Why does the Gita, a book of the highest teaching, begin with its hero falling apart? Arjuna is the best archer on the field. In thirty verses we see him tremble, argue, give up and throw down his bow. We might expect the book to hurry past this and get to the teaching.

It does not hurry, and the reason is simple. Arjuna's feelings are real, and the reasons he gives are what he was taught. Those reasons pull in two directions, so they cannot decide for him. What turns the scene is not a better argument. It is that Arjuna stops arguing, says plainly that he does not know, and asks to be taught (Gita 2.7). The Gita starts at the place where a person can listen.

Here the verses are taken in order (Gita 1.28–47, Gita 2.1–10). Each step is read for what it says, what it rests on, and how it moves the scene toward the question.

Where these verses come in the Gita

At the end of the scene in Arjuna on the Field, Arjuna has asked to see the two armies and has seen his own people on both sides. These thirty verses are what he says and does next. The first chapter is named "The Yoga of Arjuna's Despair" on this site. What Lord Krishna teaches after the smile (Gita 2.10) is read in The Imperishable Self, and the arguments about duty (Gita 2.31–37) are in Duty, Honour and Fear. This reading stays with the collapse and the request.

His body gives way before he finds words (1.28-30)

Sanjaya, who is telling the war to the blind king, says that Arjuna was overcome with compassion and sinking in sorrow (Gita 1.28). Then Arjuna speaks, and the first things he reports are in his body: the limbs give way, the mouth dries, the body trembles, the hair stands on end, the bow slips from the hand, the skin burns, and the mind seems to whirl (Gita 1.29–30).

Nothing here is argued yet. The Gita reports a person and not a position, and it does not call the trembling shameful. This matters for everyone who has felt their body refuse before the mind has caught up. The despondency of Arjuna begins as a bodily fact.

He sees no good in winning (1.31-35)

He sees bad omens and no good in killing his own people (Gita 1.31). Then he gives up the things a warrior fights for: victory, a kingdom, pleasures, and even life (Gita 1.32).

His reason is that the things were wanted for the sake of certain people, and those very people are standing there, ready to give up their lives and wealth (Gita 1.33). Teachers, fathers, sons, grandfathers, uncles, in-laws: he lists them (Gita 1.34). He will not kill them even if they kill him, not for the three worlds, so not for the earth (Gita 1.35). The goal has turned into the people it must be won from.

The reasons he gives against fighting (1.36-44)

From here Arjuna argues. The reasons are not foolish. They are what a careful man of his time would say, and they come in four groups.

The last row has a small but important word. Arjuna says, "we have heard by tradition" (Gita 1.44). He has not seen it. His strongest reasons are things handed down to him. They deserve respect, and the Gita does not mock them. But they are not yet his own knowledge, and a mind that rests on what it has only heard is easily shaken.

The first reason also shows that he is no fool about the law. He grants that the other side are aggressors, and still says that sin would cling to him if he killed them (Gita 1.36). His stand is that his case goes beyond the rule. A man who argues like that is not a coward. He is a man whose heart and whose rules have come apart.

The breaking point (1.45-47)

"Alas, how strange," he says: we have resolved to commit a great wrong, from greed for the pleasures of a kingdom (Gita 1.45). But a few verses back he said that he did not want a kingdom (Gita 1.32). The mind that gave up the prize now accuses itself of wanting it. This is what a divided mind does. The reasons stop agreeing with one another.

He then says he would rather be killed, unarmed and unresisting (Gita 1.46). It is the wish of one who wants no part in anything. And Sanjaya closes the chapter with a picture: Arjuna casts aside his bow and arrows and sits down on the seat of the chariot, his mind agitated by grief (Gita 1.47).

What Lord Krishna says first (2.1-3)

Sanjaya says again that Arjuna is tearful and troubled (Gita 2.1). Then Lord Krishna speaks, and his first words are not an answer to any of the four reasons. He asks how this delusion has come upon Arjuna at such a moment, and he says that it is not what a person of worth does, that it does not lead to heaven, and that it brings disgrace (Gita 2.2). Then the command: do not yield to this weakness, give up this petty weakness of the heart and arise (Gita 2.3).

