MP Board Class 12th Special English Important Questions Chapter 19 The Gita and Swadharma

Students get through the MP Board Class 12th English Important Questions Special English Chapter 19 The Gita and Swadharma which are most likely to be asked in the exam.

MP Board Class 12th Special English Important Questions Chapter 19 The Gita and Swadharma

A. Answer the following questions in about 50 – 60 words each:

Question 1.
What does Vinoba Bhave say about his heart and mind?
Answer:
Vinoba says that the Gita seeks to remove the delusion that distracts him from his duty.

Question 2.
Where does he soar high and how?
Answer:
He soars high in the vast expanse of the Gita on the twin wings of faith and experimentation.

Question 3.
What does Vinoba Bhave compare the Gita with?
Answer:
Vinoba Bhave compares the Gita with the Ocean of nectar.

Question 4.
Where has the Gita been set?
Answer:
The Gita has been set in the Mahabharata.

Question 5.
What does it look like?
Answer:
It looks like a lighthouse.

B. Answer the following questions in about 40 – 60 words each:

Question 1.
In the opinion of many people what was the purpose of preaching Gita?
Answer:
In the opinion of many people the purpose of preaching the Gita was to restore Aijuna’s manliness and persuade him to fight. In their view the Gita preaches not only Karmayoga (the philosophy of action) but also Yudhayoga (the philosophy of war).

Question 2.
What in the opinion of Vinoba, is inconceivable?
Answer:
In the opinion of Vinoba, it is inconceivable to doubt Arjuna’s manliness and valour. The army is not braver than him. It is not out of fear that he is turning away from the battle. He is a great warrior. He had fought hundreds of battles and valour is in every drop of his blood.

Question 3.
Whom had Arjuna single handedly routed and when?
Answer:
Arjuna was a great warrior. He had fought hundreds of battles. He had single handedly routed Bhishma, Drona and Kama when they had invaded Virat’s Kingdom.

Question 4.
Why had war become inevitable?
Answer:
Every attempt to avoid war had failed. The Pandava’s had pitched their claims at the minimum. Still the kaurava’s didn’t agree. Even Krishna himself had tried to meditate in order to burry the chance of war. But all the attempts proved in vain, making th e war inevitable.

Question 5.
Why did Arjuna ask Krishna to place his chariot between two armies?
Answer:
Arjuna had come to the battlefield to fight war. Krishna was his charioteer. But before starting the war, he asked Krishna to place his chariot between the two armies because he wanted to have a look at the people who had assembled there to fight with him.

Question 6.
What did he see then?
Answer:
When Krishna placed his chariot between the two armies, Arjuna looked around and saw his kith and kin, near and dear ones arrayed on both the sides. He found four generations of his own people intent on fighting to the finish.

Question 7.
What made Arjuna lose his nerve? (M.P. 2018)
Answer:
Arjuna saw his kith and kin, near and dear ones arrayed on both the sides in the battlefield. This made him lose his nerve. He found it difficult to fight with his own people.

Question 8.
What Lord Krishna realize?
Answer:
Arjuna felt attached with his Kinsmen. This attachment to the kith and kin clouded his sense of duty. He began to curse war. Krishna realized that Arjuna was not voicing his own authentic conviction, his words were seemingly wise, but not really so.

Question 9.
Where does the Gita nowhere deal with and why?
Answer:
The Gita nowhere deals with the opinion that Arjuna had really become a votary of non-violence. Had he really become so, he would not have been satisfied until his arguments has been convincingly answered.

Question 10.
What then is the purpose of the Gita?
Answer:
The purpose of the Gita is to remove the delusion that stands between us and our Swadharma. Arjuna was confused about his dharma. He was gripped by a delusion about his Swadharma. When criticizes him, he himself admits it. The Gita’s main task is to remove that delusion, that attachment.

C. Answer the following questions in about 75 words each:

Question 1.
What is the second common opinion about the Gita, which according to Vinoba Bhave is not right?
Answer:
The second common opinion is that the Gita is meant to make Arjuna willing to fight by removing his inclination towards non-violence. But Vinoba Bhave rejects this opinion by giving appropriate example. If Arjuna had really become a worshipper of non-violence, he would not have come to the battlefield but the fact was that he had come to the battlefield with a firm resolve and a sense of duty.

He was a Kshatriya and fighting was in his blood. He had slain innumerable warriors in many battles. War was for him his natural and inescapable duty. But he was trying to evade it under the spell of delusion, i.e., attachment of his Kinsmen.

Question 2.
What clouded his sense of duty and made him philosophies?
Answer:
Arjuna had come to the battlefield with a firm resolve and a sense of duty. He was a Kshatriya and fighting was in his blood. But when he looked around the battlefield, he found his kith and kin, near and dear ones arrayed on both sides. It was not that Arjuna had no Idea of what he was going to see. But the actual sight shook him from within the heart.

He felt attached to his close friends and relatives. Had there infront of him not been his Kinsmen he would even now have felt no qualms in severing their heads. But attachment to the kith and kin clouded his sense of duty and then he started philosophising.

Question 3.
What specious argument did Arjuna put before Lord Krishna?
Answer:
It was attachment with his kith and kin, near and dear ones that clouded his sense of duty. He suddenly began to evade war under the spell of delusion i.e., attachment to his friends and relatives. He philosophised so that war might not occur. He put before Krishna the specious argument that war in itself was sinful that it would destroy the clan, eclipse dharma and bring total destruction.

Question 4.
What proved that Arjuna had not become a votary of non-violence?
Answer:
Arjuna had not really become a votary of non-violence. Being a Kshatriya, fighting was in his blood. The intrinsic tendency to fight was still very much a part of his nature. War was for him his natural and inescapable duty. He had slain innumerable warriors in many a battle. But he was trying to evade war under the spell of delusion i.e., attachment of his close friends and relatives.

D. Answer the following questions in about 150 words each:

Question 1.
What story of a judge does Vinoba Bhave narrate, and why?
Answer:
Vinoba Bhave narrates the story of a judge. He had awarded death sentence to hundreds of criminals. But one day his own son accused of murder, was produced before him. The guilt was proved and the time came for the judge to pronounce the sentence. But then he hesitated and started arguing that the death sentence is in human. It is not good to inflict such a punishment. It destroys all hopes of reforming the guilty.

One commits murder in a fit of passion. The moment of blood thirsty madness then passes off. Still we take him to the gallows and hang him to death. It is really a blot on humanity. But had his son not been there the Judge would have gone sentencing people to death.

This makes it clear that the judge’s arguments were born out of attachment to his son. Vinoba Bhave narrates the above story because he finds Aijuna’s condition like that of the judge. Arjuna tried to evade war because he didn’t want to fight with his own people.

Had these infront of him not been his Kinsmen he would certainly have felt no qualms in severing their heads and merrily tossing them around. The arguments that he put before Krishna looked inner conviction, like that of a judge. They were all born out of attachment to his own people.

Question 2.
What does Vyasa say at the beginning of the Mahabharata and does the Gita succeed in achieving that purpose?
Answer:
Vyasa at the beginning of the Mahabharata says that he is lighting this lamp of history to dispel delusions from the minds of the people. The Gita succeeds in achieving its purpose which centres around the removal of delusion that stands between us and our swadharma. When Krishna criticizes him severely, he himself admits it.

The main task of the Gita is to remove that delusion i.e., Arjuna’s attachment to his kith and kin. When Lord Krishna asked Arjuna at the end of the Gita if his delusion had gone then, Arjuna replied in affirmative. He said that the delusion had fled away, and he had realized what swadharma is.