Verse 2·9

एवमुक्त्वा हृषीकेशं गुडाकेशः परंतप ।न योत्स्य इति गोविन्दम् उक्त्वा तूष्णीं बभूव ह ॥

evamuktvā hṛṣīkeśaṁ guḍākeśaḥ paraṁtapana yotsya iti govindam uktvā tūṣṇīṁ babhūva ha

Sanjaya said: Gudakesha, terror of his foes, having thus spoken to Hrishikesha, said to him, “I will not fight!” and became silent.

Compiled rendering · Anilbaran Roy

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

His translation

SUNJOY Thus Gudakésha to Hrishikésha; the scourger of his foes said unto Govinda, “I will not fight” and ceased from words. On him thus overcome with weakness in the midmost of either battle, Krishna smiled a little & said:

Essays on the Gita

Arjuna in his reply to Krishna admits the rebuke even while he strives against and refuses the command. He is aware of his weakness and yet accepts subjection to it. It is poorness of spirit,2·7 he owns, that has smitten away from him his true heroic nature; his whole consciousness is bewildered in its view of right and wrong and he accepts the divine Friend as his teacher; but the emotional and intellectual props on which he had supported his sense of righteousness have been entirely cast down and he cannot accept a command which seems to appeal only to his old standpoint and gives him no new basis for action. He attempts still to justify his refusal of the work and puts forward in its support the claim of his nervous and sensational being which shrinks from the slaughter with its sequel of blood-stained enjoyments, the2·5 claim of his heart which recoils from the sorrow and emptiness of life that will follow his act, the claim of his customary moral notions which are appalled by the necessity of slaying his gurus, Bhishma and Drona, the claim of his reason which sees no good but only evil results of the terrible and violent work assigned to him. He is resolved that on the old basis of thought and motive he will not2·9 fight and he awaits in silence the answer to objections that seem to him unanswerable. It is these claims of Arjuna’s egoistic being that Krishna sets out first to destroy in order to make place for the higher law which shall transcend all egoistic motives of action.

Writings in Bengali

এবমুক্ত্বা হৃষীকেশং গুড়াকেশঃ পরন্তপঃ।
ন যোৎস্য ইতি গোবিন্দমুক্ত্বা তূষ্ণীং বভূব হ॥৯॥

The Arya — text not in the CWSA

* Gita II. 1–38.