Chapter 1 · Verse 36·Spoken by Arjuna
निहत्य धार्तराष्ट्रान्नः का प्रीतिः स्याज्जनार्दन। पापमेवाश्रयेदस्मान्हत्वैतानाततायिनः
nihatya dhārtarāṣhṭrān naḥ kā prītiḥ syāj janārdana pāpam evāśhrayed asmān hatvaitān ātatāyinaḥ
What pleasure could be ours from killing the sons of Dhritarashtra, Krishna? Only sin would come to us by killing these aggressors.
Word by Word
Saved for this reading session
Three movements · tap a label to switch
Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
Audio from the Gītā Supersite, IIT Kanpur
Synthesis · a glossed leaf
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
rjuna's first point is that killing the sons of Dhritarashtra would bring no real joy. He has been told, in effect, that destroying the wicked Kauravas should make him glad. He flatly denies it. Even granting that these men are wrongdoers, slaughtering one's own kin yields nothing worth having. Several commentators tie this back to his earlier words ('I do not see any good'): he is gathering up his case that the war promises no genuine pleasure or benefit, only loss. The very people whose defeat is supposed to be a victory are his own relatives, so their death cannot be a happiness.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
His second and weightier point is that the killing would actually load sin onto the killers. 'Sin alone would attach to us.' This is the heart of the verse. Joy is absent and sin is present, so the act is doubly to be refused. Arjuna treats the slaying of kinsmen as an injury that stains the one who does it, whatever the standing of the victims, and concludes that for this reason the war should not be fought.
Braided from 10 commentators
Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
He raises the objection to his own position and answers it: even though the Kauravas are atatayins, killing them still brings sin. An atatayin is a 'deadly aggressor', and the standard list names six kinds: the arsonist who sets fire to one's house, the poisoner, the one who comes weapon in hand to kill, the robber of wealth, and the one who seizes one's fields or wife. Duryodhana had done such things. The expected rule is that an aggressor may be struck down at once and no fault touches the slayer. Arjuna concedes the category but refuses the conclusion: 'having slain these aggressors, sin alone would attach to us.' Naming them aggressors does not, for him, clear the act.
Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Śrī Ānandagiri
Two commentators show how the address 'Janardana' (and a parallel reading of 'Madhava') is not idle. By calling Krishna 'Janardana', Arjuna presses that Krishna, who can himself destroy all beings at the dissolution of the world and yet remain untouched by sin because he pervades all, should not push a mere mortal like Arjuna into an act that will stain him; if these men truly deserve death, let Krishna be the one to kill them. Read through 'Madhava', the lord of Lakshmi (good fortune), the plea becomes: you who are the master of all auspiciousness ought not to set me to a deed that is empty of all auspiciousness.
Dhanapati Sūri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators read the verse with more than one grammatical construction and let several stand together, drawing out its full force. In one reading the sin falls on the Kauravas: if these aggressors were to suddenly slay us, the faultless, that injury of innocent kinsmen would beforehand fasten sin upon them, who already bear the marks of aggressors. In a second reading the sin falls on Arjuna's side: although these men are aggressors, they are also greatly to be pitied, and the sin of slaying them would befall us alone, so they are not to be slain by us. A third reading turns Arjuna himself into the aggressor: by slaying teachers, brothers and well-wishers we would ourselves become aggressors, and then the sin of that injury would befall us. The drift of all the constructions is the same: with no good fruit in view and calamity in prospect, the injury of others should not be done, and so withdrawing from the war is the right course.
Śrī Ānandagiri · Dhanapati Sūri
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators ground Arjuna's refusal in a clash between two bodies of scripture. The artha-shastra (the science of statecraft and worldly gain) enjoins that an atatayin who comes upon one should be killed without hesitation, with no fault to the killer. But the dharma-shastra (the science of right conduct) lays down the wider rule, 'one should not injure any beings.' When two such injunctions conflict, the broader moral law is held to be the stronger and to prevail in practice. They cite the principle of Yajnavalkya: when there is conflict between two smritis, reasoning decides what is to be done, and the dharma-shastra is stronger than the artha-shastra. So the permission to kill the aggressor is overridden by the general prohibition against harm, and sin attaches after all. They also note the scriptural warning that one who is slain facing battle, like the yogi who departs in yoga, pierces the sun's disk, which they read as marking the slayer's own implication in death-dealing.
Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri
Bhakti
This commentator turns the verse into a lover's dread of losing the beloved. The fear is not merely punishment but separation from Krishna. To kill the gotrajas (those of one's own lineage) would be a 'hot bed of sins', and the real horror is that it would drive away the bliss Arjuna enjoys in Krishna's love. He pictures himself, once his store of good works runs out through such a crime, left at the mercy of delusion and deserted by Krishna utterly and forever. Like the nightingale that will not stay a moment near a fire spreading in the garden, or the chakor bird that longs for a lake yet flies off without drinking, Arjuna recoils: 'where, how and by what path could we find you again?' The accent falls entirely on the threat to the seeker's union with God.
Sant Jñāneśvar
Modern
This commentator reads the verse as a study of how passion blinds and then betrays. Even if Arjuna, swept up in the rush of krodha (anger) or lobha (greed), were to slay them, that surge would soon spend itself, and then nothing would be left but weeping: 'What disaster have we wrought!' Whenever the kinsmen are remembered, their absence will sting again and again, and the grief over their death will haunt the chitta (the mind, the seat of memory and feeling). So no joy can ever arise while one lives in this world, and the sin clinging from the deed will bring terrible sorrow in the next life as well. The verse becomes a warning that an act driven by anger or greed buys lifelong remorse here and suffering hereafter.
Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If the Kauravas are deadly aggressors who tried to burn, poison, and rob Arjuna's family, why would killing them be a sin rather than plain justice?
Arjuna himself grants the objection. The rule that an atatayin, a deadly aggressor, may be struck down at once with no fault to the slayer is real; it comes from the science of statecraft, and the six kinds of aggressor (arsonist, poisoner, armed killer, robber of wealth, seizer of fields or wife) fit Duryodhana exactly. So this is not naivety on Arjuna's part. He knows the permission exists.
Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak
His answer is that a narrow permission can be overridden by a wider law. The science of statecraft permits killing the aggressor, but the higher science of right conduct lays down the broader rule, 'do not injure any beings.' When two scriptural injunctions collide, the more general moral law is held to be the stronger and to govern practice. By that reasoning the permission to kill is overruled, and sin attaches even to slaying an aggressor.
Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri
And the question of bare legality misses what most weighs on him. These aggressors are also kin, teachers, and brothers, people greatly to be pitied; to kill them would be to become an aggressor oneself, and the killing would yield no joy worth having while loading lifelong remorse and sin upon the killer. That is why, for Arjuna, calling them aggressors does not settle the matter at all.
Śrī Ānandagiri · Swami Ramsukhdas · Sant Jñāneśvar
Contemplation
Notice the trap this verse exposes, because it is one we all fall into. When anger or greed is roaring inside us, striking back feels like joy, even like justice. But that rush always spends itself. What is left afterward is the weeping: 'What have I done?' The memory of what we destroyed does not fade; it haunts the mind and stings again and again whenever the loss is remembered. Before acting in the heat of krodha or lobha, it is worth pausing to ask what we will feel once the heat has passed. An act born of anger or greed promises satisfaction and delivers remorse, here in this life and beyond it. The quiet of not having harmed is worth more than any victory won in fury.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
Pull up a chair.
You have come to sit with this verse. When you are ready to hear the translators and the commentators in full, tap a name in The seating.