ASIA JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY

April, vol. 31(1): 3-20

© Author(s) 2017
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B a t t l e f i e ld o f S o u l
A R e r e a d in g o f S y m b o ls in t h e
B h a g a v a d G it a

Pavulraj MICHAEL, SJ
Pontifical Gregorian University, Italy

Abstract
The b a ttle fie ld in th e Bhagavad Gita is a p e rfe c t ba ckd ro p fo r th e w a r w ith in ,
th e s tru g g le fo r self-m astery th a t every hum an be in g m u st w age if he o r she
is to em erge fro m life v icto rio u s. The stru g g le w ith w h ic h th e Bhagavad Gita is
concerned is th e search fo r m e a n in g th ro u g h yo g ic consciousness. A rjuna and
Krishna are n o t m ere ly characters in a lite ra ry m asterpiece. A rjuna becom es Ev­
erym an, asking th e Lord him self, Sri Krishna, th e perennia l question s a b o u t life
and d e a th — asking n o t as a philosopher, b u t as th e qu in te sse n tia l m an o f dis­
ce rn in g action. This article captures th e sym b o lic d im e n sio n o f th e b a ttle fie ld
o f soul in th e Bhagavad Gita.

Keywords
A rjuna, Krishna, chariot, b a ttle fie ld , e q u a n im ity, Bhagavad Gita

C h a r io t — T he M y s t ic a l Sy m bol

The Bhagavad Gita is written in the form of a dialogue between Arju­

na, the chief commander of the Pandavas, and Krishna, his charioteer, on
the battlefield at a very critical moment in the story of the Mahabharata.1

1 The great Sanskrit epic Mahabharata, called the Iliad of the Indians, is attributed to a
mythical author "Vyasa" (= "Compiler”) believed to be the last who worked on the
poem, which runs to 200,000 lines, having grown in length with time. For a detailed
study, see M. Edwardes, A Dictionary of Non-Classical Mythology (New Delhi: Mittal
Publications, 2004), 112-113; see also R. Ince, A Dictionary of Religion and Religions
(New Delhi: Indigo Books, 2004), 171.

C o r r e s p o n d in g a u t h o r

Pavulraj MICHAEL, SJ: pavulrajsj@gmail.com

4 Asia Journal of Theology

However, this image of the chariot is also found in the Katha Upanishad,
which was written prior to the Bhagavad Gita: “Know the Self to be sitting
in the chariot, the body the chariot, the intellect (buddhi) the charioteer,
and the mind the reins. The senses they call the horses, the objects of the
senses their roads. When he (the Highest Self) is in union with the body,
the senses, and the mind, then wise people call him the Enjoyer.”2
The chariot is a highly mystical symbol. It is Krishna who gave Arjuna
a number of white steeds. It is he who is the creator of all steeds. This
world (human life) represents his chariot. He it is that yokes that chariot for
setting it in motion. That chariot has three wheels (the three attributes of
Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas). It has three kinds of motion (for it goes upward
or downward or transversely, implying superior, inferior, and intermedi­
ate birth as brought about by acts). It has four horses yoked to it (Time,
Predestiny, the will of the deities, and one’s own will). It has three naves
(white, black, and mixed, implying good acts, evil acts, and acts that are of
a mixed character). There are moments when the senses, like wicked hors­
es, go out of control, and the mind cannot hold them in check; moments
when the buddhi, the charioteer, reaches the end of his energy. Everyone
experiences such moments of crisis in one’s life. Arjuna went through
such a crisis. It shook the foundation of his life and demanded of him an
authentic discernment process. He found that the only way to engage in a
right discernment process was to surrender himself unconditionally to the
will of the Supreme Lord. And so he threw himself at the feet of the Lord
(BG 2:7). With this total surrender he created space for the Lord to enter
his innermost recess (buddhi) and to transform his life totally. At the end
of this discernment process he could stand up and proclaim: "Destroyed
is the confusion; and through your grace I have regained a proper way
of thinking: with doubts dispelled I stand ready to do your bidding" (BG
18:73). This is the very last word of Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. From
the moment of his lying in surrender (Chapter 2) to the moment of his
2 Katha Upanishad 1.3.3-4. Taken from F. Max Muller, The Sacred Books of the East (Ox­
ford: Clarendon Press, 1884), 15:12. As in Katha Upanishad, we can also recall the
image of the chariot in Plato, in Buddha, in Blake, and in Keats. Of these the most
interesting for spiritual purposes is the chariot in Buddhism that is called "He that
runs in silence"; the wheels of the chariot are "Right effort"; the driver is Dhamma, or
Truth. The chariot leads to Nirvana, the Kingdom of Heaven. The end of the jour­
ney is "The land which is free from fear." Cf. J. Mascaro, The Bhagavad Gita— Translat­
edfrom the Sanskrit (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books Ltd., 1962), 22.
Michael: Battlefield of Soul 5

standing on his feet (Chapter 18) there has occurred a process of fulfilling
the will of God. It has been the experience of human openness, a dialogue
between human freedom and divine grace. It is clear from this that if the
intellect (the charioteer) loses its grip over its mind (the reins), the mind
runs wherever it wants and allows the five sense organs (the five horses)
to go wherever they want to. Then this brings a destruction to man's per­
sonality. And so,

