right. Over time, our inner Krishna, tired of being ignored, stops speaking altogether, leaving us confused and clueless about what the right answers are.

10. Okay. But where does the Gita come into all this? Does it have those answers?

Yup. Most of them, at any rate. Of course, it isn’t the only book in the world that has these answers – the holy books of all other religions, great epics from all cultures, and many other books have them too – but this is India’s blockbuster bestseller ‘Book With The Answers’.

That’s the big deal about the Gita. That is the reason why millions of Indians have gone back to it, again and again, over thousands of years, every time they are in distress or despair, every time they have been unsure about what the right thing to do is. And that is why you might want to try reading it for yourself.

Because, when you read the Gita, there is no escaping Krishna’s gentle – but no-nonsense – diktat to his confused, nervous, heartsick friend, Arjuna, and through him, to all of us:

• Focus only on doing your duty; let the Universe take care of the consequences.

• Defend the good, destroy the bad.

• Be true to yourself.

• Never hesitate to fight the good fight with everything you’ve got, for as long as it takes.

• Talk to your closest friend – your inner voice – often and at length (yes, even if it takes 700 shlokas worth of time, and especially on the eve of a big battle) and listen to what he has to say.

•That is the secret to being happy. That is the secret of a good life. That, my beloved Arjuna, is the only way to live.

The Concatenation* of Events That Led Up to the Conversation**

Once upon a time, many thousands of years ago, the king of the Bharatas ruled the land that we now know as India from his capital of Hastinapura (now placed about 100 km north–east of present-day Delhi, in Meerut district, Uttar Pradesh). This king had two sons. The older one, Dhritarashtra, should rightfully have been king after his father passed, but he was blind, which automatically disqualified him from kingship. Thus did the younger son, pale and sickly Pandu, who would never otherwise have had a chance to rule, get his lucky break and become king.

However, Pandu’s happiness was short-lived. A venerable sage, whom he had unintentionally annoyed, laid on him a terrible curse – that he should never be able to have children. ‘A king who cannot produce an heir is a completely pointless king,’ thought Pandu sadly to himself. He gave up the throne and went off to the forest with his two wives, Kunti and Madri. Blind Dhritarashtra became the caretaker king, ruling the kingdom in his brother’s name.

Overall, Dhritarashtra was well pleased with the way things had gone for him. As he saw it, he wasn’t so much taking care of the kingdom for his brother as he was keeping it safe for the sons he was going to have. If things went to plan, that sickly, childless brother of his would pass on one day soon, and then no force on earth would be able to stop his sons from rightfully claiming the throne of Hastinapura for themselves.

***

In mythology, however, as in life, things have a way of not going to plan. Pandu would never be able to have children, but in a brilliant mythological loophole, his elder wife Kunti could!

How come? Well, Kunti had been taught a mantra by a venerable sage (not the same one who cursed her husband; there were hundreds of venerable sages wandering around the forests of India then). If she chanted the mantra with great devotion while focusing on any god of her choice, that god would come down to earth and give her a son. Yeah, that simple!

In the forest, Kunti chanted the mantra three times: first to Dharma (aka Yama, god of death and righteousness); then, a couple of years later, to Pavan (aka Vayu, the god of the wind); and then to Indra (lord of the heavens and master of the thunderbolt), and soon had three bonny boys to mother. She named them, respectively, Yudhishthira, Bhima and Arjuna.

It was natural that Kunti’s co-wife, Madri, should get a little envious and a little despondent at the sight of Kunti’s gambolling boys, and she did. Kunti, fully satisfied with the size of her brood, decided to be generous, and taught Madri the mantra too. Madri chanted the mantra to the Ashwini Twins (the gods of medicine) and got herself, at one shot, two lovely twin boys whom she named Nakula and Sahadeva. Together, the five sons of Pandu were called the Pandavas.

Too much happiness upsets the balance of the world, so tragedy, which was waiting in the wings, decided to play spoilsport. One beautiful spring day, when the birds chirped and butterflies fluttered and bees buzzed and flowers scented the air, Pandu died. Broken-hearted Madri flung herself on his funeral pyre, leaving Kunti to handle all the five boys single-handedly. It was all a bit much for Kunti, so she decided to head back to Hastinapura and throw herself and her sons at King Dhritarashtra’s mercy.

***

Much had happened in Hastinapura since Pandu and his wives had left. Dhritarashtra had married a princess called Gandhari, and the two of them had had – hold your breath – one hundred sons and one beautiful daughter. (No, it hadn’t been one hundred years since Pandu left. These hundred boys and their sister were all born almost at the same time – from hundred and one embryos that had been incubated in mud pots for several months until the babies were all grown and ready. Stuff like this happened all the time in ancient India.) The hundred boys were known as the Kauravas (or ‘descendants of the Kuru clan’, Kuru being their ancestor and one of the greatest kings of the land).

