Dharmaraja was lost in sorrow; he sat with his head resting on his clenched fist, the hand placed on the knee, his eyes were full of tears which rolled continuously down his cheeks. Arjuna tried to speak some words of consolation. "Maharaja! You are aware of the glory and grace of Krishna, but, yet, you ask questions and entertain doubts, whether He did this or that; what can I say in reply? The fate of the Yadavas is the same as the fate of our own clan. Weren't we and Kauravas brothers? We had kinsmen who were well-wishers on both sides and we had this same Shyamasundar in our midst, but, yet, we had to go through the Kurukshetra battle. Can we not see that this war would not have happened, had He willed it so? The forty lakhs of warriors who died on the field of battle would not have been lost then, isn't it? Did we ever wish to rule over this land after slaughtering them all? Nothing can ever happen without His express command. No one can cross His will or act against His command."

"This world is the stage on which each one acts the role He has allotted him, on which each one struts about for the time given by Him and each one has to obey His instructions without fail or falter. We may think in pride that we have done this or that by ourselves, but the truth is, everything happens as He wills."

When Arjuna concluded, Dharmaraja thought aloud. "Arjuna! Many motives dragged us into the Mahabharatha war. We tried our best through diplomacy and peaceful means to regain our kingdom, our status and what was legitimately our due. We bore patiently many insults and discomfitures. We had to wander in the jungle as exiles. Through divine grace, we escaped many a plot laid to kill us. They tried arson and poison on us. They heaped public ignominy on our queen. They broke our hearts by systematic ill-treatment."

"Still, there are but three reasons for the final fight everywhere: Wealth, dominion and woman. But take the instance of the Yadavas. They had no such reason to fall out among themselves in mortal combat. It appears as if destiny was the only overpowering reason for this cataclysm."

"The Yadavas were rolling in plenty. They had no lack of grain or gold. And their wives? They were models of virtue, faithful and devoted. They never deviated from the wishes or commands of their husbands. They could not bring insult or discomfiture to their lords from any quarter. How then could faction and internecine strife raise their heads so suddenly among them?"

Arjuna replied: "My dear brother! We see the outer circumstances, the processes which result in the final event and in our ignorance we judge that this set of causes produced these effects. We guess the nature of emotions and feelings from what we gauge from events. But circumstances, events, emotions and feelings are all simply 'instruments' in His hands, serving His will and His purpose. When the moment comes, He uses them for His plan, and brings about the fight He has willed. He is the embodiment of Kala or time; He comes as the master of time and, through some denouement of the plot, He finishes the drama. That which brought about birth brings about death, too. He finds reason for both, in the same degree. Do we seek to know why there was a birth? Then, why seek to know why death occurs? It occurred; that is enough. Reason-finding is a superfluous occupation."