• Chariot: Sarira (physical body), is the instrument through which

the Self, intellect, mind, and senses operate.
• Charioteer: Atma (Self, Higher Intellect or Buddhi), is supposed to
be the -wise giver of instructions to the mind.
• Passenger: Jiva (Individual Soul, the embodied Atma, the pure center
of consciousness), is always the neutral witness.
• Horses: Indriyas (Senses, such as eyes-vision, ears-hearing, nose-
smell, tongue-taste, skin-touch), through which one relates to the
external world by perception and action.
• Reins: Manas (Mind), through which the senses receive their instruc­
tions to act and perceive.
• Roads: The countless objects of senses and desires in the world and
our memory.
• Wheels of the Chariot: Right effort.
• Destination: “Perfection” or "Self-realization.”
• Who is driving the chariot? Mostly one does not let the chario­
teer on duty. The reins (mind) are flapping around freely without
the proper inner guidance and not giving instruction to the horses
(senses). Hence they wander freely down any road they wish in
response to their past memories (Chitta). The chariot (body) takes
a beating, the horses (senses) get tired, the reins (mind) get worn,
and the charioteer (Intelligence) gets lazy. The passenger is com­
pletely ignored.
• Put the charioteer back on the job: The solution to the problem is
to retrain the charioteer (Intelligence) to pick up the reins (mind)
and start giving some direction to the horses (senses). This training
is called sadhana (spiritual practice). It means training all of the
 Asia Journal of Theology

levels of ourselves so that one might experience the still, silent,

eternal center.
• Allow the charioteer to serve the passenger: As the charioteer (In­
telligence) becomes more stabilized in being back on the job, there
is an ever increasing awareness of the fact that the entire purpose of
the chariot, horses, reins, and charioteer, is to serve as instruments
for the passenger, the true Self. 3

The overall symbolism of the chariot and its occupants suggests that to
win against adverse forces in the battlefield of life, a person needs to per­
form one's duties, restraining the senses with the help of God and allowing
God to direct one’s life according to the divine will. W hen the individual
surrenders to God, fully and unconditionally giving over to him the reigns
of one’s life, God will take personal responsibility for that person and his or
her actions and guide the person in the right direction toward liberation.

T he B attlefield of K urukshetra -
S ymbol of B attlefield of L ife

The Bhagavad Gita describes the battlefield in a dramatic way. The

battlefield of Kurukshetra is only a symbol for the battlefield of life, on
which a war is constandy being waged between greed (kama) and self-in­
tegration (dharma), between good and bad intentions, between justice and
injustice, and so on . 4 Arjuna and Krishna are only actors on this battlefield
of life situations. The blindness of Dhritarashtra represents the deluded
attachment (moha) of I and “mine,” and it makes the human person feel
that the blindness of ignorance is a better and happier state than the light
of wisdom. Sanjaya is one who has conquered his senses and his mind,

3 Swami Sivananda, Ethics of the Bhagavad Gita (Rishikesh: Yoga-Vedanta Forest Univer­
sity, 1957), 191.
4 The Bhagavad Gita is a scripture of yoga: now yoga is literally union, and it means
harmony with the divine Law, the becoming one with the will of God, by the subdu­
al of all outward-going energies. To reach this, balance must be gained, equilibrium,
so that the self, joined to the Self, shall not be affected by pleasure or pain, desire
or aversion, or any of the pairs of opposites between which untrained selves swing
backwards and forwards. For a detailed study see A. Besant, The Bhagavad Gita— The
Lord’s Song (Madras: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1955), viii-xi.
Michael: Battlefield o f Soul 7

and because of this he has the divine vision to see the battlefield.5 The
conversation between Dhritarashtra and Sanjaya (Chapter 1) reveals that,
when one chooses to turn to Sanjaya, that is, “if one brings his senses and
his mind under perfect control, he shall acquire the inner vision, the in­
tuitive perception, which is the guide to Self-knowledge to search for and
to find the will of the Lord."6 Yudhishthira, one of the main characters
of the story, is described as one who is foremost among the bearers of
virtue. Duryodhana illustrates a principle: "unrighteousness engenders
fear in the heart; an unrighteous man, even though strong and powerful,
is crippled by fright and even his strength is of no avail to fulfil the will of
the Lord, and he dies many times before his death. Though Duryodhana
is unrighteous, he has good men like Bhishma, Drona and Kama on his
side and this suggests that evil cannot by itself flourish in this world. It can
do so only if it is alhed with some good.”7Arjuna,8the hero of the epic, is
described as the paragon of virtue. Arjuna represents the disciple “on the
threshold,” unable to decide whether to go forward or to remain behind,
who needs positive command. The difference between Duryodhana and
Arjuna lies in the following: All that Duryodhana wants, even in his mo­
ment of despondency, is that all the warriors of his army should gather
around Bhisma and enable him to achieve victory. But in his moment of
despondency, Arjuna the friend becomes Arjuna the disciple, the aspirant,
and the seeker. The intelligence on which he prided himself but a moment
before he now considers “confusion of mind.” He boasted his knowledge
of the Shastras; now he confesses ignorance of his Dharma. That is the time;
that is the attitude of mind; that is the mark of the seeker. At one stroke
the Lord gave Arjuna the greatest wisdom. Self-surrender is the mark of a
true disciple. The least trace of egoism would frustrate the very object of
discipleship and would prevent the yogin from absorbing the instruction of
the Lord. Therefore, the Bhagavad Gita is of the greatest spiritual import
to the aspirant who stands at the brink of the world, unable to discern and

