A lasting disgrace weighs heavier than a single death.
Krishna is not yet speaking of the Self beyond honor and shame; he is showing Arjuna that even inside the world of honor and shame, retreat is the costlier choice.
People will keep telling of your disgrace, and it will not fade with time. For someone who has been honored, disgrace is a heavier thing to carry than death itself.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has already told Arjuna of a Self no weapon touches, and of a threefold worldly loss waiting in withdrawal. Now he presses one step further into ground Arjuna cannot wave away: reputation, and what people will say of him long after the war is over.
The teaching
Nothing here yet asks Arjuna to rise above honor and shame. Krishna is arguing on Arjuna's own terms, the terms of a man who cares, quite naturally, what others will think and say. And on those very terms, the argument is severe. People will keep telling of this disgrace; the telling does not soften with the years. For an unknown man such a story might fade quickly, but Arjuna is already honored, already known for his valor, and it is exactly that prior honor that ensures his failure will be remembered as sharply as his greatness once was. The retreat Arjuna imagines as a mercy, sparing his family, sparing himself, turns out not to be a mercy at all. It trades one kind of suffering, the risk of death in a righteous fight, for another kind that outlasts it: a name that the world will not let him live down.
The doubt that rises
Is this really an argument about reputation, or is reputation only the visible surface of something Arjuna owes to those who have trusted him? And once the deathless Self is taught fully, does this worry about disgrace still matter, or does it belong only to the ground Krishna is standing on for now, to meet Arjuna where he is?
Where the paths divide
Read as an argument pitched below the teaching of the Self.
This verse does not yet call on the Self that neither weapon nor death can touch. It argues entirely within the world of honor and shame, showing that even there, by Arjuna's own standard of worldly loss and gain, withdrawal fails. The higher teaching will later dissolve this whole calculation, but for now Arjuna needs to hear it in terms he already understands.
Read as a dishonor with no end in time or place.
An imperishable disgrace cannot stop at some border and still be imperishable; it must reach every place exactly as it reaches every future moment. And it falls on the visible act alone. Arjuna's compassion for his kinsmen, however real to him, is invisible to a watching world that will remember only that he fled.
Read through a wider frame of dependence, though this verse itself is left unglossed.
Here there is silence rather than a direct word, since this commentary resumes its own voice a little further on. But nothing in that silence is a gap in meaning: a warrior's good name was always a trust granted and sustained by the Lord, not a possession earned outright, and to squander it carelessly is to mishandle something that was never simply his own.
Read as one move in an argument that grants Arjuna's own contracted ground.
Krishna is not yet appealing to the freedom that lies beneath every bounded identity. He is meeting Arjuna exactly where Arjuna has contracted himself, into a self worried about gain and loss, honor and shame, and showing that even by that narrower measure, the retreat does not add up in Arjuna's favor.
Read as a servant's answerability to those who trusted him.
A reputation built through real service is not vanity; it is a bond of trust between a devoted person and those who relied on him. To lose that name carelessly is to break something sacred, not merely to suffer an inconvenience, and the durability of the coming disgrace is simply the mirror image of the durability of the honor that came before it.
Read as a question of timing and authority between two counsels.
Two penalties are on the table, and they do not arrive together. The cost of abandoned duty is distant, ripening later and elsewhere. The cost of public disgrace is immediate, landing in this very life, this very season. And between prudent advice that counsels self-preservation and the settled duty not to withdraw from a righteous fight, the settled duty carries the greater authority.
All six readings agree that the disgrace is real, lasting, and heavier for Arjuna than for an ordinary man. They do not agree on what finally grounds that weight. Is it a worldly mechanism the higher teaching will later set aside, an unbroken imperishability across time and space, a trust held on the Lord's behalf, the far side of a contracted self yet to be released, a sacred bond of service, or an urgent, this-life reckoning against a slower one? This page holds all six open rather than choosing one.
