Verse 2·8

न हि प्रपश्यामि ममापनुद्याद् यच्छोकमुच्छोषणमिन्द्रियाणाम् ।अवाप्य भूमावसपत्नमृद्धं राज्यं सुराणामपि चाधिपत्यम् ॥

na hi prapaśyāmi mamāpanudyād yacchokamucchoṣaṇamindriyāṇāmavāpya bhūmāvasapatnamṛddhaṁ rājyaṁ surāṇāmapi cādhipatyam

I see not what shall thrust from me the sorrow that dries up the senses, even if I should attain rich and unrivalled kingdom on earth or even the sovereignty of the gods.

Compiled rendering · Anilbaran Roy

AI translationAI-synthesised translation — not Sri Aurobindo’s text

His translation

URJOONA How shall I combat Bheeshma in the fight and Drona,O Madhusudan, how shall I smite with arrows those venerable heads? Better were it, not piercing these great and worshipped hearts to eat even a beggar’s bread on this our earth; I slay our earthly wealth & bliss when I slay these; bloodstained will be the joys I shall taste. Therefore we know not which of these is better, that we should be victors or that we should be vanquished; for they whom slaying we should have no heart to live, lo they face us in the foeman’s van, they are Dhritarashtrians. Pain and unwillingness have swept me from my natural self, my heart is bewildered as to right and wrong; thee then I question. Tell me what would surely be my good, for I am thy disciple; teach me, for in thee I have sought my refuge. I see not what shall banish from me the grief that parcheth up the senses, though I win on earth rich kingship without rival and empire over the very gods in heaven.

Essays on the Gita

But such is not the compassion which actuates Arjuna in the rejection of his work and mission. That is not compassion but an impotence full of a weak self-pity, a recoil from the mental suffering2·8 which his act must entail on himself, — “I see not what shall thrust from me the sorrow that dries up the senses,” — and of all things self-pity is among the most ignoble and un-Aryan of moods. Its pity for others is also a form of self-indulgence; it is the physical shrinking of the nerves from the act of slaughter, the egoistic emotional shrinking of the heart from the destruction of1·37 the Dhritarashtrians because they are “one’s own people” and without them life will be empty. This pity is a weakness of the mind and senses, — a weakness which may well be beneficial to men of a lower grade of development, who have to be weak because otherwise they will be hard and cruel; for they have to cure the harsher by the gentler forms of sensational egoism, they have to call in tamas, the debile principle, to help sattwa, the principle of light, in quelling the strength and excess of their rajasic passions. But this way is not for the developed Aryan man who has to grow not by weakness, but by an ascension from strength to strength. Arjuna is the divine man, the master-man in the making and as such he has been chosen by the gods. He has a work given to him, he has God beside him in his chariot, he has the heavenly bow Gandiva in his hand, he has the champions of unrighteousness, the opponents of the divine leading of the world in his front. Not his is the right to determine what he shall do or not do according to his emotions and his passions, or to shrink from a necessary destruction by the claim of his egoistic heart and reason, or to decline his work because it will bring sorrow and emptiness to his life or because its earthly result has no value to him in the absence of the thousands who must perish. All that is a weak falling from his higher nature. He has to see only the work that must be done, kartavyaṁ karma, to hear only the divine command breathed through his warrior nature, to feel only for the world and the destiny of mankind calling to him as its god-sent man to assist its march and clear its path of the dark armies that beset it.

Writings in Bengali

ন হি প্রপশ্যামি মমাপনুদ্যাদ্ যচ্ছোকমুচ্ছোষণমিন্দ্রিয়াণাম্।
অবাপ্য ভূমাবসপত্নমৃদ্ধং রাজ্যং সুরাণামপি চাধিপত্যম্॥৮॥

অর্জ্জুনের শিক্ষাপ্রার্থনা

শ্রীকৃষ্ণের উক্তির উদ্দেশ্য অর্জ্জুন বুঝিতে পারিলেন, তিনি রাজনীতিক আপত্তি উত্থাপন করিতে বিরত হইলেন, কিন্তু আর যে যে আপত্তি ছিল, তাহার কোন উত্তর না পাইয়া শ্রীকৃষ্ণের নিকট শিক্ষার্থে শরণাগত হইলেন। তিনি বলিলেন, “আমি স্বীকার করি আমি ক্ষত্রিয়, কৃপার বশবর্ত্তী হইয়া মহৎ কার্য্যে বিরত হওয়া আমার পক্ষে ক্লীবত্বসূচক, অকীর্ত্তিজনক, ধর্ম্মবিরুদ্ধ। কিন্তু মনও মানে না, প্রাণও মানে না। মন বলে, গুরুজন হত্যা মহাপাপ, নিজ সুখের জন্য গুরুজনকে হত্যা করিলে অধর্ম্মে পতিত হইয়া ধর্ম্ম, মোক্ষ, পরলোক, যাহা বাঞ্ছনীয়, সকলই যাইবে। কামনা তৃপ্ত হইবে, অর্থস্পৃহা তৃপ্ত হইবে, কিন্তু সে কয়দিন? অধর্ম্মলব্ধ ভোগ প্রাণত্যাগ পর্য্যন্ত স্থায়ী, তাহার পর অনির্ব্বচনীয় দুর্গতি হয়। আর যখন ভোগ করিবে, তখন সেই ভোগের মধ্যে গুরুজনের রক্তের

The Arya — text not in the CWSA

* Gita II. 1–38.