5 See J. Algeo, The Bhagavad Gita (Wheaton, IL: The Theosophical Society in America,
2000), 7.
6 Swami Sivananda, Ethics of the Bhagavad Gita, 193.
7 M. Gandhi, The Bhagavad Gita— A Book of Ethics for All Religions (New Delhi: Lotus
Press, 2008), 21.
8 For a detailed study on the different names of Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, see D.
Stephen, The Gita in Life (Mysore: The Christian Literature Society, 1956), 17.
 8 Asia Journal of Theology

to decide whether to fulfil the will of the Lord or not. The five Pandava
princes represent the forces that make for goodness. Bheema9 is referred to
by Krishna as the greatest of those who know dharma. Krishna, the Lord
incarnate, is dhurtna itself. 10 Krishna, accepted to be Arjuna’s charioteer,
represents the virtue of humility, and real humility is the sign of great
strength, supreme knowledge, and perfect renunciation. 11 Hence, in order
to grasp the perennial mystical message of the Bhagavad Gita, one has to
detach oneself from the military context. The real battlefield is within each
of us, between the good and evil spirits in us. Gandhi says, "The Bhagavad
Gita is not a historical work. With the image of the physical battlefield,
the Bhagavad Gita makes the ongoing spiritual battle of life clear to us. ” 12
Thus the Bhagavad Gita is precisely Arjuna's dilemma: to conform to his
inherent duty as a warrior and to fight, and by doing so to slaughter his
enemies who are also his kinsmen, or to lay down his arms and disrupt
the natural and social order. In other words, the Bhagavad Gita, through
Arjuna, addresses the problem of the age: the problem of choice—of how
to choose rightly, of how to discern meaningfully, of how to search for,
9 Among the Pandavas, Bheema represented "Jnana" or knowledge.
In spite of his enormous strength and knowledge, he was the epitome of humility. In
the Udyoga parva, when Lord Krishna collects the opinion of the Pandavas before ap­
proaching the Kauravas, Bheema is made by Krishna to give a description of his own
capabilities to everyone. At the end of Bheema's narrative (which is overwhelming
for any other warrior), Krishna tells him that his capability is actually one thousand
times more than what he has mentioned!
Also, his explanation about the importance of Kama in attaining Jnana and mukthi is
legendary.
There is literally no comparison between the wisdom of Bheema and Arjuna.
10 The Mahabharata itself is not to be regarded as a mere story of intrigues and battles,
but as an allegory of the struggles between good and evil, and of the ultimate tri­
umph of the Good. It is not the political conquest that is the end of the Great War,
but inner victory over all that is base and narrow in human beings. In the Bhagavad
Gita, Krishna reminds Arjuna that victory is to be achieved not so much by strength
and valor as by truthfulness, benevolence, righteous effort, and fulfilling the will of
the Lord. See K. K. Pillai, Professor P. Sundaram Pillai Commemoration Volume (Madras:
The South India Saiva Siddhanta Works Publishing Society, 1957), 13-14.
11 If Krishna had vowed not to bear arms, he could even then have remained as a Di­
vine Spectator, giving Lordly directions to the Pandavas. Truly blessed are they who
understand the mystery of Thy Action and cultivate real humility. The true disciple,
like Krishna, would be humble, noble, egoless, and devoted to the will of the Lord.
See Swami Sivananda, Ethics of the Bhagavad Gita, 196.
12 M. K. Gandhi, Bhagavad Gita (Ahmedabad: Navjivan Press, 1959), 6.
Michael: Battlefield of Soul 9

to find, and to fulfil the will of God in the particular context. 13 As Gandhi
interprets, “Duryodhana and his supporters stand for the Satanic impulses
in us, and Arjuna and others stand for Godward impulses. The battlefield
is our body. The poet-seer, who knows from experience the problems of
life, has given a faithful account of the conflict which is eternally going
on within us. Krishna is the Lord dwelling in everyone's heart who is ever
murmuring his promptings in a pure chitta, like a clock ticking in a room.
If the clock of the chitta is not wound up with the key of self-purification,
the indwelling Lord no doubt remains where he is, but the ticking is heard
no more . ' ' 14 And so, the world is dharmakshetra (field of righteousness), the
battleground for moral struggle. The capacity for deciding what is right or
dharma is special to human beings. Hunger, sleep, fear, and sex are common
to human beings and animals. What distinguishes human beings from ani­
mals is the knowledge of right and wrong, and in this discernment process
the just human beings are able to search for, to find, and to embrace the
will of God. 15 The decisive issue lies in the hearts of human beings, where
the battles are fought daily and hourly. The ascent from earth to heaven,
from suffering to spirit, is through the discernment process.
The Bhagavad Gita sets itself to describe the great conflict and to show
in what way each of the yogas (knowledge, work, and loving devotion)
may help toward finding the will of God. The yogin, like Arjuna, begins
to feel the greater Self above him, with its insistent voice, its brooding
power. About him is the furniture of habitual life, to which he is bound
by many dear, close ties; many things are threatened if he is to follow the
new and imperious voice from within and above; many things are visibly
condemned. The yogin had his ideals of worldly success, of wealth, of am-

