1.32 He gives up the point of it Arjuna speaks
न काङ्क्षे विजयं कृष्ण न च राज्यं सुखानि च
किं नो राज्येन गोविन्द किं भोगैर्जीवितेन वा
na kāṅkṣhe vijayaṁ kṛiṣhṇa na cha rājyaṁ sukhāni cha
kiṁ no rājyena govinda kiṁ bhogair jīvitena vā
I do not want victory, Krishna, nor a kingdom, nor pleasures. What is a kingdom to us, what are enjoyments, or life itself?
Explanation
Notice what he gives up first.
Not the fight — the point of it. He does not want the victory, the kingdom, or the pleasures.
The war was fought over a kingdom, and Arjuna has just said the kingdom is worthless to him. Everything after this is him trying to explain a collapse that has already happened.
Going further
Word by word
- na
- nor
- kāṅkṣhe
- do I desire
- vijayam
- victory
- kṛiṣhṇa
- Krishna
- na
- nor
- cha
- as well
- rājyam
- kingdom
- sukhāni
- happiness
- cha
- also
- kim
- what
- naḥ
- to us
- rājyena
- by kingdom
- govinda
- Krishna, he who gives pleasure to the senses, he who is fond of cows
- kim
- what?
- bhogaiḥ
- pleasures
- jīvitena
- life
- vā
- or
Long-press or right-click the image to copy it. Nothing is uploaded — it is drawn here, on your device.
Notice what Arjuna gives up first. Not the fight — the point of it. He does not want the victory, the kingdom, or the pleasures. His argument is not that he will lose but that winning is worthless.
He is one verse away from the strongest version of his case, and it is worth granting that his reasoning here is good. The Gita does not answer him because he is wrong about the value of the prize. It answers him on entirely different ground.