A question to carry
Have you ever mistaken a comfortable withdrawal for compassion, only to find later what it actually cost the people who were counting on you?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
May you look honestly at what a quiet retreat would cost, not measured against your fear, but against the trust that others have placed in your hands.
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.
Having named the deathless Self and the loss of heaven and fame, Krishna presses the argument one step further into ground Arjuna cannot dismiss: what people will say of him, and for how long.
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.
The disgrace named here is not a private embarrassment; it is a public story that outlives the moment and travels wherever the tale is told.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Krishna turns from the loss of heaven and fame in the verse before this one to a further blow: the world will keep telling of Arjuna's disgrace, and that telling will not fade with the years. This is not a private shame but a public story, one that outlives the moment it describes and travels wherever people speak of this war.
The weight of the fall is proportional to the height of the standing; an honored man's failure cuts deeper than an unknown man's ever could.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The weight of the verse rests on who Arjuna is. He is not a man of no standing, for whom a lapse would draw little notice. He is sambhavita, already honored for his valor and his righteousness, and it is exactly that prior honor that makes his coming disgrace so much heavier than an ordinary failure would be.
Krishna is answering an unspoken calculation: that some dishonor is a fair price for avoiding death. He reverses the arithmetic.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, AdvaitaRāmānuja · MadhusūdanaIn Rāmānuja and Madhusūdana’s words
The commentators read the verse as meeting an objection Arjuna has not spoken but clearly feels: since war risks death, is it not wiser to accept some dishonor and preserve one's life? Krishna's ranking answers this directly. For a man of Arjuna's standing, dishonor is harder to bear than death, so the calculation runs the other way from what caution suggests.
Nothing here yet calls on the deathless Self; this argument works entirely on Arjuna's own worldly terms, and still condemns his retreat.
Across Advaita, Kashmir ŚaivaŚaṅkara · AbhinavaguptaIn Śaṅkara and Abhinavagupta’s words
Nothing here yet invokes the deathless Self that Krishna has already named two verses earlier. This is a deliberately lower argument, pitched at the ground where Arjuna is still standing, worldly honor and worldly shame, showing him that even by his own reckoning, withdrawal is the losing move.
Withdrawal, imagined as an escape from suffering, is shown delivering a different and, for Arjuna, heavier suffering in its place.
Across Bhakti, Kashmir ŚaivaŚrīdhara · AbhinavaguptaIn Śrīdhara and Abhinavagupta’s words
Read together with the surrounding verses, this line dismantles the comfort Arjuna hoped withdrawal would bring. He imagined retreat as an escape from suffering; the commentators show it delivering a different and, for a man of his reputation, heavier suffering in its place.
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 stresses that the imperishability of this dishonor is total, unbroken across both time and place, precisely because an ending anywhere would contradict its being endless at all. He also insists that Arjuna's private motive, love for his kinsmen, is invisible to the world's verdict; what the world sees and remembers is only the act of fleeing, stripped of its intention.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva offers no independent gloss on this verse, reserving his commentary for a few verses further on. What he stresses instead, reading the passage in light of his larger frame, is that Arjuna's standing among men was never his own achievement in the final sense; it is granted and sustained by the Lord's will, so that to squander it is to mishandle something held in trust rather than owned outright.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana draws a timing distinction with practical force: the sin of abandoned duty ripens later and elsewhere, but social disgrace ripens now, in this very life, and is for that reason the more urgent penalty. He also ranks bodies of counsel, holding that prudent advice about self-preservation is weaker authority than the settled duty not to withdraw from a righteous battle.
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
Ask yourself, gently, whether you have ever dressed a retreat from something owed as though it were compassion or prudence. Notice what it actually cost you in the eyes of those who trusted you to show up, and notice, too, that the noticing itself is not meant to shame you further, only to show you clearly what withdrawal actually buys.
So look honestly at what a comfortable retreat would actually cost, weighed not against your fear but against the trust others have placed in you.
