Arjuna finds that his own wanting was never for himself at all, and that those he wanted it for now stand ready to die.
This is a narration verse, Arjuna's own lament rather than Krishna's teaching, and most of the surveyed tradition passes it with only a brief paraphrase or folds it into a longer passage. What survives confirms a plain, exact claim rather than building doctrine upon it.
The very people for whose sake I want a kingdom, enjoyments, and pleasures are standing here in this war, having already given up their own hope of life and of wealth.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Arjuna has just named, one by one, the teachers, elders, and kin arrayed before him on the field. Here his lament completes that naming with a claim about his own desire: none of it, the kingdom, the enjoyments, the pleasures, was ever sought for himself. It was sought for exactly these people, who now stand ready to die.
The teaching
Taken on its own terms, the verse makes two claims at once. The first is about Arjuna: whatever he once wanted from victory, a kingdom, comfort, pleasure, none of it was wanted for his own sake. It was wanted so that his teachers, his elders, his kin could live at ease. The second claim is about them: they themselves, the very ones for whose sake he wanted these things, stand here having already let go of their own hope to live and to keep any wealth at all. Where commentary on this exact verse survives, it stays close to that plain double claim. Sridhara's surviving line and Madhusudana's surviving line each confirm the same structure without building further doctrine on top of it: those for whose sake the kingdom is desired stand here in battle, having abandoned life and wealth. Three of the five acaryas surveyed here, Ramanuja, Madhva, and Abhinavagupta, leave no comment isolated to this particular verse: Ramanuja folds it into a passage running from 1.26 to 1.47 with his full comment delivered at the earlier verse, Madhva's commentary does not begin until chapter two, and Abhinavagupta folds it into a passage running from 1.30 to 1.34 with his full comment given at 1.30. This reading tries to be honest about that unevenness rather than paper over it with invented confidence. What the verse itself does, read plainly, is complete an argument: if the very people the kingdom was sought for are about to die, then the kingdom has already lost whatever purpose it once had. The contradiction is stated here, not resolved, and the reading leaves it exactly that exposed.
The doubt that rises
Is a desire this thoroughly aimed outward, at other people's ease rather than one's own, already a kind of selflessness, or is it still a form of clinging, one that depends entirely on those particular people staying alive? The verse states the claim; it does not settle what to make of it.
Where the paths divide
Read as an honest absence, since Shankara's extant commentary does not reach chapter one.
No specifically Advaita voice comments on this verse in the sources gathered here. What can be set beside it is only Sridhara's plain paraphrase, which makes no Advaita doctrinal claim and is recorded here as the nearest available reading, not as a substitute for a missing one.
Read as a gap folded into a wider passage.
Ramanuja gives no comment specific to this verse, treating it as part of a passage running from 1.26 to 1.47, where his own full comment centers instead on Arjuna's grief at the sight of kinsmen arrayed for battle. Whatever he might have said about this particular claim, that the desire was aimed entirely outside Arjuna, is simply not part of the record that survives here.
Read as a complete gap in the source material.
Madhva's commentary on the Gita does not begin until verse 2.11. The whole of chapter one, this verse included, passes without a word from him, and nothing here should be read as filling that gap on his behalf.
Read as a gap folded into a nearby passage on Arjuna's collapse.
Abhinavagupta folds this verse into a passage running from 1.30 to 1.34, with his full comment given at 1.30 and centered there on the bodily signs of Arjuna's grief. One could imagine, only as a labeled and conditional extension, that Arjuna's outward-facing desire brushes unwittingly against the self's own selflessness, but this is not his recorded word for this verse.
Read as the one line that survives, and nothing more.
What remains attributed to Sridhara here is brief: those for whose sake the kingdom is desired stand here in battle, having abandoned life and wealth. It confirms the plain sense and ventures no reading of this outward-facing desire as an act of surrender beyond that identification.
Read as a bare restatement, without extended technical analysis.
Madhusudana leaves no extended reading distinct to this verse, offering instead the same brief restatement as Sridhara: those for whose sake the kingdom, enjoyments, and pleasures are desired stand here in battle, having abandoned life and wealth. No further technical elaboration on renunciation or attachment, of the kind he supplies elsewhere, survives here.
This page does not manufacture positions for the acaryas who left none. What is left open here is left open honestly: some verses carry far less commentarial weight than others, and this is one of them. Whether Arjuna's outward-facing desire is itself a subtle seed of freedom, or simply attachment wearing the face of love for kin, is not decided by the surviving comment, and it is not decided here either.
A question to carry
When you find that something you wanted was never really for yourself, does that discovery free you, or does it only reveal a different, quieter kind of clinging, one to the people you wanted it for rather than to the thing itself?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
Let this exact, narrow verse do its own quiet work, naming plainly for whose sake the wanting was, and let its silences in the tradition stand as they are, without being dressed up as more than they are.
Each school is voiced from the commentators named above. Their full words, every translation, and where the schools agree and differ wait in the reading desk just below. Open the commentary desk.
