Essays on the Gita, First Series (Arya Publishing House, 1922)
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The Teacher then turns asi3e for a moment to give another answer to the cry of Arjuna over the sorrow of the death of kindred which will empty his life of the causes and objects of living. What is the true object of the Kshatriya's life and his true happiness? Not self-pleasing and domestic happi- ness and a life of comfort and peaceful joy with friends and relatives, but to battle for the ri^t is his true object of life and to find a cause for which he can lay dowri Ins life or by victory win the crown and glory of the Tierb's existence is his greatest happiness. ( *‘There is no ^eater good for_ the Kshatriya than righteous battle ," arid when such a battle comes to them of itself like the open gate of heaven, happy are the Kshatriyas then. If thou doest not this battle for the right, then hast thou abandoned thy duty and virtue and thy glory, and sin shall b e thy port ion.” He will by such a.refusal i ncur disgrace^and the reproach of fear and weakness THE CREED OF THE ARYAN FIGHTER and the loss of his Kshatriya honour. For what is worst grief for a Kshatriya? It is the loss of his honour, his feine, his noble station among the mighty men, the men of courage and power ; that to him is much wo^e than death. Battle, course, pow^r, rule, the hcmour of the br^ve, the heayen of those who fall nobly , this is the warnorlsLidfial. To lower that ideal, to allow a smirch to fall on that honour, to give the example of a hero among heroes whose action lays itself open to the reproach of cowardice and weakness and thus to lower the moral standard of mankind, is to be false to himself and to the demand of the world on its leaders and kings. “Slain thou shalt win Heaven, victorious thou shalt enjoy the earth ; therefore arise, O son of Kunti, resolved upon battle.”
This heroic appeal may seem to be on a lower level than the stoical spirituality which precedes and the deeper spirituality which follows ; for in the next verse the Teacher bids him t o make grie f and hapjgi- ness, loss .and j[ain, victoi^^ and defeat ^uaj to his soul and then turn to the battle^ — th^ real ^aching ofjihe Gita. But Jndian ethics has always seeiTSBe practicaT necessity of graded ideals for the^develqping moral and ^spiritual life of man. The Ksha.triya ideal, the ideal of th^ouf orders is here placed in its social aspect, not as afterwards in its spiritual meaning. This, says Krishna in effect, is my answer to you if you insist on joy and sorrow and the result of your actions as your motive of action. I have shown you in what direction the higher
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