13 Cf. W. J. Johnson, The Bhagavad Gita— Translated with an Introduction and Notes (Ox­
ford: Oxford University Press, 1994), xiii.
14 The Bhagavad Gita describes "the battle raging between the countless Kauravas and
Pandavas dwelling within us. It is a battle between the innumerable forces of good
and evil which become personified in us as virtues and vices. We shall say that this
dharma-grantha was written to explain man s duty in this inner strife. See Gandhi,
The Bhagavad Gita—A Book of Ethicsfor All Religions, 13.
15 The world is dharmakshetra, the nursery of saints where the sacred flame of spirit
is never permitted to go out. It is said to be karmabhumi where we work out our
karma and fulfill the purpose of soul-making. See S. Radhakrishnan, The Bhagavad
Gita_With an Introductory Essay, Sanskrit Text, English Translation and Notes (London:
George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1948), 11.
 10
Asia Journal ofTheology

bition, of regard, and of consideration for others. How will these stand if
the great silent voice be obeyed? How shall he apply himself to the daily
task? How shall he substitute for the varicolored lights of the world, for the
quiet light of the soul? 16 These and the like are the questions the Bhagavad
Gita sought to answer, and nothing more dramatic could be imagined than
the position of Krishna and Arjuna on the battlefield, which is made the
occasion for sincere search of the yogin.
To the most important Indian commentators on the Bhagavad Gita,
such as Sankaracharya, Ramanujacharya, and Madhvacharya, 'Arjuna rep­
resents the individual soul in search for fulfilling God’s will, and the Lord
Krishna the Supreme Soul dwelling in every heart. Arjuna's chariot is the
body. The blind King Dhritarashtra is the mind under the spell of igno­
rance, and his hundred sons are the numerous evil tendencies of human
bemgs. The battle, a perennial one, is between the power of good and the
power of evil. The warrior who listens to the advice of the Lord speaking
from within wifi triumph in the battle of life and attain liberation . ’’ 17

A rjuna and K rishna— S ymbol of

L ower S elf vs . H igher S elf

As one hears the tumult of the drums and cymbals, the shouts of the
warriors, the neighs of the horses, the cacophony of the quarrelling cous­
ins, and the multiplicity of theological voices and interpretations, one may
forget the central theme of the Bhagavad Gita, which is that the yogin
Arjuna is being led in his discernment process to search for and to find
the will of the Supreme Being by his teacher Krishna. The Bhagavad Gita
highlights the spiritual ascent of Arjuna from darkness to fight, where he is
confident to find and to embrace the will of God without hesitation. Arjuna
is subject to the pairs of opposites, such as happiness and misery, cold and
heat, success and failure. Pride, wrath, greed, love, and hate have distract­
ed him. He has confused the body with a mind that he finds difficult to
control. But the battlefield of fife stretches out in front of him. Before him

16 Cf. C. Johnston, Bhagavad Gita— The Songs o f the Master (London: John M. Watkins
1965), 15.
17 Swami Nikhilananda, The Bhagavad Gita— Translated from the Sanskrit, with Notes,
Comments and Introduction (New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1944), 2.
Michael: Battlefield of Soul 11

lies the mighty issue of victory or defeat, descent into the devilish womb
or ascent into godhood, a crisis that arises most days in the life of every
human being. Which is the path of right and which is that of wrong? A
step may lead to ascent or descent, and each small step implies the struggle
of true discernment. The vital test for Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita is tried
out on a broad battlefield, so that the lesson of the struggle may be clearly
brought home. The problem that faces Arjuna is: "Shall I give up the fight
or shall 1fight?” He is afraid of taking the obvious course of fighting or of
choosing the more desirable one of slinking away. He is on the brink of a
precipice where action is inevitable, and he cannot escape it. To do or not to
do, to fight or not to fight, is his question. At this crucial moment of battle,
Krishna is not concerned with running away from life through the gateway
of asceticism or contemplation or ecstatic devotion.18When Arjuna wants
to escape and says, "I shall not fight,” the Lord Krishna says, "Fall not into
degrading weakness, for this becomes not a man who is a man. Throw
off this ignoble discouragement, and arise like a fire that burns all before
it” (BG 2:3). Thus, it is in this world that the heavens must be conquered.
It is in this life that the bonds of Karma have to be broken. It is with this
frail body that Arjuna has to search for and embrace the will of the Lord.
Early in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna encourages his chariot-rider and
pupil Arjuna to take up again the battle he has ceased from and to kill the
enemy. This idea will almost inevitably seem somewhat odd in its larger
context, as a text marked by themes of renunciation, salvation, and serenity
through yogic consciousness. As the story of the Bhagavad Gita progresses,
it begins to seem stranger, as Arjuna moves toward enlightenment where
he will become totally disinterested in all actions, that Krishna once urged
his pupil to "play not the eunuch” (BG 2:3) but instead to continue to fight.
This advice becomes even odder when Arjuna's state is considered. He is a
shattered man, having dropped the arrows and bow that marked him as a
Kshatriya,19a warrior of princely class, as he has found himself in a double
18 The Bhagavad Gita is primarily a gospel of action. Krishna does not want us to flee
from a worldly career, or the haunts of human beings, to the solitude of the forests.
The Bhagavad Gita thus tells us of battle, stern and fierce; of resistance to adharma,
wherever it is. See K. M. Munshi, Bhagavad Gita and Modern Life (Bombay: Bharatiya
Vidya Bhavan, 1962), 29-30.
19 Kshatriya is one of the four varna (social orders) of Hindu society. The Sanskrit term
Kshatriya is used in the context of Vedic society wherein members organized them­
selves into four classes: Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Sudra. For a detailed study,
12 Asia Journal of Theology

