Krishna and Arjuna: duty and consequences

The most famous argument in the Mahabharata comes on the eve of the great war. Arjuna doubts whether a just cause can justify the slaughter of his own kin. Krishna argues that he must do his duty and fight, whatever the consequences.

In the Gita, Krishna's view wins, and it has been admired around the world, by Humboldt, Isherwood, and T. S. Eliot, who summed it up as 'fare forward'.

But the Mahabharata as a whole gives Arjuna's side real sympathy. The terrible desolation after the war, with the funeral pyres and the weeping women, almost vindicates his doubts.

Sen gives a modern example. When the first atomic bomb was exploded, J. Robert Oppenheimer quoted Krishna's words. Later he criticised himself for having gone ahead with the work simply because it was 'technically sweet'.

Sen argues that, in facing today's problems, we need Arjuna's concern for consequences as well as Krishna's sense of duty: not only to fare forward, but also to fare well.