Reading The Bhagavad Gita Book One

TITLE: Reading the Bhagavad Gita Book One CHANNEL: Wes Cecil DATE: 2026-05-01 ---TRANSCRIPT--- Thanks to our patreon members for helping to make this episode possible and we’re now available on all the major podcasting platforms. You can find more information at the links below. Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to reading the Bhagavad Gita. And today we start with the first chapter which is very short and very focused and don’t get used to that. But like I mentioned I want to start with this and then set the background and sort of give some sense of context of what’s going on and why all this matters. And the first the exciting that like the incredibly evocative opening of the Gita which is I think one reason why it has become so popular and so famous because it is this sort of gripping beginning. And so here we have Arjuna and Krishna in their chariot and they ride out in the field of battle. And you get this amazing scene. And he says and Krishna’s this is this is 21 section 21 of the first chapter of the Gita. And again I’m reading from the Penguin classic which I think is a great one to go with for various reasons but I will add some corrections and some not really corrections that’s a wrong word. Some elaborations to help understand and I and you’ll see why I mean this is so complicated and so rich as I mentioned this is this read along is really just an introduction to a world because it is so rich and so vast. So anyway with all that behind we say you know chapter 21 here or section 21 Krishna says and spoke these words to Krishna. Arjuna says drive my chariot Krishna immortal and place it between the two armies that I may see those warriors who stand there eager for battle with whom I must now fight at the beginning of this war. That I may see those who have come here eager and ready to fight in their desire to do the will of the evil son of Dhritarashtra. And again apologize I will murder these names I apologize there’s it’s just I even studied Sanskrit and I still can’t do these names so when Krishna heard the words of Arjuna he drove their glorious chariot and placed it between the two armies. And facing Bhishma and Drona and the other royal rulers he said see Arjuna the armies of the Kurus gathered here on this field of battle. Then Okay one note there. The Kurus are is the whole family that’s facing each other and so this is the the battle for of the tradition or the heritage of the Kurus. And so in in the Gita and in the Mahabharata generally this is referred to as the field of the the field of battle of the Kurus is one word and they’re translating this as see the armies of the Kurus gathered here on this field of battle. And I think it’s Kurukshetra in um in the Sanskrit it’s a one it’s one word. Then Arjuna saw on both armies fathers grandfathers sons grandsons fathers of wives uncles masters brothers companions and friends. When Arjuna thus saw the kinsmen face to face in both lines of battle he was overcome by grief and despair and thus he spoke with sinking heart. Arjuna says when I see all my kinsmen Krishna who have come here on this field of battle life goes from my limbs and they sink and my mouth is sear and dry a trembling overcomes my body and my hair shudders in horror. My great bow falls from my hands and the skin over my flesh is burning. I’m no longer able to stand because my mind is whirling and wandering. And I see forebodings of evil Krishna. I cannot foresee any glory if I kill my own kinsmen in the sacrifice of battle because I have no wish for victory Krishna nor for a kingdom nor for its pleasures. How can we want a kingdom Govinda or its pleasures or even life when those for whom we want a kingdom and its pleasures and all joys of life are here on the field of battle about to give up their wealth and their life. Facing us in the field of battle are teachers fathers and sons grandsons grandfathers wives brothers mothers brothers and fathers of wives. These I do not wish to slay even if I myself am slain not even for the kingdom of the three worlds how much less for a kingdom of the earth. If we kill all these evil men evil shall fall fall upon us. What joy in their death could we have O Janardana mover of souls I cannot therefore kill my own kinsmen the sons of King Dhritarashtra the brother of my own father. What happened what happiness could we ever enjoy if we kill our own kinsmen in battle? And even they with their minds over come by greed see no evil in the destruction of a family see no sin in the treasury to their friends. Shall we not who see the evil of destruction shall we not restrain from the terrible deed? The destruction of a family destroys its rituals of righteousness and with the righteous rituals are no more unrighteousness overcomes the whole family. When righteousness disorder when unrighteousness disorder prevails the women sin and are impure and when the women are not pure Krishna there’s disorder of caste and social confusion. Those evil deeds of the destroyers of a family which caused the social disorder destroy the righteousness of the birth and the ancestral rituals of righteousness. And have we not heard that hell is waiting for those whose familial rituals of righteousness are no more? O day of darkness what evil spirit moved our minds when for the sake of an earthly kingdom we came to this field of battle ready to kill our own people. Better for me indeed if the sons of Dhritarashtra with arms in hand found me unarmed unresisting and killed me in the struggle of war. Thus spoke Arjuna in the field of battle and letting fall his bow and arrow he sank down in his chariot his soul overcome by despair and grief. That is the setting. This is the great amazing opening to the Gita. And to understand what happens next is is the answer to this question and it’s well it’s not one answer it’s like 11 answers to this question. And is the exploration of this theme set at its highest pitch that