🪷 Bhagavad-Gītā · 2.36
Chapter 2 · सांख्ययोग · Sāṅkhya-Yoga · "The Yoga of Knowledge" · Verse 36 of 72
🪷 English Translations
Five authentic English voices · each from a distinct sampradāya · together revealing the verse's full śabda-tattva.
Shri Purohit Swami · Poetic English · 1935 · public domain · Cosmo Press tradition
2.36 Thine enemies will spread scandal and mock at thy courage. Can anything be more humiliating?
Swami Sivananda · Direct prose · Divine Life Society
2.36 Thy enemies also, cavilling at thy power, will speak many abusive words. What is more painful than this?
Swami Gambīrānanda · Word-key glosses · Advaita Ashrama · Śaṅkara-school
2.36 Ca, and besieds; tava, your; ahitah, enemies; vadisyanti, will speak; bahun, many, various kinds of; avacya-vadan, indecent words, unutterable words; nindantah, while denigrating, scorning; tava, your; samarthyam, might earned from battles against Nivatakavaca and others. Therefore, kim nu, what can be; duhkhataram, more painful; tatah, than that, than the sorrow arising from being scorned? That is to say, there is no greater pain than it.
Swami Ādidevānanda · Śrī-Vaiṣṇava perspective · Rāmānuja school
2.36 Moreover, your enemies, the sons of Dhrtarastra, will make many remarks unutterably slanderous and disparaging to heroes, saying, 'How can this Partha stand in the presence of us, who are heroes, even for a moment? His prowess is elsewhere than in our presence.' Can there be anything more painful to you than this? You yourself will understand that death is preferable to subjection to disparagement of this kind.
Sri Krsna now says that for a hero, enemies being slain by oneself and oneself being slain by enemies are both conducive to supreme bliss.
Dr. S. Sankaranarayan · Academic precision · modern scholarly
2.36. Slandering your ability, the enemies will talk of you many sayings that should not be talked of. Is there anything more painful than that ?
🪷 English Commentaries · The Ācārya Voices
The classical commentary tradition rendered in English · each ācārya speaks from their own sampradāya · the seer chooses the depth of darśana.
Swami Sivananda · Verse-by-verse word-keys with Sanskrit anchors
2.36 अवाच्यवादान् words that are improper to be spoken? च and? बहून् many? वदिष्यन्ति will say? तव thy? अहिताः enemies? निन्दन्तः cavilling? तव thy? सामर्थ्यम् power? ततः than this? दुःखतरम् more painful? नु indeed? किम् what.Commentary There is really no pain more unbearable and tormenting that that of slander thus incurred.
Swami Gambīrānanda · Advaita-school commentary (Śaṅkara tradition)
2.36 Ca, and besieds; tava, your; ahitah, enemies; vadisyanti, will speak; bahun, many, various kinds of; avacya-vadan, indecent words, unutterable words; nindantah, while denigrating, scorning; tava, your; samarthyam, might earned from battles against Nivatakavaca and others. Therefore, kim nu, what can be; duhkhataram, more painful; tatah, than that, than the sorrow arising from being scorned? That is to say, there is no greater pain than it.
Swami Ādidevānanda · Rāmānuja Śrī-Vaiṣṇava commentary
2.36 Moreover, your enemies, the sons of Dhrtarastra, will make many remarks unutterably slanderous and disparaging to heroes, saying, 'How can this Partha stand in the presence of us, who are heroes, even for a moment? His prowess is elsewhere than in our presence.' Can there be anything more painful to you than this? You yourself will understand that death is preferable to subjection to disparagement of this kind.
Sri Krsna now says that for a hero, enemies being slain by oneself and oneself being slain by enemies are both conducive to supreme bliss.
Dr. S. Sankaranarayan · Modern academic scholarship
2.36 See Comment under 2.37
Swami Chinmayānanda · Chinmaya Mission · modern Vedantic teaching
।।2.36।। यह देखकर कि अर्जुन के मन में इन तर्कों का अनुकूल प्रभाव पड़ रहा है श्रीकृष्ण उसको युद्ध से पलायन करने में जो दोष हैं उन्हें और अधिक स्पष्ट करके दिखाते हैं। लोकनिन्दा युद्ध से पलायन का आरोप इतिहास में अपकीर्ति इनसे बढ़कर एक सम्मानित व्यक्ति के लिये और अधिक दुख क्या हो सकता है
🪷 Place in the Bhagavad-Gītā
- This is verse 36 of 72 in Chapter 2 · Sāṅkhya-Yoga (The Yoga of Knowledge)
- Chapter theme: Krishna's first teaching · the niṣkāma-karma sūtra · BG 2.47
- Ṣaṭka grouping: TVAM-Ṣaṭka (BG 1-6 · the jīva)
- Chapter hub: /sankhya-yoga
🪷 ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय 🪷
सर्वम् कृष्णार्पणम् — this verse is one maṇi (jewel) on Krishna's thread (BG 7.7)