Arjuna turns what he sees clearly into a demand: if the harm is plain, why act at all?
This is not yet Krishna's answer. It is Arjuna at his most persuasive, treating his own foresight of ruin as though clarity alone were enough to settle what he should do.
But we see clearly the evil that comes from destroying a family. Why should we not have the sense to turn away from this sin, Janardana?
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Sanjaya is still narrating to the blind king Dhritarashtra. Arjuna has just catalogued, in the verses just before this one, the evils he expects to follow from destroying his own family. This verse gathers that catalogue into a single, pointed question and turns it directly on Krishna.
The teaching
What Arjuna says here is simple in its shape: we see clearly the evil that follows from destroying a family, so why should we not have the sense to turn back from this sin. Where fuller commentary on this exact line survives, it is Madhusudana's, and he treats the claim as doing real work rather than only voicing grief. He traces a mechanism: the family's inherited duties, its rites and its offerings, hand down through generation after generation, and they perish for the plainest of reasons once a lineage is destroyed, there is no one left to carry them forward. And once those duties collapse, what remains does not simply continue unguided. It is overrun by lawlessness, because no one is left with the standing or the will to hold the line against it. Arjuna's foresight of this collapse is, on this reading, not sentiment but argument: to see a ruin this clearly and act anyway would be a graver wrong than acting without having seen it at all. Four of the six acaryas gathered here leave no comment isolated to this precise verse. Shankara's sustained commentary does not take up chapter one's narration at all, beginning its real work only once Krishna starts to answer Arjuna's despair. Ramanuja folds this verse into one continuous passage running from 1.26 to 1.47, placing his full reading at that passage's opening. Madhva's surviving commentary does not begin until verse 2.11. Abhinavagupta folds this verse into a passage from 1.35 to 1.44, with his comment likewise given earlier. What survives from Sridhara is a single brief line, confirming the plain sense of Arjuna's question without building a further argument on it. This reading tries to hold that unevenness honestly, and also to hold open something the sources do not settle: a true observation about coming harm can still be voiced from inside a vantage that has not yet turned to examine itself, and nothing in Arjuna's foresight here proves that his own gaze has done that work yet.
The doubt that rises
Arjuna's claim about the mechanism of ruin is not disputed by the sources that address it at all: institutions really do depend on the people who carry them, and their collapse really does follow when those people are destroyed. But does seeing that mechanism clearly mean Arjuna sees his whole situation clearly? Or is this the moment his very clarity about an external danger becomes the thing that hides, from himself, whatever else may be moving in him?
Where the paths divide
Read as a question this verse raises but does not itself answer.
No comment survives from Shankara for this verse; his sustained commentary begins its real work only once Krishna starts to answer Arjuna's grief in chapter two. What can honestly be said here is that the question this verse poses, whether foreseen evil alone obliges restraint, anticipates exactly the ground his later commentary will cover, once the discussion turns from a warrior's particular dilemma to the nature of the self who acts.
Read as folded into the passage beginning at 1.26.
Ramanuja gives no comment isolated to this exact verse, treating the whole stretch from 1.26 to 1.47 as one continuous passage and placing his full reading at its opening. What can honestly be said here is that this verse belongs to the same continuous grief his 1.26 comment already addresses, a devoted kinsman's anguish at the prospect of destroying those he loves and is bound to.
Read as a complete gap in the surviving source.
Madhva's Gita commentary does not begin until verse 2.11. This entire appeal to foresight, along with the whole of chapter one, passes without a single word from him, and nothing here should be read as filling that silence on his behalf. Any Dvaita-flavored extension, built from his teaching on the soul's dependence, would be speculation offered only as such.
Read as folded into the passage beginning at 1.35.
The source records that Abhinavagupta treats verses 1.35 through 1.44 as a single passage, with his full comment given at 1.35 rather than repeated at this line. A conditional Kashmir Shaiva extension might read Arjuna's claimed clear sight here as a partial recognition, seeing the coming harm while still missing the deeper freedom that would let the act be met without either craving its outcome or recoiling from it, but this is offered only as a labeled extrapolation, not his recorded word.
Read as a bare confirming gloss, nothing more.
What survives from Sridhara here stays close to the line itself, confirming that Arjuna's question is exactly what it appears to be: knowing the fault, why should we not turn back from this sin. No fuller devotional argument is built on it in what remains of his comment, and this reading does not supply one on his behalf.
Read as a structural claim, apart from any school's final verdict.