What is rebuked is the sinking and the delusion. It is not Arjuna's love for his people. The Gita says elsewhere that the person who has no hatred to any being, and is friendly and compassionate, is dear to the Lord (Gita 12.13), and it counts compassion among the divine qualities (Gita 16.2). The Lord does not tell Arjuna to feel less. He tells him not to stay on the ground.

Arjuna answers with reverence, and then with "we do not know" (2.4-6)

Arjuna does not change his mind at once. He restates his objection as a matter of respect: how can he fight Bhishma and Drona with arrows when they are worthy of his worship (Gita 2.4)? It would be better to live on alms than to enjoy pleasures stained with blood (Gita 2.5).

Then comes a sentence that is new. "We do not know which is better for us: that we should conquer them or that they should conquer us" (Gita 2.6). Until now every one of his speeches has ended in a conclusion. Here, for the first time, he says he cannot tell. His voice has changed from accusing to honest.

The turn: he says what is wrong, and he asks (2.7)

This one verse turns the whole passage, and it has three parts. First, he names a fault in himself: his nature is overpowered by faint-hearted pity. Second, he says his mind is confused about what is right, which is the state the Gita calls delusion. Third, he asks. He asks to be told decisively what is truly better for him, and he gives the ground on which he asks: "I am your disciple; instruct me, who have taken refuge in you." This is the first taking of refuge in the Gita.

He does not ask for what is easier, or for comfort. He asks for what is truly better, and he asks the one person who can say it. His place has changed. Until now he was the one deciding. From here he is the one who is taught.

Grief no kingdom can cure, a refusal, and a smile (2.8-10)

He adds one more thing before he is quiet. No kingdom on earth and no lordship over the gods could drive away the grief that is drying up his senses (Gita 2.8). Then Sanjaya reports that Arjuna said to the Lord, "I shall not fight," and fell silent (Gita 2.9).

This is not a withdrawal of the request. It is the honest end of his speech. He has said what is wrong, has asked, and has said what he will do if left alone. He does not leave the chariot. And in the middle of the two armies, Lord Krishna, smiling as it were, begins to speak to the grieving Arjuna (Gita 2.10). The smile is not mockery. It is the calm of a teacher who sees the whole.

Why the Gita begins in this way

The rest of the Gita shows that this beginning was not an accident. Arjuna asks again later, and the second time he is sharper: he says that the Lord's words seem to confuse his mind, and asks to be told decisively the one way (Gita 3.2). The Lord also says how to ask. Knowledge comes through humility, sincere inquiry and service (Gita 4.34). Asking is the way a teaching is received, and not a failure of strength.

The Lord also gives the answer to doubt. He tells Arjuna to cut the doubt in his heart with the sword of knowledge, to take up yoga and rise (Gita 4.42). And at the very end the same words of refuge come back, when he is told to abandon all other supports and take refuge in the Lord alone, with the promise "do not grieve" (Gita 18.66). The request of Arjuna is the beginning of that road.

There is a reason in the structure of the matter, too. A teaching can only reach someone who has stopped defending a position. As long as Arjuna's reasons held, nothing could be added. When they fell apart, and he said so, there was room.

How Arjuna's way of speaking to the Lord changes

Listen to how Arjuna speaks across these verses. At the start he gives an instruction: station my chariot between the two armies (Gita 1.21). Lord Krishna is the friend and charioteer, and Arjuna is the one in command. In the second chapter he still argues with respect, but he argues as an equal who has a case (Gita 2.4). Then he says, "I am your disciple," and the one who commanded asks to be commanded (Gita 2.7).

The warmth does not go. Near the end of the vision Arjuna asks forgiveness for the years in which he called the Lord his friend without knowing who he was (Gita 11.41–42). What changes at the moment of the request (Gita 2.7) is the direction of the question. A friend is consulted, and a teacher is listened to. The Gita can begin its teaching only after this change, because a man who is still giving orders cannot be told anything.

