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chimney sweep heaven

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louvre

Love: The Tale of King Bhartrihari

The complete story of Bhartrihari is not just a tale of a king, but also that of a lover, a poet, a grammarian, a philosopher, and an ascetic. This is only a small part of that tale.

One fine day, a devout Brahmin and his wife came to the court of King Bhartrihari, and supplicating before him, presented him with a strange looking piece of fruit. The Brahmin explained he had spent most of his life undertaking austere penances and meditations in praise of the Gods, and pleased with him, the Gods had blessed him and granted him this fruit, the amar-phal. Any one person who ate the fruit would have the gift of immortality. But the Brahmin did not desire to live forever while his wife, whom he loved dearly, should grow old and die, and therefore he had come to offer the fruit to the King.

The King was very pleased with this present, and rewarded the couple generously. But once they had left and the fruit was in his possession, he became uncertain of what to do with it. The obvious thing would be to eat it. To have the gift of immortality would make him equal in stature to the Gods! Further, was he not a good and just ruler, he reasoned, and therefore it would be for the betterment of his kingdom and subjects if he were to reign indefinitely.

But something in his heart stopped him from eating the fruit. It was love. Bhartrihari was obsessively in love with his Queen, and he could not bear the thought of living without her. It would be better that she should live, and he have the comfort of knowing that at least she would be with him the rest of his life. Better a few moments with her, he thought, than an eternity without! He went and gave his Queen the fruit.

The young Queen felt the same way too, but not about her husband. She was having an affair with the King's handsome and trusted advisor, who made her swoon with his suggestive glances. She accepted the fruit from her husband, but secretly gave it to the King's advisor.

The King's Advisor heart though was set on another woman. He was hopelessly enthralled with a long-eyed and slender-waisted poetry-reciting Courtesan of his acquaintance, and he wanted to impress her more than anything else in the world. He gave her the fruit.

Now the Courtesan had met and known many rich and great men, and she despised almost all of them, including the King's Advisor. But there was one man whose kindness and concern for others had captured her heart, and though her feelings remained unspoken, she was very much in love. She went and gave the fruit to the man she admired - the good King Bhartrihari.

Bhartrihari accepted the fruit from the Courtesan, and understood what had happened. He saw the infidelity of his wife, and also the love of the courtesan for him. He concluded:

She who is always in my thoughts prefers
Another man, and does not think of me.
Yet he seeks for another's love, not hers;
And some poor girl is grieving for my sake.
Why then, the devil take
Both her and him; and love; and her; and me

That night, Bhartrihari put on the robes of an ascetic and stole away, leaving behind his wife, his palace and his kingdom. Some say he never returned, renouncing all things and becoming a great philosopher and poet. Or less romantically, a grammarian. Some suggest that Bhartrihari was a man who could not make up his mind whether to follow the sensual or ascetic path. Each time he chose one path, he would see its deficiences and the attractions of the other. And so he would move back and forth from pleasure and renunciation. Who can say they know for sure the truth!

***

The tale of King Bhartrihari continues a haphazard survey of that universal predicament - the unreliability of love. We have previously seen in The Madness of King Shahryar, a different reaction from Bhartrihari's to a lover's infidelity. Poets appear a particularly miserable lot. Whether the Thabri, or Momin, or Ghalib, or Raaz, all their relationships seem to end badly. We saw failed romances wherever we looked, but we kept looking anyway. Sadly, we have not had time to correct the gender bias in our choices. We would have particularly liked to sympathise with poor Sita, whose husband Ram would tastelessly demand proof of fidelity from her after she had been kidnapped by a villain! We have wonderered whether monasticism isn't a better option, but like Bhartrihari, couldn't make up our mind. Not all love is so fickle though. We have sympathised with moths, who hurl themselves at their flame. We have admired the great romance of Hir and Ranjha, and sighed over our love of Madhuri. Ominously, all these great romances also end badly. In conclusion, we are no wiser than when we started, which was not very wise at all.


***

A-A talk Nehru’s heirs

Amar: You know that West Wing episode with Nehru’s granddaughter as the Indian Prime Minister?

Anthony: Yeah.

Amar: Was she also white and called Mountbatten?

