Sanjaya
संजयCharioteer-minister of Dhritarashtra; narrator of the Bhagavad Gita. Also called Gavalgani, Suta.
Sanjaya is the charioteer-minister of Dhritarashtra who, with divine sight from Vyasa, narrates the Kurukshetra war and the Bhagavad Gita to the blind king. He closes the Gita with the words that victory and fortune lie where Krishna and Arjuna are.
Who was Sanjaya?
Sanjaya (संजय) is the charioteer-minister of the blind king Dhritarashtra and the narrator of the Bhagavad Gita. Through the gift of divine sight, he watches the war of the Mahabharata from the palace at Hastinapura and reports it to the king, including the words that Krishna spoke to Arjuna on the field of Kurukshetra.
Who was Sanjaya?
Sanjaya is called the son of Gavalgana and belongs to the suta class of charioteers and court bards. He served Dhritarashtra as minister and companion, and was known as a truthful man who did not flatter the king. When war could not be avoided, he was one of the few who spoke plainly to Dhritarashtra about the cost of his son Duryodhana’s course.
The gift of divine sight
Before the war began, the sage Vyasa offered Dhritarashtra the power to see the battle. The king refused to watch the death of his own kin, so Vyasa gave the gift to Sanjaya instead: he could see and hear everything that happened on the field, even the thoughts of the fighters, and he would be neither wounded nor wearied. Sanjaya narrates the war to the king day by day.
Sanjaya in the Gita
Sanjaya’s voice runs through the whole Gita. He describes the armies and Arjuna’s collapse in Chapter 1, tells the king of Krishna’s universal form in Chapter 11, and closes the Gita in Chapter 18. There he says that he has heard this wonderful dialogue, that the memory of it thrills him again and again, and that wherever Krishna and Arjuna are, there will be fortune, victory and right conduct.
After the war
Sanjaya was captured near the end of the war and was released through Vyasa’s intervention. He lived on at Hastinapura with Dhritarashtra and later accompanied the old king, Gandhari and Kunti into the forest. When the forest fire took them, Sanjaya, by Dhritarashtra’s advice, went to the Himalayas.
Why Sanjaya matters
Sanjaya is the reason the Gita exists as a reported dialogue. Because he stands between the battlefield and the blind king, readers receive the Gita as testimony: a faithful report of a conversation, delivered without comment.