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9. The caste duty

^{31"Even considering your own dharma, wavering is not appropriate. Fighting for dharma is better than any other activity for a kshatriya. ³²Unsought, arriving at the wide open gates of heaven - happy are the kshatriyas, Partha, to whom such gains come. ³³Thereupon, in this way according to dharma, if you do not engage in war, then losing your own dharma and fame, you will fall into sin. ³⁴Of your disgrace people will speak without ceasing, and for an honourable person, disgrace is worse than death. ³⁵Out of fear you left the battlefield, so will you be considered, great charioteer. The esteem they had for you will decrease. ³⁶Words that should not be said, your ill-wishers will speak of you, deriding your strength. What could be sadder than that? ³⁷Being killed, you will receive heaven, winning you will enjoy the earth. Therefore, get up son of Kunti, determined for fighting. ³⁸Having gained equanimity in happiness and sadness, loss and gain, victory and defeat, if you engage thus in fighting, you will not fall into sin.}

Krishna is now advancing the next reason to fight and not run away from the war – his caste duty. Arjuna was a kshatriya, and it was his duty to fight the war. In verse 18:43, he would say, "Heroism, brightness, firmness, being on guard in battle and even not fleeing from there, charity, leadership are the characteristics born of the own nature of a kshatriya." These qualities are thus a part of Arjuna’s nature, and it would be against his nature if he were to flee from the battlefield. Everyone feels ill-at-ease when acting against his own nature.

The caste system at that time was not as rigid as it is now. It was not supposed to be rigidly hereditary. As verse 18:41 says, "Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras, are divided in action according to properties born of their own nature," not according to the caste they were born in. The next three verses (42-44) describe these characteristics: "Peacefulness, control, austerity, cleanliness, tolerance, simplicity, knowledge, scientific knowledge, belief in God, are the characteristics born of the natural qualities of the Brahmins. Heroism, brightness, firmness, being on guard in battle and even not fleeing from there, charity, leadership are the characteristics born of the own nature of a Kshatriya. Farming, protection of the cows, trade are the works born of the nature of a Vaishya; service to others is the work born of the own nature of the Shudras." The words used are svabhava prabhavaih (18:41) = born of own nature, and svabhava jam (18:42, 43 and 44) = born of own nature.

Originally the castes were nothing but the four natural functions carried out in any well-ordered society by different people according to their natural inclinations and abilities. "Dharma" actually means natural characteristic or innate nature e.g. wetness is the dharma of water, heat is the dharma of fire etc. In any well-functioning society, there are four different kinds of functions that need to be carried out. At the lowest level are the physical activity functions, that are carried out today by all kinds of manual laborers. Above these are the economic functions of trade and business. Above these are the functions of ensuring internal and external security, law and order, of legislating and implementing new laws as necessary, of administering justice, and of carrying out public works which no private enterprises can possibly undertake such as the building of highways and dams. Today, these functions are carried out by the government – in all three wings – legislative, administrative and judiciary, plus the police and defense forces. Finally, at what is supposed to be the highest level, is the function of giving the right direction to society. A large responsibility of the degeneration of Indian society (and in many other countries too) today has to be assigned to the fact that those who are supposed to carry out this task have largely abdicated their responsibilities and fallen for the lure of the money or the power of the two lower functions. The Brahmins of yesteryear were not supposed to even own any property of their own; today the Brahmins are major property-holders, having gone into business and politics! School-teachers are some of the most poorly-paid people in this country; and in the Bihars and U.P.s, their meagre salaries even lie unpaid for years! A well-known film-maker was recently asked a question in an interview, "Why do you show sexually titillating scenes and gory violence in your films?" and his sad answer was, "We are merely showing what goes on in society." Who is leading whom? Movies have an indelible impression on the mind of the young. Film-makers too fall in the definition of those who carry out "the function of giving the right direction to society." But it’s no wonder; when they themselves don’t have any right direction, how can they give it to others? Anyway, we are talking about the caste-system. These four natural functions, that are a part of any well-functioning society, were also naturally present in Indian society in Vedic times. The people carrying out the four functions were given the names Shudra, Vaishya, Kshatriya, and Brahmin respectively. And just as today there is no restriction in a girl from an artist-family marrying a boy from a family in politics or in business, similarly earlier there were no inter-caste marriage restrictions. With time however, people realized that many a times, such inter-function marriages created real problems! Imagine a girl who has artistic leanings married to a man who has absolutely no artistic understanding, but is only interested in making money! It’s bound to create some problems! She was better off marrying into a family that itself had artistic leanings. That led to a general understanding that it’s wiser to marry within the same-function families. And over time that ossified further into a man-made rule that "inter-caste marriages are not allowed." Manu codified such understandings into a set of general laws, that soon became cast-iron caste-rules. Today, these are so set in the minds of many people in India, that they don’t even mind killing the boy and the girl because they dared to go against the caste rules.