Set the doctrinal question aside and notice what Madhusudana's fuller reading actually claims: institutions and inherited practices are sustained entirely by the people who carry them forward, and their collapse is a practical consequence, not a mystical curse, once those people are gone. Foreseeing that collapse is itself a form of real moral knowledge, whatever else may also be true about the one who foresees it.
This page does not invent verse-specific positions for the acaryas whose comment is folded elsewhere or simply absent, and it does not stretch Sridhara's bare confirming line into a fuller verdict than it actually gives. What stays open here is real: Arjuna's foresight of ruin is treated by the sources that address it as sound in its content, but nothing here settles whether his own vantage is as clear as the danger he is describing, or whether the very force of his argument is part of what the rest of the Gita still has to examine.
A question to carry
Where in your own life have you built a genuinely sound argument from something you saw clearly, only to wonder later whether the force of that argument was also protecting you from looking somewhere else?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
Let what is seen clearly be honored as clearly seen, and let the one who sees it be examined with the same clear eye, in its own good time.
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, one by one, the evils he expects from destroying the family; this verse gathers that list into a single pointed question addressed directly to Krishna.
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 claims he and his side see the coming evil clearly, and he treats that clarity itself as grounds for turning back.
Across Advaita, BhaktiMadhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Madhusūdana and Śrīdhara’s words
Arjuna frames what sounds like a question as a settled conclusion: why should we, who see the evil clearly, not have the sense to turn back from it. He is speaking now for himself and for whoever else on his side shares his clarity, and the fault he names is the ruin that follows from destroying a family.
The mechanism, where it is spelled out, is practical rather than mystical: inherited duties perish simply because the people who carried them are gone.
Across AdvaitaMadhusūdanaIn Madhusūdana’s words
Where fuller comment survives, as it does with Madhusudana, the mechanism behind that fault is traced precisely: the family's inherited duties, its rites and offerings, perish for the plain reason that the men who performed them are gone, and once those duties collapse, lawlessness overruns whoever is left with no one to hold it back.
Four of the six acaryas surveyed here leave no comment isolated to this exact verse, folding it into a longer passage or leaving it for a later chapter entirely.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, Kashmir ŚaivaŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · AbhinavaguptaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Four of the six acaryas surveyed here leave no comment isolated to this exact verse. Shankara's commentary does not reach chapter one at all; Ramanuja folds this verse into one continuous passage beginning at 1.26; Madhva's surviving commentary begins only at 2.11; Abhinavagupta folds this verse into a passage beginning at 1.35. Their silence here is part of the honest record, not a gap this entry should quietly cover over.
Where fuller comment survives, it reads foreknowledge as raising the moral stakes: to act once ruin is seen this clearly would be a graver wrong than acting in ignorance.
Across BhaktiŚrīdharaIn Śrīdhara’s words
Even where comment is thin, as it is with Sridhara's single confirming line, the verse still does clear work in the unfolding scene: it turns Arjuna's earlier catalogue of dreaded consequences into a direct moral demand addressed to Krishna himself, asking in effect why foreseen harm should not be reason enough to stop.
A sound observation about coming harm does not by itself prove that the one voicing it has examined his own situation as clearly as he has examined the danger ahead.
Across AdvaitaMadhusūdanaIn Madhusūdana’s words
Underneath the whole line lies one claim that the fuller reading makes explicit: foreknowledge itself carries weight. To see the coming ruin clearly and act anyway would be a graver wrong than acting in ignorance of it, which is why Arjuna treats his own clarity as an argument rather than merely a feeling.
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 instead into one continuous passage running from 1.26 to 1.47, with his full reading placed at that passage's opening. What can honestly be said here is only that this verse belongs to the same continuous grief his 1.26 comment already addresses, a devoted kinsman's anguish at destroying those he is bound to.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva's commentary does not address chapter one at all, beginning only at verse 2.11. There is no Dvaita reading of this appeal to foresight in his own words to report; any extension of his teaching on the soul's dependence to this particular line would be speculative and is not offered here as his position.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
What survives from Sridhara is a single brief line confirming the plain sense of Arjuna's question: knowing the fault, why should we not turn back from this sin. No fuller devotional argument is built on it in what remains of his comment, and this entry does not supply one on his behalf.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read apart from any doctrinal framing, Madhusudana's fuller reading makes visible a plain structural claim: institutions and inherited practices depend entirely on the people who carry them forward, and their collapse is not a mystical curse but the practical consequence of those people being gone. Foreseeing that collapse, on this reading, is itself a form of moral knowledge that obliges a response.
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
Notice, in this verse, how easily seeing harm clearly can feel like the whole of moral clarity. Arjuna's gaze here is fixed entirely outward, on a coming ruin he can name in detail. Before deciding that clear sight of a danger is the same as clear sight of your own situation, ask what your own attention might be arranged to avoid looking at, even while it looks very hard at everything else.
