It was not as though he had not expected this. But the actual experience strikes one with the force of afresh impact.  When he sees all his own people gathered together, a storm begins to rage in his heart. He feels downcast. In the past, he had killed innumerable warriors in many a battle.  But never till now had he felt so miserable, never had his bow, Gandiva, slipped from his hands nor had his body quaked like this, nor his eyes became wet. Then, why did all this happen now? Was he moved by the spirit of non - violence now, as Ashoka was to be later? No, this was only attachment to his own people. 

Even now, if those in front of him had not been his teachers, kinsmen and friends he would have made their severed heads fly like so many balls. But his attachment confused him and overshadowed his devotion to duty; it was then that he thought of philosophy. When a man with a sense of duty is caught in illusion, even then he cannot bear to face the naked fact of his lapse from duty. He usually covers it up with an inquiry into principles. Arjuna was just in this plight. He began to declare ostentatiously that war was really a sin, that war would destroy the race, main dharma, encourage moral anarchy, spread antinomianism, disturb the seasons and bring many other disasters upon society. With such arguments he tried to enlighten Krishna Himself.

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