impels this this narrative I think gives it it force because what a great question. Boiled down to or or or one way to read this not the only way but one way to read this is to say for what purpose would one ride out and kill one’s own family members? How and why would one do this? It’s it’s just a great question right? Like let’s just boil it down. What ethical purpose what goal what value what gain could there be that a person of wisdom and of ethics could say that’s right yes I’m going to kill my family. I’m going to kill my relatives. I’m going to kill my friends cuz this is the thing to do. And notice the pitch and he says even if they don’t see the evil they’re doing I do. Like wait a second I’m the one who sees the evil of what’s happening. How can I participate in it? I don’t want to see my brothers fight my nephews and nieces and uncles and cousins. I don’t and my my you know I I don’t want to see that. Why would I do this? And what a I guess I you know you ask ethical questions all the this is you know really like pitch it to the highest pitch you can. So that’s the opening very simple very direct but to understand how we we got here of course you need the entirety of the Mahabharata which is a little bit more than I can sum up in a single session here but functionally and basically it’s pretty direct. Um what has happened is you’ve had you have two um two sets it’s all from a family again from the history of the the Kurus and you have the Pandavas which are the five sons of the King Pandu. Um and he was under a curse that prevented him from having children naturally and I will forget set the curse aside again all these just go layers upon layers upon layers so remember we’re just hitting the surface here. So having to summarize by the way should mention if you’re reading the Mahabharata in a one volume excerpt let’s say it’s 7 800 pages of which there are many versions. Um give usually they’re somewhere around that that length. Notice that this is an excerpt of a work that is I think the English edition is like 18 volumes so it’s 1/10 let’s just say roughly of the full length. And the Gita usually occurs about halfway to 60 to 70% of the way into the text. It’s really this fulcrum. Right so you’ve had in even in the excerpted text you’ve had hundreds of pages of background. And that itself is a distillation of something that has thousands of pages of background before you get to this text. So there’s layers upon layers of history and inference and every passage is referring to other passages. So it’s sort of this phenomenally rich environment when you get to get to this section. So anyway the King of Pandu his wives could not have children naturally, and so uh they they have have the children of the gods. And so you have the brothers uh Yudishthira who is the son of Dharma and Bhima the son of Vayu, Arjuna is the son of Indra, uh and Nakula and uh Sahadeva who are the sons of Ashvins of the Ashvins. Um and so even the characters themselves are the incarnations of gods and godly powers. So so first the brothers themselves who are on the side of the Pandu, which is where Krishna is fighting. Um they they are sort of the incarnations, representations, the children of the gods. And this is why if you’ve ever read the Hindu classics, it’s hilarious because everyone’s like, “Oh, you know, Jesus is the son of a god and you know, what what a what an amazing event.” I’m like, “Oh man, you should read the Hindu classics. They’ve got hundreds of these people. There’s they’re everywhere.” It’s a constant mixing and reimagining and renegotiation, and you just realize how I mean, you I know it’s a sort of an a grand oversimplification, but a desert people who have who feel dry and and not rich and very spare can have only one god incarnated one time. Uh but the the Hindu tradition, which is a rich land with with uh many peoples and many languages and many cultures, a flourishing land uh has just lots of that. It’s just I don’t know. It Christianity just really does read a little sad after you’ve read the Hindu classics. You’re like, “Oh, you guys really are impoverished. You kind of lack imagination.” It’s I don’t know. It’s there’s just so much more. It’s it’s so much wealthier in that sense uh of richness and fullness. And so you have this whole set of incarnated brothers, the Pandus who are siding on one side. On the other side you have the uh the Kauravas. They’re they’re the antagonists. And so they are the the brothers of the king um steal the kingdom functionally and and uh they do everything in the Mahabharata to try and kill the Pandu brothers. And they poison them and they trick them and they they’re just evil. And there’s a hundred of them. Um And they again born through a magical process. They’re all born at once or a hundred Well, there’s a hundred Well, there’s a sister, so I guess it was a hundred and one, but uh there’s a hundred brothers that really matter in this case. And they are fighting to take the kingdom from the rightful Pandu brothers. And they exile them and this is again what this is what’s going on in the Mahabharata. And so now finally we’ve got to the place where the the Pandus have realized there’s no way that they can regain their kingdom without actually fighting the brothers. But notice this is all with one family. So we have this entire family there. This is, you know, the king and the five sons from the two wives and then we have the hundred um strangely we have the hundred brothers from from one wife of the two other brothers. It’s it’s complicated, but basically it’s it’s a inter family squabble. And the rightful kings, the rightful inheritors, the Pandu brothers, Arjuna, are facing the evil uh hundred brothers who are wrong. And notice it is the ethical five are outnumbered by the um many. So it’s sort of the powers of righteousness versus the power of unrighteousness as we go into battle here. So this uh sets it sets the background a little bit um for you there in