Four or Five?

Sometime ago, one of my acquaintances asked me this:

“Do you know how many horses are tied to the chariot driven by Krishna during the Mahabharata war?”

“Five” , I said.

“No, it is only four” he showed the ISKCON Bhagavad Gita.

ISKCON’ s Gita is the most popular one around the world, it seems, I don’t know. Some people say it is the authentic one, well I doubt. Gita by them contained only four horses. Even for a Hindu, if this is confusing what about others who try to understand Gita?

How many Hindus themselves understand what that picture means?

A major thing which is common with scriptures of all religion is that, they are not direct and simple. It mostly speaks through symbols. Thus just because a person can read and write dose not mean that he/she can understand a scripture. I think this is applicable to Bhagavad Gita, Holy Bible, Holy Quran, Holy Toras etc…

And that is why we need somebody to explain those. And since it not being direct, it can be interpreted in many ways. Jesus conveyed many things through fables. That further should be studied and understood. Those weren’t some kids stuff.

Well, the question is four horses or five.

First of all we need to understand what that chariot is. It is not just Lord Krishna driving a silly Chariot with some horses. Everything is in symbols.

That whole thing symbolizes ‘us’, a typical human

The Chariot is the Body
Krishna is the Driver which again means wisdom
The harness held by Krishna is mind
Horses are our FIVE sense organs

The whole thing is deep again and hence needs further analysis and explanation (since the question is number of horses…..hmmm…let me skip that)

So, it is five itself, five horses.

But why then it is told as four in many versions? Is that wrong? Not at all….that too is right

These organs deal with – sound, touch, taste, vision, and smell.

Some people club touch (skin) and taste (tongue) together since tongue is also sort of skin, externally. Tongue uses the skin layer to help taste (am not talking the science part)

(Why the horses are white? Why Krishna’s Conch called by that name, why Arjuna’s Conch called by that name, why that flag with Hanuman? Etc etc …..all these have some logic and they are not just a shown there for beauty of the picture)