Chapter 4: Jñāna-karma-sannyāsa-yoga: – Renunciation of Actions through EnlightenmentVerse 4
अर्जुन उवाच।
अपरं भवतो जन्म परं जन्म विवस्वत: ।
कथमेतद्विजानीयां त्वमादौ प्रोक्तवानिति ॥
arjuna uvāca
aparaṃ bhavato janma
paraṃ janma vivasvata:
katham-etad-vijānīyāṃ
tvam-ādau proktavān-iti – 4.4
Arjuna said: Your birth was much later, and Vivasvan’s earlier. How can I then understand that you instructed this first?
Chapter 4: Jñāna-karma-sannyāsa-yoga: – Renunciation of Actions through Enlightenment - Verse 4
Ma Gurupriya
Like a young student, Arjuna flings questions at Krishna. The freedom he feels is characteristic of true Guru-śiṣya relationship.
When did Vivasvan live, wonders Arjuna! Krishna and himself were still young. It was the time of the much later Lunar dynasty. Ikshvaku belonged to the Solar dynasty, of Tretā Yuga. Krishna’s was the subsequent Dvāpara Yuga, with millennia reigning between them.
Can one born now have any means of having instructed another in the remote past, much less to remember the event vividly? What is this mysterious past-present connection? Anyone would wonder like this.
But did not Krishna right at first say that there was no time when he was not present (2.12)? Soul is eternal. To know this truth is the real object of human life.
