Chapter 1 · Verse 38·Spoken by Arjuna
यद्यप्येते न पश्यन्ति लोभोपहतचेतसः। कुलक्षयकृतं दोषं मित्रद्रोहे च पातकम्
yady apy ete na paśhyanti lobhopahata-chetasaḥ kula-kṣhaya-kṛitaṁ doṣhaṁ mitra-drohe cha pātakam
Their minds are overpowered by greed. They see no fault in destroying the family, no sin in betraying friends.
Word by Word
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
Audio from the Gītā Supersite, IIT Kanpur
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Convergence
rjuna concedes the obvious about the enemy before turning the spotlight back on himself. He admits that the Kauravas truly do not see any wrong in what is about to happen. The reason he gives is one word: lobha, greed. Greed is the swelling craving that says of wealth, land, honour, and power, 'so much has come, let still more keep coming.' That craving has overrun their minds, their citta, their inner organ of thought. Because of it their viveka, their power of discernment, has been blotted out, so they look at the battlefield and see only the kingdom to be won, never the fault of slaughtering their own clan.
Braided from 10 commentators
Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
The verse fixes a moral asymmetry between the two sides, and this asymmetry is the whole point. The Kauravas are blind, but Arjuna and his side are not. They clearly perceive two distinct evils named in the verse: the fault (dosha) that comes from the destruction of the family, kula-kshaya, and the sin (pataka) that comes from treachery toward friends, mitra-droha. The unspoken argument, completed in the next verse, runs: how could we, who do see this fault, fail to know it and act on it? Several commentators stress that not seeing a sin is no protection from it, so the very fact that Arjuna sees it lays on him the duty to draw back.
Śrī Ānandagiri · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Ramsukhdas · Sant Jñāneśvar
The friends in question are not strangers but elders like Drona who stand in bonds of friendship toward Arjuna's side, which is what makes turning against them treachery. The word mitra-droha can be read in two ways: it is the sin lodged in the very intent to slay such friends, and it is also the stain that clings to the person who becomes a betrayer of friends. Arjuna feels the weight of both. To raise weapons here is not ordinary war but the breaking of trust, and that breach is itself a recognized sin.
Śrī Bhāskara · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Ramsukhdas
Some commentators anticipate a strong scriptural objection and have Arjuna answer it in advance. The objection: scripture itself enjoins battle as the kshatriya's dharma, with texts like 'one summoned should not turn back, even from a dice-match, even from battle' and 'what is won in war is the kshatriya's rightful wealth.' If so, since Arjuna has been summoned, fighting would seem fitting and even righteous. The answer turns on what actually makes an act worth doing. A bare injunction does not by itself establish that an act is dharma, otherwise even a harmful rite would count as dharma. Only an action whose fruit is not bound up with calamity, an action that is a cause of pure delight, deserves the name dharma. Because this war, like such a harmful rite, is bound up with sin in its very fruit, it is to be abandoned even though scripture seems to license it.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrī Ānandagiri
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators build the verse into a careful argument from scriptural reasoning. They raise the objection that smriti texts make non-retreat from battle and livelihood through injury obligatory for a kshatriya, then show how that objection is overridden. A scriptural rule rooted in greed is set aside by a higher rule that flags the fault of family-destruction; one offers the example of a ritual injunction that overrides a contrary, greed-rooted rule about wrapping udumbara wood, to show that not every injunction stands. The decisive principle they share is that a mere command does not make a thing fit to be done, since otherwise even the Shyena sacrifice, a rite performed to harm an enemy, would have to be done. They quote the maxim, 'an action whose result is not bound up with calamity, but is only the cause of joy, is therefore called dharma.' Since this war, like the Shyena rite, has a fruit steeped in sin, it falls outside dharma and is to be given up.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Bhedabheda
This reading dwells on the concrete relations rather than on scriptural debate. It notes that the destruction of the family is certain and close at hand, with all its consequent wrong about to be spelled out. It identifies the friends plainly: Drona and the rest are established in friendship toward Arjuna's side and are therefore his friends. It then offers two ways to take mitra-droha. The sin may lie in the intent to slay these friends; or 'friend-betrayer' may name the agent, so that the sin is the one that lodges in the man who betrays his friends. Either way the betrayal of trusted elders is what carries the guilt.
Śrī Bhāskara
Modern
This non-sectarian devotional reading turns the verse into a meditation on greed and on Arjuna's own blind spot. Lobha is defined as the endless craving for more wealth, land, honour, and power; under its sway the Kauravas have lost viveka and cannot even ask how long the kingdom will stay with them or they with it. A deeper teaching is drawn out: every worldly pleasure from getting a thing, samyoga, is matched by greater sorrow when it is lost, viyoga, so the world's pleasure arises only from some fault such as greed or attachment; without that fault, no pleasure would come from the world at all. Then it turns the mirror on Arjuna. He sees the greed in others but not the moha, the delusion of family-attachment, that binds him; and so long as a person stares at others' faults, a self-righteous abhimana grows that 'they have this fault, but I do not,' and the very seeing of others' faults is itself a fault. On the friend-betrayal it adds a striking note: if friends cause us sorrow, that sorrow is not evil, for it can burn off old sins and bring purity; but enmity held in the mind outlasts death and drives us to sin life after life, which is why such enmity must be escaped. It illustrates mitra-droha with the history of Drupada and Drona, childhood friends turned enemies after an insult.
Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If even scripture commands a warrior to fight, how can Arjuna claim the moral high ground by refusing, and is he really seeing clearly or just dressing up his own attachment as virtue?
On Arjuna's own terms, the answer he gives is that a scriptural command alone does not settle whether an act is worth doing. Some commentators have him meet the objection head on: texts do enjoin a kshatriya not to retreat from battle, but a bare injunction cannot make an act into dharma, or else even a rite performed to harm an enemy would count as righteous. The test they apply is the fruit: only an action whose result is unmixed with calamity, that brings pure joy rather than sin, is truly dharma. By that test this war fails, so refusing it is not cowardice but discernment.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrī Ānandagiri
And the worry that he may be merely rationalizing attachment is not a flaw in this reading; it is built right into it. One commentator says plainly that Arjuna is indeed clear-sighted about the greed of others while blind to the delusion, the moha of family-love, that grips himself, and that this is exactly what happens whenever we judge others: a self-righteous sense of our own goodness hides our own fault from us. So the seeker's suspicion is sound. The verse shows a man who sees one real evil truly and another, in himself, not at all. That is why the Gita does not stop here but goes on to dismantle the position he is so sure of.
Swami Ramsukhdas
Contemplation
Notice where your gaze naturally goes. Like Arjuna, we are quick to see the greed and fault in others and slow to see the attachment in ourselves. The warning here is gentle but exact: as long as your eye is fixed on someone else's fault, a quiet self-congratulation takes root, 'they have this flaw, but I do not,' and under the shadow of that good opinion of yourself your own delusion goes unseen. The very act of cataloguing another's faults is itself a fault. So when you find yourself certain of someone else's blindness, pause and ask what you yourself are not seeing. And if a friend or loved one causes you pain, consider holding it without enmity, for the sorrow can quietly cleanse old wrongs, whereas resentment kept in the heart can follow you far longer than the injury ever did.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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