Gita 01.02 Sanjaya addresses not just the content of Dhritarashtra’s question but also its intent

Bhagavad Gita 1.2, Drishtvaatupandavanikam yudham duryodhana sthadaa acharyam upasangamya raja vachanamabrabhit. So, this is Sanjay Vacha. The Bhagavad Gita began with a question by Dhritarashtra, and now Sanjay is answering: what happened? Some questions are very close-ended. That means the answer to the question has to be very specific. If there is a cricket match going on between two countries, you could ask, “Who won the match?” Then that will be a very specific answer: Team A won or Team B won. “What happened in the match?” That question is open-ended, and the answer to that will be very different. Now, depending on how interested both people are in the events and how much information the person answering the question has, the answer can go into detail. So, “What happened?” can be answered because it’s open-ended. “Team A won” can give that kind of answer also, or one can even give a detailed description of each phase of the match. If the cricket match is going on, we might have running commentary. Some commentaries, if it’s a written commentary which we are accessing on the internet by reading, some commentaries are over-by-over. Some commentaries are ball-by-ball, and we are talking about cricket here. So, “What happened in a particular cricket match?” that might give us a drop, a ball-by-ball account of what happened. If it’s “What happened in the boxing match?” you might have a “blow-by-blow” account. Each blow that was landed, where did it land? What was the impact? What was the retaliation? How did the match unfold? Everything will be described.

So, the question by Dhritarashtra is open-ended and is asking what happened at Kurukshetra, Dharmakshetra, Kurukshetra, Samavetha Yudhsava. When they are assembled, what did they do? Now, it’s interesting that the Mahabharata could focus on, that the narrative of the Bhagavad Gita could focus on anything, but it chooses to focus not on anyone in the battlefield, but specifically on the one to whom Dhritarashtra is most attached. So, Dhritarashtra, as a father, is naturally concerned about what happened to his sons, and among them, he is most attached to his eldest son, Duryodhana, who is the most headstrong also.

So, we want our head to be strong. We don’t want to be headstrong. That means we need to have a strong intelligence by which we can take sound decisions. But if we are headstrong, then we just take whatever decision we are attached to whatever opinion we circumstantially form and we just stick to it. So, Duryodhana was headstrong, and because Dhritarashtra was attached to him, naturally, the Mahabharata’s narrative within the Bhagavad Gita begins with responding to Dhritarashtra’s immediate concern. Suppose, we know that if somebody is asking you about a commentary of a cricket match and we know that they are attached to a particular player, even when they’re asking “What happened in the match?” we know that their unspoken question is, “What happened to that particular player in this match? What did he do? How did he play?”

So, therefore, because of Dhritarashtra’s natural attachment to Duryodhana, and because Sanjay has been with Dhritarashtra for a long time, Sanjay knows how the mind of Dhritarashtra works.

So, he naturally recognizes that the thrust of Dhritarashtra’s question, the unspoken thrust, is Duryodhana’s well-being. When people ask us some questions, if we are to give them satisfactory answers, we need to look not just at the content of the question, but also at the intent of the question or the consciousness behind the question. To the extent we do that, we can answer effectively. And to the extent we fail to do that, we stay stuck.

So, for each one of us, Sanjay’s answer is instructive of how he is sensitive to the unspoken implication of Dhritarashtra’s question. And thus, he focuses on Duryodhana.

The two armies are assembled in the Kurukshetra battlefield, and before that, Sanjay focuses the camera on the Kaurava side, specifically on Duryodhana. Both armies are facing each other, looking at their relative strengths. When Duryodhana sees the military formation of the Pandavas, he sees how well they have been formed, and he speaks these words to the Acharya.

It is interesting that the word Raja can have two meanings. It can be Sanjay referring to Dhritarashtra and calling him Raja, or it can be referring to Duryodhana himself, who was the de facto ruler because Dhritarashtra was so weak-minded that he handed over effective power to his son.

We often use the metaphor of a cricket match or a sports match in general to make sense of the various moves happening on the Kurukshetra battlefield, especially at the beginning. So, here, if the captain sees that a particular player, such as a batsman or a team member, is key to a particular strategy, every team member has to play a role. But depending on the nature of the opponent, the pitch, and the situation, different players step forward to play prominent roles. For example, if the opponent’s ranks are filled with pace bowlers, and a particular player is a spinner, then that person may be the trump card, and the captain will approach that player first.

Similarly, here, Duryodhana, upon seeing the Pandava military formation, goes to Dronacharya and starts speaking to him. In the next verse, why he speaks specifically to Dronacharya and not to Bhishma will become clear.

Now, in an army, there is the king and there is the commander. The commander works under the king. At the same time, the commander knows much more about the intricacies of the army and the specifics of fighting than the king might. The king may also know, but the commander is a hands-on controller. So, the king might be the ultimate commander-in-chief, but the king is not the immediate one to command.

On the Pandava side, Yudhishthira was the king, and they had made Dhrishtadyumna the commander. On the Kaurava side, Bhishma, being the senior-most warrior, was the commander, and of course, Duryodhana was the prince, a member of the royal dynasty. So, he was like the king. In some ways, his position was equal to that of Yudhishthira, and thus, both of them were assembled on the battlefield to fight.

It is significant that upon seeing the critical situation, Duryodhana chooses to go to Dronacharya and not to Bhishma. Why that happens will be revealed in subsequent verses.

Thank you.