Truly people have "have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men." Where, in which Scriptures has God ordained that a girl and a boy who marry outside of their castes are to be killed? Even amongst the Hindu Scriptures, the only ones that are supposed to be God-inspired are the Vedas. And there is nothing in the Vedas that sanctions such caste behavior. All the four Vedas are divided into four parts:

Samhitas i.e. ‘Collections’; these are collections of hymns, prayers, songs, benedictory words, sacrificial formulas and litanies.
Brahmanas: prose texts which contain theological discussions, especially observations on the sacrifices and the practical or mystical significance of the rites and ceremonies and
Aranyakas: philosophical interpretations of the rituals.
Upanishads: containing a good amount of Indian philosophy, mainly about Brahman, God and man.

Nowhere in these are found any justification for the kind of wild caste-rule violence witnessed in many areas in India today. In fact a realized person was one who had gone beyond castes. Look at the following extract from the Narada Parivrajaka Upanishad part VI, according to which, castes and orders, etc., pertaining to the body are "invented by the bamboozling illusion" and have "all been superimposed on the Self by delusion":

^{13That person is considered as one beyond the castes and orders who realizes the supreme truth which is free of the body, senses, etc., which is the all-witness, the spiritual wisdom, the self of bliss and the self-radiant. ¹⁴Castes and orders, etc., pertaining to the body are invented by the bamboozling illusion. ¹⁵They (the castes and orders) are never part of my Self which is of the form of pure consciousness. He who realizes thus by the teachings of the Upanishads shall be deemed as one beyond the castes and orders. ¹⁶He whose conduct conforming to castes and orders has dropped out on visualizing his Self, goes beyond all restrictions of castes and orders and remains in the Self. ¹⁷The knowers of the truth of all the Vedas declare that man to be beyond the castes and orders who is established in his Self, having reached the stage beyond his order (ashrama) and his caste. ¹⁸Therefore, Oh Narada, even the castes and the orders of other people have all been superimposed on the Self by delusion; this is not done by the knower of the Self.}

We are talking about the caste system in those days, before its degeneration. Doing work according to your dharma i.e. natural inclination or ability, is conducive to soul-realization. Because when you are doing work according to your natural inclinations and abilities, your inner nature and outer activity are in sync and there is no discord, there is no stress. In fact it’s almost as if the body is carrying out its functions automatically without the intervention of the mind. This is what "Karma Yoga" is all about, as we will see when we come to chapter 3. And as we will see later when we look at sections 3:27-29, 4:16-23 etc., this is exactly what "action in inaction" means.

While talking about caste duty, it would be relevant to look at a quote from Mahadev Desai’s book "The Gita according to Gandhi" (pages 102-104):

Quite an amount of ignorant criticism is leveled at the doctrine of the performance of svadharma (one’s duty or function) taught in the Gita and the reason for it is the much-abused varna system… Much of the criticism is directed against a thing which is just a shadow of what existed ages ago. There was a system which existed in ages gone by, which served the then existing social organism magnificently, which was elastic and hence made it possible for a number of different groups of the same race and several races to live together in amity and peace. What we see today is its travesty, a fossil formed out of the incrustations of customs and practices of several centuries. Let not one judge the original from the ghost of it, and say that the author of the Gita sought to clothe a loathsome thing with divine sanction. The system of varnas we find described is certainly no rigid one. The division is no division into water-tight compartments. If the Gita can be said to admit a division, that division is, as we have seen, into two classes – daiva (divine) and asura (devilish) – and that too would hardly appear, on examination, to be a permanent division, inasmuch as there is an eternal war going on between the divine and the devilish in us, no matter what class or caste we belong. It is therefore difficult for man to characterize or label brother man. If he cannot label himself correctly, much less can he label any one else. Let us note then the main features of that elastic system:

