#augusnippetsday18

[wounds-seen-and-unseen]

Augusnippets Day 18: Path of Whumperless Whump- Apocalypse

Canon-adjacent snippet this time. Arjun’s mindset before the Bhagavad Gita.

(For those who might not know, Arjun is the protagonist of the epic Mahabharata wherein he and his brothers fight against part of their paternal family due to a series of rather horrific incidents including poisoning plots, murder plots, attempted sexual assault of their wife, and, still more besides.)

And yet, before the war begins, Arjun falters, because he has love and regard for some of the people he must fight against. Which is why, Krishn, who is his best friend and considered an incarnation of God himself, tells him the Bhagavad Gita.

I feel that the above situation satisfies the requirement for @augusnippets prompt for Day 18- Apocalypse.

Word count: 312

Note on the Sanskrit

Sanmohan astr: A divine weapon that lets the wielder put large numbers of people in a state of sleep.

Gurudakshina: Literally, an act of service owed to a teacher (Guru) for his/her teaching, by the student.

Pitamah: Grandfather

Moksh: Salvation.

Pitr: Ancestors.

Dharma: Duty

Hatya: Killing

Gandiva: Arjun’s bow, bestowed upon him by Gods.

TW: Mention of death, conflicted PoV character

Tagging @dreamer-in-sleep @ba-bhump

Not for the first time in my life have I looked across the battlefield and felt the call of duty not only to the men I fight with, but also the other side.

However.

In any previous similar situation, I had managed to de-escalate, to avoid loss of life.

This, though, is not a single battle to protect Virat’s cattle, that it can be resolved without loss of life, with a simple Sanmohan astr.

No, this is a battle to the death. A war that will reshape the world as we know it.

I know that my duty lies with Panchali, my brothers and our soldiers. That the moment of reckoning is here.

That this is the war in which I fulfil my gurudakshina in truth. That this is the war where Pitamah will finally attain moksh, at mine own hands, the hands he has chosen as those which will reunite him with his Divine mother.

That here, in the field of Kurukshetra, we will wrest back our rights.

And yet.

The conflict I have never found an answer to, the old, tired, feared question haunts me. What is my dharma?

Is my duty that of a husband and a brother alone? What of my duty as a student, a grandson? What defines my duty, when the shades of what could be guru-hatya and pitr-hatya is. demanded of me, by exactly my pitr and my guru?

Where do I go? What path do I follow? I do not know, lost as I am in conflicts of duty. Gandiva falls from my hand to the dust of the battlefield to-be.

And I turn to my friend. My guide. He who understands me in entirety, for the strength of will I need to carry out my duty and wield my bow.

To end the world I had known, and usher in a new one.