Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2 - Samkhya Yoga - Sloka 2

The entire content of this mail is from Swami Chidbhavananda's translation of  The Bhagavad Gita, published by Ramakrishna Mission.

Chapter 2 - Samkhya Yoga - Sloka 2

The Message of Strength Slokas 2-3

Sri Bhagawan  Uvacha

Kutah tva kashmalam idam vishme sam upa sthitam I

Anarya jushtam asvargyam akirtikaram Arjuna II Sloka 2

श्री भगवन् उवाच

कुतः त्वा कश्मलं इदं विषमे सं उप स्थितं ।

अनार्य जुष्टं अस्वर्ग्यं अकीर्ति करं अर्जुन ।।

The Blessed Lord said,

Whence has this unmanly, heaven-barring and shameful dejection come upon you, at this juncture, O Arjuna?

The LOrd who was silent all this while now deigns to speak. The Gita proper therefore commences here. In the very first utternance in these two stanzas, the core of the everlasting message is delivered. 

Pithily, putting the fundamental at the outset is characteristic of a classical literature. An example may be cited:

Om purnam idah puranam idam purnat purnam udachyate I

Purnasya  Purnamadaya purnameva vashishyati II

ॐ पुर्णमिदः पूर्णमिदं पुर्णतुदच्यते ।

पूर्णस्य पूर्णमादाय पुर्णमेवा वशिष्यति ।।

"Om. The invisible is the Whole, the visible is the Whole. From the Whole, the visible universe has come out. The Whole remains ever itself even though the infinite universe has come out of It." The is the fundamental in the Upanishads. Nothing but the elaboration of this truism is found in all of them. The Lord's teachings are also after this pattern.

The term arya  in our sacred books deosnot refer to any race or stock. It only refers to a highly evolved and cultured man. It connotes much more than referring to someone as a perfect gentleman. An aryan is one who scrupulously adheres to Dharma. Manu Smriti has it that children born of parents imbued with self control adn asuterity are Aryans. And those born of lust are non-Aryans. The function of Vedantic philosophy is to induce man to become Aryan in all respects. Arjuna in whom manliness was writ large all along, has now suddenly and unexpectedly sunk into unmanliness. The Lotrd rouses him up from his setback. 

When the defect in a balance is pointed otu the weights taken in it get themselves automatically annulled. A confused mind is very much like a defective balance. It is incapable of inquiring into the truth. Sri Krishna classifies Arjuna's mind as confused. Consequently his utterances are all meaningless. Anyone devoide of discrimination is not an aryan.

There is neither this world nor the next to the confused and dejected in mind. Kirti or fame attands on one given to a laudable life on earth; but Arjuna's way is unfortunately shameful. For him who is shamefully incompetent for this world, the question of attacnment of heaven doesnot arise. He is no Aryan who fails to face a juncture; and he is unfit for the here and the hereafter.