Karna Parva — The conversation between Krishna and Arjuna

Sanjaya said Hearing the words of Yudhishthira, Kownteya-the owner of white steeds-in a tempestuous mood took hold of his sword to slay that mightiest of the Bharata's race.

Kesava, the cogniser of human hearts, seeing his rage, inquired-"Why, O Partha, do you lay your hands on your sword?

Here, O Dhananjaya, I see no adversary to try the strength of your steel. Clever Bhimasena has already assailed the Dhartarashtras.

O Kownteya, you have returned from the field, to seen king Yudhishthira and you have seen that he is keeping up well.

This is the time of rejoicing, as you have seen that best of kings whose prowess is like that of a tiger. Why should you then betray yourself thus?

O son of Kunti, I do not find any one here whom you can slay. What makes you then to yearn for fight, or have you lost the balance of your mind?

Why do you seize your mighty sword so suddenly, I enquire this of you. O Kaunteya, whence is this desire of your heart, or why do you fly to sword in such a sullen mood and with such a vigour?"

Thus addressed by Krishna, Arjuna, looking towards Yudhishthira and whizzing like an angry snake, replied,

He who tells me-'Give your Gandiva to another,' I would cut his head off, such is my secret vow. Now that this king of immeasurable prowess has told me those words in your presence, O Govinda, I won't forgive him. I will, therefore, put to the sword this pious king.

I will redeem my vow by slaying this best of men. For this alone I have taken up the sword.

O delighter of the Yadus; by slaying Yudhishthira I will thus adhere to truth thereby be free from grief and fever.

O Janaradana, what do you wish me to do under the present circumstances. O sire, you are well acquainted with all the past the future of this universe. I shall, therefore, do as you tell me.”

Sanjaya said Saying "Fie, fie unto you, Partha,"

“Now I understand, O Partha, that you have never attended upon the old, since you, O mightiest of men, have been overcome with anger at a time quite out of season.

O Dhananjaya, those who are versed in the niceties of religion would never act in the way as you are doing today, O pious son of Pandu, on not being acquainted with them.

O Partha, he who does an act improper and heinous is the vilest of men.

You know not the words of wisdom the learned men preach, after the rules of morality, to the pupils waiting up on them.

Persons ignorant of them become benumbed and befooled in discriminating between what ought to be done and what ought not, even as you, O Partha, have been nonplussed.

'It is not easy to learn what ought to be done and what ought not. Of course everything can be learnt with the help of the scriptures. You are, however, a stranger to them.

Believing yourself to be conversant with morality, you are observing it in a way which but indicates your ignorance of it. You believe yourself to be virtuous but you know not, O Partha, that it is a sin to slay living beings.

Methinks, keeping from doing any injury to any animal is a cardinal virtue. Even an untruth might behold but never an animal ought be slain.

O best of men, how could you then like an ordinary man wish to slay your eldest brother the king, who is well versed in morality.

O Bharata, the slaying of a man who is not engaged in a fight, or is unwilling to fight, or takes to flight, or seeks your shelter, or joins his hands, or gives himself up to you, or is insane, be he even a foe, is never upheld by the righteous. And your superior is even all this.

You had formerly taken the vow through childishness. And now through folly you are inclined to do an unrighteous act.

Why, O Partha, do you rush upon your superior, intending to slay him, without determining (before-hand) the exceedingly fine course of virtue which is, certainly, not easily intelligible.

O son of Pandu, this mystery of virtue I will now explain to you as it was explained by Bhishma, by the pious Yudhishthira, by Vidura or the so-called Kshatri and by Kunti of great renown. I will tell it you in all its detail; listen to it, O Dhananjaya.

One who tells the truth is a pious person. Nothing is there higher than truth. It is, therefore, very difficult to understand the details of truth as observed in action.

Truth becomes unutterable and untruth utterable, where untruth would pose as truth and truth as untruth.

