Entrance to the Gita Mandir. On its wall is written the complete Gita.

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In the Gita Mandir complex near Somnath are the foot imprints of Sri Krishna.

The Mahabharata War is about to begin with the blowing of Conchs

Krishna is blowing his divine Panchajanya and Arjuna the Devadatta

What an epic event—on the battlefield the message of life in the values of the spirit! And for that is blown by the divine Teacher himself the heavenly Conch, Panchjanya. There are stories and stories about the conch, but its appearance is in the appearance of Vishnu himself. One of the stories says that a wicked demon named Panchajanya ruined the life of Sandipani’s son, Sandipani who was Krishna’s teacher. Krishna killed Panchajanya and from his bones carved out a conch, hence named Panchajanya.

Krishna’s blowing of the conch in the Mahabharata War was a summons for the destruction of the evil in the world. Arise for the destruction of these people,—it proclaims. It caused terror in the enemy and infused courage and heroic strength in the defenders of the good. Etymologically, Panchjanya means five people, a name given to five most ancient Vedic Kshatriya or warrior clans. The Vedic Gayatri Mantra for Panchajanya is:

pānchajanyaya vidmahe padma garbhaya dhīmahi|
tanno śankha prachodayāt||

It is that Conch which gets divided into five conchs, they acquiring five qualities, possessed respectively by the five Pandavas on whose side stands the Divine Guide, he leading the War of the Righteous against the Wicked. The battle-scene in the Gita opens as follows: (Taken from The Message of the Gita edited by Anilbaran Roy; it is based on Sri Aurobindo’s Essays on the Gita.)

Sanjaya the War-reporter tells the blind King, Dhritarashtra:

Unlimited is the army of ours and it is marshaled by Bhishma, while the army of theirs is limited, and they depend on Bhima.

Cheering the heart of Duryodhana, the mighty grandsire, Bhishma, the Ancient of the Kurus, resounding the battlefield with a lion’s roar, blew his conch.

Then conchs and kettledrums, tabors and horns, suddenly blared forth, and the clamour became tremsndous.

Then seated in ther great chariot, yoked to white horses, Krishna and Arjuna blew their divine conchs.

Krishna blew his Panchjanya and Arjuna his Devadatta. Bhima of terrific deeds blew his might conch Paundra; Yudhishthira, the son of Kunti, blew Anantavijaya; Nakula and Sahadevs, Sughosha and Manipushpaka.

And Kashya of the great bow, and Shikhandi of the great chariot, Dhrishtadyumna and Virat and Satyaki, the unconquered, Drupada, and the sons of Draupadi, and Saubhadra, the mighty-armed,on all sides their several conchs blew.

The tumultuous roar resounding through and sky tore the hearts of the sons of Dhritarashtra.

RYD

In the following we have a description from the Marathi Yogi-Poet Jnaneshwar about Sri Krishna and the Pandavas giving the Call for the Battle. Jnaneshwar composed his work on the Gita at a young age of fifteen or so, a little more than seven hundred years ago. The work is popularly known as Jnaneshari and devotees read or recite it regularly; it is a work which in every Marathi house is revered even today. About Jnaneshwar, the first Marathi poet, Sri Aurobindo writes as one who was “at once a devotee, a Yogin and a thinker.” Here is a free rendering of the Jnaneshwari-text corresponding to the blowing of the conchs when the Mahabharata War is about to begin:

Even as the heavens were pierced by the battle-cries of the heroic warriors, here let us witness what happened in the camp of the Pandavas. That which indeed is the own House of Victory, or else is the great Treasure of Luminosity, that to which are yoked four white horses, swifter than the eagle’s flight,—that appeared, the chariot, splendid-looking, like the Mt Meru itself, imposing and mythical in its glory. All the ten directions were filled with its light, with the light emanating from that excellent chariot. And what or how can one describe its features when the charioteer was none other than the Lord of Vaikunţha? On its flag-post stood Hanuman, the incarnation of Shiva himself. The Holder of Sharanga, the Bow, that is Sri Krishna himself held the reins of the horses of speed, they yoked to the chariot. And see the wonder! Because of his affection for the beloved devotee, Sri Krishna became the driver of the chariot of Arjuna. Putting the servant in the seat and he standing in the front, he lifted up his mighty conch Panchajanya and blew it loud, loud but with such natural ease. In its majestic sound all the thousand shouts and cries, all the thousand noises from the enemy conchs seemed weak and halfhearted, they disappearing in the manner the stars fade away when the sun rises in the eastern sky. Following the call of the divine Panchajanya, Arjuna blew his serene but powerful conch, Devadatta, the God-given. When the two mighty and astounding conchs thus roared quickly one after the other, in their sounds it looked as though this vast universe was getting shattered into hundreds of parts. In a moment now, Bhima got very excited and in the rush of the Time-spirit itself, impetuous and uncontrollable, in that exceeding zest, he blew his Paundra. It sounded the way the deafening thunder-clouds break at the time of the Great Flood. Soon then Yudhishţhira, the eldest of the Pandavas, lifted his Anantavijaya and blew it triumphantly. In the sequel the younger brothers, Nakula and Sahadeva, took their Sughosha and Manipushpaka, rending the sky with their sound, causing fear even to Death.

