Bhagavad gita Chapter 1,verse 4 english and hindi poetic translation with lessons
In the third verse of chapter 1, we saw how Duryodhana compelled Dronacharya to combat against the pandavas and commanders of confronting army by reminding him his past mistakes and abolishing the feeling of compassion and kindness. In this verse, I will discuss on how Duryodhana drove Dronacharya heart blaze in extreme fury by listing out the names of those warriors who earlier maintained a good relationship with him but later disgraced his close relationship and valuable teachings by choosing to stand against him after joining hands with the enemies.
Original Sanskrit verse
अत्र शूरा महेष्वासा भीमार्जुनसमा युधि।
युयुधानो विराटश्च द्रुपदश्च महारथः॥१-४॥
English Transliteration:
atra shoora maheshvaasaa bheemarjunasamaa yudhi |
yuyudhaano viraatashcha drupadashcha mahaarathaha || 4 ||
English Translation:
This army has mighty archers such as Yuyudhaana, King Viraata and Drupada who are equal to Bheema and Arjuna in battle.
Word to word translation
atra: here
shoora: brave
maheshavaasaa: (mah + ishvaasaa) with giant bows
cha: and
yudhi: in battle
bheemarjunasamaaha: equal to Bheem and Arjuna
yuyudhaanaha: Yuyudhaana
viraataha: King Viraata
mahaarathaha: mighty warriors
drupadaha: Drupad (also)
My Hindi poetic translation
उनकी सेना में है कई धनुषधारी
जो दे सकते है भीम-अर्जुन को बराबरी
और भी है कई सारे योद्धा
जैसे युयुधाना, विराता और द्रुपड़ा
My English poetic translation
Their army has many mighty bowmen
Skills equal to arjuna and bheemsen
There are many other valiant warriors too
yuyudhaana, viraata aur drupada to name a few
Lessons/message from this verse
This verse is the continuation of the previous verse that glorifies some of the skilled valiant warriors of the pandava army. Since this verse is totally focused on exalting the strength of pandava warriors, there is not too much to learn from this verse. To understand the real intentions of duryodhana behind this act of praising the warriors of pandava army, let us first go through the credibility of fighters named in this verse
Yuyudhana - Also known as Satyaki, he was the charioteer of Krishna and a formidable fighter of Yadava army. Yuyudhaana was the talented disciple of arjuna who got trained in archery and military warfare by arjuna.
Virata - Valiant king of the Matsya kingdom, Pandavas spent 1 year of their incognito life in this kingdom disguised in various roles after 13th year of exile from hastinapur kingdom. His daughter Uttara was married to Abhimanyu, son of arjuna. She gave birth to Pariksit, who ruled the Hastinapur kingdom after the secession by Yudhisthir.
Drupada - King and mighty warrior of Panchal kingdom, He and Drona were best friends as both of them have completed their primary education in hermitage of sage Bharadvaja, father of Dronacharya. They turned into bitter enemies when King Drupada declined to help poor Dronacharya thus discrediting the age old friendship, goodwill and comradeship. Later, Dronacharya insulted Drupada by defeating him from the hands of the pandavas and grabbing half of his kingdom. Dying for revenge, Drupada took the oath of killing Dronacharya fow which he performed a special sacrifice that bestowed him a fire-born child blessed with powers of slaying Dronacharya
Praise enemy intelligence and heroic skills to coerce the warriors in your army burn in rage and revenge.
Despite of leading a comparably vast army than pandavas that included powerful stalwarts like Dronacarya, Bhisma and karna, duryodhana felt insecure and doubted his victory in this war of virtue and righteousness. Dronacharya was the second-most powerful warrior of kaurava army after Bhisma pitamah. For the victory in this war, it was very crucial that Dronacharya fight this war using all his warfare skills and divine powers without flowing down into the emotions of the beloved pandavas. To fill drona mind with emotions of rage and vengeance, Duryodhana started narrating the strength of pandava warriors who were led by none other than his friend-turned enemy ‘Drupada’ son ‘Dhristadyumna’. Dhristadyumna, the commander-in chief of pandava army, participated in this battle to fulfill his age old oath of slaying Dronacharya. By praising the strength of pandava warriors, Duryodhana aspired of convincing Dronacharya that all these valiant warriors were provoked by Dhristadyumna to participate in the war against the kauravas to make easy his goal of executing Dronacharya.
