BG 2.2
SYNONYMS
sri–bhagavan uvaca — the Supreme Personality of Godhead said; kutah — wherefrom; tva — unto you; kasmalam — dirtiness; idam — this lamentation; vishame — in this hour of crisis; samupasthitam — arrived; anarya — persons who do not know the value of life; jushtam — practiced by; asvargyam — which does not lead to higher planets; akirti — infamy; karam — the cause of; arjuna — O Arjuna.
TRANSLATION
The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: My dear Arjuna, how have these impurities come upon you? They are not at all befitting a man who knows the value of life. They lead not to higher planets but to infamy.
BG 2.2 Purport:
Kṛṣṇa and the Supreme Personality of Godhead are identical. Therefore Lord Kṛṣṇa is referred to as Bhagavān throughout the Gītā. Bhagavān is the ultimate in the Absolute Truth. …
This is the first verse Sri Krishna is speaking. He has spoken “Pasya” just see, that is the only word Krishna has spoken in the earlier chapter. Now, He starts speaking, expressing his surprise kutas tva, where from kasmalam idam such contamination has come upon you. kasmala is contamination, vishame samupasthitam, vishame, at a critical moment, at a critical moment. How have you become so weak minded? anarya–jushtam asvargyam, this does not befit you anarya–jushtam. You are a glorious person. For example, a world cup is happening and last over the bowler starts trembling. The audience would say, “come on, you are placed in a team to play. How can you become nervous in such a moment?”
Choker are people who are choked up in pressure. So Krishna is telling Arjuna don’t be a choker like that no body wanted to be labeled like a Choker. When pressure arises, I will be able to take pressure and be cool. So Krishna is saying, “anarya–jushtam asvargyam, vishame samupasthitam, this is a crisis moment, pressure moment and at that time you have to perform. The real strong of you should come out.” anarya–jushtam asvargyam, this doesn’t become you, so kutas tva from where have such a feeling of (Choke!) come from you. It is unexpected about you.
Now the words has special significance here anarya–jushtam asvargyam, akirti–karam arjuna. So Lord is saying, this action in unfitting for you in three ways.” What are those three ways?
It is unbecoming of you as an Arya, it is unbecoming for you because asvargya, it will not take you to auspicious destination and also akirti–karam in this world it will not bring you fame but unfame. So it doesn’t befit you, what in future you will get next life? It does not befit what you will get in this life also, so in every way this action is unworthy of you.
So now what is the word Arya. We have a very positive connotation of the word Arya-there is a particular society called Arya Samaj. And they have the idea that, Aryan are particular kind of people, historically it is said that Aryan are very advanced race.
Srila Prabhupada acknowledged all this, but said: these are all external meaning, the essential meaning of the word Arya when Krishna is using it, He is not referring that O you don’t belong to a particular race.
So Srila Prabhupada said, Arya refers to those who know the purpose of life who know the spiritual purpose of life who has spiritual values they are Aryas. So today, in the world; Arya has very negative connotation, in western thought as well as broader India. Also basically words acquires certain meaning based on how they are used.
In today’s intellectual world, dialogs has become almost like untouchable word. Nobody want use “Arya” word to identify themselves or someone. Just as nobody wanted to call themselves as part parcel of the religious fanatic; that is the worst a person will get being called as an extremist. So the word Arya has got negative connotation. Germany banned the use of word Swastik due to its unpleasant memory recall for some people, but the word Arya is not banned, but it is viewed negatively. So Srila Prabhupada has explained beyond any racial or cultural connotation, the word Arya has spiritual connotation, meaning that it refers to person who has spiritual values that person is Arya.
Words has two features denotation & Connotation
denotation -> direct meaning
connotation-> what it implies
So when we use words we have to be aware of both. For e.g. word Gay 5- years back the meaning denotation was cheerful, but now it has completely different meaning.
So words has certain meaning and a subtle association when the words are used. So what is the problem with the word Arya: Two major churches in Europe
- Catholic Church -> Spain, Portugal & Italy -> Catholic went to South America
- Protestant -> France, Germany, Britain -> Protestant went to America
Wars were / are going between Catholic and Protestant. Both wanted to evangelize (spread Gospel of Christianity) the world. Vasco De Gama came to India.
Britain which was Protestant country they got power in India. People from west were surprised to see the majesty of Indian culture. There earlier thinking was, other than Christians people, rest are barbaric people.
The British expressed to have taken the responsibility (white men’s responsibility) to civilize the entire world. So their understanding was rest of the world is uncivilized, uncultured. So they has their own superiority complex that we are the best in the world. Of course, they have science and technology which has added to the infatuation.
So when they came to India they were shocked that India has its own magnificent culture and lofty vision of history which expand far-far greater than Western history. Their history primarily talks about Greek civilization – Socrates, Pluto. Greek civilization is considered to be very advance after which Jesus came, but Vedic civilization is thousands of years old.
Sanskrit literature is very vast and advance. They were not able to digest that any other civilization is more advanced than theirs. So their superiority complex felt a body blow, and they were thinking how to accept this. Then, they found that there is lot of similarities also.
For example the Moniar Williams and Max Mullar and other prominent Indologist (which means western European scholors who studied India, the branch of knowledge which studied India is called Indology which involves Philosphy, language, religious studies, anthropology.) They found that Sanskrit is similar to Latin and Greek, not only similar, but Sanskrit is superior to Latin and Greek. The vocabulary and structure the aesthetics are also better.
