Gita Rahasya -Tilak
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CHAPTER II
THE DESIRE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ACTION
(KARMA-JIJNASA) that is : " illustrious i.e. high-principled persons will willingly sacrifice their lives, but will not break a vow ". In the same way, the vows of Dasarathi Ramacandra of being true to his speech and shooting only one arrow have become as famous as his- vow of monogamy, as appears from : " dvih saram nabhisamdhatte Ramo dvir nabhibhasate " i.e., " Sri Rama had not to draw an arrow twice nor did lie prevaricate " — (Subhasita) ; and there are tales in the Puranas ; that Hariscandra served as a domestic for drawing water in the home of a burner of dead bodies in order to carry out a promise which he had given in a dream. But, on the other hand, it is stated in the Vedas that even the gods themselves broke the pledges made by them with Vrtra or found out some loop-holes in them and killed Vrtra; and the murder of Hiranyakasipu is justified in the Puranas on the same basis. Besides, some agreements made in ordinary life are such as are considered unlawful or unfit for observance according to law. A similar story is related in the Maha- bharata with reference to Arjuna. Arjuna had made a vow that he would immediately behead any person who asked him to surrender his Gandiva bow to another. Later on, when Karna had defeated Yudhisthira in the war, and Yudhisthira naturally said to him (Arjuna) in despair : " What has been the use of your Gandiva bow to us ? Throw it away from your hands ", Arjuna rose, sword in hand, to behead Yudhisthira. But as Sri Krsna was near him at the time, he critically expounded to him the religion of Truth from the philosophical point of view, and said to him : " You are a fool, you do not understand the subtle points of morality, and you must learn them from your elders; you have not learnt at the feet of elders — ' na vrddhah sevitas tvaya '. If you wish only to be true to your vow, then deprecate Yudhisthira, because for respectable persons, deprecation is as painful as death, etc."; and he thus saved him from the sin of murder of an elder brother which he would have thoughtlessly committed, as has been stated in the Karnaparva. [1] The discrimination between Truth and Falsehood which was made by Sri Krsna on this occasion, has been subsequently preached by Bhisma to Yudhisthira in the Satyanrtadhyaya of the Santiparva [2] ; and all must bear it in mind in relation to the affairs of ordinary life. Yet, it is difficult to explain how to recognise these subtle excep- tions, and my readers will readily notice that although the law of fraternity was in this particular case looked upon as superior to the law of veracity, yet, the occasion mentioned in the Gita was just the oppposite, and there the warrior-religion has been pronounced to be superior to the law of fraternity.
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