As if smiling, Krishna begins to speak to Arjuna sinking in grief between the two armies.

This verse sets the scene for the whole teaching. Sanjaya, the narrator, tells us that just here, in the gap between the two armies (senayoh ubhayoh madhye), Krishna began to speak to Arjuna, who was sinking down (vishidantam) in grief and dejection. The placement matters. Arjuna had earlier asked, with great spirit, to be driven to this very spot so he could survey the warriors; now, in that same spot, his courage has collapsed and he has fallen into sorrow. So the answer to his crisis is about to begin exactly where the crisis broke out. Several commentators stress that the phrase 'between the two armies' also tells us that both armies could see, in a general way, Arjuna's collapse and the Lord's rousing of him; the teaching is not whispered in private but framed before everyone.

Krishna speaks 'as if smiling' (prahasann iva), and nearly every commentator fixes attention on that small word 'iva', meaning 'as if' or 'as it were'. The point is that this is not real or mocking laughter. Arjuna has just taken refuge in Krishna and assumed the posture of a disciple, and open laughter would be unfitting toward one who has surrendered and asked to be taught. So the smile is gentle and restrained. Some describe it as the calm, serene, unclouded composure of one who is about to untie a knot; some say Krishna covered the laughter, letting only a slight smile play on his lips or drawing in his lower lip. Either way the qualifier 'iva' guards the smile from being read as contempt.

The commentators give the smile a purpose, and on the main thread they agree: it is meant to wake Arjuna up. Krishna gently exposes how unfitting Arjuna's conduct is. A trained warrior who came onto the battlefield with great resolve is now talking like a renunciant, and the contrast is almost absurd; one source has Krishna think, in effect, 'Ah, even your want of discernment is this great.' Several add that this exposure 'plunges Arjuna in an ocean of shame', but they are careful to say the shame is a by-product, not the goal: the real aim is to spark discrimination, the clear judgment Arjuna has lost. The smile is therefore the smile of a friend, or of a healer reaching for the strongest remedy, not the smile of an enemy gloating over a victim.

The name used for Krishna here, Hrishikesha, 'master of the senses' or 'lord of the senses', is read by the commentators as deliberate and meaningful, though they draw the meaning out in two directions. As the one who controls the senses of all beings, Krishna is also the antaryami, the inner controller who knows Arjuna's innermost feeling. So he does not react to Arjuna's words but to the heart beneath them: he sees that this 'I will not fight' is only the momentary speech of a man shaken by grief and delusion, and that when Arjuna's own clear awareness returns he will do as he is taught. Out of that knowing, and out of deep affection and compassion for Arjuna, Krishna pays no heed to the refusal and simply begins, in the next verse, the teaching that removes grief.

Finally, the commentators read this verse as the hinge where the actual instruction of the Gita is about to start, and they name what triggers it: Arjuna's grief and delusion. His sorrow rests on attachments like 'these are mine' and 'I am theirs', felt toward kindred, elders, sons and friends, and under their force his judgment is overpowered and he draws back from his own duty toward a life of begging. This grief-and-delusion is the very disease the coming teaching must cure. Krishna, seeing no rescue for Arjuna except in knowledge of the Self, out of compassion sets out to lift him up, and so the next verse, beginning 'you grieve for those who should not be grieved for', opens the discourse. The address 'Bharata' (descendant of Bharata) is read as a call to attentive listening, reminding Arjuna of a noble lineage that should rise to hear divine instruction.