bind. W hether Arjuna fights or not, he will be acting against laws he has
followed his whole life, either by abandoning his army or by killing rela­
tives. This situation allows Krishna to feed him new information, to open
up an entirely new worldview for Arjuna, and thus to introduce the themes
of yogic consciousness, discernment, renunciation, salvation, serenity, and
the strangeness of Krishna's quite literal call to arms.20 Remarking on this
strangeness is not to say there are no contradictions in the Bhagavad Gita,
but rather that this contradiction appears so notable that perhaps there is
an interpretive turn that would dispel it.
The first clue to this interpretive mode comes in Krishna's response to
Arjuna’s double bind, when he tells Arjuna to "abandon this base, inner
weakness. Get up, Incinerator of the Foe!” (BG 2:3), but makes no men­
tion of the relatives who form the necessary second half of the dilemma.
The second clue comes from Krishna's role as charioteer and Arjuna’s as
chariot rider, as this immediately seems to refer back to a famous meta­
phor in Book Four of the Chandogya Upanishad. There, the human being
is considered as a chariot rider with different impulses pushing his mind
and body, and the chariot itself, in one direction or another.21 Thus, if the
physical opponents in battle are hardly mentioned and the chariot Arjuna
has parked on the battlefield could serve as a symbol of his soul, then
perhaps the battle is not what it seems. It can be interpreted as the fight
for Arjuna’s mind, with the forces consisting not of physical enemies but
rather of delusion and the desire to be slain, and the point is not to win on
a physical battlefield, but rather to enlighten the mind of one man. "While
such an overarching argument is extremely difficult to prove in the context
of the entire Bhagavad Gita, certain passages make clear arguments or can
be interpreted to suit this metaphorical reading. The passages chosen here
are open to that interpretation, but each through a different philosophical
please see T. S. Baynes, The Encyclopaedia Britannica—A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature (New York: Henry G. Allen and Company, 1833), 5:190-192.
20 W hen somebody is in the teaching mood then he is in no mood to receive greater
knowledge. He who is proud of his knowledge has effectively shut the door through
which wisdom could enter. He must be made into a true disciple, an earnest seeker,
an egoless aspirant who could be taught, who could receive what he is taught. And
Arjuna is the true symbol of discipleship. See Swami Sivananda, Ethics of the Bhaga­
vad Gita, 199.
21 For a detailed study, cf. R. C. Zaehner, Hindu Scriptures (London: J. M. Dent & Sons
Ltd, 1988), 90-98.
Michael: Battlefield of Soul 13

avenue. The battlefield of the Bhagavad Gita can be read metaphorically,

through an argument based on the renunciation of fruits of action, or the
realization of the danger of illusion by emotion . ” 22 In the Bhagavad Gita,
self-surrender and renunciation are synonymous terms. Arjuna can never
surrender himself to Krishna the Lord without first renouncing all shades
of egoism. And the Bhagavad Gita is the science that teaches its disciples
true renunciation. The battle in the Bhagavad Gita is battle with the senses
and the mind, with the various attachments and cravings, with I-ness and
mine-ness. To conquer them is to renounce them and in such renunciation
is bliss, peace, and total liberation. 23 Looking at the passages through the in­
terpretive lens of metaphor, it appears that one can read the Bhagavad Gita
as a text that does not endorse the battle, even as Krishna pushes Arjuna
into it, as the fight is for the mind and soul, not for a tract of battle-scarred
ground. In other words, Krishna is not that person who, when the hour
of his death arrived, fell to a hunter's arrow, and Arjuna is not that person
from whose hand the Gandiva bow slipped. Krishna is the atman in human
person, who is the charioteer. Arjuna can win only if he hands over the
reins of the chariot to Krishna, or to the will of the Supreme Being.
In the Bhagavad Gita, the discerning Arjuna typifies the representative
human soul to reach perfection and peace, but in the opening section one
finds that the mind of Arjuna is clouded, his convictions unsettled, his
whole consciousness confused. Life’s anxieties touch him with a gnawing
distress. For every individual there comes a time at some point in life when
everything that he can do for himself fails, when he sinks into the gulf of
utter blackness, a time when he would give all that he has for one gleam of
light, for one sign of the divine. When he is assailed by doubt, confusion,
denial, hatred of life, and black despair, he can escape from them only if
God lays his hand on him. If the divine truth, which is free of access to
all mankind, is attained only by a few, it shows that only a few are willing
to pay the price for it by fulfilling God’s will. 24 The invisible impulse to
search for and to find the will of God produces the agony that inspires
heroic idealism and human fulfilment. The relationship of Krishna and
Arjuna has also been paralleled to the relationship of the higher Self and

