Publication detail

’Wise do not moan over the living nor the dead.’ On how knowing the real (sat) bolsters coping with crisis in Bhagavadgītā

Authors: Skopal Vilém

Year: 2021

Type of publication: ostatní - přednáška nebo poster

Page from-to: nestránkováno

Titles:

Language	Name	Abstract	Keywords
eng	’Wise do not moan over the living nor the dead.’ On how knowing the real (sat) bolsters coping with crisis in Bhagavadgītā	Bhagavadgītā is part of Indian epos Mahābhārata telling a story of rivalry between two groups of cousins, Pāṇḍavas and Kauravas, about a dynastic succession. In Bhagavadgītā we see Arjuna the Pāṇḍava with his charioteer Kṛṣna in the dawn of the battle, an inevitable outcome of the conflict. Arjuna seeing his relatives, friends and teachers as his enemies is overwhelmed by grief and asks Kṛṣna whether to fight and kill them or not. There are numerous verses describing Arjuna’s both emotional and bodily condition while solving the dilemma: his body is shaking, his hair raising, his mouth is dry and his hands are uncapable of holding bow and arrows, he is confused and unable to compose himself. In another words, Arjuna faces a deep crisis and seeks advice and consolation in Kṛṣna’s wisdom. Kṛṣna’s advice concerning the dilemma is affirmative for a number of reasons and, therefore, my paper shall focus only on the first one mentioned in the second chapter, verses 11-30. Here Kṛṣna discriminates between body, senses, sense object and impressions stemming from senses on the one hand and a bodier (i.e. one having a body; dehin, śarīrin) on the other. Arjuna is said to concentrate on the bodier, because it is stable and eternal and, therefore, cannot be killed. Hence, he should go fight his relatives and friend because he will do harm only to bodies with their senses which are perishable anyway. I will use hypothesis of S. N. Balagangadhara about two levels of reality, a common intellectual tool in Indian thought, to explain Kṛṣna’s advice. Showing an explicatory force of the hypothesis shall serve also as a test of the hypothesis and, therefore, as probing its applicability in explaining conceptions formulated by Indian thinkers. I shall focus mainly on questions: What exactly is meant by bodier? How a body with its senses is conceptualised? What is difference between these two conceptions? Last but not least, how these two conceptions might bolster coping with crisis?	Bhagavadgītā; crisis – coping with; dehin; śarīrin; sat

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