A Wisdom Archive on Arjuna

Introduction and links to related topics

Below are some short introductions. Click on the blue hyperlinked word to get more related articles.


Arjuna - Arjuna (Sanskrit) White, clear; third of the Pandu princes, son of the god Indra by Kunti, also known as Pritha. During the fratricidal war between the Kauravas and the Pandavas which forms the bulk of the Mahabharata, Arjuna and his opponent, Duryodhana, seek Krishna''s aid. Krishna offers them a choice: his well-equipped army or himself, weaponless. According to protocol, Arjuna, being the younger of the two, was given first choice. To the immense delight of Duryodhana, Arjuna chose his brother-in-law, Krishna, who agreed to serve as his charioteer, i.e., his counselor and friend.

Mystically, Arjuna represents Everyman, the human ego, in contradistinction to Krishna, who stands for the spiritual monad as well as the avatara who comes forth from age to age in order to overthrow adharma (lawlessness) and restore dharma (respect for law, justice, and truth) in the land (BG 4:7-8).

The complete Bhagavad-Gita is a good deal longer than the 18 chapters that form the philosophical instruction imparted by Krishna to Arjuna on the eve of the 18-day contest that is to follow. While the preliminary portion lacks philosophic content, it gives the setting and background for the Gita.

Kiratarjuniya - Kiratarjuniya (Sanskrit) A poem by Bharavi describing the combat of Arjuna with the God Siva in the form of the wild mountaineer Kirata; the story is derived from the Mahabharata.

Jnanesvari - Jnanesvari (Sanskrit) (from jnana knowledge + isvari queen)

Queen of knowledge; a mystic treatise in which Krishna describes to Arjuna the condition of a fully illuminated yogi.

Krishna - An incarnation of God. He was the friend and charioteer of Arjuna, a human in ancient India. While waiting on a battlefield prior to the initial battle of a ghastly civil war, Arjuna was overcome with despondency. During this time, Krishna offered his advice to Arjuna and it was while listening to Krishna''s council that Arjuna became aware for the first time that his long-time friend was in fact God. Krishna''s advice to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra was recorded in the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most cherished of Hindu scriptures.

The name of the Supreme Lord and subject of numerous stories in all the great Puranas and Vedas. Also refers to darkness or blackness in color, such as the dark half of the Moon''s monthly cycle when it is returning from the position of being full to the position of being new or conjunct with the Sun. This is also called the waning phase of the Moon when it is getting smaller or darker or Krishna.

Jinshnu - Jinshnu jisnu (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root ji to win, conquer)

Victorious, triumphant, winning; as a proper noun, a name of Vishnu and of Indra, equivalent of the Hebrew Michael, the leader of the archangels. Also applied to Arjuna as the son of Indra.

Bhagavad Gita - ("Lord''s Song"): the oldest full-fledged yoga book found embedded in the Mahabharata and containing the teachings on karma yoga (the path of self-transcending action), samkhya yoga (the path of discerning the principles of existence correctly), and bhakti yoga (the path of devotion), as given by the God-man Krishna to Prince Arjuna on the battlefield 3,500 years or more ago

Pineal Gland - Pineal Gland, Conarium, or Epiphysis Cerebri A small organ in the brain with a fancied resemblance to a pine cone; technically called the epiphysis, as being an "upgrowth" from the embryonic tissues which later form part of the ventricular or hollow center of the brain, which space is continuous with the central canal of the spinal cord.

The pineal gland is described as a rounded, oblong body, about one-third of an inch long, of a deep reddish color, connected with the posterior part of the third ventricle, and intimately related to the optic thalami which physiologists find to be the organs of reception and condensation of the most sensitive and sensorial incitations from the periphery of the body.

Thus this organ is in central relation to the coordinating organs of all the senses and sensations, and to the thinking brain which perfects and coordinates ideas. Its purpose, however, remains a mystery to the medical profession. A standard anatomy says: "The ancients had a grotesque theory that the epiphysis is the favorite and peculiar abiding-place of the human soul. Modern morphologists have shown it to be the homologue of the third eye which some reptiles possess."

Blavatsky, repeating the ancient belief, says that this concealed third eye is the "seat of the highest and divinest consciousness in man -- his omniscient spiritual and all-embracing mind" (Key 121). She sketches the evolutionary history of this Deva Eye (SD 2:294 et seq) which was the only seeing organ in the beginning of the present human race, when the spiritual element in the then humanity reigned supreme over the as yet unawakened intellectual and psychic elements in the nature. Later on, as the ethereal and psychospiritual early races became self-conscious and physicalized, they used their spiritual and intellectual powers and faculties for selfish and sensual purposes. Meantime, the third eye withdrew, pari passu, into the central cavity of the developing brain. There it has remained until the present -- a symbol of that past spiritual vision which we will regain as we progress consciously along the upward arc of the evolutionary cycle. As to scientific evidence of a once active third eye of objective vision in animals, the Hatteria punctata, a lizard type found in New Zealand, is pointed out. This land, being a part well above the waters of the ancient continent Lemuria, the home of the third root-race, would be likely to retain some remnants of early types of the creatures which once existed when "the third eye was primarily, as in man, the only seeing organ" (SD 2:299).

