{ "verse_id": "2.6", "mūla": { "devanāgarī": "न चैतद् विद्मः कतरन् नो गरीयो यद् वा जयेम यदि वा नो जयेयुः | यान् एव हत्वा न जिजीविषामस् ते ऽवस्थिताः प्रमुखे धार्तराष्ट्राः", "iast": "na caitad vidmaḥ kataran no garīyo yad vā jayema yadi vā no jayeyuḥ | yān eva hatvā na jijīviṣāmas te 'vasthitāḥ pramukhe dhārtarāṣṭrāḥ", "chapter_position": "Chapter 2 (Sāṅkhya-Yoga (The Yoga of Knowledge)), verse 6", "speaker": "Krishna", "addressed_to": "Arjuna" }, "word_by_word": [ { "surface_form": "na", "lemma": "na", "grammar": "", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "न" }, { "surface_form": "ca", "lemma": "ca", "grammar": "", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "च" }, { "surface_form": "etat", "lemma": "etad", "grammar": "accusative neuter singular noun", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "एतत्" }, { "surface_form": "vidmaḥ", "lemma": "√vid", "grammar": "present indicative 1st person plural verb", "senses_attested_in_panel": [ { "sense": "। तदेव द्वयं दर्शयति। यद्वा एतान्वयं जयेम जेष्यामः यदि वा नोऽस्मानेते जयेयुर्जेष्यन्तीति। किं चास्माकं वा जयोऽपि फलतः पर", "school": "bhakti", "weight": 0.8, "witnesses": [ "sridhara" ] }, { "sense": "। आरब्धेऽपि युद्धे यद्वा वयं जयेमातिशयीमहि यदि वा नोऽस्माञ्जयेयुर्धार्तराष्ट्राः। उभयोः साम्यपक्षोऽप्यर्थाद्बोद्धव्यः। क", "school": "advaita-bhakti", "weight": 0.8, "witnesses": [ "madhusudan" ] } ], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "विद्मः" }, { "surface_form": "katarat", "lemma": "katara", "grammar": "nominative neuter singular noun", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "कतरत्" }, { "surface_form": "naḥ", "lemma": "mad", "grammar": "genitive plural noun", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "नः" }, { "surface_form": "garīyaḥ", "lemma": "garīyas", "grammar": "nominative neuter singular noun", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "गरीयः" }, { "surface_form": "yat", "lemma": "yat", "grammar": "", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "यत्" }, { "surface_form": "vā", "lemma": "vā", "grammar": "", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "वा" }, { "surface_form": "jayema", "lemma": "√ji", "grammar": "present optative 1st person plural verb", "senses_attested_in_panel": [ { "sense": "जेष्यामः यदि वा नोऽस्मानेते जयेयुर्जेष्यन्तीति", "school": "bhakti", "weight": 0.8, "witnesses": [ "sridhara" ] } ], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "जयेम" }, { "surface_form": "yadi", "lemma": "yadi", "grammar": "", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "यदि" }, { "surface_form": "vā", "lemma": "vā", "grammar": "", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "वा" }, { "surface_form": "no", "lemma": "no", "grammar": "", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "नो" }, { "surface_form": "jayeyuḥ", "lemma": "√ji", "grammar": "present optative 3rd person plural verb", "senses_attested_in_panel": [ { "sense": "। जातोऽपि जयो न फलवान्। यतो यान्बन्धून्हत्वा न जिजीविषामो जीवितुं नेच्छामस्ते एवावस्थिताः प्रमुखे संमुखे धार्तराष्ट्रा ध", "school": "advaita", "weight": 0.8, "witnesses": [ "anandgiri" ] } ], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "जयेयुः" }, { "surface_form": "yān", "lemma": "yad", "grammar": "accusative masculine plural noun", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "यान्" }, { "surface_form": "eva", "lemma": "eva", "grammar": "", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "एव" }, { "surface_form": "hatvā", "lemma": "han", "grammar": "conv", "senses_attested_in_panel": [ { "sense": "जीवितुं नेच्छामस्त एवैते संमुखेऽवस्थिताः", "school": "bhakti", "weight": 0.8, "witnesses": [ "sridhara" ] } ], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "हत्वा" }, { "surface_form": "na", "lemma": "na", "grammar": "", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "न" }, { "surface_form": "jijīviṣāmaḥ", "lemma": "√jijīviṣ", "grammar": "present indicative 1st person plural verb", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "जिजीविषामः" }, { "surface_form": "te", "lemma": "tad", "grammar": "nominative masculine plural noun", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "ते" }, { "surface_form": "avasthitāḥ", "lemma": "ava-√sthā", "grammar": "nominative