Page 7 - All India Magazine Oct-2019

Dhritarashtra the inner enemies of the soul's progress, the Pan-
dava army represents the forces that help towards liberation. This
is to relegate the Mahabharata to a low position in the world of
letters and at the same time to minimise and bring to nought the
deep seriousness of the Gita, its utility for the life of the man of ac-
tion and its high teaching that makes for the progress of mankind.
The war of Kurukshetra is not simply a frame for the Gita picture; it
is the prime motive and the best occasion for carrying out the law
given in the Gita. To accept a symbolic meaning for the great war
of Kurukshetra is to reduce the law of the Gita to a law of ascetic
quietism inapplicable to life in this world, not a law of the heroic
man, a law to be followed in life.
Sri Krishna is the Speaker. The scriptures say that Sri Krishna
is God Himself. In the Gita too, Sri Krishna has proclaimed Him-
self as God. It has there been declared, on the basis of the Avatara
doctrine in the fourth chapter and the theory of the Vibhuti in the
tenth, that God dwells hidden in the bodies of all creatures, shows
Himself to a certain extent through the manifestations of power in
some particular beings, and is fully incarnated in the person of Sri
Krishna. According to many, Sri Krishna, Arjuna and Kurukshetra are
mere metaphors, and in order to recover the true meaning of the
Gita these metaphors are to be ignored. But we cannot reject this
part of the teaching. If the Avatara doctrine is there, why should Sri
Krishna be ignored? Therefore, God Himself is the propounder of
this knowledge and the teaching.
CWSA 9: 93-94 Sri Aurobindo

All India Magazine, Oct. 2019 7