are assembled for battle.  Teachers, fathers, and even sons, and grandfathers, uncles, fathers-in-law, grandsons, brothers-in-law, with connections also,—­these I would not wish to slay, though I were slain myself, O Killer of Madhu! not even for the sake of the sovereignty of the triple world—­how much less for that of this earth!  When we had killed the Dhartarashtras, what pleasure should we have, O thou who art prayed to by mortals?  How could we be happy after killing our own kindred, O Slayer of Madhu?  Even if they whose reason is obscured by covetousness do not perceive the crime committed in destroying their own tribe, should we not know how to recoil from such a sin?  In the destruction of a tribe the eternal institutions of the tribe are destroyed.  These laws being destroyed, lawlessness prevails.  From the existence of lawlessness the women of the tribe become corrupted; and when the women are corrupted, O son of Vrishni! confusion of caste takes place.  Confusion of caste is a gate to hell.  Alas! we have determined to commit a great crime, since from the desire of sovereignty and pleasures we are prepared to slay our own kin.  Better were it for me if the Dhartarashtras, being armed, would slay me, harmless and unresisting in the fight.’

[Illustration:  JAIN TEMPLES AT SUNAGHUR.]

“Having thus spoken in the midst of the battle, Arjuna, whose heart was troubled with grief, let fall his bow and arrow and sat down on the bench of the chariot.”

“Well,” I asked after a short pause, during which the Hindu kept his eyes fixed in contemplation on the spire of the temple, “what did Krishna have to say to that?”

“He instructed Arjuna, and said many wise things.  I will tell you some of them, here and there, as they are scattered through the holy Bhagavad-Gita:  Then between the two armies, Krishna, smiling, addressed these words to him, thus downcast: 

“’Thou hast grieved for those who need not be grieved for, yet thou utterest words of wisdom.  The wise grieve not for dead or living.  But never at any period did I or thou or these kings of men not exist, nor shall any of us at any time henceforward cease to exist.  There is no existence for what does not exist, nor is there any non-existence for what exists....  These finite bodies have been said to belong to an eternal, indestructible and infinite spirit....  He who believes that this spirit can kill, and he who thinks that it can be killed—­both of these are mistaken.  It neither kills nor is killed.  It is born, and it does not die....  Unborn, changeless, eternal both as to future and past time, it is not slain when the body is killed....  As the soul in this body undergoes the changes of childhood, prime and age, so it obtains a new body hereafter....  As a man abandons worn-out clothes and take other new ones, so does the soul quit worn-out bodies and enter other new ones.  Weapons cannot cleave it, fire cannot burn it, nor can water wet