Anthony: She wasn’t shown, but I don’t follow.

Amar: Nehru had only one child, Indira. Whose children in turn were Sanjay and Rajiv. So, for there to be another grandchild, there would either need to be illegitimate offspring of Indira, or another illegitimate offspring for Nehru. Indira would be hard-pressed to conceal a pregnancy for months. Who else was Nehru's woman? Mountbatten. So any offspring would have been born to the Mountbatten family, and would then be partly white. So in the West Wing universe, India would have had a Mountbatten as Prime Minister.

goddesses

Some religions are very attractively packaged. Who wouldn't want to be a believer?!

Irritative Fight-Club Syndrome

Reading chapter 13 of Fight club while suffering from a bout of Irritative Bowel Syndrome (IBS) can be a traumatic experience, but not regrettable.

IBS as defined in google searches as ‘An irritative and inflammatory disorder of the intestine.’

IBS as experienced by one of the brothers AAA – ‘irritant pain in butt- hole spreading down the right hip and ending on the right testicle’

To top it, reading fight club to distract one self from the pain is even worse. If the description of the IBS above is not foul enough, then fight club fills in the sadistic blanks.

IBS combined with fits of giggling at Tyler waiting/serving tables in hotel, at the soap cakes made from the discarded fat of Marla’s mother and the narrator checking Marla’s boobs for breast cancer while recalling his childhood memory of his penis being frozen by science students. – Hilarious.


Fight Club is a good read and highly recommended by the brothers AAA.

The Age of Kali

***
From:Amar
To: Akbar, Anthony
Date: September 12, 2006

Have you heard the dystopian novel of terror set in the alternate sub-continent? The novel begins in alternate Bengal in the summer of 2007, when a girl is born with six arms. the doctors insist she is simply a genetic freak, but the devout are convinced she is an incarnation of Durga....

***
Reuters News Agency, November 14
Bihar villagers worship infant as Mother Goddess

KOLKATA (Reuters) - Thousands of people are flocking a village in Bihar to worship a baby girl born with rare tumours as they believe she is a reincarnation of Durga, the multi-armed Hindu mother goddess, police said on Tuesday....

"People believe the girl is their deliverer, but experts say it is a case of congenital defect," said Amit Jain, a senior Bihar police officer.

***

the moth and the flame

One must have sympathy for the flame. How can the flame understand the effect on the moth of their encounter? The flame is unaffected, how would it know the moth's hurt?

***

Munni Begum's La Pila De Saqiya though takes the other view:

Jo jalata hai kisiko, khud bhi jalta hai zaroor,
shamma bhi jalti rahi, parvana jal jane ke baad

What scorches another, surely also burns itself
the flame continued to burn after the moth was burnt

So long, Friedman

Most of you would know by now that Milton Friedman has passed away at 94. What can we say that has not already been said by Brad DeLong, Marginal Revolutionaries or Greg Mankiw?

I can note my personal thoughts.

Like many of their generation (born in the late 1940s, Baby Boomers in the West, Midnight’s Children in Desh), my parents thought socialism was the way of the future. They were involved in ‘people’s revolutions’ — but this was before I was born. By the time of my first memories, their revolutionary zeal had subsided, but socialist literature and Soviet books still abounded in our house. I learnt Russian folklore before Desi ones, and read Lenin for kids at seven.

Then, by the end of the 1980s, like many others of their generation, my parents underwent an ideological conversion. Faced with the failures of ‘socialism’ (or ‘social justice’ in the Kleptocratic Republic of Desh), they accepted the logic of the market. That was when I first heard of Milton Friedman. Or rather, I saw a signed photo of a Desi uncle with him — the photo was placed in a very prominent place in the lounge shelf, right next to (I think) the aunty’s wedding photo. I later discovered that Friedman’s writings played a large role in the intellectual conversion of many of that generation.

Galbraith, not Friedman, was the first economist I heard of. But it was Friedman whose ideas I found appealing. Free to choose was watched with a bunch of nerdy brothers at the same time as The Age of Uncertainty, and liberty was chosen almost unanimously (you can watch it here or here — the uninitiated might want to read this). Then I read Capitalism and Freedom, whose opening contains these electrifying words:

President Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country." Neither half of that statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society.

