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<p><i>Gītā</i> —celebrated as <i>Mahābhārata's</i> philosophical kernel—is the moment when god clarifies for his dearest friend, the meaning of life itself. This essay thinks about a radical ethical juncture and an epitomal moral ambiguity through the self of the most trusted comrade and devotee of god, Arjuna. An episode borrowed from <i>Mahābhārata’s</i> main text, but developed into a theoretical work called the <i>Uttara-Gītā</i>, begins with a moment of disremembering the <i>Gītā</i>, when years after the war, the settled, rich, successful and satisfied Arjuna <i>forgot</i> all about Krishna’s teachings. The best warrior, the best friend, and the best devotee, forgets. The comforts of life delude even the listener of the <i>Gītā</i> from god’s own nectar-mouth. There could be no worse way to imagine defeat in the war of life. The devotee is let down by his memory, and the god, by his devotee. If the battle plot of Kurukṣetra was depleted by the death of soldiers, then this moment marks the emptying of the plot of the mind of all existential worth. Amnesia here marks inevitable human frailty, and necessitates a perpetual <i>antar-yuddha</i>, an internal battle, a <i>Mahābhārata</i> to recollect. And <i>dharma</i> refers to an anamnesis. The epistemological politics of <i>Uttara-Gītā</i> is thus significant. The notion of the war is internalized as never-ending struggles of the self, the battlefield as its body, and samsaric life as its allegory. <i>Dharma</i> here is outright metaphysical, and concerns the brute and breathing existence. While <i>Gītā</i> involves explanations of yoga, bhakti, action, and social duty, Krishna’s responses in <i>Uttara-Gītā</i> are singularly absorbed in explaining yogic methods and the precise ontology of the body. The politics of such exactness implies that it would be less amenable to a subject’s amnesia; ensuring greater conceptual survival of <i>dharma</i>. Simultaneously, since the text shows that epistemology, ontology, aesthetics and ethics may well combine in a yoga of the body, the subject of such a construction ultimately opens up to an infinite intersubjective moral space.</p>

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A War to Remember: Forgetting and Recalling the Gītā in the Uttara Gītā

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年12月3日

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  • Sukanya Sarbadhikary

摘要

Gītā —celebrated as Mahābhārata's philosophical kernel—is the moment when god clarifies for his dearest friend, the meaning of life itself. This essay thinks about a radical ethical juncture and an epitomal moral ambiguity through the self of the most trusted comrade and devotee of god, Arjuna. An episode borrowed from Mahābhārata’s main text, but developed into a theoretical work called the Uttara-Gītā, begins with a moment of disremembering the Gītā, when years after the war, the settled, rich, successful and satisfied Arjuna forgot all about Krishna’s teachings. The best warrior, the best friend, and the best devotee, forgets. The comforts of life delude even the listener of the Gītā from god’s own nectar-mouth. There could be no worse way to imagine defeat in the war of life. The devotee is let down by his memory, and the god, by his devotee. If the battle plot of Kurukṣetra was depleted by the death of soldiers, then this moment marks the emptying of the plot of the mind of all existential worth. Amnesia here marks inevitable human frailty, and necessitates a perpetual antar-yuddha, an internal battle, a Mahābhārata to recollect. And dharma refers to an anamnesis. The epistemological politics of Uttara-Gītā is thus significant. The notion of the war is internalized as never-ending struggles of the self, the battlefield as its body, and samsaric life as its allegory. Dharma here is outright metaphysical, and concerns the brute and breathing existence. While Gītā involves explanations of yoga, bhakti, action, and social duty, Krishna’s responses in Uttara-Gītā are singularly absorbed in explaining yogic methods and the precise ontology of the body. The politics of such exactness implies that it would be less amenable to a subject’s amnesia; ensuring greater conceptual survival of dharma. Simultaneously, since the text shows that epistemology, ontology, aesthetics and ethics may well combine in a yoga of the body, the subject of such a construction ultimately opens up to an infinite intersubjective moral space.