What software professionals can learn from this point (One example)
Here is a very important lesson for all business representatives. Before any client/customer signs the contract for its projects with any software firm, it invites bid from multiple software companies to evaluate which software firm is willing to provide the best value added services for its projects.
After carefully evaluating the bids from multiple software firms, client would then award the projects to one of the participating firms. Before sending the delegate to place the bid and persuade the client to grant them all their projects, upper management of each software firm usually keep a meeting where they will brief the positive points of all other participating software firms. This is done to make the representative aware of the difficult bidding situations so that they prepare very well and topple the points presented by representatives of all other participating firms. Top management need to ensure that his company representatives are well guided to take on against representatives of all other firms and do not commit a grave mistake of taking any of the participants lightly. They need to imbibe passion and extreme fervor in their representatives by narrating them all the past events where the representative of other firms has dominated the bidding event and has caused them losing project worth millions of dollars.
Praise your enemy to ensure your army doesn’t underestimate the enemy prowess
Duryodhana was a very intelligent diplomat and playful warrior. Seeing the excitement and enthusiasm of pandava army, he realized it will not be easy to win against the army that is well controlled by lord Krishna especially when the stalwarts in his own army have affection for the opposing army. So, he started admiring the pandavas warriors to oblige Dronacharya to exterminate all his emotions and fight loyally against the extra-ordinary Pandava army for the victory of hastinapur kingdom. He wanted to confirm that dronacharya no longer think of pandavas as their obedient student who would not harm him in this battle of righteousness. He wanted to make sure that dronacharya fight this battle against the Pandavas fiercely like a true enemy. Though Yuyudhaana , King Viraata and Drupada were not as skilled as Bheema and Arjuna, he extolled them as equal to further strengthen his motive of infuriating Dronacharya.
What software professionals can learn from this point (One Example)
Let us again consider the above case of bidding projects to software firms. It is very common that siblings of the same family land in rival companies. For example, when I was working in Infosys, my brother was working in TCS. Similarly, sometimes it happen that representative of two or more companies are from the same family or nurture some kind of admiration for each other. In such cases, one of the elder representatives may have a soft stand for the other and may not be displeased if the other representative wins the contract from the client. To avoid any such circumstances that may cause massive loss to the company, CEO and top management need to ensure that their selected representative holds no relation with any other representative nor does embrace any kind of affectionate feelings for any of the participating representatives. Management should guide his representative such that he believes all other participating representatives as his greatest enemy. This would drive him to always look for an opportunity to criticize the points/facts presented by opposing representatives thus paving the path to attract the client attention towards your company. Similar kind of conflict is observed in family business that splitted up because of mutual disagreement over company holdings and revenue shares. Ex: Conflict between Anil ambani and mukesh ambani
Even the strongest seek refuge of the powerful experienced warriors
Duryodhana was a very arrogant and self-centric person but after seeing the intrepidity of pandava army, he realized that his arrogance and ego might fail him in this battle as he and his brothers are not capable of defeating the skilled archers like Yuyudhana, King Virata and Drupada who are well protected by the divine powers of lord Krishna and pandava brothers. To understand his intentions more precisely, Notice the usage of word ‘maharatha’ to ascribe yuyudhana, virata and drupada. Maharatha is the title given to those warriors who has defeated 10,000 opponents at the same time. Arrows shot by such Maharathas can never be thwarted by any opponent. By addressing pandava warriors as “atra shoora”, he tried to assert the point that though pandava army is less in numbers; their strength is far greater because of the prowess and skilled abilities of extra-ordinary warriors. Only Dronacharya and Bhisma pitamah had the adept skills of defeating such mighty opponents. So, keeping his arrogance aside, he sought the help of his most experienced military strategist Dronacharya, who was ahead of all in the science of military warfare and archery.
What software professionals can learn from this point (One example)
In IT industry, many software professionals frequently have conflict with their manager for various reasons like personal conflict, bad appraisal, miscommunication, unnecessary criticism, less salary hike etc. In many cases, the conflict arises to such a level that the mangers threatens to cease promotion or salary hike in next appraisal. To counter-attack the unjust wrath of his manager, professional may seek the help of his senior manager or HR who would protect him from the oppression imposed by his manager for selfish interests. He would first sing the praise of the manager and would then add the much-needed criticism that reflects the manager ego and wrong use of administrative powers to seek revenge against the non-abiding employees working under him. Same scenario happens when the manager has conflict with his senior manager and so on with rest of the hierarchical levels in the organization.