An ancient commentary says that by the middle of the fourth root-race, the "inner vision had to be awakened and acquired by artificial stimuli, the process of which was known to the old sages" (SD 2:294). Even now, the adept, with trained will, can arouse this ordinarily quiescent organ into activity, so that he becomes illuminated throughout and by it with a vision of infinitude. It was this sublime vision which overwhelmed Arjuna when Krishna, acting as the Logos within, gave the aspiring human monad the divine eye (BG ch 11). The analogy of enlarged vision holds good, in degree, when the spiritual teacher arouses the chela''s latent ability to see for himself hidden truth.

Descartes reasoned that the seat of the soul was the pineal gland which, he said, though it was tied to the brain, was yet capable of being put into a kind of swinging motion by the animal spirits that cross the cavities of the skull. He was right about the cavities being open during life, and about the organ''s response in oscillations; and what the ancients called animal spirits, is otherwise expressed in theosophical literature as circulating currents of the nerve-aura of occultism.

In the adept, the third eye is aroused by aspiration and concentration of his human will upon the attainment of union of his mental with his spiritual faculties. By this conscious effort, he rises to the higher powers of will which, in its ordinary automatic and emotional phases, is usually diffused throughout the activities of the animal body and brain, by way of the main organ of will, the pituitary gland, the psychic associate of the pineal center. The x-ray may yet reveal ethereal emanations of nerve-aura in the human brain, as living evidence of the interrelation of mind and matter. Meantime, concrete examples of such interaction are found in the pineal gland, in the form of "brain sand," or (acervulus cerebri).

See also EYE OF SIVA; THIRD EYE; CYCLOPES; DEVAKSHA; TRI-LOCHANA

Bhagavad Gita - (lit., song of God) One of the world''s spiritual treasures and an essential scripture of India; a portion of the Mahabharata in which Lord Krishna instructs his disciple Arjuna on the nature the universe, God, and the supreme Self.

Bhagavad Gita - n (Sanskrit) "Song of the Lord." One of the most popular of Hindu writings, a conversation between Lord Krishna and Arjuna on the brink of the great battle at Kurukshetra. In this central episode of the epic Mahabharata (part of the sixth book), Krishna illumines the warrior-prince Arjuna on yoga, asceticism, dharma and the manifold spiritual path.
See: Itihasa, Mahabharata.

Bhagavad-gita - Bhagavad-Gita (Sanskrit) (from bhagavat illustrious, sacred, holy, lord (one of Krishna''s titles) + gita song)

The noble song, the Lord''s song; a portion of the Bhagavad-Gita Parvan, one subsection of the Bhishma Parvan, itself one of the principle sections of the Mahabharata. The Bhagavad-Gita consists of a dialogue in which Krishna and Arjuna have a discussion upon the highest spiritual philosophy. Krishna in this instance is the inner instructor or monitor, the higher self, advising the human self or Arjuna.

Kiratarjuniya Of Bharavi - Kiratarjuniya of Bharavi (Sanskrit). A Sanskrit epic, celebrating the strife and prowess of Arjuna with the god Siva disguised as a forester.

Manasa - Manasa or Manaswin (Sanskrit). "The efflux of the divine mind," and explained as meaning that this efflux signifies the manasa or divine sons of Brahma-Viraj. Nilakantha who is the authority for this statement, further explains the term "manasa" by manomatrasarira. These Manasa are the Arupa or incorporeal sons of the Prajapati Viraj, in another version. But as Arjuna Misra identifies Viraj with Brahma, and as Brahma is Mahat, the universal mind, the exoteric blind becomes plain. The Pitris are identical with the Kumara, the Vairaja, the Manasa-Putra (mind sons), and are finally identified with the human "Egos".

Arjuna - Arjuna (Sanskrit) Lit., the "white". The third of the five Brothers Pandu or the reputed Sons of Indra (esoterically the same as Orpheus). A disciple of Krishna, who visited him and married Su-bhadra, his sister, besides many other wives, according to the allegory. During the fratricidal war between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, Krishna instructed him in the highest philosophy, while serving as his charioteer. (See Bhaguvad Gita.)

Kauravya - Kauravya (Sanskrit). The King of the Nagas (Serpents) in Patala, exoterically a hall. But esoterically it means something very different. There is a tribe of the Nagas in Upper India; Nagal is the name in Mexico of the chief medicine men to this day, and was that of the chief adepts in the twilight of history; and finally Patal means the Antipodes and is a name of America. Hence the story that Arjuna travelled to Patàla, and married Ulupi, the daughter of the King Kauravya, may he as historical as many others regarded first as fabled and then found out to be true.

Bhagvad Gita - a part of the famous Hindu epic ''Mahabharata''. Teachings of Lord Krishna to his disciple Arjuna at the commencement of the battle of Kurukshetra, with explanations on sannyasa yoga, karma yoga, bhakti yoga, and jnana yoga.