When his sister-in-law unexpectedly showed up at his doorstep years after she had left, and with five kids to boot, Dhritarashtra was more than a little dismayed. But he couldn’t possibly turn away his dead brother’s family, and what was another five brats in a household that already had a hundred and one? Or at least that’s what the king told himself as he took them in. In the years to come, he would wonder, over and over, at the wisdom of that decision.

The 105 princes grew up together, learning the same lessons under the same teachers (Dhritarashtra was very fair that way). The trouble was, the five Pandavas consistently beat the heck out of their 100 cousins in every department. Among the 105 princes, Yudhishthira was the most honest and upright, Bhima was the strongest, Arjuna outclassed everyone else at archery, and Nakula and Sahadeva were the best horsemen on the field. Plus, all the Pandavas were just really nice young men – polite, gentle with those who served them, respectful of their elders, concerned about the people of their kingdom, and so on, so they were also loved by everyone. Predictably, the Kauravas, particularly the oldest, Duryodhana, a nasty piece of work who wanted to be the next king, hated their cousins’ guts.

***

Years rolled by. Duryodhana, nervous that the elders would name Yudhishthira the next king, decided to do away with his five cousins. He pretended to have a change of heart and built them a brand-new palace in a distant town, where he invited them to stay the night. Very few people knew that the palace was built of highly inflammable lac and was going to be set on fire that night. Luckily, Yudhishthira was one of those very few people. When the dastardly deed was carried out, the Pandavas had already escaped through a secret tunnel that led to the forest.

Once there, they decided to stay put for a bit, and let Duryodhana believe they were dead. One day, they heard of an archery competition that the king of Panchala was hosting. The winner would get to marry the kingdom’s princess, a dark-skinned beauty called Draupadi. The Pandavas decided to try their luck. Every other prince had tried and failed, when Arjuna, who was in disguise, walked over and easily hit the target – a spinning wooden bird on top of a tall post – squarely in the eye. Knowing that no one else in the kingdom had such unerring aim, Duryodhana realized who the archer really was, and was enraged that his plan had failed.

(An aside here: It was at this archery contest that the Pandavas first met their cousin, Krishna, the son of their mother’s brother. They quickly became close friends.)

***

Meanwhile, the Pandavas returned joyfully to the forest, with Draupadi in tow, eager to share their happy news with their mum.

‘Mother,’ they cried, ‘look what we have brought home today!’ Kunti was busy saying her prayers. Without turning around, she responded in typical mumly fashion with, ‘Whatever it is, my sweethearts, make sure you divide it equally among yourselves.’

Ouch. Now that mum had spoken, there was no going back. Draupadi became the wife of all five Pandavas, and there was nothing she or anyone else could do about it.

With everyone figuring out that the Pandavas were alive and well, there was intense pressure on Dhritarashtra to do the fair thing and give them half the kingdom. The king knew it was right and good that he should do so, but he got a little protective about his own eldest son, and gave the Pandavas the worst, most barren part of the kingdom to rule.

If there was one thing the Pandavas were not afraid of, it was hard work. They cleared the forests around their part of the kingdom, made the land fertile by digging irrigation channels and built themselves a fabulous, glittering new capital called Indraprastha (thought to be located in the region of present-day New Delhi), which they ruled wisely and well.

Now of course that made Duryodhana even more jealous, and even more determined to destroy his cousins. With his sneaky uncle Shakuni (not his dad’s brother – he was dead – but his mum’s), he plotted to exploit Yudhishthira’s one weakness, which was his love for a good game of dice, to bring about his downfall. (FYI, the game of dice does not involve much skill or strategy; it is a game of pure chance. There is no guaranteed way to win, except by cheating. Uncle Shakuni was Grandmaster of the Cheats.)

***

When Duryodhana invited Yudhishthira to a friendly game of dice, Yudhishthira could not resist the challenge. Through the course of the game, Yudhishthira kept losing, but did not stop playing, convinced that luck would turn his way soon (he did not suspect that the game was rigged). In each round, both sides had something big at stake – palaces, territories, their entire kingdoms. In each round, the Pandavas lost their stake. In the end, with nothing left to lose, Yudhishthira staked each of his four brothers as slaves, then their common wife, and finally himself – and lost them all.

King Dhritarashtra had had enough. He knew that his sons had won by cheating, and he decided it was time to step in. He insisted that the Pandavas be given their freedom and their kingdom back. Duryodhana was furious but could not disobey the king, and the Pandavas returned to Indraprastha, red-faced but free.