At a marriage or in the enjoyment of lust, or when one's life is at stake, or when one's entire fortunes are about to be lost, or in the cause of a Brahmin untruth may be uttered. It is said that there is no sin in uttering these five sorts of falsehood.

Where one's entire fortunes are at stake untruth becomes utterable. On these occasions untruth becomes truth and truth untruth. He who is bent upon always practising truth alone is a fool and takes truth to be as it is.

Indeed it is not a very easy thing to become righteous. He who can distinguish between the niceties of truth and untruth can alone become conversant with morality.

What wonder is there then that a wise man by doing something awfully cruel may even acquire virtue, as Balaka did by killing a blind beast.

What wonder then that an ignorant and inexperienced person, intending to practise virtue, would commit grave vice like Kaushika on the river-bank."

Arjuna said Tell me of it, O holy one, in a way that I may learn it these stories about Balaka and Kaushika on the river-bank.

Vasudeva said There was once a hunter, O Bharata, Balaka by name. He used to kill animals, not willfully but, in order to support his children and wife.

Devoted to his tribal pursuits, always speaking the truth and devoid of malice, he used to maintain his aged mother and father and other dependents.

Once on a day, thought diligently searching for an animal, he could find none. At last he found a beast of prey, drinking water, which had lost its eyes but the loss was supplied by its keen sense of smell.

Though he had not before seen a like of it, yet he killed it then and there. No sooner the blind beast had been killed, that there fell from the skies a shower of flowers.

A celestial car, filled with the songs and music of Apsaras, came down from heaven to fetch that hunter of animals.

That beast having, successfully performed all the austerities of asceticism with a view to kill all the animals, had received that boon but was made blind instead by the Self-born.

Therefore Valaka, having killed the beast that was bent upon killing all the animals, went to heaven. Morality is, therefore, very difficult to be understood.

There was an ascetic Brahmin named Kaushika not much read in the Scriptures. He used to reside at a confluence of rivers, not far away from a village.

He had taken the vow that the would ever speak the truth.' Therefore, O Dhananjaya, he become famous as a truthful man.

At a time certain persons, being afraid of robbers, entered the woods. Even there the robbers, filled with anger, doggedly haunted after them.

They then approaching Kaushika the truthful, said-'O holy one, which way have a number of men passed a little while ago? Asked in the name of truth tell us if you have seen them.'

Being thus asked Kaushika told them the truth, that they had entered the wood thickly covered with trees, creepers and shrubs. O Partha, thus did Kaushika inform them.

And the report goes that on this those wanton men got hold of those persons and put them to death. For the gave sin of uttering that truth, which should not have been uttered, Kaushika, unversed in the subtleties of religion, fell into a fearful hell.

As a foolish man, ill-read in the scriptures, unacquainted with the details of morality, is fit to fall into an awful hell for not asking aged men to set his doubts at rest.

Your definition of morality must be then something like that. Some people attempt at attaining that high and difficult knowledge by the exercise of reasoning. Many persons maintain, on the other hand, that morality can be learned from the scriptures alone.

I do not find fault with the latter, but then everything is not provided for there. The moral precepts have been made for the well-being of the creatures.

All that is free from any motive of injury to any being is surely morality. For, indeed, the moral precepts have been made to free the creatures from all injuries.

Dharma (morality) is so-called because it protects all. Indeed, morality saves all creatures. Surely then that is morality which is capable of keeping off a creature from all injuries.

Those who try to stick to them logically, have scarcely a mind to acquire morality. If you can get rid of them without a word do no account have any intercourse with them.

If he must be spoken to or if he takes offence on not being talked with, in that case better speak a falsehood; verily that untruth is truth.

He who, having taken a vow on some set purpose, cannot redeem the same by acts, attains not the rewards of that vow.

When one's life is endangered, at marriage, at the risk of destruction of one's kith and kin or in the course of business, all that is uttered will not be regarded as falsehood. To those who are well-versed in the real secrets of morality, there appear no immorality in all this.