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
rishna turns from the loss of heaven and fame in the verse before this one to a further blow: the world will keep telling of Arjuna's disgrace, and that telling will not fade with the years. This is not a private shame but a public story, one that outlives the moment it describes and travels wherever people speak of this war.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The weight of the verse rests on who Arjuna is. He is not a man of no standing, for whom a lapse would draw little notice. He is sambhavita, already honored for his valor and his righteousness, and it is exactly that prior honor that makes his coming disgrace so much heavier than an ordinary failure would be.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The commentators read the verse as meeting an objection Arjuna has not spoken but clearly feels: since war risks death, is it not wiser to accept some dishonor and preserve one's life? Krishna's ranking answers this directly. For a man of Arjuna's standing, dishonor is harder to bear than death, so the calculation runs the other way from what caution suggests.
Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Nothing here yet invokes the deathless Self that Krishna has already named two verses earlier. This is a deliberately lower argument, pitched at the ground where Arjuna is still standing, worldly honor and worldly shame, showing him that even by his own reckoning, withdrawal is the losing move.
Śaṅkarācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Read together with the surrounding verses, this line dismantles the comfort Arjuna hoped withdrawal would bring. He imagined retreat as an escape from suffering; the commentators show it delivering a different and, for a man of his reputation, heavier suffering in its place.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads the verse strictly as an argument on Arjuna's own worldly terms, prior to and independent of any teaching about the Self. The mechanism is social and observable: esteem earned through virtue turns, on failure, into a proportionally heavier contempt. This is offered as a lower-order argument, valid within its own frame, that the higher teaching of the Self will later transcend rather than need.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja stresses that the imperishability of this dishonor is total, unbroken across both time and place, precisely because an ending anywhere would contradict its being endless at all. He also insists that Arjuna's private motive, love for his kinsmen, is invisible to the world's verdict; what the world sees and remembers is only the act of fleeing, stripped of its intention.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva offers no independent gloss on this verse, reserving his commentary for a few verses further on. What he stresses instead, reading the passage in light of his larger frame, is that Arjuna's standing among men was never his own achievement in the final sense; it is granted and sustained by the Lord's will, so that to squander it is to mishandle something held in trust rather than owned outright.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta treats the verse as one step in an argument that grants Arjuna's contracted, worldly self-understanding for the sake of the argument, without yet appealing to the freedom of consciousness that will later dissolve the entire calculation. Read this way, the verse's only task is to show that Arjuna's own contracted logic, honor weighed against shame, already condemns his retreat.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara reads the verse devotionally: a life given to right service cannot be indifferent to how that service appears to those who trust it, since such trust is itself a sacred bond. He takes the imperishability of the disgrace as following directly from the imperishability of the fame that preceded it; the same greatness that made the reputation lasting makes the failure lasting too.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana draws a timing distinction with practical force: the sin of abandoned duty ripens later and elsewhere, but social disgrace ripens now, in this very life, and is for that reason the more urgent penalty. He also ranks bodies of counsel, holding that prudent advice about self-preservation is weaker authority than the settled duty not to withdraw from a righteous battle.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
Is this verse really about reputation, something that seems beneath the Gita's higher concerns, or is something deeper being said underneath the language of honor and shame?
On its own terms it is exactly what it says: an argument about reputation, pitched deliberately at the worldly level where Arjuna is still standing. Krishna has not yet asked him to rise above honor and shame; he first shows that even inside that frame, retreat is the costlier choice.
Śaṅkarācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Underneath, several commentators hear something sturdier than vanity: a devoted life is answerable to the trust others place in it, and squandering that trust is a real loss, not merely a social embarrassment to be managed.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
And underneath that again lies a quieter claim about dependence: whatever standing a person has was never wholly self-made, so to protect it out of pure self-interest already misreads what it is and where it came from.
Madhvācārya
Contemplation
Ask yourself, gently, whether you have ever dressed a retreat from something owed as though it were compassion or prudence. Notice what it actually cost you in the eyes of those who trusted you to show up, and notice, too, that the noticing itself is not meant to shame you further, only to show you clearly what withdrawal actually buys.
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.