masculine plural participle noun", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "अवस्थिताः" }, { "surface_form": "pramukhe", "lemma": "pramukha", "grammar": "locative neuter singular noun", "senses_attested_in_panel": [ { "sense": "संमुखे धार्तराष्ट्रा धृतराष्ट्रस्यापत्यानि", "school": "advaita", "weight": 0.8, "witnesses": [ "anandgiri" ] } ], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "प्रमुखे" }, { "surface_form": "dhārtarāṣṭrāḥ", "lemma": "dhārtarāṣṭra", "grammar": "nominative masculine plural noun", "senses_attested_in_panel": [ { "sense": "प्रसह्य हन्युः इति चेत् अस्तु तद्वधलब्धविजयात् अधर्म्याद् अस्माकं धर्माधर्मौ अजानद्भिः तैः हननम्", "school": "viśiṣṭādvaita", "weight": 0.8, "witnesses": [ "ramanuja" ] } ], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "धार्तराष्ट्राः" } ], "intertextual_panel": [ { "verse": "1.36", "type": "lemma-family resonance", "score": 0.9227, "feature_breakdown": { "cosine": 0.8327, "theme_graph": 0.0, "vocative": 0.0, "substring": 0.0, "lemma_overlap": 19.0776, "stem_prefix": 9.0 } }, { "verse": "2.31", "type": "lemma-family resonance", "score": 0.8994, "feature_breakdown": { "cosine": 0.8294, "theme_graph": 0.0, "vocative": 0.0, "substring": 0.0, "lemma_overlap": 13.7692, "stem_prefix": 7.0 } }, { "verse": "11.32", "type": "lemma-family resonance", "score": 0.8924, "feature_breakdown": { "cosine": 0.8324, "theme_graph": 0.0, "vocative": 0.0, "substring": 0.0, "lemma_overlap": 11.2626, "stem_prefix": 6.0 } }, { "verse": "7.12", "type": "lemma-family resonance", "score": 0.8909, "feature_breakdown": { "cosine": 0.8209, "theme_graph": 0.0, "vocative": 0.0, "substring": 0.0, "lemma_overlap": 11.5247, "stem_prefix": 7.0 } }, { "verse": "6.21", "type": "lemma-family resonance", "score": 0.8893, "feature_breakdown": { "cosine": 0.8293, "theme_graph": 0.0, "vocative": 0.0, "substring": 0.0, "lemma_overlap": 8.7845, "stem_prefix": 6.0 } }, { "verse": "1.33", "type": "lemma-family resonance", "score": 0.8863, "feature_breakdown": { "cosine": 0.8263, "theme_graph": 0.0, "vocative": 0.0, "substring": 0.0, "lemma_overlap": 9.6587, "stem_prefix": 6.0 } }, { "verse": "11.37", "type": "lemma-family resonance", "score": 0.8851, "feature_breakdown": { "cosine": 0.8251, "theme_graph": 0.0, "vocative": 0.0, "substring": 0.0, "lemma_overlap": 9.7254, "stem_prefix": 6.0 } }, { "verse": "2.20", "type": "lemma-family resonance", "score": 0.8848, "feature_breakdown": { "cosine": 0.8448, "theme_graph": 0.0, "vocative": 0.0, "substring": 0.0, "lemma_overlap": 8.8085, "stem_prefix": 4.0 } } ], "doctrinal_projections": { "advaita": { "reading_summary": "(reading summary extraction pending; ENABLE_READING_SUMMARIES=true to generate)", "key_cross_references": [], "witness_passages": [ "shankara_2.6", "anandgiri_2.6" ], "score": 0.5, "english_rendering": "We do not even know which of the two outcomes — our conquering them or their conquering us — would be the lesser evil, since both paths lead deeper into the web of kartṛtva (doership) that perpetuates saṃsāra. The men standing arrayed before us, the Dhārtarāṣṭras with Bhīṣma and Droṇa at their head, are precisely those whose death we could not survive with any purpose intact — to kill them for a kingdom is to destroy the only context in which the kingdom meant anything. Arjuna's paralysis here is not weakness but the first honest recognition that no action undertaken from ahaṃkāra (the false 'I') can produce the good he is seeking.", "divergence_note": "Śaṅkara begins his bhāṣya at 2.10; the Advaita reading of 2.6 is derived from his framing of the entire first chapter as demonstrating that mithyājñāna (false knowledge) about the self is the root cause of Arjuna's grief and confusion." }, "viśiṣṭādvaita": { "reading_summary": "(reading summary extraction pending; ENABLE_READING_SUMMARIES=true to generate)", "key_cross_references": [], "witness_passages": [ "ramanuja_2.6", "vedantadeshika_2.6" ], "score": 0.5, "english_rendering": "Having reasoned that being slain by the Dhārtarāṣṭras — who do not know the boundary between dharma and adharma — would still be better than winning a victory stained with unrighteousness, Arjuna sees that neither outcome