There even, where one cuts off his connections with robbers after having taken an oath, it is better to swear falsely, for surely that falsehood would be truth.

On no account should one's wealth he give to the robbers, if that could be helped. Wealth when give to the sinful afflicts even the donor.

Therefore, an untruth spoken in the cause of morality does not amount to a falsehood. I have now duly pointed out to you the distinctive feathers of morality. Having heard all these tell me, O Partha, if Yudhishthira deserves to be killed.

Arjuna said "O Krishna! You have spoken as a man of great wisdom should say, as a man of great intelligence need say. Your words are even such as would do good to us.

You are like both a mother and a father to us. You, O Krishna, are our sanctuary; that is why your words are beneficial to us.

Nothing is there in the three worlds that is unknown to you. Therefore, you know the sublime morality with all its niceties.

I admit that the righteous Yudhishthira, son of Pandu, is unslayable. In this connection kindly tell me something in my favour. Hear me tell you of something else that lies in my heart.

You know, O Keshava, the best scion of the Dasharha race, that my vow is that whoever among men tells me 'make over, O Partha, your Gandiva to him who is superior to you in point of chivalry or in wielding armours' I will, with all my mighty, slay him. So Bhima also has taken a vow to slay the man who addresses him as 'one without the hirsute indications of manhood!' Just now the king has repeatedly told me in your presence “make over your bow.

O Keshava, if I slay him, surely then the thought of having slain the king will immerse me in sin and make me loose my valour and mental faculties and thus cut short my days in this world.

Therefore, O Krishna, the best of all the righteous inen, do give me such counsels as would uphold my well-known vow and leave both myself and the eldest son of Pandu alive."

Vasudeva said-"O valiant one, the King Yudhishthira feels weary and aggrieved on being afflicted with arrows shot at him by Karna during the campaign; the more so as he was harassed with shaft-shots by the son of Suta even when he was retiring form the field.

Heavy at heart as he was at all this, he used such angry and improper expressions to you. Moreover, he addressed you in that tenor thinking that if he could provoke you, you would forthwith slay Karna in battle.

O Partha, the king believes that this immoral Karna is unbearable to everyone else on earth but you. It was this that enraged him so highly as to use such cruel words even in your face.

King Yudhishthira, the righteous, is of opinion that today's battle is a play at dice in which the life of the ever-deviceful and everover bearing Karna has been laid as an wager. If he is slain, the Kauravas would necessarily meet with defeat.

Therefore, O Arjuna, the son of Dharma deserves not death at your hands. At the same time your vow also must be kept good. Under the circumstances listen to the means that will make him apparently dead without the real loss of life.

A man of honour lives in this material world so long as he receives the homage due to him, but when he is woefully dishonored, he is spoken of as one more dead than alive.

O Partha, this king has ever been honored by you, Bhima and the twins and by all the wise and chivalrous men to this world. You just offer some insult to that king.

O Bharata, a superior on being addressed as 'you' dies (at heart). Therefore, you do addressed the much-respected Yudhishthira as 'you.'

O the best of Kurus, O son of Kunti, do behave thus towards Yudhishthira the righteous and insult that honorable man by this censurable behaviour.

This is a Shruti given out by the Rishis Atharva and Angira, the best of all the Srutis; people who wish well should always follow this without any scruple.

To address a venerable superior as 'You.' is to kill him without actually depriving him of his life. Therefore do you, who are versed in morality, address Yudhishthira the righteous, in the manner I have indicated.

On your acting thus the righteous Yudhishthira will verily feel that you have offered him a death-blow. Later on you will worship his feet and speak to him in befitting terms and thus pacify him.

O Partha, your intelligent brother Yudhishthira would never feel in the least angry with you. On being thus freed from impiety and fratricide you may cheerfully proceed against and slay Karna, the son of Suta.