***

A few months later, Duryodhana was back in action, working on his dad to get him to invite the Pandavas back to another game of dice. This time, there would be just one game, and just one thing at stake. Whoever lost would have to go into exile in the forest for 13 years, with the added condition that they spend the thirteenth year in hiding. If they were ‘found out’ during that year, they would go right back into exile for another 13 years. In the end, Dhritarashtra succumbed and sent out the invitation.

Once again, Yudhishthira accepted. Once again, he played the game. And once again, he lost. The Pandavas, their wife, and their mother Kunti returned once again to the forest. Thirteen years later, after spending the last year in hiding successfully, they came back to claim their kingdom. But Duryodhana flatly refused. Noble Yudhishthira retracted his right to the kingdom, and instead asked for just five villages, one for each of the brothers. Duryodhana retorted that he would not even give them the amount of land that would fit on the tip of a needle.

There was only one honourable thing left for Yudhishthira to do, and he did it. He declared war against mighty Hastinapura.

***

Preparations on both sides began in full swing. To the elders in the family, it was clear that terrible destruction and devastation were at hand. Worried, they asked Krishna to do something. (Why Krishna? For one, he was a relative, not an outsider, and this was after all a family feud. Second, his word had great influence with the Pandavas. Third, he was of the same generation as the two sets of warring cousins, so he could talk to them more as a friend than as an elder, which meant he would be taken more seriously. Fourth, he was considered impartial, and respected by both the cousins and by the elders in the family. Fifth, he was himself a powerful king and therefore considered politically savvy.) Krishna got both sides together and tried to hold peace talks. But Duryodhana was thirsting for war and refused to negotiate. The talks failed. War became inevitable.

Both sides began frantic negotiations with other kings – neighbours, relatives, friends, friends of friends – trying to get them to fight on their side. More and more kings signed up, until the entire land had gotten embroiled in the family quarrel. The only one who hadn’t picked a side was Krishna.

Both the Pandavas and the Kauravas wanted Krishna to fight on their side. Krishna made them an offer – one side could have his armies, one side himself. Except, he added, he wouldn’t be doing any fighting himself. Instantly, Duryodhana called dibs on Krishna’s armies. Secretly relieved, the Pandavas, who were always going for the other option, marched off happily, Krishna by their side.

And thus was the stage set for the Great War at Kurukshetra (which is the town that we still call Kurukshetra, located about 160 km north of Delhi, in Haryana). For 18 long days, the greatest warriors in the land faced each other and fought like lions, their roars resounding across the land. One by one, legendary heroes fell, never to rise again, drenching the dusty plains with their noble blood. One by one, entire clans were wiped off the face of the earth, denuding the land of good men, leaving only widows and wailing orphans behind.

But all that was still to come. Before that, before the first bow had twanged, sending the first arrow zinging through the charged air of Kurukshetra; before a single mace had been swung into an enemy skull, crushing it; before the first sword, glinting in the sun, had sliced through soft flesh, sending a warm red geyser spurting heavenwards; before the two armies had rushed at each other, murder on their minds and rage in their manic eyes; before all that, right at the very start of the Great War, was the Conversation.

*Ooh, big word. But it just means a series of interconnected things – happenings within happenings, loops within loops.

**When we say ‘the conversation’, we mean of course the Conversation. Yeah, the one that Krishna and Arjuna had on that long-ago battlefield.

Three Last Things (Promise!) Before We Plunge into the Conversation

More than 100,000 shlokas make up the Mahabharata. Who was the genius (and tireless!) poet who composed them, and how long did it take him?

Actually, what we know today as the Mahabharata started off as a much shorter story called Jaya, which was just about 24,000 shlokas long. These shlokas, which contain the core of the Mahabharata story, and include the Bhagavad Gita, are believed to have been composed by a sage called Vyasa (who is also a major character in the story!) over three years.

According to legend, Vyasa dictated these shlokas to Ganesha, who agreed to be the scribe and write them all down, on the condition that Vyasa did not pause anywhere in his dictation. Vyasa agreed, but on the counter-condition that Ganesha would write a shloka down only after he had understood it. The deal was sealed, but a pen could not be found. Impatient Ganesha broke off one of his tusks (becoming Ekadanta, the one-tusked one) and used it to speedily record Jaya on palm leaves (our ancient version of papyrus).

But Jaya was never narrated to anyone by Vyasa himself. Legend has it that it was narrated by the sage Vaishampayana, a disciple of Vyasa, to King Janamejaya, the great-grandson of Arjuna the Pandava, just before he (the king) began a massive sacrifice to destroy every last snake and serpent in the world. [Janamejaya’s dad, Parikshit, had died of snakebite, so the loving son had decided that, as far as revenge ratios went, a million (snake) lives to one (dad) life was about right.] This version of the epic, which included the conversation between Vaishampayana and Janamejaya, was called Bharata.

