1.21 Drive me into the gap Arjuna speaks
हृषीकेशं तदा वाक्यमिदमाह महीपते
सेनयोरुभयोर्मध्ये रथं स्थापय मेऽच्युत
senayor ubhayor madhye rathaṁ sthāpaya me ’chyuta
Bring the chariot to a stand between the two armies, unfailing one.
Explanation
Drive me into the gap between the armies.
This is the request that undoes him, and he makes it himself.
He wants to see. From the middle of the field the enemy stops being a formation and becomes faces, and the whole of the Bhagavad Gita follows from Arjuna asking to be taken somewhere he could see clearly.
Going further
Word by word
- arjunaḥ uvācha
- Arjun said
- senayoḥ
- armies
- ubhayoḥ
- both
- madhye
- in the middle
- ratham
- chariot
- sthāpaya
- place
- me
- my
- achyuta
- Shree Krishna, the infallible One
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Arjuna asks to be driven into the gap between the two armies — and this is the request that undoes him.
He wants to see. From the middle of the field he can look both ways at once, and what he sees is not two armies but one family standing in two halves. Everything that follows comes from that vantage point. Had he stayed on his own side he might simply have fought.