Krishna then enters upon a long discourse upon the duties of caste and the indwelling of the Infinite, showing that the soul, which is a part of deity, cannot be slain though the body may be hewn to pieces.  “The wise,” he says, “grieve not for the departed nor for those who yet survive.  Never was the time when I was not, nor thou, nor yonder chiefs, and never shall be the time when all of us shall not be.  As the embodied soul in this corporeal frame moves swiftly on through boyhood, youth, and age, so will it pass through other forms hereafter; be not grieved thereat....  As men abandon old and threadbare clothes to put on others new, so casts the embodied soul its worn-out frame to enter other forms.  No dart can pierce it; flame cannot consume it, water wet it not, nor scorching breezes dry it—­indestructible, eternal, all-pervading, deathless."[77]

It may seem absurd to Western minds that a long discourse, which constitutes a volume of intricate pantheistic philosophy, should be given to a great commander just at the moment when he is planning his attack and is absorbed with the most momentous responsibilities; it seems to us strangely inconsistent also to expatiate elaborately upon the merits of the Yoga philosophy, with its asceticism and its holy torpor, when the real aim is to arouse the soul to ardor for the hour of battle.  But these infelicities are no obstacle to the Hindu mind, and the consistency of the plot is entirely secondary to the doctrine of caste and of philosophy which the author makes Krishna proclaim.  Gentle as many of its precepts are, the Bhagavad Gita, or the “Lord’s Lay,” is a battle-song uttered by the Supreme Being while the contending hosts awaited the signal for fratricidal carnage.

The grotesqueness which characterizes all Hindu literature is not wanting in this story of Krishna and Arjuna, as given in the great poem of which the Bhagavad Gita forms a part.  The five sons of Pandu are representatives of the principle of righteousness, while the hundred brothers of the rival branch are embodiments of evil.  Yet, when the victory had been gained and the sceptre was given to the sons of Pandu, they despised it and courted death, though the “Adorable One” had urged them on to strife.

Bishma, the leader of the hostile force, in a personal encounter with Arjuna, had been filled so full of darts that he could neither stand nor lie down.  Every part of his body was bristling with arrows, and for fifty-eight days he lingered, leaning on their sharp points.  Meanwhile the eldest of the victors, finding his throne only a “delusion and a snare,” and being filled with remorse, was urged by Krishna to visit his unfortunate adversary and receive instruction and comfort.  Bishma, lying upon his bed of spikes, edified him with a series of long and tedious discourses on pantheistic philosophy, after which he asked the tender-hearted Krishna for permission to depart.  He is no longer the embodiment of evil:  the cruel arrows with which the ideal of goodness had pierced him fall away, the top of his head opens, and his spirit soars to heaven shining like a meteor.  How strange a reversal is here!  How strange that he who had been the representative of all evil should have been transformed by his suffering, and should have been made to instruct and comfort the man of success.