The division was entirely vocational, in order that each might serve the best interests of the organism. If men devoted themselves to tasks for which their character and aptitude best fitted them, they would be able to give of their best to the community. The criterion was not what one needed but what one could give to the community.
The division had regard to the requirements of the then existing society and these were broadly divided into (a) intellectual and spiritual, (b) defense, (c) production of wealth by (1) intelligent economy and by (2) labor. Each requirement was assigned to be fulfilled by a class possessing the particular gifts necessary for its fulfillment. The evident inequality of individual attainments was recognized, but the possession of gifts added to one’s responsibility rather than improved one’s rank. Thus to possess nothing was one of the characteristics of a Brahmana whose wealth was that of spirituality and self-denial, while the production of wealth for the community was necessary for a Vaishya, to provide body labor was the privilege of a Shudra.
Purity or virtue was the monopoly of none. Salvation was through the proper selfless performance of one’s task. The Bhagavata Purana describes what have been rather loosely described as functions (karmani) in the Gita as the natural characteristics – (prakritayah) – of the various classes and then says, the ethical rule of life is the same for all, viz. inoffensiveness, truth, non-stealing, freedom from wrath and greed, desire to do good to mankind. Hence salvation was more difficult for those who had greater tasks to perform and easier for those entrusted with humbler functions. For these were not cumbered with much knowledge. Whilst it was easy, for instance, for a butcher or for a scavenger to carry on his forefather’s profession with equanimity and detachment and as a sacrifice offered to God, it was quite likely for a learned Brahmana to darken counsel with much learning and even "with devotion’s visage and pious action sugar over the devil himself." Among the Indian saints we have fewer from among the Brahmanas than from the non-Brahmanas. Among the saints from revered memory, Sena was a barber, Sajana was a butcher, Gora a potter, Raidas a cobbler, Chokhamela an untouchable, Tukarama a kunbi, and so on. None disclaimed his profession but worked his salvation through a detached prayerful performance of it.
The functions were hereditary because heredity is a law of nature, but there were no exclusive divisions, as we know from several cases of intermixture of functions and varnas in the Mahabharata.
The organism is shattered to pieces today and there are no defined classes that can answer to the description of the old varnas, but the rule to respect the law of nature may stand even today and all societies which are to any extent well-ordered would on examination be found to be based on a vocational division of some kind.

In verse 31, Krishna says that "Fighting for dharma is better than any other activity for a kshatriya." The first reason follows from the above: since it is the innate nature, the natural inclination of a kshatriya to fight, fighting will be in accord with Arjuna’s nature, his dharma. The point is explicitly made in verse 33: "in this way according to dharma, if you do not engage in war, then losing your own dharma and fame, you will fall into sin." In Hinduism, sin is understood to mean as not acting according to your inner nature. This includes all that in the Semitic religions is considered "sin" since those rules are according to the inner nature of man in general. The Mosaic "Do not murder" and Jesus’ enhancement of it to "Do not get angry with anyone without proper cause" are as much sins in Hinduism as in Judaism and Christianity, because they are according to the nature of all men. But in Hinduism, the understanding of sin also includes doing activities that are against your dharma or nature as understood by the four categories, unless compelled to do so. It was in Arjuna’s nature, his dharma, to fight; and if he didn’t do it, he would be committing sin. He would be living in regret all his life! And that would not be conducive to self-realization at all.

The next but connected reason is given in verses 34 to 36: "Of your disgrace people will speak without ceasing, and for an honorable person, disgrace is worse than death. Out of fear you left the battlefield, so will you be considered, great charioteer. The esteem they had for you will decrease. Words which should not be said, your ill-wishers will speak of you, deriding your strength. What could be sadder than that?" Everywhere he went, he would be aware of fingers being pointed at him, of words being spoken behind his back. "Look at that fellow. We thought he was a brave, courageous fighter. But he turned out to be a coward who ran away from battle." Arjuna was a honorable person, and for honorable persons, such disgrace is worse than death because they have to live with it! If they die, at least they won’t be around to experience it. But since they are alive they have to go through it. That’s exactly why so many honorable people prefer to die than face ignominy.

No one would have believed the explanation that suddenly noble thoughts had gripped Arjuna. They would only say, "He left the battlefield because he was scared to fight. He should have thought of these things before. Didn’t he know beforehand whom he was going to fight? Of course he did." And what will his enemies think of him? Will they thank him for sparing them their lives or the trouble to fight? Of course not! They will only make fun of him!

Those were the negative reasons. Now Krishna states the positive one. In verse 37 he says, "Being killed, you will receive heaven, winning you will enjoy the earth." Heads you win, tails you win! In verse 32 he has already said, "Unsought, arriving at the wide open gates of heaven - happy are the kshatriyas, Partha, to whom such gains come." If he dies he goes to heaven, if he wins the war he will enjoy the earth. Heads he wins, tails he wins. Thus whatever happens, he gains if he fights and loses if he doesn’t. "Therefore, get up determined for fighting." Is the most logical conclusion that comes out of all that he has said till now.