in in in why this is a family squabble rather than simply just a um uh what would you call it? A It’s not just a political It’s not just a political squabble. It’s it’s a family and ethical squabble. However, that is only one level of what’s going on here. Another another level of what’s going on here is that as they go into battle, there isn’t just um the children of gods, you also have other human incarnations of gods on both sides. For the Kauravas, you have uh Bhishma who’s there, you know, basically their big warrior. And this is Vasu. And you have uh the uh Bhishmapati who’s the sort of What would you call him? Sort of the counselor of the gods. I’m going to say counselor of the gods. And you have uh Surya who is the sun god. And you have um Shiva, I think, and and Rudra. Yeah, Rudra is Shiva incarnated. So you have um not So you don’t have the gods on one side. You have all kinds of gods on both sides. And so this is sort of a again the participation of many gods. So the clarity isn’t just like, “Oh, all the gods are on one side and all the sinning awful people are on the other side.” No, it’s not it’s it’s never going to be that black and white or that simple when you’re reading the Mahabharata, which makes it sort And then beyond that, and this is important to note, as they as they ride out um and this is in I think it’s section 19. Uh pa pa pa the flight of arrows um And he says Krishna says, “Take my chariot out.” Anyway, at one point um Krishna says in the Penguin translation, this is important to understand. He says, “Take my chariot with the image of a monkey out into the battle.” And what’s important here, and I understand why they said this instead of saying Hanuman, but the but the the the Sanskrit is Hanuman, which is hugely important cuz this is another god who is intervening here on behalf of Arjuna. And so uh he’s not present physically as an incarnation, but he is present because he kind of keeps the celestial chariot that Arjuna and Krishna are riding together. He’s kind of balancing the universe as you will. Also, you have um Vishnu is is present. And Shiva is also present. And then at there’s a moment when uh Arjuna late in the in the Gita will sort of the scales drop from his eyes and he can see the universe as it is for a moment cuz of course it would overwhelm any human mind. And what he realizes that and the entire heavenly host is watching. And so here we go. We’re rolling into battle. And we have two families facing off against each other. So this is one part of it. And you And so you have the the wrongfully uh disinherited uh Pandus fighting their evil brothers. And then you have a second part of this, which is you have the entire or not the entire, you have the huge subsection of Hindu gods and and goddesses present watching, participating, incarnated on the battle. And so it is also this interweaving of all kinds of Hindu mythological strands as the story goes forward. And so there’ll be sections that make little sense until you realize like, “Oh, wait a second. Like yeah, this is also talking about the gods and the interactions of the gods and how they experience the world and what’s happening there.” And then so so layer upon layer. And then another layer on top of this, which I mentioned briefly before, is you have different traditions. And the the Gita is an attempt to synthesize several different traditions. Usually this is presented as three, but that’s an oversimplification again cuz whenever you’re dealing with this, you’re almost always oversimplifying. So again, I apologize. Uh you have to do this. But you have the oldest tradition. I guess would you say it’s the oldest tradition? I say, “Yeah, let’s call the oldest tradition,” which is the Vedic tradition. And and Hinduism is built on this very much older history of sacrifice. And particularly sacrifice around the hor- horse. So early Vedic traditions tends seems to have been um horse-based, which means they might have been nomadic. No one knows exactly why, but it is they they may have been a nomadic force. Um but the horse was hugely important. But anyway, it’s uh a sacrificial active um uh [clears throat] religious concept and spiritual concept where one creates order, dharma, in the universe through uh duty and through sacrificial duty. That’s that’s one of the key ideas. And so when you uh think about when I mentioned that Buddhism was challenging this, it’s because the Brahmanic order is built on was built on in part fulfilling and allowing the fulfillment of the obligations that the Vedic tradition placed on everybody. And so through duty and through sacrifice achieved through the Brahmanic order, one maintained order in oneself and in the universe through dharma. And so this is one tradition. Another tradition here is the uh What do you call it? Sort of the Shramanic tradition as it’s sometimes called. And this is a later development but this is the kind of the the the monk withdrawal element that you get in Buddhism is the origins of Jainism and some people associate this I think correctly but you know it’s it’s scholarly debates here with the Upanishads right which is a later development and the and the Upanishads are like oh no you you you want to be liberated from the endless cycle of rebirth and re inhabitation and that you’re interested in karma so that this way by withdrawing from the world and not doing harm and inaction one can achieve this and so by by by withdrawal in action not through sacrifice and not through the caste system and not trying to do all the things here one vitiates eliminates the need for all of this and so of course again as I mentioned this is a huge threat to the social order the religious order and the philosophical underpinnings of the whole society and so this is going to be discussed and then you have the sort of dharmic and this is why we have Vishnu is here so the this is hugely important as the as an attempt to respond to this is to say hey how can we move on from