Arjuna has just listed, name by name, the kinsmen arrayed before him; here he states outright what all that naming was for, that the kingdom and its pleasures were never sought for himself, and that these same people already stand having let go of their hope to live and to keep anything at all.
Where they agreethe convergence
Across schools and centuries the commentators come to the same ground. These are the points they share, and the voices that hold each one.
Arjuna's whole desire for the kingdom, its comforts, and its pleasures was aimed outward, at the wellbeing of the very people now arrayed against him.
Across Bhakti, AdvaitaŚrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śrīdhara and Madhusūdana’s words
Arjuna names the structure of his own desire and finds it hollow: the kingdom, the enjoyments, the pleasures were never wanted for his own sake, but for the sake of the very people now standing arrayed against him. Where comment survives at all, it confirms this plain structure without dispute: the wanting was always aimed outward, at the wellbeing of teachers, elders, and kin.
Those same kinsmen are described as already having renounced their own hope of continuing to live and of keeping their wealth, a settled stance rather than a future risk.
Across Bhakti, AdvaitaŚrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śrīdhara and Madhusūdana’s words
The same people are reported as already having renounced, having let go of their own hope of continuing to live and of keeping their wealth. The verse does not describe a hoped-for future sacrifice; it describes something already settled, a stance those kinsmen have already taken up as they stand on the field.
Three of the five acaryas surveyed here leave no comment isolated to this verse, folding it instead into longer passages where their fuller attention lies.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, Kashmir ŚaivaRāmānuja · Madhva · AbhinavaguptaIn Rāmānuja, Madhva, and 1 others’ words
Three of the five acaryas surveyed here, Ramanuja, Madhva, and Abhinavagupta, leave no comment isolated to this exact verse. Ramanuja folds it into a passage running from 1.26 to 1.47 with his full comment given earlier; Madhva's commentary does not begin until 2.11; Abhinavagupta folds it into a passage running from 1.30 to 1.34 with his full comment given at 1.30. Their silence here is itself part of the honest record of this verse.
Where comment survives, from Sridhara and Madhusudana, it stays close to plain paraphrase, confirming the claim without elaborating a doctrine on top of it.
Across Bhakti, AdvaitaŚrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śrīdhara and Madhusūdana’s words
Where comment survives, by way of Sridhara and Madhusudana, it stays close to paraphrase rather than doctrinal elaboration. Neither builds an extended argument on top of the bare claim; both confirm the same two facts, the outward aim of the desire and the kinsmen's settled renunciation, and go no further than that.
The verse completes an argument: the very reason Arjuna once had for wanting victory is what he must now destroy to gain it, and the contradiction is stated, not resolved.
Across Bhakti, AdvaitaŚrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śrīdhara and Madhusūdana’s words
Even at its thinnest, the verse carries real weight in the unfolding lament: it is the moment Arjuna's argument for refusing to fight completes itself, since the very reason he once had for wanting victory is what he must now destroy to gain it, a contradiction the verse states rather than resolves.
This is the shared ground; it can be carried as it is. Below is where they differ.
Where they differthe divergence
Viśiṣṭādvaita, in their fuller words
Ramanuja gives no comment isolated to this verse, folding it into a passage running from 1.26 to 1.47 where his full comment is delivered at the earlier verse, centered on Arjuna's grief at the sight of kinsmen arrayed for battle. No distinct Vishishtadvaita reading of this verse's own claim, that the desire for kingdom was always aimed at others, survives in his own words here.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva's commentary does not address chapter one at all, beginning only at 2.11. There is no Dvaita reading of this verse in his own words to report; any extension of his general principle of dependence on the Lord's will would be speculative and is not offered here as his position.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
The line that survives from Sridhara confirms only the plain sense: those for whose sake the kingdom is desired stand here in battle, having abandoned life and wealth. It does not extend into a devotional reading of this outward-facing desire as itself a seed of surrender, and this entry does not manufacture such an extension on his behalf.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana's surviving material here is likewise a brief restatement rather than an extended technical reading: those for whose sake the kingdom, enjoyments, and pleasures are desired stand in battle, having abandoned life and wealth. No fuller analysis distinct to this verse, of the kind he supplies at more heavily commented verses, survives in his own words.
A few questions to carry
These ask for understanding, not recall; each answer is settled by the commentary itself.
For a second sitting
Carry this with youwhat stays
Sit for a moment with what Arjuna sees here. He discovers that his wanting was never centered on himself, that the kingdom and its comforts were sought entirely for the sake of people he loves, and that those same people have already let go of their own hope to live and to keep anything at all. Notice, in your own life, how often you assume your wanting is selfish, and how rarely you look closely enough to find that it, too, is aimed outward, at someone else's ease. And notice, too, what it might mean to meet the world the way these kinsmen are described as already meeting it, without clinging to the hope of a particular outcome for yourself.
Let this exact, narrow verse do its own work, naming plainly for whose sake the wanting was, and let its silences in the tradition be respected rather than dressed up as more than they are.
