Krishna and Arjuna - The Night of Doubt

The fires of the eighteenth day had burned low. Tomorrow would bring Duryodhana's death and the war's end. Victory was assured.

Arjuna found Krishna sitting alone, staring at the stars.

Krishna: "You should rest,"

Krishna said without turning.

Arjuna: "I can't. Seventeen days of carnage, and I slept through each night. Now that it's almost over, I can't close my eyes."

Krishna: "What do you see when you close them?"

Arjuna: "Faces. Drona's face before Dhristadyumna cut off his head. Bhishma's smile as the arrows pinned him. Karna's look of recognition when he realized he was dying. I see the boys. Draupadi's sons. Abhimanyu. My son. All dead because I was good at killing."

Krishna: "You did not start this war."

Arjuna: "No. But I ended it. Me. My arrows. My skill. These hands have killed more men than any plague. And tomorrow, people will call me a hero."

Krishna: "You ARE a hero."

Arjuna: "Am I? Or am I just the most efficient murderer in history? On that first day, when I refused to fight, you showed me my cosmic duty. You explained karma and dharma and the immortality of the soul. And I fought. For seventeen days, I fought. But Krishna—what if I was right the first time? What if refusing was the moral choice, and everything since then has been me justifying murder to myself?"

Krishna was quiet for a moment.

Krishna: "Sit."

Arjuna sat.

Krishna: "You want absolution, You want me to tell you that you did nothing wrong. I cannot."

Arjuna: "Then I did do wrong?"

Krishna: "You did harm. Harm and wrong are not the same thing. You killed men who had lives, families, hopes. That is harm. It would be harm whether they were good men or evil men. Death is always harm."

Arjuna: "Then—"

Krishna: "But the alternative—letting Duryodhana's tyranny stand—was also harm. To the people who would have suffered under his rule. To dharma itself. You did not choose between harm and peace. You chose between harms. That is what this world offers."

Arjuna: "And the children? The innocents? Was their death also a choice between harms?"

Krishna: "Some deaths were unavoidable consequences. Some were atrocities. Ashwatthama's massacre was not strategy—it was evil. But Abhimanyu? He chose to enter the chakravyuha knowing the risk. He chose glory over safety. You cannot protect people from their own choices."

Arjuna: "He was sixteen."

Krishna: "He was a warrior. He knew what he was doing. Do you honor him by claiming he was a helpless child? Or do you honor him by acknowledging that he chose his path, as you chose yours?"

Arjuna was silent.

Krishna: "Here is what I know, You will never be at peace with what you've done. You shouldn't be. Peace after such slaughter would mean something died in you. The fact that you can't sleep—the fact that you see their faces—proves you're still human."

Arjuna: "What do I do with this humanity? This guilt?"

Krishna: "You use it. Yudhishthira will rule tomorrow, but he cannot rule alone. He needs someone who remembers what this war cost. Someone who will stand in the court and say 'No' when the next advisors counsel the next war. You carry the dead with you so that you can speak for them when the living forget."

Arjuna: "I don't want to carry them."

Krishna: "No one wants their burdens. We choose to carry them because no one else will. You asked if you were right on the first day. Here is the truth: you were right to hesitate. Killing should never be easy. The man who kills without doubt is more dangerous than the man who kills with it. Your doubt doesn't make you weak. It makes you trustworthy."

Arjuna: "Trustworthy for what?"

Krishna: "For the peace that comes after war. For the building that comes after destruction. You will not celebrate tomorrow's victory, Arjuna. You will mourn it. And in that mourning, you will be exactly the leader this broken kingdom needs."

Arjuna looked at the stars—the same stars his enemies had looked at, the same stars his son had looked at.

Arjuna: "I still can't sleep."

Krishna: "Then don't. Sit with me. Watch the night pass. Tomorrow requires daylight. Tonight requires honesty."

They sat in silence until dawn—two men carrying the weight of a war that was almost over and a grief that never would be.