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118 SPIRIT AND THE MIND
Slaying the sons of Dhritarashtra?
Evil they may be,
Worst of the wicked,
Yet if we kill them our sin is greater.
How could we dare spill the blood that unites us? Where is joy in the killing of kinsmen?
Foul their hearts are with greed, and blinded: They see no evil in breaking of blood-bonds, See no sin in treason to comrades.
But we, clear-sighted,
Scanning the ruin of families scattered, Should we not shun this crime,
O Krishna?
We know what fate falls on families broken:
The rites are forgotten,
Vice rots the remnant, defiling the women,
And from their corruption comes mixing of castes: The curse of confusion degrades the victims
And damns the destroyers.
The rice and the water no longer are offered; The ancestors also must fall dishonored From home in heaven.
Such is the crime of the killers of kinsmen: The ancient, the sacred, is broken, forgotten. Such is the doom of the lost, without caste-rites: Darkness and doubting and hell forever.
What is this crime I am planning, O Krishna? Murder most hateful, murder of brothers! Am I indeed so greedy for greatness?
Rather than this
Let the evil children of Dhritarashtra
Come with their weapons against me in battle: I shall not struggle, I shall not strike them. Now let them kill me, that will be better.2
This first chapter, “The Despondency of Arjuna,” is the foundation of the Bhagavad-Gita.3 His is a special kind of despondency: a state of mind that we all must experience sooner or later as a result of attachment to this outer world, which is frustrating by nature and filled with injustice and suffering. This