Essays on the Gita, First Series (Arya Publishing House, 1922)

^fiom~the beginning of the Gita this charac- teristic temperament of the disciple* » clearly indicated and it is maintained t hroughout . It become s first evident in the manne r in which he is awaykjened to the sense of what he is doing, the great s laughter of which he is to be the chief instrument, in the th oughts which immediately rise in him, in the standpoint and the psychological motives which n ^ke hTm recoil from the whole terrible catastrophic They are not the thoughts, the stand- point, the motives of a philosophical or even of a deeply r eflective mind or a spiritual temperament confronted with the same or a similar problem. Ifaey are those, as we might say, of the practica l or th e piiagmatic man, |he ^notional, sensational, ihoiir and intelligent Jiuman being not SbTfuated and original leHection or any sounding o f the dep ths, accustomed rather to high but fixed. ^n^rds of tho^Et 'and^^tion and a confident treading through all viciSitudes and difficulties, who now ^nds all his standards failing him and all the basis gf his confidence in himself and his life shorn away fr om under him at a single stroke. That is the n ature of the crisis which he jindergoes.i 2in the language oftheGlta^ ^jnan subject to the action of the three gunas or modes of the Nature-Force and habituated to move un- questioningly in that field, like the generality of men^ He justifies his name only in being so far pure and sattwic as to be governed by high and clear principles and impulses and habitually control his lower nature by the noblest Law which he knows. (He is not of a violent Asuric disposition, not the slave of his passions, but has been trained to a high calm and self-control, to an unswerving performance of his duties and firm obedience to the test principles of the time and society in which he has lived and the religion and ethics to which he has been brought up. He is egoistic like other men, but with the purer or sattwic egoist^ which regards the moral law and society and the" claims of others and not only or predgijiinantly his own interests, desires and passions. (He has lived and guided himself by the Shastra, the moral and social code. The thought T^hich preoccupies him, the standard which he obeys is the dharma, that collective Indian conception of the religious, social and moral „rule of conduct, and especially the rule of the^ station and function to which he belongs, he the Kshajtriya, the high-minded, self-govern^, chivalrous pHiice and warrior and leader of Aryan THE HUMAN DISCIPLE 3men^ Following always this rule, conscious of virtue and right dealing he has travelled so far and finds Suddenly that it has led him to become the protagonist of a terrific and unparalleled slaughter, a monstrous civil war involving all the cultured Aryan nations which must lead to the complete destruction of the flower of their manhood and threatens their ordered civilisation with chaos and cbllapse. It is typical again of the pragmatic man that it is through his sensations that he awakens to the meaning of his action. He has asked his friend and charioteer to place him between the two armies, not with any profom.der idea, but with the proud intention of viewing and looking in the face these myriads of the champions of unrighteousness whom he has to meet and conquer and slay “in this holiday so that the right may prex^IT Tf