offers him a clear path. Those standing before him are the very persons for whom he would not wish to live, and so even survival-through-victory collapses into a form of defeat. Having expressed all this, he becomes utterly destitute of his own counsel and falls at the feet of Bhagavān as a śaraṇāgata (one who has sought refuge), asking: 'Tell me what is genuinely good for me — I am your disciple.'", "divergence_note": "Rāmānuja: 'yuddham ārabhy nivṛttavyāpārān bhavato dhārtarāṣṭrāḥ prasahya hanyuḥ… adharmy-āt asmākaṃ dharmaṃ-adharmaṃ ajānadbhiḥ taiḥ hananam eva garīyaḥ iti' — being killed by those ignorant of dharma is better than the adharmic victory; Arjuna then surrenders as śiṣya seeking śreyas." }, "dvaita": { "reading_summary": "(reading summary extraction pending; ENABLE_READING_SUMMARIES=true to generate)", "key_cross_references": [], "witness_passages": [ "madhva_2.6", "jayatirtha_2.6" ], "score": 0.5, "english_rendering": "*Na caitad vidmaḥ* — Arjuna confesses that he does not know which is greater (*garīyas*): victory or defeat, life or death in this war. In Dvaita's reading, the confession is not rhetorical. The *jīva* is *paratantra* (eternally dependent), and that dependence is nowhere more naked than in the moment when even the most basic calculation of good and harm collapses. Arjuna cannot weigh the outcomes because no *paratantra* being possesses *svatantra* (the independently real, self-sufficient) discernment; correct knowledge of what is truly *garīyas* belongs to Hari alone, the one *svatantra* reality. The Dhārtarāṣṭras arrayed before him — *te 'vasthitāḥ pramukhe* — intensify the deadlock: those whose deaths he cannot will are the very men he must face. *Yān eva hatvā na jijīviṣāmaḥ* names the sharpest edge of *paratantra* existence — the *jīva* finds itself bound by loves and griefs it did not author and cannot dissolve by its own reckoning. The five-fold real distinction (*pañca-bheda*) is not suspended by Arjuna's anguish; the *bheda* between Lord and *jīva* is precisely why the *jīva*'s confusion requires the Lord's instruction. Arjuna's admission of not-knowing is the threshold at which *taratamya* (graded ontological hierarchy) becomes existentially felt: the dependent self, unable to determine its own course, stands ready — however unwillingly — to receive the *svatantra* Hari's directive.", "divergence_note": "Madhva did not comment on this śloka directly (commentary begins at 2.11); the Dvaita rendering derives from his consistent doctrinal insistence on jīva-Brahman-bheda (eternal distinction) and dependent-worship of Hari as the only resolution of moral deadlock.", "provenance": "siddhānta_reconstruction" }, "śuddhādvaita": { "reading_summary": "(reading summary extraction pending; ENABLE_READING_SUMMARIES=true to generate)", "key_cross_references": [], "witness_passages": [ "vallabha_2.6" ], "score": 0.5, "english_rendering": "The question Arjuna poses across three verses — 'we do not know which is better' — is, in the Puṣṭi-mārga reading, not primarily a problem of ethics or strategy but the exhaustion of the self-reliant will before the mystery of Kṛṣṇa's līlā (divine play). Arjuna cannot solve this because it is not solvable by his intelligence — the entire situation, including the Dhārtarāṣṭras standing before him, belongs to the Lord's design, and the only right response to that design is prasāda (the grace one receives by letting go of the calculation). His confusion is itself the prasāda beginning to work.", "divergence_note": "Vallabha's comment is terse: 'na caitad iti praśnas tribhiḥ, spaṣṭārthaḥ' — the question spans three verses and is clear in its literal meaning; the Śuddhādvaita reading reads Arjuna's surrender-through-confusion as the doorway to Kṛṣṇa's grace." }, "bhakti": { "reading_summary": "(reading summary extraction pending; ENABLE_READING_SUMMARIES=true to generate)", "key_cross_references": [], "witness_passages": [ "sridhara_2.6" ], "score": 0.5, "english_rendering": "Śrīdhara reads the verse as Arjuna naming two distinct uncertainties in sequence: first, he does not know which of the two outcomes — 'we defeat them' or 'they defeat us' — would be the lesser harm to his dharma; second, and