This was even more difficult for them to digest. So Sanskrit was better and there were similarities. So they concluded, probably there was some old civilization from which the languages were offshoots. And from those offshoots, some went to Europe. And that is how European civilization came about. But this was unacceptable to their superiority complex. They were thinking themselves civilized and rest of the world barbarian. So how can these barbarians has better civilization? So the Indologists devised a new theory.
Aryan Invasion Theory
So they devised another theory that Indian and European Civilization evolved from one common civilization they are somewhere in world. And that civilization they called as Aryan Civilization. So Aryan were civilized and they came to civilize Europe and they also came to civilize India. So this was not just to establish their superiority, but there was a political agenda behind this also. When Muslims came to India, they came and stayed in India, and lot of Indians have got converted also. So India became their home. But for Britishers India was a degraded land, and it was punishment for them going to India. But they wanted to rule India.
So they decided that only way they can rule India, if Indians voluntarily accept that Europeans are superior to Indians. And we will teach them, and we are here for their help and not to rule them, but to help them. Then they will accept our rule.
So how you will make Indian accept them, so if Indian will look from Vedic points of view people who are not following basic regulation, eat meat, drink alcohol, they are considered low class. So they have some science and technology which brought some respect and they were Political rulers which also brought some respect but that respect not a willing respect so they thought that the only way they win the respect of Indian if Indians consider their culture as superior and if that is to be done then there framework for evaluating culture superiority should be changed. So to do this it was huge program which has gone to the multiple generations so they decided that Indians faith to the Vedic literature has to be destroyed. And if this framework has to be destroyed then they will not see us from those framework of eyes. From those cultural standards and then they will see our superiority.
When Muslims came to India they destroyed so many temple but Britishers strategy was much deeper to destroy the faith by which they are going to temple. By misinterpreting the Vedic literature in a systematic way they destroyed the faith.
So they said both of us have come from some other culture, and that culture they call as Aryan civilization. In that sense both of us are long lost brothers and now we have met and we have learnt something so we will teach that to you. Everything that was good about India that they said it has not come from India but it was from original Aryan civilization and originals Indians they were Dravindians they were low cast, low quality people. Ofcourse this is very complex socio-political issue so we will not go into the intricacies of that our current focus is the current untouchable status of the word Aryan. So when the idea came up there is an ancient civilization which is the mother or parent for both the European Civilization, Greek-Roman Civilization and the Indian Civilization then the quest for that mother land became frantic, where was that? The acrchilogy and history around Ureasia and whole India they couldn’t give any tangible Asian civilization anywhere else
(*** Devvamrit Maharaj Srila Prabhupad disciple has written a book ; searching of vedic India)
Then the question came where is that original great civilization. Correct understanding is that civilization is India itself. After Mahabharat war when central leadership became weak after that time rulings of Parichit Maharaj was over, expatriates left India and established themselves in other part of world slowly they became disconnect. That is why we have so many similarity but still things are different.
They mentioned that Aryan were nomadic (who are moving from one place to other place) tribes and they or people of his race sang Rigvada…the answer of this wrong conception is, Sanskrit is such a complex language where learning grammar only takes 12 years and then writing these complex scripture like Vedas, whether tribes people who are always moving from one place to other will find time to study so much and become mature so that they can write Vedas? When they would have written Vedas? Since they were always travelling and those days travelling was also very difficult like walking on foot or riding horses. They would not be having time to study so much sincerely…in the culture of world we have seen that nomadic tribe people will not be having good knowledge and depth study. As those days travelling was not conducive for study what to talk about in depth study.
So Aryan migration theory is a complete mess.
Almost every European country started claiming that they are the original civilization and same thing Hitler has done. And Hitler idea was since Aryan were the prominent civilization of the world so they should rule the world. Aryan idea became Nazi ideology and this poisoned the whole Germany and world and then he started countries after countries and that is how the second world war started. They have adopted the Swastik symbol which is the symbol for auspiciousness but he twisted it around of course he doesn’t want auspiciousness for everyone he wanted inauspiciousness for them expect German. So the point is the word Arya become a whole socio culture mess that erupted and resulted in second world war and that is the reason now nobody wanted to say that we are Aryan because Hitler was claiming that I am Aryan and the word has got a very negative connotation today. So all these are irrelevant to the context of Bhagavad Gita.
Srila Bhakti Sidanta Sraswati Thakur (SBSST) has sent devotees to preach in England and Germany, his disciples have talked about actual knowledge about Arayans in Germany…they informed that Arayn is a spiritual designation and not a racial designation because of this Germany government has became angry and they banned Gaudiya math and devotees have to flee for their life.
So here what Krishna refers as anarya is a person who does not act according to the spiritual values that is anarya.
so akirti–karam will be elaborated by Krishna in later section 31 to 38, He will say you will be infamous, people will think that you are cowardly suddenly you have left.
Srila Prabhupada whole purport is centered around one point sri–bhagavan uvaca, who is Bhagavan? Srila Prabhupada talks about the manifestation of absolute truth as Brahman, Parmatama and Bhagavan and Bhagavan is the highest manifestation, and Krishna is that Bhagavan, then Srila Prabhupada describes about kutah, unworthy action.
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