22 W. J. Johnson, The Bhagavad Gita, xviii-xix.

23 Cf. Swami Sivananda, Ethics o f the Bhagavad Gita, 202.
24 See Radhakrishnan, The Bhagavad Gita, 51.
14 Asia Journal o f Theology

the lower self of which the individual is conscious, one in reality and yet
so far apart, as one searches for and chooses to fulfil the will of the higher
Self (BG 18:68-73).2S
It is, therefore, immaterial whether the Pandavas or Krishna really exist­
ed, for the yogin is Arjuna—with Krishna, the universal charioteer, striving
to drive his life's chariot in the way the Supreme Being thinks best. But not
knowing the Supreme Lord seated in his heart, he sets up a parallel gov­
ernment in himself and usurps the place of the Master. The result is chaos
and suffering, the "self-will" in the yogin being perpetually at war with the
"divine will" by driving him either to inaction or to reaction. This, then, is
the true "Kurukshetra” or battlefield—the human heart—where the forces
of "good" and “evil" (Pandavas and Kauravas) are locked in eternal combat
until the "evil" is finally overcome by the “good" not through force but by
conversion (or transformation) through right action (karma), knowledge
(jnana), or devotion (bhakti).26 The tug of war can only end by giving up
this "warring will" by blotting out the “I"—one’s pseudo-self—and living
up by embracing the will of God, whether by identifying oneself with the
power within (on the path of knowledge), or by doing one’s work without
attachment to the results (on the path of work), or by surrendering to the
will of God in love (on the path of devotion).

E quanimity— S ymbol of
E nlightenment
Chapter 6 of the Bhagavad Gita supports the claim that this is a met­
aphorical battle, by making its own claim that the primary quality of the
true yogin, the enlightened, is equanimity. This is because Arjuna “is a re-
nouncer and a yogin” (BG 6:1), becoming totally disinterested in the fruits

25 Cf. M. Dnyaneshwar, Gita Explained (Bombay: The Associated Advertisers & Printers
Ltd., 1945), 50.
26 Arjuna's confusion too ended only when, from resisting Krishna at first by refusing
to fight, he gave in at last to do his bidding: "Seated in their hearts, Arjuna, God
moves all beings to their natural activity willy-nilly, as though they were puppets
mounted on a machine. Therefore leave all wilful behaviour and yield to this power
within and carry out its behests, for so thou attain the Peace Supreme as also the
Abode Eternal." See J. S. Jariwalla, Gita: The Science of Living—With Introduction, Text
and Commentary (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1984), 40.
Michael: Battlefield o f Soul 15

of his actions, instead acting only in accordance with the will of the Su­
preme Being. This passage puts a further spin on the common theme of
renunciation, though, by linking it with equanimity.27If one has renounced
intention and self-interest, then there will be no choosing of sides in a
battle, as no side will be seen as better. To enter the battle, in fact, would
be to evaluate the sides and to consider one superior, which would require
considering the fruits of action, meaning the outcome of the battle should
one side triumph, and the yogin would know he has no control over the
fruits, but rather must remain "completely stable” and “contented” (BG
6:7-23). If the yogin does truly have this equanimity, then it breaks down
the barriers between likes and dislikes, which would mean, logically, that
one has no differing feelings for another as enemy or friend: “The man
who has the same mental attitude towards friends, allies, enemies, neutrals,
arbiters, the hateful and kinsmen—towards the good and the evil alike—
is set apart” (BG 6:9). Thus “it does not make sense for Krishna to send
Arjuna out into the battle that he has quit, as to fight would be to choose
sides, which this passage argues is not an equanimitous act, but rather one
that always requires consideration of the fruits of action.”28 The passage
proceeds, then, to take this argument even a step further, arguing not just
for equanimity but against all types of battles except the internal, making
a strong case for the metaphorical interpretation.
If the self realizes equanimity, he would have no enemies, and even
his self would be at rest. The implications of this argument on the meta­
phorical interpretation of the battle are straightforward. Through this, the
existence of a battle within the self becomes understood as necessary, as
conquering the self and the desire and intentionality within the self is the
only way to reach the state of equanimity. Thus, it makes sense that the
battle that Krishna would push Arjuna to fight in would be the one within
the self, as the enlightened god Krishna would not see enemies anywhere,
in his equanimity, except for the warring sections of the mind. "For the man
whose self has not been conquered, the self stands antagonistically, like an
enemy" (BG 6:6) means that Krishna recognizes that there is only one bat­
tlefield, the metaphorical one in the mind where the nontranscendent self
27 Cf. G. Larson, "Classical Yoga Philosophy and Some Issues in the Philosophy of
Mind," in Religious Studies and Theology, vols. 13-14 (Saskatoon, Canada, 1995), 46-47.
28 Cf. E. Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita: Translation and Introduction (London: Penguin
Books, 1985), 33-35.
 16 Asia Journal o f Theology