Read deeper
Everything a full study holds, folded below.
Word by word
All the commentary, woven together
The commentary, woven together
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
rjuna names the structure of his own desire and finds it hollow: the kingdom, the enjoyments, the pleasures were never wanted for his own sake, but for the sake of the very people now standing arrayed against him. Where comment survives at all, it confirms this plain structure without dispute: the wanting was always aimed outward, at the wellbeing of teachers, elders, and kin.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The same people are reported as already having renounced, having let go of their own hope of continuing to live and of keeping their wealth. The verse does not describe a hoped-for future sacrifice; it describes something already settled, a stance those kinsmen have already taken up as they stand on the field.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Three of the five acaryas surveyed here, Ramanuja, Madhva, and Abhinavagupta, leave no comment isolated to this exact verse. Ramanuja folds it into a passage running from 1.26 to 1.47 with his full comment given earlier; Madhva's commentary does not begin until 2.11; Abhinavagupta folds it into a passage running from 1.30 to 1.34 with his full comment given at 1.30. Their silence here is itself part of the honest record of this verse.
Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Where comment survives, by way of Sridhara and Madhusudana, it stays close to paraphrase rather than doctrinal elaboration. Neither builds an extended argument on top of the bare claim; both confirm the same two facts, the outward aim of the desire and the kinsmen's settled renunciation, and go no further than that.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Even at its thinnest, the verse carries real weight in the unfolding lament: it is the moment Arjuna's argument for refusing to fight completes itself, since the very reason he once had for wanting victory is what he must now destroy to gain it, a contradiction the verse states rather than resolves.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
No Advaita-specific acarya's comment survives for this verse in this collection, since Shankara's extant Gita commentary does not extend to chapter one. What stands here under this heading is only Sridhara's plain paraphrase, read as the nearest surviving voice, which confirms the structure of Arjuna's claim without venturing any Advaita doctrinal reading of it.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja gives no comment isolated to this verse, folding it into a passage running from 1.26 to 1.47 where his full comment is delivered at the earlier verse, centered on Arjuna's grief at the sight of kinsmen arrayed for battle. No distinct Vishishtadvaita reading of this verse's own claim, that the desire for kingdom was always aimed at others, survives in his own words here.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva's commentary does not address chapter one at all, beginning only at 2.11. There is no Dvaita reading of this verse in his own words to report; any extension of his general principle of dependence on the Lord's will would be speculative and is not offered here as his position.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta folds this verse into a passage running from 1.30 to 1.34, with his full comment delivered at 1.30 and centered there on the bodily collapse of Arjuna's grief. A conditional Kashmir Shaiva extension might notice that Arjuna's desire, being aimed entirely outside himself, brushes unwittingly against the self's own selflessness, but this is a labeled extrapolation, not Abhinavagupta's recorded word for this verse.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
The line that survives from Sridhara confirms only the plain sense: those for whose sake the kingdom is desired stand here in battle, having abandoned life and wealth. It does not extend into a devotional reading of this outward-facing desire as itself a seed of surrender, and this entry does not manufacture such an extension on his behalf.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana's surviving material here is likewise a brief restatement rather than an extended technical reading: those for whose sake the kingdom, enjoyments, and pleasures are desired stand in battle, having abandoned life and wealth. No fuller analysis distinct to this verse, of the kind he supplies at more heavily commented verses, survives in his own words.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
Three of the five acaryas surveyed here have nothing distinct to say about this exact verse. What is a seeker supposed to do with a verse this thinly commented?
Take the silence as information rather than a gap to fill. Ramanuja, Madhva, and Abhinavagupta each show, in their own way, that this verse does not carry the independent weight their fuller comments elsewhere carry, folding it instead into a longer passage where their real attention lies.
Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Where comment survives at all, follow it exactly as far as it goes and no further. Sridhara and Madhusudana each confirm the same two facts, the outward aim of Arjuna's desire and the kinsmen's settled renunciation, and neither claims more for the verse than that plain paraphrase.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A thinly commented verse can still be read honestly for what it does inside the lament: it completes an argument. You do not need every verse to carry a doctrinal fork for it to matter; sometimes a verse's whole work is simply to state, plainly, the contradiction the seeker is caught inside.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Contemplation
Sit for a moment with what Arjuna sees here. He discovers that his wanting was never centered on himself, that the kingdom and its comforts were sought entirely for the sake of people he loves, and that those same people have already let go of their own hope to live and to keep anything at all. Notice, in your own life, how often you assume your wanting is selfish, and how rarely you look closely enough to find that it, too, is aimed outward, at someone else's ease. And notice, too, what it might mean to meet the world the way these kinsmen are described as already meeting it, without clinging to the hope of a particular outcome for yourself.
Sit with this · sonnet-5-authored
All the translations and commentary
Pull up a chair.
You have come to sit with this verse. When you are ready to hear the translators and the commentators in full, open a tradition in the doorways below, or add a voice by name above.
Also hear this verse, tradition by tradition.