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From the Bhakti List Archives

Tatachar • October 29, 1995 


Deleepan wrote:
>The presence of verse 1.41 makes the absence of
>its rejection significant.  In the absence of such a
>rejection, one is left to conclude that according to
>Srimad Bhagavath Geethai birth determines varNam.
This need not necessarily be the case. Because
all the statements of Arjuna in Chapter 1, 
including 1.41are totally rejected by Krishna 
in Ch.2, verse 11. Following which Krishna teaches 
what is right. Arjuna asks numerous  questions in Ch 2-18, 
but not one time he brings back any of the points he made
 in Chapter 1. This implies thatArjuna accepts that 
all his arguments in chapter 1 are wrong
that thus never brings any of those issues back again.

Here is my (Bhashyam!) views on Ch1.41

I think here Arjuna is talking about children 
out of wedlock, orphaned children and children
 raised by helpless widowed mothers
in isolation. Any grand scale war would 
artificially increase the number of women and 
children as compared  to the adult males. 
The very fact that the chaturvarnya survived, 
past the Mahabharatha war is a testimony to 
the fact that the chaturvarnya was more 
resilient (governed by the natural law of Gita) 
and not always determined strictly by birth.
 If that was true we should have lot less number 
of  kshatriyas than the other varnas, considering 
so many kshatriyas perished in the war(s).

It was sort of supply and demand type of thing
even in india(!). Once there were sufficient 
numbers selected by natural process, then
that particular varna was defended by unnatural
(manipulation) means. For example, in the USA,
physicians were allowed to immigrate from other
countries in the1970s, because of the shortage of
 MDs. Now, the American Physicians
are fighting toe and nail to keep those foreign
MDs OUT, just to safeguard their high $/hour wages!



K. Sreekrishna