I can note what Friedman said about India half a century ago (hat tip: The Indian economy blog.

He was optimistic:

… [T]he fundamental problem for India is the improvement of the physical and technical quality of her people, the awakening of sense of hope, the weakening of rigid social and economic arrangements, the introduction of flexibility of institutions and mobility (of) people, the opening tip of the social and economic ladder (to) people of all kinds and classes. And what … makes one feel that India is on the move and will continue (to) move, is that so much is being done and such a good beginning has been made on this fundamental problem of creating the human and social basis for a dynamic and progressive economy.

But he was also pessimistic:

Favor and harassment are counterparts in the Indian economic scheme. There is no significant impairment of the willingness of Indian capitalists to invest in their industries, except in the specific industries where nationalization has been announced, but they are not always willing to invest and take the risks inherent in the free enterprise system. They want the Government to support their investment and when it refuses they back out and cry "Socialism".

Half a century on, both paragraphs are still relevant. And his fights for individual freedom also remain relevant. To spend is to tax — this is still relevant, in West as well as in Desh. Money matters — this is still relevant, ask Ben Bernanke. Flat taxes and school vouchers are still not reality in most countries, and futile wars on drugs and ‘vices’ are still waged. Friedman will be missed, but his work will remain important for a long time to come.

The Storm

It came without warning. The day certainly had offered no hint of the night to follow. The sphere of gold had rolled lazily across unblemished turquoise. The air had been suffocatingly still.

In that short twilight period when the sun has disappeared behind the mountain walls, but before the birds of the day have ceased their noisy chatter, a delicious cool breeze started to blow. The more fortunate men sat in verandahs or balconies nursing a whisky or gin. Children played hide and seek with friends and from their mothers.

There was no moon that night, and only the shepherds high up on the mountains noticed the dark storm clouds approaching from the south. The town’s inhabitants noticed nothing, for they were not expecting anything. The rainy season was after all still two months away.

Around ten thirty, when dinners had been eaten and dishes washed and stacked, and most families were sitting together in bed (because the television is always in the bedroom, not the living room), watching on cable television the latest episode of that hill-station murder mystery cum horror story which had gripped everyone’s imagination, the lights went out. The younger children shrieked in possibly feigned terror, the older ones groaned loudly in frustration. The adults kept quiet and said nothing. They knew from long experience the futility of getting worked up about things beyond their control. And electricity outages were a common enough occurrence.

The households without children noticed it a second before the others. The wind outside was becoming louder and more aggressive. With a sudden sense of urgency, women felt in the dark with their feet for slippers. They had sensed what was coming.

Weather can change rapidly up on the hill-stations. A gentle breeze will suddenly turn ferocious, blowing dust and leaves everywhere. Especially into everyone’s houses. In the time it takes to close the windows, the dust storm dies down. There is a moment of complete silence. Then the rain starts. Raindrops and hailstones first fall, and then crash violently onto the corrugated metal rooftops. The wind picks up again, except now it is cold and clean and wet. Suddenly and spectacularly the night sky is lit a whitish purple, you see the whole valley below you, and then a second later darkness while your ears, already under assault, are deafened by a belated roar of thunder.

It was such a storm that fell that night. It raged through the night with such uncommon ferocity that everyone’s hearts were filled with fear. Children clung to their mothers, sometimes in competition with their fathers. Married people held their spouses close (except for Mrs. Frangipani, whose husband was out of town and who was holding her hairdresser) while the unmarried cursed their luck. Even the stray dogs huddled together for warmth and comfort.

The residents of Jannat Al-Firdaus eventually fell into an uneasy sleep. A number of them dreamt that they were being washed away by the rain, which carried them all the way to the ocean where they drowned.

A-A-A on Don

Amar

Excellent. A stylish, sexy and contemporary update of the convoluted, absurd, inane but ultimately cool bollywood thriller genre, revelling in its excesses and cliches. I expected no less from the director of our old favourite, Dil Chahta Hai. Some specific comparisons are listed below.

