[Advaita-l] Dying to Live Peacefully - III

[Venkatesh Murthy]

Namaste
On Sat, Jan 6, 2018 at 3:45 PM, Raghav Kumar Dwivedula via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> On 06-Jan-2018 12:57 PM, "Jaldhar H. Vyas via Advaita-l" <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>
>
> I was wondering why a battle in which the 'entire flower of the ruling
> classes perished' ( one researcher says that this loss of kxatriya prowess
> badly affected India for millennia, making it vulnerable to foreign
> invaders ) , is still regarded as right by Astika-s .
>

It is true almost all Kshatriyas of Bharat were killed in the war and it
was a great loss for the country. Even before Krishna Parashurama had
destroyed Kshatriyas many times. Without strong Kshatriyas India became
weak. Even the Yadavas were all killed. Arjuna could not defend Krishna's
wives from kidnappers. Krishna Himself became the cause of destroying
Kshatriyas and the strict Varna system. It all happened because of Kali
Yuga. With Krishna's death Kali Yuga started. The Puranas had predicted
only bad things will happen in Kali Yuga.

We are still in the beginning of Kali Yuga. How bad it will become in the
coming years we cannot even imagine. Seeing the Indian society is weak and
defenceless many invaders came and looted. It is still continuing but
looting is by politicians. Nothing has changed after independence.



>
> ( Btw , nAstikas like Amartya Sen have a stupid take on the Gita and say
> that the Gita is a dishonest book and it asks us to act without bothering
> about the consequences etc etc....)
>
> But coming to the Astika-s perspective on extolling certain kinds of
> violence -
> dharmyaddhi yuddhAt shreyonyat kxatriyasya na vidyate, as they say.
>
> Can we say that if Arjuna had run away, then the forces of adharma would
> have caused even more deaths and disruption for society, in the longer run?
> So even from a societal perspective this killing people and violence was
> unavoidable and was for the larger good, like say, fighting the Nazis?
>
> Not to speak of fighting being good at the individual level for Arjuna in
> being karma yoga for him, which I am not focusing on for the moment.
>
> (ISKCON teachers say that the battle was legit because Krishna the supreme
> personality of Godhead goaded Arjuna. Period.)
>
> Is there any shAstra reference to what constitutes dhArmic killing? Like
> meting out just deserts for an AtatAyin, maybe?
>
> Om
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> The Mahabharata, particularly if you read the original, does not shy away
> from acknowledging the neegative consequences of the Pandavas actions.
> Nevertheless it was the right thing to do.  What the Gita teaches is how to
> develop the mental equanimity to do the right thing even when it may seem
> to be wrong.
>
> --
> Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
>
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-- 
Regards

-Venkatesh