Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 1, Verse 46: Arjuna to Krishna — Arjuna-Viṣāda-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Arjuna declares that if the sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra (dhārtarāṣṭrāḥ) were to slay him unresisting and weaponless (apratīkāram aśastram), that would constitute a greater good (kṣemataram) for him than participating in the slaughter. From an Advaita standpoint, this utterance marks the precise moment of viveka's (discriminative intelligence's) inversion — the very faculty meant to distinguish ātman from anātman here confuses kinship-obligation with self-preservation, producing the illusion that death is preferable to dharmic action. The verse is the nadir of moha (delusion); Kṛṣṇa's silence here signals that the question of rightness can only be addressed from a higher epistemic vantage, which is why the real teaching waits until Chapter 2.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Rāmānuja portrays Arjuna (Pārtha mahāmanāḥ — great-souled son of Pṛthā) as supremely compassionate (paramakāruṇika) and endowed with deep fraternal bonds (dīrghabandhu), a man who, though repeatedly deceived by the Kauravas through extreme cruelties including the house of lac (jatugṛha), still cannot resolve to strike down his own kindred. His every limb perspires excessively (atimātrasvinnasarvagātra) under the combined weight of brotherly love, limitless compassion (paramā kṛpā), and fear of adharma — and he declares that being slain unresisting is preferable to fighting. In Viśiṣṭādvaita, this excess of compassion (karuṇā) is not merely weakness but a genuine dharmic sensitivity that Bhagavān Himself must now redirect toward kainkarya (loving service), for the jīva's natural affection must be purified and reoriented toward Nārāyaṇa, not dissolved.

• Madhvadvaita

  Arjuna's preference for unarmed death (apratīkāram aśastram hanyuḥ — 'let them slay me weaponless and unresisting') over the slaughter of his kin reflects the jīva's (individual soul's) radical dependence on Hari's will. From a Dvaita lens, the verse exposes a confusion between sva-dharma (one's own duty as warrior) and para-dharma (wrongly adopting another's mode); the jīva, being eternally subordinate (parādhīna) to Bhagavān, has no authority to unilaterally resign the role Hari has assigned it. Arjuna's error is not excess emotion but theological: he treats his own judgment as sovereign, which Madhva's strict hierarchy of dependency (Viṣṇu → jīva → action) categorically disallows.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  In Puṣṭi-mārga, every moment of the battlefield scene is Kṛṣṇa's own līlā (divine play), and Arjuna's collapse into grief is itself a rasa-moment (the rasa of karuṇā shading into śoka) that Kṛṣṇa orchestrates to create the space for the Gītā's teaching as prasāda (grace freely given). Arjuna's declaration — that being slain without resistance would be kṣemataram (more auspicious) — is not a rational ethical position but a bhāva-overflow (emotional flooding) that Kṛṣṇa's presence alone can absorb and transmute. The verse thus marks the full surrender of the sādhaka's self-will, the necessary precondition for receiving Bhagavān's prasāda.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara's bhakti-philological reading would center on the word kṣemataram (comparative of kṣema — 'welfare, safety, what is conducive to liberation') as the key devotional signal: Arjuna measures the two options not by battlefield honor but by what is spiritually safer for his soul. The shedding of weapons (aśastram) and the refusal to retaliate (apratīkāram) gesture toward a quality of surrender that, though arising here from emotional collapse rather than deliberate vairāgya (dispassion), structurally resembles the bhakta's self-offering to Bhagavān. Śrīdhara would note that this verse closes Chapter 1 with Arjuna in a posture that — however confused its motivation — prefigures the total self-surrender that Kṛṣṇa will call for at the Gītā's culmination.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana closes his Chapter 1 commentary by noting that Arjuna, having risen for battle and observation (yudddhārtham avalokhanārtham cotthitaḥ), now sits back on the chariot-floor (rathopasthe upāviśat) with his bow and arrows cast aside (saśaraṃ cāpaṃ visṛjya), his mind entirely seized by grief (śokena saṃvignam mānasam). The moment is a precise diagnosis of the citta (mind-field) overwhelmed by moha (delusion): the same faculty that should be an instrument of viveka has become an instrument of viṣāda (despondency). For Madhusūdana, who holds both the Advaita recognition of Brahman and the bhakta's love for Kṛṣṇa, this collapse is neither meaningless nor shameful — it is the necessary bhāva-bhūmi (ground of feeling) on which Kṛṣṇa's grace (anugraha) descends, turning the Gītā's first chapter into the kavaca (protective shell) of affliction that the remaining seventeen chapters penetrate.