Chapter 1 · Verse 33·Spoken by Arjuna
येषामर्थे काङ्क्षितं नो राज्यं भोगाः सुखानि च। त इमेऽवस्थिता युद्धे प्राणांस्त्यक्त्वा धनानि च
yeṣhām arthe kāṅkṣhitaṁ no rājyaṁ bhogāḥ sukhāni cha ta ime ’vasthitā yuddhe prāṇāṁs tyaktvā dhanāni cha
Those for whose sake we desire kingdom, enjoyments, and pleasures stand here in battle, giving up their lives and wealth.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
Audio from the Gītā Supersite, IIT Kanpur
Synthesis · a glossed leaf
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
rjuna names the heart of his collapse: the kingdom, the enjoyments (bhoga, the means and objects of enjoyment), and the pleasures (sukha) he had been fighting to win were never wanted for his own sake. He wanted them for the very people now lined up against him. The commentators read the verse as completing an argument: 'those for whose sake we desire kingdom and enjoyment, they are the ones arranged here in battle.' The whole point of the war, in Arjuna's eyes, was to secure ease and joy for his elders and kin; so to kill them to gain those things empties the gain of all meaning.
Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
These same loved ones are standing in the battle 'having given up' (tyaktva) their lives and their wealth. The commentators stress that they have already let go: they have resolved that they may die and will not flee, that they have no clinging to life and no thirst for wealth. The grammatical choice of tyaktva, 'having abandoned,' rather than a form meaning 'in order to abandon,' is read as making this settled and certain. They have set aside the doubt about whether kin-love might make them retreat. Even with the act of risking life already undertaken, their excess of love for their kin will not make them flee.
Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Ramsukhdas
Life and wealth are named as two separate things on purpose. The point is subtle: a person might give up his own life and yet still hope to leave wealth behind for his kinsmen to enjoy. By naming 'wealth' apart from 'life,' the verse rules this out. The renunciation here is the renunciation of the very hope, the inner desire 'we shall live and we shall have wealth' is what has been let go, not merely the outer things. This is why these warriors stand ready to die: if they still wanted life or wealth, they would not be standing in the war to die at all.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Swami Ramsukhdas
From this the despairing conclusion follows for Arjuna. If all these very people are about to die, then the kingdom, pleasure, and wealth he sought lose their purpose entirely: for whose sake would he want any of them? The ones who were the reason for the wanting are the ones he must destroy to get it. The contradiction is total, and it is what drives his refusal to fight.
Swami Ramsukhdas · Lokmanya Tilak
Divergence
Here the commentators are of one mind.
A Seeker Asks
Is Arjuna's reasoning here a noble selflessness, since he wants nothing for himself, or is it still attachment in disguise?
Taken on its own terms, the verse does show Arjuna at his least selfish: he plainly says the kingdom, enjoyments, and pleasures were never desired for his own personal pleasure, but for the ease and joy of his teachers, fathers, grandfathers, sons, and the rest. So the love is real, and the wish to serve his kin is real.
Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrī Puruṣottama
But the commentators also let us see why this is not yet liberation. Arjuna's whole sense of purpose is tied to the survival of particular people; the moment they are about to die, every aim collapses and he asks 'for whose sake?' His peace depends entirely on the outcome and on the persons. That dependence is the clinging the rest of the Gita will work on, even though the affection that fuels it is genuine.
Swami Ramsukhdas · Lokmanya Tilak
There is even a quiet pointer inside the verse toward the freedom Arjuna lacks. The very kinsmen he grieves are described as having let go of the hope of life and wealth, standing ready to die without flinching. That settled release from clinging to one's own survival is held up by the verse as something already present on the field, the very steadiness Arjuna himself has not yet found.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Swami Ramsukhdas
Contemplation
Sit for a moment with what Arjuna sees here. He realizes that the things he was chasing, the kingdom and the comforts and the pleasures, he never truly wanted for himself; he wanted them so that the people he loved could be at ease and glad. There is something clean in that. And there is also the warriors' side of it: they stand ready having let go of the hope 'we shall live and we shall have wealth,' so that even dying does not move them. Notice in your own life how often the things you grasp for are wanted 'for the sake of' someone, and how rarely you ask whether that grasping still makes sense when the loved one is taken out of the picture. The verse invites you to look straight at the hope underneath your wanting, the quiet assumption that you will keep living and keep having, and to see that letting go of that hope, rather than letting go of mere objects, is where real freedom from clinging begins.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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