|
|
Essays on the Gita -Sri Aurobindo
First Series : Chapter 7
The Creed of the Aryan Fighter
Those who take up the inner and the outer struggle even to the most physical
clash of all, that of war, are the Kshatriyas, the mighty men; war,
force, nobility, courage are their nature; protection of the right
and an unflinching acceptance of the gage of battle is their virtue
and their duty. For there is continually a struggle between right
and wrong, justice and injustice, the force that protects and
the force that violates and oppresses, and when this has once
been brought to the issue of physical strife, the champion and standard-bearer of the Right must not shake and tremble at the
violent and terrible nature of the work he has to do; he must not
abandon his followers or fellow-fighters, betray his cause and
leave the standard of Right and Justice to trail in the dust and
be trampled into mire by the blood-stained feet of the oppressor,
because of a weak pity for the violent and cruel and a physical
horror of the vastness of the destruction decreed. His virtue and
his duty lie in battle and not in abstention from battle; it is not
slaughter, but non-slaying which would here be the sin.
The Teacher then turns aside 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 happiness and a life
of comfort and peaceful joy with friends and relatives, but to
battle for the right is his true object of life and to find a cause for
which he can lay down his life or by victory win the crown and
glory of the hero’s existence is his greatest happiness. “There
is no greater good for the Kshatriya than righteous battle, and
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 be thy portion.” He will by such a
refusal incur disgrace and the reproach of fear and weakness and
the loss of his Kshatriya honour.
|
|
