The Teaching of the Gita/Characters in the Mahabharata

Documents libres.

The Gita Teaches Ahimsa

The Teaching of the Gita ~ Characters in the Mahabharata written by Mohandas K. Gandhi

Lesson from the Mahabharata

All the names given in the First Chapter of the Gita, are, in my opinion, not so much proper nouns as names of qualities. In describing the eternal warfare between the heavenly and the devilish natures, the poet has personified them as the characters in the Mahabharata. This does not imply a refusal to believe that an actual battle took place at Hastinapur between the Pandavas and the Kauravas. I hold that the poet took some such actual event as the thread upon which to hang his discourse. But I may be wrong. Again if all the names given are the names of real historical characters, the poet has done nothing improper in giving the list at the historical beginning. And as the First Chapter is an essential part of the subject-matter of the Gita, it, too, should be recited as part of Gitapatha.

—The Diary of Mahadev Desai : P. 172.