is fighting itself, having only itself as an enemy. This is a clear case for the
metaphorical interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita, and it does so through
arguments revolving around the concept of equanimity.
The field of yoga promoted by the Bhagavad Gita is not a remotely silent
or highly exalted life; it is life as it is, a struggle, a battlefield between good
and evil. For the central purpose of yoga is to transform the superficial,
fragmentary way of living into deep and wide consciousness, as also into
an integrated inner and outer experience, transmuting ordinary life into a
divine life. The ordinary life of a human being has, therefore, to grow by
conscious effort into a meaningful development of consciousness, which
would ultimately lead, then, to the discovery of God s will in concrete life
situations. 29 Through yoga the human person will enter the life of the Spirit.
He will draw sustenance not from his desire, but from the very delight of
fulfilling the will of God. His ego is then replaced by his individual will
acting in unison with the will of God.
A very similar claim about the nature of the battle, based on the con­
cepts of rajas and kama and the goal of knowledge, is found in BG 3. It
points to selfish desire as a truly awe-inspiring enemy: "It is said that the
senses, the mind and the intelligence are its locality; having obscured a
man’s knowledge with these, it deludes the embodied self. Therefore, hav­
ing first restrained the senses, strike down selfish desire, the destroyer of
insight and knowledge (BG 3:40-41). The conception of desire surpasses
the image of desire as a common mental error. Instead, its aspects are
physical, a "fire" that must be extinguished (BG 3:38). This is desire as a
physical enemy, worthy of engagement in battle. The portrayal of kama in
this passage is not simply as a powerful, physical enemy, however. It goes a
step beyond to say that, as in the other passage, the only truly worthy ad­
versary is internal. In the case of this passage, that internal enemy is selfish
desire, which, as Krishna answers Arjuna, is the ultimate cause of evil. Thus

29 The egoistic emotions of the human beings would be replaced by the movements
of love and bliss of God. Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita is the true science of life. The
Bhagavad Gita has four definitions of yoga, of progressive import in the battlefield of
life. It is the perfection in works; it is equality; it is perfect peace in fulfilling the will
of God; it is the union with oneself and with God. See K. M. Munshi, Bhagavad Gita
and Modern Life, 226-228.
Michael: Battlefield of Soul 17

it becomes sensible, why, in the middle of a battlefield, supposedly, Krishna

tells Arjuna that selfish desire "is the perpetual enemy here” (BG 3:43).30
Chapter 3 of the Bhagavad Gita serves also to refute a possible counter­
argument about the nature of the battle. This counterargument would say
that the battlefield is real, as to fight would be Arjuna's dharma, his duty,
as a Kshatriya. If the world sends him off into battle to kill, then he should
follow his dharma and fight, as long as he does not think of the fruits of his
actions. By saying, at the beginning of the passage, that the cause of evil is
“desire which springs from the force of rajas” (BG 14:7), Krishna immedi­
ately undercuts the dharma argument. As a Kshatriya, Arjuna's primary gum
would be rajas, the gum of passion and ruling power.31 By placing it as the
source of evil, Krishna seems to argue that Arjuna's true dharma could nev­
er be linked to rajas. This is reinforced near the end of the passage, where
Krishna calls Arjuna "bull of the Bharatas" while pushing him to "control
his senses.” By using the most powerful, warlike epithet for Arjuna and
combining it with a call to inner battle against the senses and selfish desire,
Krishna makes the claim that the true dharma of a kshatriya is to fight, but
not in the outside battlefield, where rajas rules. Rather, this fight rages on
in the mind, and the Kuru battlefield serves just as a metaphor, describing
physically the mental battle to reach enlightenment by destroying false
beliefs and by realizing the universal self through yogic consciousness.

T he S piritual S ignificance of the

B attlefield

The timeless message of the Bhagavad Gita does not refer to one histor­
ical battle, but to the cosmic conflict between good and evil: life as a series
of battles between Spirit and matter, soul and body, life and death, knowl­
edge and ignorance, health and disease, changelessness and transitoriness,
self-control and temptations, discrimination and the blind sense-mind, and

30 R. C. Zaehner, The Bhagavad Gita with a Commentary Based on the Original Sources (Ox­
ford: Oxford University Press, 1973), 15-16; "If we want to understand the spiritual
meaning of the Bhagavad Gita, we had better forget everything concerning the great
battle of the Mahabharata. A spiritual reader of the Bhagavad Gita will find in it the
great spiritual struggle of a human soul.” For further study, cf. Mascaro, The Bhaga­
vad Gita, 23.
31 Cf. Zaehner, Hindu Scriptures, 103-104.
 18
Asia Journal o f Theology

so forth. The yogin should analyze his daily mental and physical actions
to determine just how much of his life is ruled by the ego's ignorance
(delusion) and body consciousness, and how much he is able to express
of the soul's wisdom and divine nature. The Bhagavad Gita also suggests
that there are two parts in the battle: the searching for and finding of the
Supreme within the heart through reverent aspiration and obedience; and
then the ruling and dominating of the personal self by that new-found
Lord. The task is not easy, nor is it to be compassed in a day. Difficult will
be the struggle against the personal self, its desires and hates, its sense of
separateness from others. Only the divine power within can meet and
master the headstrong will of the personal self, whose minister, mind, ever
suggests subtle and plausible pretexts for obedience to God. The contest
is age-long, calling for high faith and valor and a deep patience that will
accept no defeat and ever renews the fight, even when it seems hopeless
in the concrete life situation. The yogin who has fulfilled the will of God is
guarded by the Supreme Lord, even through the waters of death.
The allegorical meaning of the Bhagavad Gita is the war between
good (dharma) and bad (adharma), knowledge (vidya) and non-knowledge
(avidya), spiritual and material. Understood thus, Kurukshetra32becomes
the battlefield of life, that is, the world. The world consists of the above-
mentioned two aspects: good and bad, knowledge and nescience. The
Pandavas represent good and knowledge and form the abode of the Para-
matrmn, the Supreme Lord of the universe. The Kauravas represent bad
and nescience and form the abode of the Evil. It is significant that the first
verse of the Bhagavad Gita presents to mind the parallel between the battle
of the Kurus and the battle fought for Righteousness (BG 1:1).33 Without
32 See W D. P. Hill, The Bhagavad Gita (Madras: Oxford University Press, 1953), 73; Ku-
ruksetra is the land of the Kurus, a leading dan of the period. Life is a battle, a war­
fare against the spirit of evil. Creative process is one of perpetual tension between
two incompatibilities, each standing against the other. By their mutual conflict, the
development is advanced and the cosmic purpose furthered. In this world are ele­
ments of imperfection, evil, and irrationality, and through a discernment process
we have to convert the elements, which are opaque to reason but transparent to
thought. Kuruksetra is also called tapaksetra, the field of penance, of disdpline. See
Radhakrishnan, The Bhagavad Gita, 80.
33 If at all the Bhagavad Gita summons us to war, it is to a war with ourselves (that is, to
an encounter with our "self-will'') rather than with the world at large. The enemies
are all within. There are no enemies outside unless one creates them by one’s own
enmity with oneself. The seeds of war lie in the heart. If the war is banished from
Michael: Battlefield o f Soul 19