RYD

But even as the War-conchs were blown and the deafening roar spread across the far regions of the earth and pierced through the visible sky, the chariot of Arjuna stood in between the two battling armies. In this “holiday of fight”, to please those who are intent in this throng to wield weapons, he desired to cast over them a proud glance of conquest, at the heroic warriors on the enemy side, at the respected elders, Bhishma the grandsire and Drona the revered teacher, and the mighty kings and princes, and the cousins and the comrades, all his own kinsmen, young and aged, swajanam. But it is precisely here that the brave hero-man succumbs to a feeble unmanly weakness. He belongs to the struggling human soul and even as the moment of truth arrives loses his human sense of values that sustain one in the event of crisis. The bow given to him by the gods slips from his hand his heart sinks in remorse and despondency. But let us read Essays on the Gita: (pp. 21-25)

Arjuna… is the representative man of a great world-struggle and divinely-guided movement of men and nations; in the Gita he typifies the human soul of action brought face to face through that action in its highest and most violent crisis with the problem of human life and its apparent incompatibility with the spiritual state or even with a purely ethical ideal of perfection. Arjuna is the fighter in the chariot with the divine Krishna as his charioteer… the Gita starts from action and Arjuna is the man of action and not of knowledge, the fighter, never the seer or the thinker…

[He] is, in the language of the Gita, a man subject to the action of the three gunas or modes of the Nature-Force and habituated to move unquestioningly in that field, like the generality of men… He has lived and guided himself by the Shastra, the moral and social code. The thought which preoccupies him, the standard which he obeys is the dharma, that collective Indian conception of the religious, social and moral rule of conduct, and especially the rule of the station and function to which he belongs, he the Kshatriya, the high-minded, self-governed, chivalrous prince and warrior and leader of Aryan men…

It is typical again of the pragmatic man that it is through his sensations that he awakens to the meaning of his action. He has asked his friend and charioteer to place him between the two armies, not with any profounder idea, but with the proud intention of viewing and looking in the face these myriads of the champions of unrighteousness whom he has to meet and conquer and slay “in this holiday of fight” so that the right may prevail. It is as he gazes that the revelation of the meaning of a civil and domestic war comes home to him, a war in which not only men of the same race, the same nation, the same clan, but those of the same family and household stand upon opposite sides. All whom the social man holds most dear and sacred, he must meet as enemies and slay,—the worshipped teacher and preceptor, the old friend, comrade and companion in arms, grandsires, uncles, those who stood in the relation to him of father, of son, of grandson, connections by blood and connections by marriage,—all these social ties have to be cut asunder by the sword. It is not that he did not know these things before, but he has never realised it all; obsessed by his claims and wrongs and by the principles of his life, the struggle for the right, the duty of the Kshatriya to protect justice and the law and fight and beat down injustice and lawless violence, he has neither thought it out deeply nor felt it in his heart and at the core of his life. And now it is shown to his vision by the divine charioteer, placed sensationally before his eyes, and comes home to him like a blow delivered at the very centre of his sensational, vital and emotional being.

The first result is a violent sensational and physical crisis which produces a disgust of the action and its material objects and of life itself. He rejects the vital aim pursued by egoistic humanity in its action,—happiness and enjoyment; he rejects the vital aim of the Kshatriya, victory and rule and power and the government of men. What after all is this fight for justice when reduced to its practical terms, but just this, a fight for the interests of himself, his brothers and his party, for possession and enjoyment and rule? But at such a cost these things are not worth having. For they are of no value in themselves, but only as a means to the right maintenance of social and national life and it is these very aims that in the person of his kin and his race he is about to destroy. And then comes the cry of the emotions. These are they for whose sake life and happiness are desired, our “own people”. Who would consent to slay these for the sake of all the earth, or even for the kingdom of the three worlds? What pleasure can there be in life, what happiness, what satisfaction in oneself after such a deed? The whole thing is a dreadful sin,—for now the moral sense awakens to justify the revolt of the sensations and the emotions. It is a sin, there is no right nor justice in mutual slaughter; especially are those who are to be slain the natural objects of reverence and of love, those without whom one would not care to live, and to violate these sacred feelings can be no virtue, can be nothing but a heinous crime. Granted that the offence, the aggression, the first sin, the crimes of greed and selfish passion which have brought things to such a pass came from the other side; yet armed resistance to wrong under such circumstances would be itself a sin and crime worse than theirs because they are blinded by passion and unconscious of guilt, while on this side it would be with a clear sense of guilt that the sin would be committed. And for what? For the maintenance of family morality, of the social law and the law of the nation? These are the very standards that will be destroyed by this civil war; the family itself will be brought to the point of annihilation, corruption of morals and loss of the purity of race will be engendered, the eternal laws of the race and moral law of the family will be destroyed. Ruin of the race, the collapse of its high traditions, ethical degradation and hell for the authors of such a crime, these are the only practical results possible of this monstrous civil strife. “Therefore,” cries Arjuna, casting down the divine bow and inexhaustible quiver given to him by the gods for that tremendous hour, “it is more for my welfare that the sons of Dhritarashtra armed should slay me unarmed and unresisting. I will not fight.”

RYD