Conflict resolution strategies adpCo
One of the conflict resolution strategies followed by Companies
Choose the name of your enemies carefully to invite healthy response from your fighters
Though duryodhana was arrogant, he was a very intelligent and clever diplomat. In this verse, he purposely chose the names of only those warriors that would invoke anger in dronacharya mind. He tried to convey dronacharya that fighting skills of all the warriors named in this verse are because of him and today, all these warriors seems to be very desperate to fight against him.
Yuyudhaana was the student of Arjuna who himself was the student of dronacharya. Whatever arjuna learnt from dronacharya, he taught the same to Yuyudhaana. So ethically, both of them who got all their fighting skills from dronacharya should be supporting dronacharya in this war but for some selfish interests, both of them were fighting against their own teacher.
King Virat was the father of Uttara, who got married to Arjuna son ‘abhimanyu’. While Abhimanyu, Yuyudhana and King virat were loyal to arjuna, Arjuna himself was not loyal to his own teacher and has brought all his disciples to fight against his own respected teacher.
Lastly, in his army, arjuna has included ‘Drupada’, dronacharya Friend-turned enemy no.1, who has taken the oath of killing him in the battle. Drupada got his training in military arts from dronacharya father ‘Sage bharadvaj’.
Thus, duryodhana carefully listed names of all those warriors who maintained a good relationship with dronacharya at some point of time but later betrayed him to suit their selfish materialistic desires.
What software professionals can learn from this point (One example)
Normally in business meetings and financial presentations, business managers cite the over-performance of rival companies and demonstrate to his employees on how the rival companies have eaten up their business by following unfair business practices. For example, many professional working onshore take away the company projects by starting his own company and outsourcing the client projects to his own firm. Not only that, he attracts many of his former colleagues to join his newly formed company by offering them lucrative perks and incentives. Many of such newly formed company are today business giants. For example, N.R.N and other seven software professionals who got all their technical knowledge and management skills from Patni computer system later formed Infosys, which is today India No.3 Software firm and ten times bigger than Patni computer system. To avoid losing more such projects and talented employees(who are looking to join rival companies), business managers often speak against those companies and employees who have followed unfair practices and have betrayed their own company because of which the firm faces higher attrition rate, project loss, client loss, revenue loss, shareholder loss etc. So, every manager chooses the name of the rival companies carefully to imbibe fidelity, honesty and sincerity among the employees.
Rival software companies of india
Never believe your close relatives and best friends blindly as they may cheat against you for supremacy and monetary benefits
Whole war of mahahabharta is between family members of the same generations. This verse reveals how best friends turn into bitter enemies, how brothers fight for piece of land and money, how quickly the close relatives switches sides to join your enemy, how you are compelled to fight against your own close relatives etc. But the vital point to learn from this verse is that you should trust nobody, anyone can rebel against you for money, power, sovereignty and other materialistic comforts. A relationship that is joyful now can turn into a sorrow relationship within a matter of few seconds. Also, whenever there is an urge to fight against anyone, you shouldn’t see whom you are fighting to. If your fight is against an immoral person & you are on the path of virtue and goodness, then you should compete bravely even if the opponent is your brother, father, uncle, grandfather or any other close/distant relative.
What software professionals can learn from this point (One Example?)
Gaining onsite role, promotion and better appraisal by backstabbing your own colleagues/friends is very common scenario in IT industry. In the race of supremacy, leadership and higher management roles, your friends/relatives may not hesitate to deceive you after winning the fidelity of immediate manager and upper management. Friends often take the credit of your good work, would put the blame on you for negative events like defects and bugs, would give negative feedbacks against you during peer to peer appraisal review and so on. It is very crucial to find and destroy all such thorns that may bite you to attain their greedy desires of tasting fame and success.
Few realities of IT industry
Conclusion:
In this article, we saw the various spiritual messages and vital philosophical lessons from chapter 1, verse 4 of bhagavad gita. In next article, I will write on various lessons and several spiritual messages from chapter 1, verse 5 of bhagavad gita
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