An article in the peer-reviewed European Heart Journal said Krishna’s teaching to Arjuna in Bhagavad Gita held lessons for the world tackling Covid today. Extremely rare to see such a picture of Krishna and Arjuna in a mainstream medical journal, the article would make every Indian proud for the wisdom of ancient India still inspiring the modern world.
Authored by Ankur Kalra, Erin Michos and Kavitha M Chinnaiyan, a chapter talking about ‘Lessons from The Bhagwad Gita’ has been included by the European Heart Journal in its paper on ‘COVID-19 and the healthcare workers’. The Oxford Journal called the healthcare workers as contemporary Arjuna while the hospitals were related to as the ‘kurukshetra’ or the battleground against the deadly coronavirus.
Relating the consequences of COVID-19 with that of the lessons written in the Bhagwad Gita, the journal focused on the conversation between Krishna and Arjuna. As per the Maharbharat mythology, a conversation takes place between Krishna and Arjuna where the concept of ‘Dharma’ is emphasised. It highlighted the fact that the Pandava brother, Arjuna, had a bigger purpose to serve by fighting the war despite being outnumbered by their opponents. The conversation stresses that while fighting such a war, the result and who he is fighting for has no value.
Including this in the journal, the writers accordingly compared the selfless healthcare workers with Arjuna, as they have been unconditionally working for longer durations and sometimes even without breaks to treat the COVID-19 patients amid the battleground of the pandemic. Drawing such parallels, the article was published on June
Titled ‘Lessons from the Bhagavad Gita (the ‘Lord’s Song’), from India during these difficult times’, the article read, “And now, in the midst of a pandemic, the Bhagavad Gita is more relevant than ever — the healthcare worker is Arjuna, hospitals are battlegrounds for the war against the virus and misinformation, the lack of a cure or an effective containment strategy, and a system that has failed us.”
Discussion about this post