Who Can Understand Bhagavad gita - Prabhupada 0769

690509 - Lecture Temple Opening - Columbus

So this Mahābhārata history was specially meant for these classes: woman, worker class and this dvijabandhu class, or the so-called brahmins and kṣatriyas. But still if you read Mahābhārata you will find that it is difficult even for the greatest scholar of this age. Just like Bhagavad-gītā. Bhagavad-gītā is set up in the Mahābhārata, and originally it was meant for the less-intelligent class of men. So you can just try to understand what class of men existed in those days.

Actually it is so. Bhagavad-gītā is such nice philosophical spiritual treatise, whilst taught to Arjuna in the battlefield. So in the battlefield how much time he could spare? And at the point he was going to fight, he thought, "Oh, why shall I fight?" So some instruction was given by Kṛṣṇa—so you can imagine, utmost half an hour or at most one hour He talked—and he understood the whole Bhagavad-gītā.

So what class of man was Arjuna? The same Bhagavad-gītā even big scholars of this age, they cannot understand. And Arjuna understood it within half an hour.