Chapter 1 · Verse 45·Spoken by Arjuna
अहो बत महत्पापं कर्तुं व्यवसिता वयम्। यद्राज्यसुखलोभेन हन्तुं स्वजनमुद्यताः
aho bata mahat pāpaṁ kartuṁ vyavasitā vayam yad rājya-sukha-lobhena hantuṁ sva-janam udyatāḥ
What a pity. We have resolved to commit a great sin, ready to kill our own people out of greed for the pleasures of a kingdom.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
his verse is Arjuna's cry of self-rebuke. He is no longer accusing others; he turns the charge on himself and his own side. The two opening Sanskrit words carry the whole weight of his feeling. 'Aho' marks astonishment, shock that this is even happening; 'bata' marks grief and regret. Read together they mean something like 'Alas! How terrible!' Commentators stress that this is not a measured argument but an outburst, the sound of a man overwhelmed by what he believes he is about to do.
Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrī Puruṣottama · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
What appalls Arjuna is named plainly: a 'mahat papam,' a great sin. He says 'we are resolved' to commit it, using the word 'vyavasita,' which means a firm, deliberate resolve, not an accident or a slip. The sin is not vague. It is the readiness to slay his own 'svajana,' his own kinsmen, the very people bound to him by blood and affection. That a settled decision, not mere chance, has brought him to the edge of killing his own family is exactly what he cannot bear.
Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrī Puruṣottama · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
Arjuna pinpoints the cause of this resolve: 'rajya-sukha-lobhena,' greed for the pleasures of kingship. 'Lobha' is greed or craving; 'rajya-sukha' is the enjoyment, comfort, and power that a kingdom brings. In Arjuna's own eyes, then, the whole war reduces to this: kinsmen are about to be killed only so that he and his side may win a throne and the pleasures that come with it. Naming greed as the root is what makes the act feel, to him, so shameful and so unworthy.
Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrī Puruṣottama · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators read the passage as advancing a principle that outranks even survival: dharma stands higher than life itself, and for all living beings non-injury (ahimsa) is the supreme dharma. On this reading Arjuna is answering an unspoken objection, that even if he himself holds back, the eager warriors on his side will cause the slaughter anyway, so what can his restraint accomplish? The reply is that he will stand unresisting, taking no step to protect his own life, since to do otherwise would only incur sin. One source develops this further: by resolving not to defend himself, Arjuna treats his own probable death as an expiation that purifies, so that death is in fact the more secure and wholly more beneficial course compared with living through such an act.
Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Bhedabheda
This reading takes the same scene plainly and literally without drawing it into a doctrine of ahimsa. If the sons of Dhritarashtra, weapons in hand, were to kill Arjuna while he stood unarmed, raising no weapon, offering no counter-measure, remaining indifferent, that outcome would be the greater peace for him. The accent falls on Arjuna's preference for being killed unresisting over the act of killing, stated as his own choice rather than as a general rule about non-injury.
Śrī Bhāskara
Kashmir Shaivism
This commentator locates the gravity of the sin in a precise condition: killing becomes a great sin when it is done with the cognition of a particular fruit to be gained and the particular cognition of just who is being slain, that is, when one acts coveting a specific reward and fixing on specific victims as one's own. The 'we' of the verse is read as embracing everyone alike, both Kauravas and Pandavas, all caught in the same division and the same lack of discernment. From this the distinctive move follows: since all of them act without discernment, what is fitting for Arjuna, who does have discernment? Turning back from the war is fitting, but the commentator signals that something further, taken up in what comes next, is the more fitting still, so that withdrawal is not presented as the final word.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Modern
This commentator accepts Arjuna's astonishment and grief as sincere yet judges his diagnosis to be mistaken, and says so directly. Arjuna fixes his gaze on the action of war itself and treats that action as the fault he must flee. But the true fault, on this reading, lies elsewhere: in family-bound delusion (moha), in self-interest, and in personal craving (kamana). Because Arjuna's eye does not turn toward this real fault, his sorrow, however genuine, is not actually befitting a thoughtful, righteous, brave kshatriya. The commentator adds a careful note reconciling this with later chapters: here Arjuna names greed as the cause of sin while his vision is still merely worldly, tied to the body, so he counts withdrawal from war as dharma and fighting as adharma; only after hearing the Gita, when the desire for his own true welfare awakens, does he later ask from the higher standpoint of duty how a man can sin even unwillingly.
Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If even Arjuna, the rightful warrior in a just cause, calls his readiness to fight a great sin born of greed, how can a thoughtful reader tell genuine moral revulsion from a delusion dressed up as conscience?
Take Arjuna's feeling seriously first, because the text does. His astonishment and grief are real, and the words 'aho' and 'bata' are given full weight by the commentators as authentic shock and sorrow, not pretense. A sincere recoil from killing one's own kin is not nothing; it is the response of someone who genuinely does know right from wrong.
Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Ramsukhdas
But notice where Arjuna places the blame, because that is the tell. He locates the sin in the action of war itself and in greed for kingship, and proposes to escape the fault by withdrawing from the act. One commentator argues this is precisely the misdiagnosis: the real fault is not the action but the family-bound delusion, the self-interest, and the personal craving underneath it. A conscience that wants to flee the situation while leaving the inner attachment untouched is the warning sign that delusion may be steering.
Swami Ramsukhdas
There is also a sharper diagnostic in the tradition: the gravity of an act of killing turns on the inner stance from which it is done. One commentator says the great sin lies in killing while coveting a particular fruit and fixing on particular victims as one's own. By that measure the test is not the outward deed alone but whether one acts gripped by craving and by 'mine,' or with discernment. The same act can be sin or not depending on what is moving inside.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
So the practical answer is to examine the root rather than only the feeling. Genuine moral revulsion looks past the action to the craving and delusion fueling it and is willing to give those up; a delusion dressed as conscience clings to the attachment and uses the feeling as an excuse to retreat. This is why the same commentator who validates Arjuna's sincerity still calls his sorrow unbefitting: it is honest, but it has not yet found its true object.
Swami Ramsukhdas · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Contemplation
There is a quiet warning here worth carrying into your own life. Arjuna already knows the difference between right and wrong; he has heard the scriptures and been taught by his teachers. Yet at the decisive moment he acts, as this commentator puts it, like a man who knows nothing. The lesson offered is that knowing is not enough: we must honor our own right thoughts, our own inner knowing, and act on them. When a person repeatedly dishonors and overrides what he knows to be true, the very capacity for right thought begins to shut down in him, and then no scripture and no teacher can hold him back, because he can no longer take their guidance in. So the practice is simple and demanding: when a clear right thought rises in you, respect it and live by it, before the habit of ignoring it closes that door.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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