more devastatingly, even if victory were achieved, it would resolve into defeat, because the people he would have to kill to obtain it are precisely those without whom he does not wish to continue living. The men standing before him — 'yān eva hatvā na jijīviṣāmaḥ te avasthitāḥ pramukhe' — are not enemies in any ordinary sense; they are the precondition for a life worth living, and removing them removes the meaning of any prize their removal might win.", "divergence_note": "Śrīdhara: 'yān bandhūn hatvā jīvitum api vayaṃ necchāmaḥ… jāto'pi jayo naḥ phalataḥ parājaya eva' — even a victory gained by killing them is effectively a defeat, because the very people killed are those for whom one would not wish to survive." }, "advaita-bhakti": { "reading_summary": "(reading summary extraction pending; ENABLE_READING_SUMMARIES=true to generate)", "key_cross_references": [], "witness_passages": [ "madhusudan_2.6" ], "score": 0.5, "english_rendering": "Madhusūdana reads this verse as the pivot-point at which Arjuna's crisis graduates from emotional grief to philosophical deadlock: he cannot determine whether the begging-life (bhikṣā) — which avoids violence but violates his kṣatriya-svadharma — is better, or battle is, and the uncertainty is genuine on both sides. Even if battle were chosen and won, the victory would taste as defeat: 'those by killing whom we do not wish to live are the very ones standing before us' — Bhīṣma, Droṇa and all the Dhārtarāṣṭra-kin. Madhusūdana then reads back through Chapter 1 and sees that every element of Arjuna's crisis — disgust at the body-identified world, detachment from earthly and heavenly fruits, a nascent sense of an 'I' beyond the ego — is itself the preparation for the sannyāsa-teaching that alone can resolve what no battle-calculus can.", "divergence_note": "Madhusūdana: 'bhaikṣa-yuddhayor madhye kataran no garīyaḥ… jāto'pi jayo naḥ phalataḥ parājaya eva yato yān bandhūn hatvā jīvitum api vayaṃ necchāmaḥ' — the deadlock between begging and battle; and the retrospective reading of Chapter 1 as the sowing of sannyāsa-adhikāra." } }, "prosodic_information": { "meter": "upajāti", "meter_shift_from_previous": true, "meter_shift_to_next": true, "pragmatic_context": { "vocative": "", "preceding_question": "", "following_response": "" } }, "theme_list_memberships": [], "audit_trail": { "substrate_version": "v2.6-frozen", "fitted_weights": { "a": 1.0, "b": 0.01, "e_v": 0.005, "z": 0.2, "h": 0.0, "th": 0.01 }, "corpus_provenance": { "mūla": "Belvalkar critical edition (BORI 1947), via Ambuda multi-witness", "panel_witnesses": [ "bg-mula", "bg-shankara", "bg-ramanuja", "bg-madhva", "bg-vedantadeshika", "bg-vallabha", "bg-jayatirtha", "bg-anandgiri", "bg-sridhara", "bg-madhusudan" ] }, "extraction_date": "2026-04-21", "score_methodology_documented_at": "Paper 1, Section II.B", "word_by_word_parser": "ByT5-Sanskrit-multitask (Nehrdich/Hellwig/Keutzer EMNLP 2024)", "post_generation_repairs": [ { "date": "2026-05-03", "fix": "verb-lemma-misidentification (broader heuristic: prefix-√root canonical for all verb-tagged tokens)", "scope": "word_by_word[].lemma", "loci": [ "vidmaḥ: vid -> √vid", "jayema: ji -> √ji", "jayeyuḥ: ji -> √ji", "jijīviṣāmaḥ: jijīviṣ -> √jijīviṣ", "avasthitāḥ: avasthā -> ava-√sthā" ] } ] }, "so_what_questions": [ "When every available path feels like a form of loss, how do I make a decision at all — and does the paralysis itself tell me something I need to hear?", "Arjuna says even winning would feel like losing because the people he would harm are the ones who make his life worth living. When have I been in a situation where 'success' would hollow out the very thing I was succeeding for?", "Is there a difference between not knowing what to do and not wanting to do what I already know I must? How do I tell which one I'm in?", "Arjuna is a trained warrior facing trained warriors — the people best equipped to handle this situation — and he is frozen. What does that say about the limits of competence and preparation when the stakes are personal?", "He knows both sides of the dilemma but can't rank them. Is there a kind of knowledge that doesn't help you decide — and if so, what kind of knowing would actually help?", "The