Let your own clear sight of a coming harm be honored for what it accurately sees, and let it still be questioned for what it may be arranged not to look at.
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 frames what sounds like a question as a settled conclusion: why should we, who see the evil clearly, not have the sense to turn back from it. He is speaking now for himself and for whoever else on his side shares his clarity, and the fault he names is the ruin that follows from destroying a family.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Where fuller comment survives, as it does with Madhusudana, the mechanism behind that fault is traced precisely: the family's inherited duties, its rites and offerings, perish for the plain reason that the men who performed them are gone, and once those duties collapse, lawlessness overruns whoever is left with no one to hold it back.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Four of the six acaryas surveyed here leave no comment isolated to this exact verse. Shankara's commentary does not reach chapter one at all; Ramanuja folds this verse into one continuous passage beginning at 1.26; Madhva's surviving commentary begins only at 2.11; Abhinavagupta folds this verse into a passage beginning at 1.35. Their silence here is part of the honest record, not a gap this entry should quietly cover over.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Even where comment is thin, as it is with Sridhara's single confirming line, the verse still does clear work in the unfolding scene: it turns Arjuna's earlier catalogue of dreaded consequences into a direct moral demand addressed to Krishna himself, asking in effect why foreseen harm should not be reason enough to stop.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Underneath the whole line lies one claim that the fuller reading makes explicit: foreknowledge itself carries weight. To see the coming ruin clearly and act anyway would be a graver wrong than acting in ignorance of it, which is why Arjuna treats his own clarity as an argument rather than merely a feeling.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
No comment survives from Shankara for this verse; his sustained commentary does not begin until Krishna starts to answer Arjuna's grief in chapter two. What can honestly be offered here is only that the question this verse raises, whether foreseen evil obliges restraint, anticipates the ground his later commentary will cover once the discussion turns from a warrior's dilemma to the self who acts.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja gives no comment isolated to this verse, folding it instead into one continuous passage running from 1.26 to 1.47, with his full reading placed at that passage's opening. What can honestly be said here is only that this verse belongs to the same continuous grief his 1.26 comment already addresses, a devoted kinsman's anguish at destroying those he is bound to.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva's commentary does not address chapter one at all, beginning only at verse 2.11. There is no Dvaita reading of this appeal to foresight in his own words to report; any extension of his teaching on the soul's dependence to this particular line would be speculative and is not offered here as his position.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
The source records that Abhinavagupta folds this verse into a passage running from 1.35 to 1.44, with his full comment given at that passage's opening rather than at this verse specifically. A conditional Kashmir Shaiva extension might read Arjuna's claimed clear sight as a partial recognition, seeing the harm while still missing the deeper freedom that would meet the act without craving or aversion, but this is offered only as a labeled extrapolation, not his recorded word.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
What survives from Sridhara is a single brief line confirming the plain sense of Arjuna's question: knowing the fault, why should we not turn back from this sin. No fuller devotional argument is built on it in what remains of his comment, and this entry does not supply one on his behalf.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read apart from any doctrinal framing, Madhusudana's fuller reading makes visible a plain structural claim: institutions and inherited practices depend entirely on the people who carry them forward, and their collapse is not a mystical curse but the practical consequence of those people being gone. Foreseeing that collapse, on this reading, is itself a form of moral knowledge that obliges a response.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If seeing clearly that harm will follow is itself a reason to stop, does that mean any argument I can make from foresight is automatically sound, whatever else may be true about my own motives for making it?
The commentators who address the substance of the claim do not dispute it: institutions and duties really do depend on the people who carry them, and their collapse really does follow when those people are destroyed. Foresight of a real mechanism is not a trivial thing to raise.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
But foresight being sound in its content does not settle whether it is the whole of what is operating in the person voicing it. A true observation can still be offered from inside a limited vantage, one that sees a danger clearly precisely because it has not yet turned to examine itself.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
This is part of why several of the acaryas surveyed here leave this exact line without comment: the question it raises is real, but answering it fully requires the rest of the Gita, not a verdict available at this single verse. Hold the argument's soundness and the question of its source as two separate matters.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya
Contemplation
Notice, in this verse, how easily seeing harm clearly can feel like the whole of moral clarity. Arjuna's gaze here is fixed entirely outward, on a coming ruin he can name in detail. Before deciding that clear sight of a danger is the same as clear sight of your own situation, ask what your own attention might be arranged to avoid looking at, even while it looks very hard at everything else.
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.