Shah Rukh Khan is a much better Don than Amitabh Bachchan. Bachchan is, however, a much better Vijay and Khan is a poor imitation.

The old Khaaike pan banaras wala song is great — it is more fun watching a bunch of village oddballs dancing than all those semi-naked gyrating chicks one gets these days.

Both Priyanka Chopra and Zeenat Aman are very good, but Aman is sexier.

The ending is the best bit of the new film. It rescues us from the clichéd happy-ending of the original and presents a more wicked and delightful possibility. I thoroughly enjoyed the twist.

Again, I think this is a great remake. What I missed most about the old Don are: Bachchan as Vijay, the fat pot-bellied Punditji dancing for the Banaras song, and Zeenat Aman in that sexy nurse costume.

Finally, I want to note how we are first introduced to the character of Vijay. This happens when he is seen singing and leading celebrations at the Hindu festival of Ganesh Chaturthi. In fine Bollywood secularism style, you will observe that immediately to Vijay's side are two Sikhs with patkas, and next to them, two Muslims with prayer caps, all singing and dancing together in communal harmony.

Akbar

Frankly, I didn’t find Don that good. Stylistically, it’s a rip off of Face/Off and the Bourne movies. Shah Rukh Khan acted better as Don when he did not open his mouth. I reckon he fared better as Vijay only with the street dancer scene.

Perhaps the experience in cinema would have given me more pleasure. Perhaps my point of view then would have been different. But all I have are pirate CDs, with many scenes deleted — result, the plot is lost when Khan stops to admire Priyanka Chopra bathing in the pool.

Also the Banaras wala song, well it was not convincing enough to have me believe that the character is actually don not Vijay. But wait, does that mean that Shah Rukh Khan was a convincing Vijay?

Observations from other regular Bollywood viewers: the new version is dull compared to the original; Khan over acts; and the ending, well it is not quite easy to understand what the ending means.

Anthony

In 1978, Vijay earned 11.75 rupee after singing the whole day. In 2006, he earns 3,000 rupee in three days — that’s 1,000 rupee a day. This is an 85-fold (or 8,411%) increase. According to the IMF data, prices have gone up by 7¼ to 8½ fold (or a maximum of 740%) depending on the measure. That is, the real wage of a busker has increased 10-fold in the past 28 years. Now, in the long run, real wage can only increase if there is an improvement in productivity, and it is hard to see exactly what revolutionary technological change could have occurred in the busking industry. But one can invoke the Balassa-Samuelson effect and argue that perhaps there has been a 10-fold productivity increase in the industries where Vijay could have worked had he not been busking. If this explanation is right, then according to the movie, the living standard in Bombay has increased 10-fold in these years, compared with a mere 3-fold increase in the country’s per capita income. Regardless of what Bhagwati says, that kind of rise in inequality is bound to cause trouble.

But enough about economics, let’s talk about the movie. I have to say, there is something rather fundamentally irrational about the plot (in both versions, but more stark in the new one) — why does Narang not kill Vijay/Don after the accident? Vardhan wants Vijay/Don to infiltrate Singhania’s gang, sure. Don wants to escape, right. Why does Narang keep him alive? What good is an amnesiac Don to the gang?

Okay, I’m still being rather tedious about what was actually a rather enjoyable movie. A few thoughts on what Amar and Akbar said. Perhaps it is intentional that Khan didn’t portray Vijay well — Khan was playing Don who was playing Vijay, perhaps the idea is to make Vijay non-convincing. I liked the idea of Desi diaspora in Malaysia replacing the oddball villagers in the Banaras wala song. As for the ending, well perhaps this leaves the door open for a sequel, or even a trilogy. The title of this movie is Don: the chase begins again. Perhaps the sequel will be the chase continues and the last one will be the chase ends. Perhaps we’ll see Priyanka Chopra kicking arse in the sequels. She’d need help — perhaps from other cool gangsters and rogue cops. Now that would be cool!

"Iqbal", Koi Mahram Apna Nahin Jahaan Mein
Maalum Kya Kisi Ko Dard-e-Nihaan Hamaara

We Do Not Have A Confidant In The World, "Iqbal"
No-one Knows What Sorrows Lurk Within Our Heart

- Mohammad Iqbal, translation from here

Once upon a time in India

Akbar owns a shady belly-dancing night-club. Here revolutionaries and sin-cravers and our own heroes mingle in the dark shadows, and in hushed tones they discuss secret and diabolical machinations.