Many years later, and with several voluminous additions, Jaya was narrated once again by a bard, or wandering storyteller, called Ugrashrava Sauti, to a group of sages just before they started a long sacrifice, this time for a worthier, more politically correct cause – world peace. It is this new, improved, four-times-the-size-of-the-original version of Jaya that we know today as the Mahabharata.

As you have probably noticed, Ugrashrava Sauti’s version was narrated, not written down. This was generally the way information and stories – even those that were 1.8 million words long – were passed on in the olden days (ancient Indians had insane memory power). The first written version – with who knows how many more additions and deletions – that we know, dates back only to the fourth century CE, more than 1,600 years ago.

What makes the Mahabharata more interesting is the belief that it isn’t a story that Vyasa made up entirely in his head. It is said to be a mix of fact and fiction, a story set against actual historical events that occurred somewhere around the eighth century BCE (or a lot earlier, or a little later – no one is quite sure. The dating of ancient Indian texts is also often a mix of fact and fiction).

That’s really quite enough about the Mahabharata. On to the Gita. Was the conversation between Krishna and Arjuna strictly private, or did anyone else get to eavesdrop on it?

Actually, two people other than the two having the conversation got to hear it too. The interesting part was that these two weren’t even on the battlefield at Kurukshetra; they were actually far away, in the Throne Room of the palace of Hastinapura, to be precise. (And how far away was that, exactly? Some 170 km, or about six hours by chariot).

How did people so far away hear a conversation that even people on the battlefield around them didn’t hear? Here’s how.

On the eve of the Kurukshetra war, King Dhritarashtra was not a happy man. He was bowed down by sorrow at the destruction he knew the war would wreak. He was full of fear that his sons would never return home. He was consumed by guilt that his love for his children had made him so weak that he had neglected his kingly duties and allowed all kinds of terrible injustices to happen right under his nose. Sick at heart, he refused to travel to the battlefield to witness the war.

However, not knowing what was happening there was too much to bear. Enter Sanjaya, the king’s charioteer, who had been blessed by Sage Vyasa (yes, the same Vyasa who wrote the Mahabharata) with the gift of telescopic vision and long-distance hearing, besides the gift of being able to see both the past and the future. Sitting beside the nervous king in Hastinapura, Sanjaya saw and heard everything that was happening on the faraway battlefield as clearly as if it were happening before his very eyes. He began to describe, in real time, every teensy-weensy detail of the battle to King Dhritarashtra.

And that was how Sanjaya got to listen in on the Conversation, second-hand, and King Dhritarashtra got to hear it too, third-hand.

And now for one Very Last Formality – the Gita prayer.

Traditionally, before you actually start reading the Gita, you are supposed to send a bunch of prayers up – to the Mahabharata, to its author Vyasa, to the Gita itself and to Krishna – asking for their blessings to help you understand and appreciate its wisdom.

It is a nine-verse prayer, but it is the fourth verse – which explains the importance of the Gita – that is the most quoted. It just wouldn’t do to jump to Chapter 1 without at least a basic understanding of this shloka, so let’s get it.

Sarvopanishado gaavo dogdhaa gopaalanandanaha Paartho vatsas sudhirbhoktaa dugdham gitaamritam mahat

If all the Upanishads* were cows, Krishna is the divine milkman who squeezes their goodness out. Arjuna, who gets first shot at the distilled wisdom of the ages, is the calf. The wise and the pure then get to drink this milk, this blessed, immortal nectar that is the Gita.

Got it? Hold that thought. Now, enter the arena and perch on your ringside seat, amid the noise and the heat and the dust. Smell the raw fear and the great courage hanging thick and heavy in the air. Feel the nervous excitement of the soldiers. Hear the whinnying of the horses, the trumpeting of the elephants and the clank of battle armour. See the. . .

But wait! Something strange is happening. The chariot carrying the great hero breaks away from the ranks and races like the wind to the middle of the field. Our hero slumps to his knees in despair, his mighty bow Gandiva lying uselessly by his side. Krishna looks at his friend with great concern, and begins to speak.

Oops. Hang on a sec. Hit Pause. Rewind a little, to the point before the hero’s chariot began to move. Now tune everything else out and, like Sanjaya, focus your senses on nothing else but our hero and his charioteer.

The Conversation is about to begin.

*A collection of some of India’s oldest religious texts, which are believed to be revelations.

the desolation of arjuna arjuna vishada yoga

IN WHICH THE STAGE IS SET FOR THE CONVERSATION

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