Sanjaya continued:
Then to Arjuna—sunk deep in sorrow,
heart awash, dark eyes with tears glazed—
Shri Krishna pronounced these words:
The Lord said:
How, at this imperilled time, have such strange
delusions engulfed you, which noble men
should shun, and lead to neither heaven nor fame?
Do not succumb to unmanliness, Arjuna.
It is dishonourable. Scorcher of enemies,
shake off this lowly faint-heartedness. Stand!
Arjuna responded:
Tell me, Krishna, how can I, with bow readied,
arrow cocked, kill both Bhishma and Drona,
who rather deserve my reverence than death?
Surely, I should rather live by begging than slay
these noble elders, for after their deaths
all my pleasures will be stained with blood.
I am blind. I cannot see which act is preferred:
to conquer them, or have them conquer us.
And Dhritarastra’s sons, whom if we killed
I could no longer live, stand before us now!
My being is paralysed with faint-heartedness.
My mind gnaws at duty. I implore you.
I am your disciple, placed in your hands.
Tell me how to act, and where my good resides.
For if I won an earthly kingdom and wealth,
or even obtained dominion of the gods,
yet still I know I would suffer this grief
which numbs me and desiccates my senses.
Sanjaya said:
Thus spoke Arjuna to Shri Krishna, great King,
and with a last, “I will not fight!” fell silent.
Then, great Dhritarastra, between both armies,
as if to mock the anguished Arjuna,
Shri Krishna spoke the following words.
The Lord said:
You grieve for those who require no grief,
confusing yourself with words of false wisdom;
wise men mourn neither living nor dead.
For there was never a time when I was not,
nor when you and these kings did not exist,
nor, hereafter, when we will cease to be.
The embodied passes from infancy to death,
just so it enters another body;
the wise are not deceived over this.
Heat and cold, pleasure and pain, each arise
when the senses and their objects meet.
But they are transitory. Transcend them, therefore.
That man to whom pain and pleasure are the same,
who, Arjuna, by these remains undisturbed,
becomes a candidate for immortality.
Nothing can come to be from non-being,
nor can what has existence cease to be;
this reality is perceived by those who know.
Understand, that which extends throughout
the entire cosmos is imperishable;
indestructible, none can destroy it.
The embodied is immeasurable,
eternal, imperishable; its bodies
finite only. Therefore, Arjuna, fight!
Ignorance grips both he who thinks this kills,
and he who believes this to be killed;
for, in truth, this neither kills nor is killed.
This is not born, nor can it die,
nor does it only become after birth.
Unborn, eternal, everlasting and ancient,
when the body is destroyed, it is not slain.
Arjuna, who knows this to be unborn,
imperishable, immutable and eternal,
how and whom can he possibly slay?
How and whom will he cause to be slain?
As we discard our worn out garments
to take up fresh clothes, so the embodied
discards worn out bodies and enters others new.
This, no weapons wound; this, no fire burns;
water cannot wet it, nor winds dry it.
It cannot be cut, burnt, wet or dried out;
it is eternal, omnipresent, constant,
immovable and everlasting.
Imperceptible by the senses, to the mind
inconceivable, it is called unchanging.
Knowing this, you therefore should not grieve.
