A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

THE MAHABHARATA. 517time of the Muhammedan invasion, and they went on doing the same thing with these Tartars, and the result wasthey were crushed out of existence. A man en horsebackmust not strike one on foot, must not poison the weapon,must not do this, must not do that ^and as soon as thebattle ceases, be friends, never take undue advantage.A-ncfrso, Hindus were trained in that way. And whenthe"came* the foreign invasion from Central Asia, th^y treatedthe invader in the same way, six times defeated him andsix timessent him back to his home with presents for hisTamily &c. Their code Jays down that you must not conquer anybody s country, and when a man is beaten youmtist send him back to his country. The MahommedanInvftctei-fireated the Hindu Rajak differently, and when hegot him once, he killed him without remorse.Now, the war went on. The greatest incident of thewar was the marvellous poem of the Gita. I would adviceyou who have not read .that poemThere are quite a number of translations.of the Gita to read it.It is the popularscripture of India. At the same time, I wish [you onlyknew how much it has influenced your own country. Youall know about your own Emerston if you want to know:the source of Emerson s inspiration, that is this little book,He went to see Carlyle, and Carlyle made to himthe Gita.a present of the book, and that little book is responsiblefor all that Concord movement which is still going on now.All the broad movements in America, at the same time,originated there, in that Concord party.Now, the central figure of the Gita is Krishna, just asyou worship Jesus of Nazareth as God come down as man,so the Hindus worship many prophets ; they are not content with one or two. Each sect has one ;and Krishnais one of them and Krishna perhaps has a larger number