Questioner: Hello, sir. I observed that Arjun has been basically called by Krishna by multiple names — Parth, Bharath, and then Kaunteya, that one clicked. So, I was just curious that it is just an ornamental value, or is there any significance to it?
Acharya Prashant: I think that's a very beautiful thing that I have admired about the culture of naming and addressing people, not just in Gita and Mahabharata, but in other books as well, other Indic books, which is that you do not address the person just by one name, it's an admission of multiple identities. And multiple identities do not necessarily mean, that the fellow in front of you is fragmented. It also may mean that the way you look at that person keeps changing. So, it's not about the fellow; it's about your relationship with that, the fellow in front of you.
Questioner: Our perception.
Acharya Prashant: Our perceptual perception of it, that's the reason you have things like Vishnu Sahasranama. So, you address your respected ones or the important ones or the loved ones, with a hundred or a thousand names. Because they are not one thing to you, not one thing to you. So, at some point, he is Madhusudan, he is Rishikesh, he is Keshav, and you can have a long list of names. Even Arjun has so many names. Coming from Pratha, he is Parth. Coming from Kunti, he is Kaunteya. At some point, he is Gudakesh.
So, that merely means that the fellow in front of you is proximate enough, intimate enough, to know your various aspects, or he realizes that his relationship with you is multifaceted. And this is something that has intrigued me, fascinated me for a long time. I used to wonder why should there be so many names of the ones, who cannot have any name. And then I got into the psychology of it, and I understood. I think I understood.
