Chapter 1 · Verse 27·Spoken by Sanjaya
श्वशुरान्सुहृदश्चैव सेनयोरुभयोरपि। तान्समीक्ष्य स कौन्तेयः सर्वान्बन्धूनवस्थितान्
tān samīkṣhya sa kaunteyaḥ sarvān bandhūn avasthitān kṛipayā parayāviṣhṭo viṣhīdann idam abravīt
He saw fathers-in-law and well-wishers in both armies as well. Seeing all these kinsmen arrayed, Arjuna was overcome with deep pity and spoke in sorrow.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
his verse widens the circle of faces Arjuna sees on the battlefield. The previous verse had already named fathers, grandfathers, teachers, uncles, brothers, sons, grandsons, and friends. Now the eye falls on still more relatives: shvashuran, the fathers-in-law, and suhridah, the well-wishers or dear friends. The commentators put real names to these categories so the reader feels how close the ties are. Drupada is named as a father-in-law; Satyaki and Kritavarma as friends or comrades. Beyond these, great-grandfathers such as Bahlika, brothers-in-law such as Dhrishtadyumna, Shikhandi, and Suratha, and sisters' husbands such as Jayadratha are seen drawn up in the two armies. The point is cumulative: there is no one across the field who is a stranger to Arjuna. Both sides are kin.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
Having taken in (samikshya, having looked closely or surveyed) all these kinsmen standing arrayed for battle, Arjuna is overcome by kripa, compassion or pity. The commentators stress that this is no ordinary feeling. The word used is paraya, supreme or extreme; Arjuna is avishtah, seized or possessed by it, taken over from within. It is the sheer nearness of these particular faces, and the prospect of their injury, that floods him. Pierced by this overwhelming tenderness, he sinks into vishada, grief or despondency, and it is from inside that grief that he begins to speak the words of the verses that follow.
Śrī Ānandagiri · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Ramsukhdas
The commentators read meaning into the way the verse names Arjuna here as Kaunteya, the son of Kunti. The patronymic is not decoration; it carries an irony. Kunti, his mother, had sent word that her sons should fight. Arjuna himself, full of resolve, had earlier asked Krishna to draw the chariot between the two armies precisely so he could see who had come to oppose him. That same son of Kunti, who came forward with courage, is now the one undone by pity. Some also note that it was at the Lord's command, by Krishna's act of placing the chariot, that Arjuna came to look upon these kinsmen at all. The man and the moment are set against each other on purpose.
Dhanapati Sūri · Swami Ramsukhdas
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
This reading does not let the moment rest in pure compassion. It names what grips Arjuna as grief-delusion: sorrow shading into moha, a clouding of judgment, so that what looks like tenderness is already mixed with confusion of mind. On this view the compassion is not simply admirable feeling but a state in which clear sight is being lost.
Dhanapati Sūri
Bhakti
This reading takes the verse at its plain emotional face. Seeing all his kinsmen present, Arjuna is struck by compassion and, in sorrow, speaks. The feeling is reported as it stands, without yet weighing it as a virtue or a flaw; the verse is simply narrating the rise of grief that opens his lament.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Śuddhādvaita
This reading likewise holds to the surface of the scene. The naming of the kinsmen fastens the cause; struck by deep compassion at seeing them all so present, Arjuna utters his words in sorrow. The emphasis stays on the bond between the sight of relatives and the grief it produces, without adding a verdict on Arjuna's state.
Śrī Puruṣottama
Modern
This reading turns the verse into a moral diagnosis. The very word kripaya, overcome with pity, is taken to prove that this compassion was not in Arjuna before but has just now arisen, which makes it an adventitious fault, a defect that came from outside his nature and therefore will not last; his bravery, by contrast, is natural and will surely remain. The pity is named outright as extreme cowardice, the same condition Krishna will later call kashmala and weakness of heart and which Arjuna himself will admit as karpanya, a pettiness that has overcome his nature. The proof offered is its target: this karuna rises even toward Duryodhana, Duhshasana, Shakuni, and others who without cause reviled, dishonoured, and tried to destroy him; to feel no wish to oppose even such men is, on this view, Arjuna falling away from his own dharma, the duty of a kshatriya. The thought that drives it, that whoever dies the loss will fall only on our own clan, is what effaces his will to fight.
Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
Compassion is usually a virtue, so why do the commentators treat Arjuna's pity for his kinsmen as a fault or a delusion rather than as something admirable?
The first thing to see is that the verse itself does not yet judge the feeling; several commentators simply report it as it stands. Arjuna, seeing all his kinsmen, is struck by compassion and speaks in sorrow. At this stage it is honest grief, narrated plainly, and the reader is not asked to condemn it.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrī Puruṣottama
What turns it into a problem is not the tenderness as such but what is mixed into it. One reading names the state grief-delusion: sorrow shading into a clouding of the mind, so that clear judgment is being lost even as the feeling rises. Compassion that darkens your sight is no longer simply compassion.
Dhanapati Sūri
The sharpest answer points to where the pity is aimed. The same compassion goes out even toward men who without cause reviled, dishonoured, and tried to destroy Arjuna and his family. Pity that would spare even the unprovoked aggressor, and that makes a warrior abandon the duty that is his to do, is misdirected; on this reading it is not high feeling but a sudden cowardice working under the name of kindness. The test of a virtue here is whether it leaves you able to do what is right, and this feeling does not.
Swami Ramsukhdas
Finally, this same reading offers reassurance rather than only blame. The fault is adventitious, arisen just now and from outside Arjuna's true nature, so it will not last; his courage is natural and will remain. The pity is being questioned not to shame him but because it is a passing cloud over a steadiness that is really his.
Swami Ramsukhdas
Contemplation
There is a quietly freeing idea here for anyone caught off guard by a sudden collapse of nerve. Notice the claim that Arjuna's cowardice arose only now, that it was not in him before. Because it came suddenly and from outside his real nature, it is called adventitious, and what is adventitious does not abide; it will pass. His courage, by contrast, is native to him, and what is native stays. When fear or faintheartedness rushes in at the moment you most need to act, you can meet it the same way: this is not who I am, it has arrived from outside and it will leave, while the steadiness that is truly mine remains underneath it. The feeling is real, but it is a visitor, not the host.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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