Aryans and We - страница 19
As said above, the external regulating principle of the Aryans’ behavior was their honor. This factor played a great role in the Aryan society. When Arjuna refused to fight, Krishna told him (the Bhagavad-Gita, Chapter 2, Verses 31-36):
Considering your specific duty as a kshatriya, you should know that there is no better engagement for you than fighting on religious principles; and so there is no need for hesitation.
O Pārtha, happy are the kshatriyas to whom such fighting opportunities come unsought, opening for them the doors of the heavenly planets.
If, however, you do not perform your duty of good fighting, then you will certainly incur sins for neglecting your duties and thus lose your reputation as a fighter.
People will always speak of your infamy, and for a respectable person, dishonor is worse than death.
The great generals who have highly esteemed your name and fame will think that you have left the battlefield out of fear only, and thus they will consider you insignificant.
Your enemies will describe you in many unkind words and scorn your ability. What could be more painful for you?
These texts in fact give the component by which one can reach eternity in this material world. In the material world our eternity is the glory. A virtuous person understands that he/she does not possess independence in this world. We are connected with people by familial bonds and our glory is their honor and our disgrace is their dishonor. Upon a closer view, it can be seen that actually in human society honor plays a great role. The sense of dignity which is felt by a well-reputed person cannot be changed for anything. Good reputation makes the life of a person and his/her family comfortable. Honor, thus, in the Aryan society was more valuable than wealth. For the sake of honor, people without a moment of hesitation gave their lives. The most disgraceful act of the Aryans was so called “civil death”. This ceremony was very humiliating. In the Aryan society, honored men wore ancestral jewelry, grew long hair and moustache. When a man acted inappropriately in his position, he was taken off his jewelry, got bald-headed, got his moustache and eyebrows cut off. This ceremony was very difficult to pass through. Mostly such persons left the Aryan society and became members of less developed communities. Aborigines found these persons divine but in fact they were only human driftwoods of the Aryan society. It took only a little time for such outcasts to exhibit their vicious nature. As a rule, these persons mixed with natives and eventually completely lost their pious (Aryan) nature. But natives composed legends about them and handed them down from generation to generation. The Eastern wisdom tells, “The camel, even when dead, is the burden for seven donkeys”. Similarly, these persons even though they had been expelled from the Aryan society and could not fit to live in it, for those who lived outside the Aryan society were simply gods. There are many examples when such “fallen” Aryans came to some societies and impart to local aboriginal people the knowledge that they had got and became authoritative persons alongside with gods. In some cases such an event even became the basis for the whole civilization still in existence until now. We would avoid giving specific examples in order not to raise discontent of representatives of this civilization. The greater importance is placed on the positive attention to the values of the Aryan society than the necessity for an unprepared person to accept an unusual truth requiring historical evidences. We have mentioned it only for the purpose to note this very fact as we are interested only in the ethical value system of the Aryans. Therefore, please kindly forgive us dear readers that we have not proved the above said by examples.
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