Time had spoken, and now Time gave Arjuna his task.

"Tasmāt tvam uttiṣṭha," the great form said. "Therefore, arise."

Arjuna had sunk down in his chariot at the start of all this, his bow slipping from his hand, certain that the whole terrible weight of the battle rested on his shoulders alone. Now he was being told to stand up, not because he was the master of life and death, but precisely because he was not.

"Win glory," Krishna said. "Defeat your foes. Rule a kingdom that prospers. But understand this, Arjuna: these warriors before you have already been struck down by Me. It happened before you ever raised your bow today. You are not the cause of their ending. The wheel of Time turned, and they fell inside it long ago."

Then came the words that Arjuna would carry for the rest of his life.

"Nimitta-mātraṁ bhava," said the form. "Be only the instrument."

Arjuna thought of a carpenter's chisel and a flute and a painter's brush. A chisel does not decide what shape the wood becomes; the carpenter does. A flute does not compose the song; the breath of the player does. A brush does not choose the picture; the artist's hand does. The chisel, the flute, the brush, each one only has to be ready, clean, and willing in the hand that holds it.

"You are the instrument," Krishna was telling him. "Be a good one. Do the work that is yours to do, and do it skilfully, the way only you can. But the great design is Mine. The outcome is Mine. You do not have to carry it. You only have to play your part."

Arjuna felt the weight he had been crushed under begin to lift. He was not being asked to be God. He was being asked to be himself — Savyasachin, the archer who could draw a bow with either hand, and to let the larger story belong to the one who was large enough to hold it.