[Advaita-l] Why Arjuna

[U.K Anumula]

The obvious explanation as to why the Bhagavad Gita was expounded to Arjuna 
and not to any other including such luminaries like Bhishmacharya, and other 
Pandava brothers of Arjuna appears to me to be because Arjuna was a 
quintessential human being.   He was in a 'dharma sankata' at a critical 
phase of his life.   As the Gita puts it he was beset by 'hridaya 
daurbalyam', weakness of heart.  It is interesting to note that Gita talks 
of weakness of heart and not the mind, though weakness of heart has as its 
concomitant weakness of mind.   Weakness of heart implies attachment to 
blood relatives when such an attachment stood in the way of performance of 
his duty.

Arjuna on the battlefield was neither clear as to what was his 'duty', nor 
did he have the morale to perform that duty.   This is a moral crisis every 
human being goes through in his life once or more times.   Krishna felt the 
need to educate all human being as to the moral imperative to be followed in 
every such crisis.   Who better could represent a person in need of such a 
moral imperative than Arjuna?   Bhishmacharya, for instance, continued to 
perform his duty of fighting the Pandavas, even while worshipping Krishna, 
the arch support of the Pandava clan.  None completely represented the human 
dilemma like Arjuna.  Arjuna had to be told where his duty lay, the contours 
of that duty, the imperative of performing it with skill and efficiency and 
letting his deeds produce whatever results they would, in other words 
perform 'Nishkamya karma'.