It is this nightclub where the scene is set. It’s down a side alley in a neighbourhood of sin, and then underground down a flight of stairs to where the noise and music and the scent of kebabs come from. Inside, a voluptuous temptress dances seductively on a raised platform to earthy and sensuous music. Men crowd around the stage and cheer her on. The lighting is all wicks and candles, and the air is smoky dense and hallucinatory with the dark plumes of intoxicating effluvium from the hookahs many of the seated men are smoking hashish in. This is the lawless part of town, and there is that overwhelming scent of danger and transgression everywhere.

A well-dressed man in a pinstriped double-breasted suit walks into the room. He looks around uncertainly. He has been here before, but he comes rarely these days, and looks quite out of place in both dress and demeanour. His presence causes a stir among some of the more hot blooded and less informed mujahedin and gadrs.

Fortunately the proprietor notices his presence immediately, and rushes over, greeting him warmly. Some of the rowdier elements, initially tempted to greet the babu in their own distinct fashion, back away, returning to their cliques and corners.

The well-dressed man is Anthony — a sycophantic British boot-licker by day, ideological revolutionary passing on secret information to the good guys by night. He used to write articles urging constitutional reforms in his younger, university days. He writes less now, because he came to see the peaceful writing classes for the largely effete lazy goodfornothings they are.

While the seductive temptress draws roars of acclaims, the proprietor escorts the brown sahib through a nondescript door. The next room is where the gambling is done. There are tables where men throw dice. And then there are tables where fearsome men with blood-shot eyes glare at each other, in between unending games of cards of course. Other men lie on couches, inhaling noxious fumes and holding whispered conversations. The proprietor discreetly motions to one of the men here. It is the assassin. Noting his two friends, he excuses himself and rises immediately if shakily, embracing the babu warmly.

The assassin is Amar. He survived the massacre at Jallianwalla Bagh, though none of his family did. Since then, vengeance is the only thing that has kept him alive. The British Authority in the city knows of him as a minor member of this revolutionary cell. What they don’t know is his past and the secret that he is also Azad, the scourge of the foreign scum. There is a 50,000-rupee bounty on his head. Of course, no one really knows who they are looking for.

One of the waitresses, scantily-clad, suddenly appears through the door. She rushes over and whispers something to Akbar. Anthony notices the change in the contour of the proprietor’s face. Amar notices it too, and his hand already reaches the pistol hidden under his cassock. But Akbar returns to normalcy quickly. They return to the previous hall, and over to the other end, to the corridor behind the beaded curtains where the kitchens and back rooms are. He leads them through to the end of the corridor, past the kitchen and the storerooms, then left another corridor, and down a set of stairs to a lone door. He unlocks the door, and the three men enter.

Mid-Term Elections Dhamaka Special Coverage! Bush is Anti-Christ!

On the occasion of the US Mid-Term Elections, against the background of an expected backlash against Bush the Anti-Christ, by popular demand if not popular acclaim, we revisit the alter-events of two years ago, in the days leading up to the alternate US Presidential Elections of 2004:

STARRING - BUSH AS ANTI-CHRIST!
The Revised History of 2004 as seen by Amar Akbar Anthony (hopelessly dated, incomplete, but Anthony likes it and made me post this)

this was written days before the 2004 US elections

this should happen:

The Vatican announces an important and immediate global press conference. as the world watches, it is revealed they have recently stumbled across ancient texts which reveal conclusively that bush is the antichrist.

then it should rain frogs and the skies turn red and it rains blood.
***

then dick cheney goes on live to refute these charges...but he's in hawaii and all confused about the time zones, and he doesn't realise it's midnight...and as the world watches he turns into a werewolf/vampire who then attacks everybody.

meanwhile, osama should turn up at mecca with his followers, give a rousing speech and barricade himself inside.

what else?
***
oh yes, osama says he is controlling mobile nukes - nukes which will destroy infidels - unless america converts to islam and israel and all of muslim world is vacated by jews/americans.

