October 22,2012.Day 70. Chapter 2. BHAGAVAD GITA - As It Is Original by His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada. TEXT 26.

Chapter 2. Contents of the Gita Summarized

TEXT 26

  atha cainam nitya-jatam 
nityam va manyase mrtam 
tathapi tvam maha-baho 
nainam socitum arhasi

  SYNONYMS

         atha--if, however; ca--also; enam--this soul; nitya-jatam--always born; nityam--forever; va--either; manyase--so think; mrtam--dead;tatha api--still; tvam--you; maha-baho--O mighty-armed one; na--never; enam--about the soul; socitum--to lament; arhasi--deserve.

  TRANSLATION

         If, however, you think that the soul is perpetually born and always dies, still you still have no reason to lament, O mighty-armed.

  PURPORT

    There is always a class of philosophers, almost akin to the Buddhists, who do not believe in the separate existence of the soul beyond the body. When Lord Krsna spoke the Bhagavad-gita, it appears that such philosophers existed, and they were known as the Lokayatikas andVaibhasikas. These philosophers maintained that life symptoms, or soul, takes place at a certain mature condition of material combination. The modern material scientist and materialist philosophers also think similarly. According to them, the body is a combination of physical elements, and at a certain stage the life symptoms develop by interaction of the physical and chemical elements. The science of anthropology is based on this philosophy. Currently, many pseudo-religions--now becoming fashionable in America--are also adhering to this philosophy, as well as to the nihilistic nondevotional Buddhist sects. 

Even if Arjuna did not believe in the existence of the soul--as in theVaibhasika philosophy--there would still have been no cause for lamentation. No one laments the loss of a certain bulk of chemicals and stops discharging his prescribed duty. On the other hand, in modern science and scientific warfare, so many tons of chemicals are wasted for achieving victory over the enemy. According to the Vaibhasikaphilosophy, the so-called soul or atma vanishes along with the deterioration of the body. So, in any case, whether Arjuna accepted the Vedic conclusion that there is an atomic soul, or whether he did not believe in the existence of the soul, he had no reason to lament. According to this theory, since there are so many living entities generating out of matter every moment, and so many of them are being vanquished at every moment, there is no need to grieve for such an incidence. However, since he was not risking rebirth of the soul, Arjuna had no reason to be afraid of being affected with sinful reactions due to his killing his grandfather and teacher. But at the same time, Krsna sarcastically addressed Arjuna as maha-bahu, mighty-armed, because He, at least, did not accept the theory of theVaibhasikas, which leaves aside the Vedic wisdom. As a ksatriya,Arjuna belonged to the Vedic culture, and it behooved him to continue to follow its principles.