Verse 38 introduces a very important idea in the Bhagavad Geeta: Samatva or Samabuddhi, translated as "equanimity". The verse says, "Having gained equanimity in happiness and sadness, loss and gain, victory and defeat, if you engage thus in fighting, you will not fall into sin." Look at the verses that mention this state of equanimity:

2:48	Established in yoga, perform actions having abandoned attachment, winner of wealth. Being equanimous in success and failure is called yoga.
3:9	Except work performed for sacrifice, actions lead to bondage. That should be the purpose of work, son of Kunti. It should be free from attachment, with equanimity of behavior towards everything.
3:26	The knowledgable should direct all action established in equanimity.
5:19	Even in this life, it is they who are victorious who are situated in equanimity. Faultless and equal in everything is divine consciousness. Therefore they are situated in Brahman.

"Having gained equanimity… you will not fall into sin", "Being equanimous in success and failure is called yoga", "The knowledgable should direct all action established in equanimity", "Even in this life, it is they who are victorious who are situated in equanimity." Obviously this equanimity is a very important thing! You want to be victorious in life? Have real victories? Then you have to develop this equanimity! But what is this equanimity?

Imagine this situation: It’s the world cup final. Two teams facing each other. Both tense. Perhaps the most important day of their lives! Besides all the commercial benefits, victory would mean that they would be known as world champions for four years. Victory would mean that they would be looked up at, wherever they go. Victory would mean that their entire nation would be proud of them, and the entire world would respect them. Victory would mean that they will have an extraordinarily special time to look back on for the rest of their lives. Defeat would mean letting down an entire nation. Defeat would mean a lifetime of dejection at the thought of opportunities lost and "what it could have been." Who knows whether such an occasion will come again? Every moment during this match would be crucial. Man-for-man, both the teams are evenly matched. As for skills and abilities, self-discipline and stamina, both the teams have them in abundance – they had to, to reach this level! What would determine the difference now is how well they seized the crucial moments, how well they kept their cool in the high-pressure situation. One mistake and it could be all gone! All members in both the teams are extremely tense.

And then the coach of one of the teams, highly experienced person that he is, two minutes before the match is about to start, suddenly gives a big, relaxed smile and says to his team members, "Okay guys, this is it. Enjoy yourself. Have fun. It doesn’t matter whether you win or lose. Play hard and play fair. But have fun. That’s what ultimately matters."

That does the trick. Suddenly, the tension in this team is totally lifted. Everyone is relaxed and at ease. And it’s just the appropriate "being at ease" – leading to confidence but not to complacency or cocksure-ness. They are in exactly the state of mind they need to be, to go into the crucial match. The match starts. The other team is still tense. They are playing well, but somehow cannot get into "flow," whereas our team is flowing beautifully right from the beginning. The other team starts making silly mistakes; mistakes such as they would never had made in their sleeps! The captain eggs them on. They try harder. Which makes it even worse. Slowly they start to see the match slipping out of their hands. They start making desperate moves, only to see those moves fall flat miserably. Finally the team in the right state of being wins.

What is this "right state of being?" This "right state of being" is the state of "equanimity" or "samatva." Equanimity between victory and defeat. "Having gained equanimity in happiness and sadness, loss and gain, victory and defeat, if you engage thus in fighting, you will not fall into sin" says Krishna in 2:38, and "Even in this life, it is they who are victorious who are situated in equanimity" in 5:19. You want to win in life? Then cultivate this equanimity, this sense of "it doesn’t matter." Once the pressure to perform is gone, once the fear of defeat is gone, victory will come easily to you. It’s the pressure to perform and the fear of losing that keeps people from playing this game of life in such a manner as would lead to victory.

But how do you develop this equanimity? You can’t be artificial and tell yourself, "It doesn’t matter" when it does! If winning a game is important to you, then you cannot fool yourself by saying that "It doesn’t matter." It doesn’t work that way. Anything artificial cannot work in the long run. You have to really get into the state of mind that "it doesn’t matter whether I win or I lose." But how do you do that? Answer: you do that by getting into a state of being where you see that there is something else that truly matters far more. And if you carry out the reasoning to its logical conclusion then you see that what ultimately matters is your relationship with God, your connection with God (your "yoga"), and that is something that cannot be disturbed by whatever happens in the world.

Let me give another example to make things even more clear. Imagine a businessman going to visit a prospective client from whom he is expecting a big order, which will propel him into the big league. He has prepared well for the presentation, he is excited at the possibility of the big order, yet he is filled with a strange kind of fear – what if I don’t get the order? He bears the nagging fear for some time, and then suddenly something strikes him and he asks himself the question – "What if I really don’t get the order? What will happen to me?" He thinks for a while and soon the truth hits him – well, nothing much is going to happen anyway! Life will go on as before. He was doing reasonably well before, and he will continue doing so afterwards. The things that really matter to him – his family, his children, his parents, his friends and relatives, his simple, peaceful, joyful life, all will continue as before. When he realizes that, suddenly all fear goes out of him. He has come to the state where it really does not make any difference to him whether he gets the order or not. He has come to the state of "sama-buddhi," the state of being the "same" in both the situations – whether he gets the order or not.