clearly desperate times call for a hero. is kerry our man? No flip-flopping way! Kerry is going through a personal crisis of his own - a terrible secret which cannot be revealed now. The world waits, but kerry dithers, uncertain of his destiny.

while we wait for kerry, action is required. a new hero.

step forward saddam hussein.
***
The moody Saddam makes a declaration. "I will stop both the anti-christ and osama! But only once I finish writing my latest romance novel."
***
while these amazing events take place, a humble accountant sits at his desk in a dull colourless office. his boss frowns at him, and the story sadly gets suppressed for several hours while cbsnews verifies its authenticity.
***
It was earlier discovered that bush is antichrist and cheney a vampire and werewolf combined.

Parts of Liberal media jumps to bush's defence, arguing that antichrist is a persecuted minority, and anyway church is separate from state, so the anti-christ's religious agenda is no concern! Meanwhile, fox news argues blood sucking vampirism is simply laissez-faire capitalism, the true american way. Anyone who doesn't agree is not only not a patriot, but ever worse, probably a communist liberal homosexual in favour of gay marriage! Luckily traditional red neck america isn't taking any of this crap, and marches with their 2nd amendment shotguns and assault guns to white house.

But cheney hasn't been doing nothing this four years. Halliburton has contaminated army's food supply in last four years, and the US Military are all vampire zombies, controlled to do their master's bidding! Bush declares a state of emergency, dismisses congress, and the military takeover the country.

There is further crisis when it is discovered that the flu vaccines also contain the zombie virus. Fortunately most of the recipients are old people, and easily shot. Thank god for vaccine crisis !
***
Having suspended democratic government and ruling by military force, bush administration continues to be in the seat of power.

bush comes on tv and responds in open defiance to osama's ultimatum:
We will win this crusade, Bin Laden. If you think you can threaten America by nuking the democratic strongholds of New York, Los Angeles and Boston, then I say Bring it On! Do your worst !

My fellow americans, we must defend ourselves against this bearded menace...saddam hussein, osama bin laden, al gore after the election...henceforth all beards are illegal.

And oh yes, the bombing of Mecca will commence in 5 minutes"
***
meanwhile, out there in number 10, the prime minister sits behind a closed
door.... in the commons there is commotion.... and in the cabinet room there
is confusion... to be sure, there's confusion in mr blair's mind too - see,
he's growing horns, and his feet are turning into hoofs....
***
fidel castro isn't happy with any of this....that son of a bush anti christ wants to ban the beard on the grounds of an axis of beard evil, but Castro can't even make the list when saddam and al gore can! He angrily chomps on a romeo y julietta cigar and plans revenge.

what will castro do?
***
american airplanes reach mecca. they circle hungrily. the believers below pray fervently to the guardian. al-jazeera captures the whole event live, and the whole muslim world sees what happens next week.

just at the moment the missiles are launched, four holy qurans appear in the sky. they shoot out lasers, destroying the infidel planes and missiles. the believers and the mecca are safe.

Everyone jumps up and cheers "Allah -u Akbar !!"

***

This is just the beginning though...what heinous act will the Anti-Christ do next? what sinister machinations are being planned by werewolf/vampire Cheney? How is Saddam getting on with his novel? Do the Axis of Beards really have weapons of mass destruction? How will the seige of Mecca end? Stay tuned and keep waiting...or better yet, buy Amar Akbar Anthony a drink and a smoke in a dodgy Amsterdam cafe to learn what happens next!

The Bhagavad Gita, or The Krishna Con

On the battle-plains of Kurukshetra, shortly before the Great Battle of the Mahabharata is about to begin, Arjuna is overcome by self-doubt. He thinks it is wrong to fight, to take part in the killing and the destruction of his own family and kinsmen. Krishna intercedes, and through a masterpiece of oratory, convinces him of the righteousness of war. The exchange between Arjuna and Krishna forms the basis of the Bhagavad Gita.

The Bhagavad Gita is a work of great lyrical genius, considered by many a source of moral and spiritual instruction and inspiration. But it may also have been a con job, carried out by Krishna on the unwitting Arjuna to ensure he takes part in the battle ahead.

