SECOND CHAPTER

Sanjaya said:

1. To him who was thus overwhelmed with pity and sorrowing, and whose eyes were dimmed with tears, Madhusudana spoke these words:

The Blessed Lord said:

2. In such a crisis, whence comes upon thee, O Arjuna, this dejection, un-Aryalike, disgraceful and contrary to the attainment of heaven?

3. Yield not to unmanliness, O son of Pritha! Ill doth it become thee. Cast off this mean faint-heartedness and arise, O scorcher of thine enemies!

Arjuna said:

4. --But how can I, in battle, O slayer of Madhu, fight with arrows against Bhishma and Drona, who are rather worthy to be worshipped, O destroyer of foes!

5. Surely it would be better even to eat the bread of beggary in this life than to slay these great-souled masters. But if I kill them, even in this world, all my enjoyment of wealth and desires will be stained with blood.

6. And indeed I can scarcely tell which will be better, that we should conquer them, or that they should conquer us. The very sons of Dhritarashtra,--after slaying whom we should not care to live,--stand facing us.

7. With my nature overpowered by weak commiseration, with a mind in confusion about duty, I supplicate Thee. Say decidedly what is good for me. I am Thy disciple. Instruct me who have taken refuge in Thee.

8. I do not see anything to remove this sorrow which blasts my senses, even were I to obtain unrivalled and flourishing dominion over the earth, and mastery over the gods.

Sanjaya said:

9. Having spoken thus to the Lord of the senses, Gudakesha, the scorcher of foes, said to Govinda, "I shall not fight," and became silent.

10. To him who was sorrowing in the midst of the two armies, Hrishikesha, as if smiling, O descendant of Bharata! spoke these words.

The Blessed Lord said:

11. Thou hast been mourning for them who should not be mourned for. Yet thou speakest words of wisdom. The (truly) wise grieve neither for the living nor the dead.

12. It is not that I have never existed, nor thou, nor these kings. Nor is it that we shall cease to exist in the future.

13. As are childhood, youth, and old age, in this body, to the embodied soul, so

also is the attaining of another body. Calm souls are not deluded thereat.

14. Notions of heat and cold, of pain and pleasure, are born, O son of Kunti, only of the contact of the senses with their objects. They have a beginning and an end. They are impermanent in their nature. Bear them patiently, O descendant of Bharata.

15. That calm man who is the same in pain and pleasure, whom these cannot disturb, alone is able, O great amongst men, to attain to immortality.

16. The unreal never is. The Real never is not. Men possessed of the knowledge of the Truth fully know both these.