Arjuna: the fittest disciple-candidate for the revelation of the Bhagavad Geeta

Arjuna: the fittest disciple-candidate for the revelation of the Bhagavad Geeta

Of the five brothers Sri Krishna chose Arjuna in particular for his disciple. There was significance in this act of His. If waging the war was the main issue there was Bhima ever thirsting for it. He was only awaiting sanction from his elder brother, Yudhishthira. If he had been called to duty he would have plunged headlong into it. On the other hand, if the issue was the vindication of righteousness, there was Yudhishthira, the very embodiment of it, who could have been made the main defender. But neither of them was chosen by the Lord. Arjuna the archer was deliberately selected for this purpose. Animal impetuosity was still dominant in Bhima. Such a man was not quite a fit agent for the practice of yoga. He would neither enquire into yoga nor translate it into action.

On the other side, a person of Yudhishthira’s calibre was already fairly well established in yoga. He could well have been called a yogi. Any further enlightenment carried to him would have been a superfluity. But Arjuna’s attainments stood somewhere between these two extremes. He had definitely outgrown animal propensities. At the same time he had not yet entered the domain that was divine. Only the ordinary human elements were predominant in him. In a normal man both virtue and vices are found intermingled in varying degrees. To eschew the lingering vice and to get well drilled in the growing virtue is the purpose of life. Arjuna represented the normal man. To a person of his type the message of the Gita was bound to prove most fruitful. Any person endowed with normal human traits is competent both to study and to put into practice, the teachings of the Gita.

Source: Srimad Bhagavad Geeta-Commentary by Swami Chidbhavananda

Swami Chidbhavananda belonged to the Ramakrishna Order of Monks. He was a disciple of Swami Shivananda who was a direct disciple of Parmahamsa Sri Ramakrishna.  Swami Chidbhavanandaji founded the Sri Ramakrishna Tapovanam and has written over 125 books, the most famous being his commentary on the Srimad Bhagavad Geeta.