Krishna wraps up his arguments in the language of righteousness, but there is another possibility: that Krishna uses the language of religion only to disguise a more pragmatic agenda, that the veneer of dharma and duty is only a clever polemicist's tactic, and Krishna has no real intention of trying to provide Arjuna meaningful moral instruction or guidance.

************************************************************************************
Example 1: The What Will Everybody Say? Argument

Krishna says the following -
The wise grieve not for those who live, and they grieve not for those who die - for life and death shall pass away (2:11)

From the world of the senses, Arjuna, comes heat and comes cold, and pleasure and pain...Arise above them, strong soul (2:14)

The man...beyond pleasure and pain, is worthy of life in Eternity (2:15)

Be in peace in pleasure and pain, in gain and in loss, in victory or in the loss of battle. In this peace there is no sin (2:38)

Do thy work...free from selfish desires, be not moved in success or in failure. (2:48)

Let us without reservation accept the above comments as sincere and well-meant. So Arjuna should be indifferent between
1. living and dying
2. heat and cold
3. pleasure and pain
4. gain and loss
5. victory and loss
6. success and failure

Arjuna is instructed to treat with equanimity the most fundamental experience of his life - this is a war which will see most of his own family - his guardian, his teachers, his son killed - but he should see beyond life and death. The pleasures and experiences of the senses, the joy of victory or gain or the sorrow of loss and suffering, even the feeling of heat or cold, he should rise beyond them all, treating them as one, resolute, indifferent, his mind at peace.

And yet, Krishna doesn't hesitate to also suggest in the same breath the following:

Men will tell of thy dishonour... And to a man who is in honour, dishonour is worse than death (2:34)

And thine enemies will speak of thee in contemptuous words of ill-will and derision, pouring scorn upon thy courage. Can there be for a warrior a more shameful fate? (2:36)

In 2:34, Krishna seems to be suggesting to Arjuna that people slandering him behind his back is worse than his family and hundreds of thousands of other people being killed. And while Arjuna should aim to be indifferent to the most fundamental and important aspects of his life, noticing neither hot or cold, not affected by the death of his wife or son, it would be unbearable to have people calling him names!

************************************************************************************

Example 2: The It is For Your Own Benefit Argument

Krishna says: See the comments in Example 1. Additionally, he also says

Set they heart upon thy work, but never on its rewards. Work not for a reward...(2:47)

Word done for a reward is much lower...How poor those who work for a reward! (2:49)

Krishna counsels Arjuna should fight because it's his duty as a warrior, without considering the rewards of doing his duty. But who earlier mentioned the rewards of doing one's duty in the first place? Let's see....

There is a war that opens the doors of heaven, Arjuna! Happy the warriors whose fate is to fight such war. (2:32)

In death thy glory in heaven, in victory thy glory on earth. (2:37)

If one should never do one's duty for the sake of the reward, then why mention the reward in the first place? What are the warriors meant to be happy about, why should Krishna twice remind Arjuna of the rewards of doing his duty? Another odd passage, with Krishna alternating between telling Arjuna he should do his duty without thought for its rewards, and telling him, Arjuna, think of the rewards!

***********************************************************************************

Are we to believe that all the above lines are mutually consistent and compatible? Or that Krishna was not clever enough to be aware of the contradictions in what he was saying? One could alternatively believe that getting called names is a more profound and serious matter than issues of life and death. Given the difficulties with all of these options, it seems conceivable to suggest that Krishna was a brilliant orator and polemicist, fully aware of his own hypocrisy. It was his intention to use every argument at his disposal, both honest and dishonest, to convince Arjuna to fight, even if he had to alternate between suggesting everyone getting killed was no big deal to saying a moment later that getting called names was. It certainly seems no more implausible an explanation than believing the Supreme Personality of Godhead can't even string a speech together without it contradicting itself.

Anyway, good night everybody, and as the stickers and posters in this neighbourhood say these days, "Say Gouranga! And Be Happy!"

Footnote:
All translated lines are taken out of preference from The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Juan Mascaro, Penguin Classics. Other translations including the one at asitis.com were also consulted.









moo....