He has only had a little of this "equanimity," but it has delivered him from great fear, as verse 40 will say soon. When he makes the presentation now, he does it confidently, fearlessly, and it goes on very well. He may or may not get the order, for that is dependent on many other factors, but he has actually achieved a far more important thing – he has achieved true fearlessness. That’s real victory! By realizing that he has control over action only, not even a little on its fruit, he has learnt to act not for the sake of fruit which may not come (2:47).

Now this has happened because there is truly something more important to him than being in the big league of business – his family, his children, his parents, his friends and relatives, his simple, peaceful, joyful life – these things are truly more important to him than being in the big league of businessmen. He doesn’t have to work up a belief, there is nothing artificial there. It’s real. And so it works. It won’t work if he has to artificially drum up a "samatva."

But then what happens at the next level? What if he dares to ask himself the unthinkable question – "then what happens to me if one day I get the news that my wife and children have died instantly in a car crash?" Much as nobody likes to face such questions, it is very real possibility. Such things have happened to other people, so why should such a thing not happen to him? The earlier thing worked because there was truly something more important to him – his family. But what happens to him if he loses "what is most important to him."

Think it through and you will realize that true "samatva" is possible if and only if what is the most important thing to you cannot be lost no matter what happens in this world. And that thing can only be what is sat, that which always exists. Even if such a terrible thing were to happen to you, if your knowledge of sat is strong, you will recover fast.

This then is the ultimate equanimity: Being established in what is sat, i.e. what always exists so that no matter what happens to you in this world, you are not shaken. In fact in verse 2:48, it is said that it is the same as Yoga (union with God): "Being equanimous in success and failure is called yoga."

The verse 38 says, "Having gained equanimity in happiness and sadness, loss and gain, victory and defeat, if you engage thus in fighting, you will not fall into sin." We have already seen in the discussion on verse 15 how "He who is equal towards both sadness and happiness, is fit for immortality." Once you are filled up with the bliss of knowing the self, you will become like an ocean, which undergoes no difference even though many rivers enter it. Then, even though many good things may happen to you, you will not be disturbed. And even though many bad things may happen to you, the decrease in your happiness level will hardly be noticeable. Just as the decrease in the water level of the ocean is hardly noticeable when a bucket of water is taken out from it. As says the Mandala-Brahmana Upanishad (II-5), "Then the Yogin becomes immersed in the ocean of bliss. When compared to it, the bliss of Indra and others is very little. He who gets this bliss is the supreme Yogin."

We have seen in the above discussion what it means to have "equanimity in loss and gain, victory and defeat." Now the verse says, "Having arrived in this state of equanimity, you will not fall into sin." As we have seen before (under verse 33), sin has a stricter understanding in Hinduism than in Judaism, Christianity or Islam. In Hinduism, sin is anything that causes you to take rebirth, and so that includes many more things than in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. We have seen in the discussion on verse 33 how even losing his own dharma (inner nature) and fame, Arjuna would have fallen into sin. Now in this verse we see that even performing actions in a state of non-equanimity is sin! Non-equanimity in happiness and sadness, loss and gain, victory and defeat means that good circumstances and bad, loss and gain, victory and defeat are somehow still important to you. And that means you still have attachment to situations in this world! And if you carry these attachments with you when you die, you will come back to either enjoy them or overcome them. You cannot have moksha i.e. liberation (from the cycle of birth and death) until you have freed yourself from these attachments. It’s only when you are free from all attachments, when whatever happens to you in this world doesn’t make any difference to you, when you have attained equanimity towards all situations in this world, that you are "fit for immortality" to use the words of verse 15. In fact the similarity between verses 15 and 38 is worth noting: Verse 15 says, "He who is not disturbed by these and is equal towards both sadness and happiness, he is fit for immortality." And verse 38 says, "Having gained equanimity in happiness and sadness, loss and gain, victory and defeat, if you engage thus in fighting, you will not fall into sin." They are both saying the same thing.

Verse 38 mentions the very important criterion for judging any activity: Is it incurring any sin? Right or wrong, virtue or sin, should be the main consideration when evaluating any action, not loss or gain. Loss or gain is to be a secondary criterion. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose his very soul? So very different from the spirit of today!