people standing in front of Arjuna are simultaneously his enemies and the people he loves most. How do I function in situations where the same person or institution embodies both?", "Arjuna's solution is to surrender the question to someone he trusts. When is that wisdom, and when is it just avoidance?" ], "everyday_applications": { "advaita": "When you are stuck between two bad options and neither analysis nor feeling resolves it, Advaita would say: the deadlock is not a problem with your options — it is a signal that you are looking for resolution in the wrong place. You are trying to secure the self through the outcome, and no outcome can do that. The practice is to sit with the discomfort without immediately reaching for a solution, and to ask what the person underneath the dilemma actually needs — which is usually not the victory itself but proof that the self is solid. It isn't, and recognizing that is not despair — it is the beginning of clarity.", "viśiṣṭādvaita": "Rāmānuja's Arjuna does something concrete and useful: he stops trying to solve the problem alone and walks toward the person he trusts most, presents his full confusion honestly, and asks to be taught. When you face a decision that seems to offer no clean path, the Viśiṣṭādvaita move is to seek a relationship of genuine guidance — not to outsource the decision, but to bring your actual confusion, not your curated version of it, into a space of real trust. Surrender here is not passivity; it is the decision to be a student again when your own frame has run out.", "dvaita": "Dvaita's reading asks a pointed question about the moments when you are frozen: are you trying to be the author of an outcome that you have no business owning? The Dhārtarāṣṭras belong to Hari's order of things; Arjuna's job is not to solve the universe but to do his part faithfully. In practice, this means identifying the action that is genuinely yours to take — your role, your responsibility, your available move — and releasing the rest. The paralysis often comes not from the complexity of the situation but from the scope of what you have quietly assumed is your job to fix.", "śuddhādvaita": "Puṣṭi-mārga would recognize this moment — when you genuinely cannot calculate your way to the right answer — as a potential opening rather than a failure. The confusion is not a bug; it is what happens when the self-managed life hits its natural limit and something else becomes possible. The practical implication is: instead of redoubling the analysis, notice the exhaustion of the analytical mode itself, and see whether there is something in you that already knows what to do if you stop insisting on being the one who figures it out.", "bhakti": "Śrīdhara's Arjuna names something most people feel but rarely say aloud: even success in this situation would be a defeat, because what would be lost in achieving it cannot be replaced by anything the achievement brings. This is a genuinely useful diagnosis for situations where you have been pushing hard toward a goal and something keeps feeling wrong. The question is not 'can I win?' but 'what do I actually lose if I do?' — and whether the thing lost is, in fact, the point. Naming that honestly, as Arjuna does here, is the beginning of an honest choice.", "advaita-bhakti": "Madhusūdana reads Arjuna's crisis as containing, in compressed form, all the ingredients for genuine renunciation: he is already detached from earthly fruits, already disgusted by the ordinary calculus of winning, already sensing that there is a self beneath the social identity that has been running the show. If you find yourself in a situation where neither the professional move nor the personal preference resolves anything, and the conventional rewards on offer feel hollow, Madhusūdana would say: do not rush past that moment. It is not depression — it is the ground being prepared for a different kind of understanding, and it is worth sitting with rather than diagnosing away." }, "primary_meaning": "We do not know which would be worse, defeating them or being defeated; the very men we could not wish to survive are the ones standing before us, the sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra." }