understanding the esoteric meaning of the Bhagavad Gita, one can never
hope to obtain the knowledge of the ultimate truth, Paramatman, and of
the struggle of the yogin in the batdefield of his life situation. The courage
and strength required for this battle against evil and to fulfil the will of God
is single-minded devotion, love, dedication to the service of God, and total
self-surrender to God (BG 18:66). This practice of total self-surrender induc­
es a state characterized by the unification of the individual will with the will
of God, which is a virtue precedent to the actualization of the will of God.
This state is, according to the Bhagavad Gita, the crown and culmination
of all spiritual sadhana.34 The situation of Arjuna is well chosen to bring
out the great spiritual truths of the battlefield. He stands for the personal
self, beginning to grow conscious of the Higher Self by searching for and
finding the will of God; he is touched and enkindled with the spiritual
light of that Higher Self by fulfilling the will of God; yet he remains full
of dismay and terror from the realization of what obedience to the Higher
Self, by embracing God's will, must mean. The contest of the brothers is
now concentrated within a single nature, the life of a single man, the yogin.
A war must be waged within himself, a war long and arduous, for the life
of the Soul. Nothing but high courage, joined with faith and aspiration,
makes the contest possible, and even then there will be shrinking and dis­
may. Against the still, small voice of the Soul are arrayed the strong forces
of the material nature, the passions, the mind. These are the opposing
brothers on the field of the law, the symbols of negative forces who lead
the soul away from the will of God.35Arjuna is facing the battle of human
being, between the two armies of good and bad, as he grieves there in the
chariot, while the arrows are already falling. There is, first, the inheritance
of the long struggle for life in the world, the instinct of self-preservation,
the determination to make life a contest for one's separate fortune; the
gospel of worldly and material success. In general, many human beings live

within (heart), it gets automatically banished from without (battlefield)—at least for
ourselves—as there is then no need to fight. Self-conquest leads to world-conquest.
This is the Moral Rearmament of the Bhagavad Gita—to put our own house in order
by fulfilling the will of God. See Jariwalla, Gita: The Science of Living, 42-43.
34 Cf. J. C. Wadiyar, The Gita and Indian Culture (Madras: Orient Longmans Ltd., 1963),
45-46.
35 Cf. C. Johnston, Bhagavad Gita— The Songs of the Master (London: John M. Watkins,
1965), 22-23.
20 Asia Journal of Theology

for success, but the life of a yogin like Arjuna must be lived for obedience
to divine law of Dharma. He is not to work his separate will, he is to work
the will of the Supreme Being, the Divine Self.
Then, as a finer form of the first, there is ambition; the desire for name
and fame; the desire to be thought well of, to be spoken well of, to be no­
ticed and commented on, to be famous and admired. This is to give way to
another desire, the desire that the will of God may be done, as in the divine
world, so in the human world; and no praise will be valid but that of the
still, small voice. Then, there are the desires of the senses, very hungry and
importunate, begging incessantly to be fed, urging, stinging, tormenting;
and these must be stilled by searching for and finding God’s will. All desires
that abide in the heart must be let go, before the light and life and love of
God can dwell there. In fine, the whole former structure of things is to pass
away, the scheme of life built on hopes, fears and wishes; all relationships
with others based on self-seeking, on desire, on the hunger of the senses,
are to be transmuted; the personal will is to be transformed, so that the
will of God shall remain, guiding all things into new ways, making a new
heaven and a new earth . 36
Thus the Bhagavad Gita forms a strong base for the argument that the
battle into which Krishna urges Arjuna is an internal battle. The massed
armies on both sides, the physical battlefield itself, can be interpreted as
metaphors, albeit powerful ones, for the opposing forces in the mind that
must be conquered or quieted through the threefold yoga (karma yoga,
jnana yoga and bhakti yoga). In this way, from the perspective of the paths
of action, wisdom, and devotion, one can understand that, in the Bhagavad
Gita, there is no physical battlefield but rather a battlefield of the dangerous
desires, passions, and intentions of the mind.

A b o u t a u th o r
Pavulraj MICHAEL, SJ (PhD, Pontifical Gregorian University) is professor o f spiritual
theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, Italy.

36 Cf. Johnston, Bhagavad Gita, 29.

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