For the Pándavas and the Kauravas were the sons of two brothers. And Arjuna was moved to the depths of his heart, and he hesitated to give the signal for battle, for loath was he to kill those who had once been his own people. So he stood there looking down from his war-chariot, his chin sunk on his breast, a prey to torturing hesitancy, undecided as to what he should do; and beside him stood the golden god Krishna, who was his charioteer. And Krishna guessed at the thoughts of the noble Pandaver king.
"Smiling, he pointed to the rival armies, and showed Arjuna how all those beings come into existence and pass—yet only in seeming—because in all of them only that One lives whose past has known no dawn, whose future shall know no sunset, untouched alike by birth and death—
"'Who for a murd'rer holds the one,
Who deems him murdered that lies here,
He knows, and knows of either, naught—
For no one murders, no one dies,
Come then, the fight beginnest thou!'
"Taught in this way, the Pandaver king gave the signal for beginning the awful battle, and won. So that Krishna, the human-born, highest god, by the revelation of this great esoteric doctrine, changed Arjuna from a shallow and weak-hearted man to a deeply thoughtful, iron-hearted sage and hero.
"In truth, then, the following holds good:
"'Whosoever commits a crime or causes it to be committed, whosoever destroys or causes to be destroyed, whosoever strikes or causes to be struck, whosoever robs the living of life or takes that which has not been given to him, breaks into houses, or robs others of their property—