Where the Gita names this sinking again

Despondency comes up once more, late in the book, in the Lord's account of the three qualities that colour every act. The doer who is lazy, despondent and given to putting things off is called tamasic (Gita 18.28), and the resolve that never lets go of sleep, fear, grief, despondency and pride is called tamasic as well (Gita 18.35).

This is not a verdict on Arjuna. It shows what the same feeling becomes when a person stays inside it: a settled habit that holds on to the weight. Arjuna's sinking is the same feeling with a different end. He puts it into words, admits that he does not know, and asks. The first kind of despondency closes a person in, and the second opens a question.

What these verses should not be taken to mean

It does not say that Arjuna is a coward. His body and his words show love for his people, and Lord Krishna rebukes the sinking and the delusion, not the feeling. Arjuna himself calls his state a fault (Gita 2.7).

It does not say that compassion is wrong. The Gita praises the one who is compassionate to all (Gita 12.13), and the person who takes the pleasure and pain of others as his own is called the highest yogi (Gita 6.32).

And it does not say that Arjuna's reasons are answered here. Lord Krishna's answer begins after the smile (Gita 2.10), and it works on the ground that the reasons stand on: who is lost, and what duty asks. That is read in The Imperishable Self and, for the argument from duty, in Duty, Honour and Fear. These thirty verses are about one man's collapse and request, and they are not a rule about fighting.

An example

Take Savita, who keeps the accounts at a small firm. She learns that she must sign the papers that will end the jobs of two colleagues who once trained her. She cannot sleep. Her hands are cold when she holds the pen. In the evening she argues both sides: the firm has to survive, and these two were kind to her.

For three days she goes round in the same circle. What breaks the circle is not a new argument. She says to herself, plainly, "I do not know which is better," and she goes to a senior she trusts and says it aloud, without defending herself. The arguments stop going round. She has not decided yet. But now she has a question, and she knows whom she is asking.

A practice from the verses

Questions to test yourself

Questions readers ask

Are Arjuna's reasons simply wrong?

No. They are true to what he was taught, and the Gita does not call his grief false. The trouble is that they pull both ways, which he admits when he says "we do not know which is better" (Gita 2.6). Lord Krishna answers the ground the reasons stand on, from the next verse onward (Gita 2.11).

Why is Arjuna rebuked when compassion is praised?

Because the rebuke is for the sinking, not the compassion. The Gita praises the person who is friendly and compassionate to all (Gita 12.13) and lists compassion among the divine qualities (Gita 16.2). What the Lord names is the petty weakness of the heart (Gita 2.3), which Arjuna himself calls a fault (Gita 2.7).

Why say "I shall not fight" after asking for guidance?

He says honestly where he stands, and then he waits (Gita 2.9). He does not walk away. He is still seated in the chariot (Gita 1.47). That honest statement is what makes the teaching possible, because the Lord is answering the man as he actually is.

Does Arjuna ask a question like this again?

Yes. He asks again to be told decisively which way is better (Gita 3.2), and at the end he says that his delusion is gone and his doubts are dispelled (Gita 18.73). The Gita shows asking as a habit of the whole path, not one act.

Is despondency itself a kind of yoga?

The site names the first chapter "The Yoga of Arjuna's Despair". The despair is not the yoga. What opens the way is what Arjuna does with it: he says what is wrong, and he asks. Lord Krishna's own words point to the next step: take up yoga and rise (Gita 4.42).

The beginning of the teaching

The Gita begins with an honest collapse because a mind that has said "I do not know, teach me" can be taught. Arjuna's feelings are real, his reasons are respectable, and neither can decide for him. What decides is the request. At the end of the book he is the same man on the same chariot, and he can say what has changed.

The verse says that his delusion is gone, that he has regained his memory by the Lord's grace, that he stands firm with doubts dispelled, and that he will act according to the Lord's word. The road from the bow cast aside (Gita 1.47) to that verse is the whole Gita.

Go on to The Imperishable Self to read the first teaching. A shorter way into the same scene is the simple reading, and the closer study is the deeper reading.