Page:Hindu Gods and Heroes.djvu/81

Rh the yōgīs of the Vaishṇava orders have usually been more agreeable and less ambiguous than those of the Śaiva community.

We must briefly consider now the religious teachings of the Bhagavad-gītā and the Nārāyaṇīya, and then turn to the inscriptions and contemporary literature to see whether we can find any sidelights in them. We begin with the Bhagavad-gītā, or The Lord's Song.

The Bhagavad-gītā purports to be a dialogue between the Pāṇḍava prince Arjuna and Kṛishṇa, who was serving him as his charioteer, on the eve of the great battle. In order to invent a leading motive for his teaching, the poet represents Arjuna as suddenly stricken with overwhelming remorse at the prospect of the fratricidal strife which he is about to begin. "I will not fight," he cries in anguish. Then Kṛishṇa begins a long series of arguments to stimulate him for the coming battle. He points out, with quotations from the Upanishads, that killing men in battle does not destroy their souls; for the soul is indestructible, migrating from body to body according to its own deserts. The duty of the man born in the Warrior-caste is to fight; fighting is his caste-duty, his dharma, and as such it can entail upon him no guilt if it be performed in the right spirit. But how is this to be done? The answer is the leading motive of Kṛishṇa's teaching. For the maintenance of the world it