Text 37] Bhisma’s Passing Away 489

PURPORT
The kings and the commanders were to stand in the front of the fighting
soldiers. That was the system of actual fighting. The kings and commanders
were not so-called presidents or ministers of defense as they are today.
They would not stay home while the poor soldiers or mercenaries were
fighting face to face. This may be the regulation of modern democracy,
but when actual monarchy was prevailing, the monarchs were not cowards
elected without consideration of qualification. As it was evident from the
Battlefield of Kuruksetra, all the executive heads like Drona, Bhisma,
Arjuna, Duryodhana, etc., of both parties, were not sleeping, but all of
them were actual participants in the fighting which was selected to be
executed at a place away from the civil residential quarters. This means
that the innocent citizens were immuned from all effects of fighting
between the rival royal parties. The citizens had no business to see what
was going to happen after such fighting. They were to pay one fourth of
their income to the ruler, whether he be Arjuna or Duryodhana. All the
commanders of the parties on the Battlefield of Kuruksetra were standing
face to face, and Arjuna saw them with great compassion and lamented
that he was to kill his kinsmen on the battlefield for the sake of the
empire. He was not at all afraid of the giant military phalanx presented by
Duryodhana. but as a merciful devotee of the Lord, renunciation of worldly
things was natural for him, and thus he decided not to fight for worldly
possessions. But this was due to a poor fund of knowledge. and therefore
it is said here that his intelligence became polluted. His intelligence could
not be polluted at any time because he was a devotee and constant
companion of the Lord, as is clear in the Fourth Chapter of the Bhagavad-
gita. Apparently Arjuna’s intelligence became polluted because otherwise
there would not have been a chance to deliver the teachings of Bhagavad-
gita for the good of all polluted conditioned souls engaged in material
bondage by the conception of the false material body. The Bhagavad-gita
was delivered to the conditioned souls of the world to deliver them from
the wrong conception of identifying the body with the soul and to reestab-
lish the soul’s eternal relation with the Supreme Lord. Atma-vidya, or
transcendental knowledge of Himself, was primarily spoken by the Lord

for the benefit of all concerned in all parts of the universe.
TEXT 37
afrrmaret_ acafagt-
~ =.
TAGE | TR |