the Vedic tradition and and in and sort of create and invest a new tradition that takes from both sides and this is the Vishnu Krishna this is what Krishna is doing in your incarnation of the Lord Vishnu and he’s like hey you’re misunderstanding you’re misunderstanding both the Vedic tradition and the Shramanic tradition when you’re thinking this way so you need to synthesize this and bring it together in a whole new conception of how to understand the world and so the arguments that were about to see is a multi-level exploration of the entire Hindu tradition sort of boiled down into this attempt to to kind of on one hand defend it from this really fundamental challenge while also incorporating elements into that and I I you could call it modernizing the old the old order the old Vedic tradition and bringing it up into facing this new new synthesis and new world and the some scholars have argued that that part of this problem may simply have come from the increasing um like as you get bigger cities as you get larger communities living together it actually becomes quite difficult to maintain the a kind of a very rigid caste system and a very rigid sacrificial system because the cost as a population grows like just the cost of maintaining those systems becomes potentially unsupportable right it becomes unbelievably difficult and so some scholars have argued that this is also a literally an attempt to modernization modernization in the sense that you get these like much larger um cities and as you get much larger cities earlier sacrificial traditions which you also see again with the Old Testament and the those traditions struggle because like oh how do you translate a nomadic a tradition of sacrifice into a sedentary agricultural environment right how do you make that transition and it’s not it’s not quick it’s not overnight but you know this is kind of the Jaspers argument about the actual axial age and that notion that as these cities develop all over the world you get similar kind of philosophical tumult and the responses are different but you get the same scent of like oh wow we really have to rethink a lot of things and so yeah so levels upon levels you get this amazing family drama that asks very fundamental ethical questions but it’s being asked within an environment where you have all the gods present and so it is weaving a huge number of mythological components into it so it’s both an exploration elaboration and a deployment of Hindu mythology into a a single relatively short narrative and then as an attempt to explore re-explain and and synthesize this tradition for a new world and for a new challenges to to carry it forward and that’s why it is both hugely important and it’s at this tipping point in in the story of the Mahabharata often generally the center it’s sort of center late center you know kind of one of the big moments that that delivers this so again as we read through understand that layers upon layers and and final note it it should be remarked that the the rise of the importance of the Gita is often placed around say the 18th century so [snorts] it was written much earlier of course and and incorporated in the Mahabharata much earlier as part of the development of the epic however as a force so centrally important it is really came about say 18th century moving maybe even a little later and this seems again again to be when you get the rise of a more coherent India you know cultural sphere it is the synthesis that the Gita offers respond to the this pressure right how do we organize more people how do we bring it under a a larger umbrella because if in if Hinduism has any key feature it is massive massive diversity so while I say it tries to modernize the Vedic tradition the Vedic tradition does not go away the Buddhist tradition does not go away it all this does not go away so what the Gita offers a sort of a vessel in which all of these can be understood reinterpreted and maintained they’re not extinguished right it’s not a it’s not a fundamentalist war to the death of all this other stuff it’s like no okay no we can hold this we can hold this all together you can see how the mistake is made you can understand that the misunderstanding and you can respect it notice there’s gods on both sides like it’s it’s in in even Arjuna says well just cuz they can’t see the evil I can why would why would I do that like let that’s fine right it’s okay for them to misunderstand but if I understand then I want to do what I think is right and so in a nutshell that is as as brief as I could make it which is not that brief I apologize but you get the this multi-layer unbelievably rich and for me unbelievably fascinating background and so everything that we get from this point forward is a reflection on and an attempt to answer that simple question that is asked what would motivate me as Arjuna as the the rightful heir to this kingdom to engage in a family civil war that is going to see me kill my uncles brothers teachers friends brothers-in-laws nephews nieces like why would I do this what possible reason and what a great question right it I just it just really puts it on the on the pitch point and and as a dramatic moment he rides out with the chariot the battle is about to begin the magic horns have been blown the gods are present the flags are waving the army is shining in the light and he says I want to see those who I’m about to kill and he sees them and then he says I don’t want my brothers to die I don’t want my friends to die on my side and I don’t want them to die on their side I don’t want anybody to die better to sit to take off my arms to sit in the middle of the field and let those who I know are wrong kill me than to engage in this evil Krishna Vishnu please explain to me why I’m wrong and every chapter that follows is an exploration of that theme so first chapter short very direct and it’s just going to get more fun from here so introduction to reading the Gita thank you very much