Chapter 2 · Verse 3·Spoken by Krishna
क्लैब्यं मा स्म गमः पार्थ नैतत्त्वय्युपपद्यते। क्षुद्रं हृदयदौर्बल्यं त्यक्त्वोत्तिष्ठ परन्तप
klaibyaṁ mā sma gamaḥ pārtha naitat tvayyupapadyate kṣhudraṁ hṛidaya-daurbalyaṁ tyaktvottiṣhṭha parantapa
Do not give in to weakness, Arjuna. It does not suit you. Cast off this petty faint-heartedness and rise, scorcher of foes.
Word by Word
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
Audio from the Gītā Supersite, IIT Kanpur
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Convergence
rishna's first word to Arjuna after the collapse is a flat prohibition: do not give way to klaibya. The word is strong. It means impotence, want of vigour, faintheartedness, a loss of nerve. Krishna is naming what has happened to Arjuna in chapter one, where Arjuna let his bow slip and said he could not stand. The commentators hear Krishna reading that very moment back to him: the trembling, the 'I cannot hold my bow,' the mind that whirls. Krishna does not argue with Arjuna's reasons yet. He first refuses the condition itself, the giving-up, and tells Arjuna not to fall into it.
Braided from 13 commentators
Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
The prohibition is pointed at Arjuna in particular: 'this does not befit you.' The commentators read the name Partha, son of Pritha (Kunti), as part of the argument. Every son Pritha bore by the grace of the gods is famous for extraordinary valour, so as her son cowardice is out of place in you. They add a second ground from Arjuna's own record: you fought even Mahesha, the great Lord Shiva, himself, you satisfied the fire at the Khandava forest, you gratified Indra by slaying the Nivatakavachas. In a warrior of such renowned might this faintness is not just unworthy, it is barely conceivable. So the rebuke is also encouragement. Krishna is reminding Arjuna who he actually is, by birth and by his own nature, and calling him back to that stature.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Swami Ramsukhdas
The word kshudram, 'petty' or 'trifling,' qualifies this weakness of heart (hridaya-daurbalyam), and several commentators draw out a double meaning carried in the single word. First, it makes a man petty: clinging to it shrinks you, and it brings no good, neither liberation, nor heaven, nor even fame. If you do not throw off this littleness, you yourself become little. Second, it is itself a small thing, easily cast off, so for a hero like you discarding it is no hard task. The same hand that names the fault offers the way out: it is only a weakness of the heart, not a fact about your strength, and it can be dropped.
Braided from 10 commentators
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrī Ānandagiri · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva
The verse ends in a command, the first plain instruction of the Gita's teaching: cast this off and rise up, ready for battle. 'Tyaktva' is the casting off, 'uttishtha' is the standing up. The commentators stress that Krishna gives no hearing to Arjuna's chapter-one arguments here. He does not refute them point by point; he simply tells Arjuna to drop the weakness and stand. In Krishna's mind there is not the slightest doubt that this is Arjuna's duty, the work that has come to him, so he moves straight to the order to get up and be ready.
Braided from 12 commentators
Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Ramsukhdas
Most commentators hear the closing address, Parantapa, 'scorcher of foes,' as itself an argument folded into a name. The reasoning: you are the one who burns enemies; how can you now collapse before this inward enemy, the weakness of your own heart? Some add a sharper edge: it is foes you are meant to scorch, so do not turn your fire on your own kinsmen who wish you well, and do not, by turning from battle, hand your enemies a reason to laugh and rejoice.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Ramsukhdas
Divergence
Bhakti
These commentators read the word kshudram as Krishna's answer to an objection Arjuna might raise: 'This is not cowardice at all. Toward elders like Bhishma and Drona it is discernment and regard for dharma, and toward the weak sons of Dhritarashtra, who will die under my weapons, it is only compassion.' Krishna's single word 'petty' cuts that defence down. These are not your discernment and your compassion, he says; they are nothing but grief and delusion, and grief and delusion are exactly what betray a weakness of mind. So the noble-sounding relabeling is refused: what looks like high principle is, on inspection, the same faintness under a better name.
Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva
Modern
This non-sectarian devotional reading frames the whole verse as Krishna correcting a confusion about dharma. Out of cowardice Arjuna had begun calling war adharma and refusal-to-fight dharma. Krishna wakes him by reversing the labels: not fighting is not a matter of dharma at all, it is unmanliness, a weakness of the heart; therefore cast it off. The fight is, from every angle, precisely the duty that has come to Arjuna, so Krishna pays no heed to what this reading calls Arjuna's 'hollow reasonings' and commands him straight to stand up and perform that duty.
Swami Ramsukhdas
Modern
On the closing epithet Parantapa, this modern reading openly breaks with the others. Where most commentators treat the recurring names and adjectives of Krishna and Arjuna as carrying a hidden or intentional meaning, this commentator rejects that theory as illogical. In his view such names were chosen as convenient for the metre, with no intended significance, and he often does not even reproduce them in translation, rendering them simply as 'Arjuna' or 'Sri Krishna.' So he gives 'harasser of foes' only as the plain literal sense, and declines to read any argument into it.
Lokmanya Tilak
Advaita Vedānta
On the name Partha, this commentator adds a note the others do not. Beyond the usual point that as Pritha's son Arjuna inherits her extraordinary strength, which he reports as the view of 'some,' he hears the vocative hinting at kinship with Krishna himself: Krishna's own maternal aunt's son ought to share Krishna's nature. The address thus quietly appeals not only to Arjuna's heroic lineage but to his closeness to the Lord who is speaking.
Dhanapati Sūri
A Seeker Asks
Is Krishna just shaming Arjuna by calling his moral hesitation cowardly and petty, or is something more careful going on?
The rebuke is aimed at the paralysis, not at moral seriousness as such. Krishna refuses the condition Arjuna has fallen into, the trembling 'I cannot stand,' before taking up any of his reasons. He is saying the collapse itself, the giving-up, is what must not happen, whatever fine name it is given.
Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Swami Ramsukhdas
The Bhakti commentators meet the moral defence head-on. They imagine Arjuna pleading that this is not fear but discernment toward his elders and compassion toward kinsmen who will die, and they have Krishna answer that on inspection these are not real discernment and compassion at all but grief and delusion, which is precisely what weak-mindedness produces. The point is not that compassion is worthless but that this particular feeling, here and now, is not what it claims to be.
Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva
The harsh-sounding word 'petty' is largely about effect, not contempt. To call the weakness kshudram is to say it shrinks the person who holds it and yields nothing good, no liberation, no heaven, not even honour, and at the same time that it is small enough to be set down. So the word is as much an offer of release as a reproach.
Swami Ramsukhdas · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Even the apparent insult, calling Arjuna unmanly while naming him son of Pritha and scorcher of foes, is read as encouragement. By recalling his heroic mother and his own record of fighting even the great Lord Shiva, Krishna is reminding Arjuna who he truly is and calling him back up to that stature, not running him down.
Śrī Ānandagiri · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Swami Ramsukhdas
Contemplation
When you find yourself paralysed, notice first what you are telling yourself. Arjuna had dressed his collapse in fine language, calling the hard duty before him a sin and his shrinking-back a virtue. The teaching's first move is not to argue with that story but to see through it: this is not righteousness, it is faintness of heart wearing righteousness as a mask. The remedy offered here is bracingly simple. The weakness is a small thing, and a small thing can be set down. So do not keep weighing the hollow reasons the frightened mind manufactures. Drop the weakness, stand up, and do the work that has actually come to you. Clinging to the littleness only makes you little and brings nothing good; letting it go is how you grow back to your full size.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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