1.40 Destroy a family and tradition goes Arjuna speaks
कुलक्षये प्रणश्यन्ति कुलधर्माः सनातनाः
धर्मे नष्टे कुलं कृत्स्नमधर्मोऽभिभवत्युत
kula-kṣhaye praṇaśhyanti kula-dharmāḥ sanātanāḥ
dharme naṣhṭe kulaṁ kṛitsnam adharmo ’bhibhavaty uta
When a family is destroyed, its ancient traditions perish; and when tradition is lost, disorder overtakes the whole family.
Explanation
And from here he argues sociology.
Destroy a family and its ancient traditions perish; lose tradition and disorder overtakes the whole family.
Five verses of consequences follow, each caused by the last. It reads as a chain, and building a chain is what a mind does when the thing at the end of it is unbearable.
Going further
Word by word
- kula-kṣhaye
- in the destruction of a dynasty
- praṇaśhyanti
- are vanquished
- kula-dharmāḥ
- family traditions
- sanātanāḥ
- eternal
- dharme
- religion
- naṣhṭe
- is destroyed
- kulam
- family
- kṛitsnam
- the whole
- adharmaḥ
- irreligion
- abhibhavati
- overcome
- uta
- indeed
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From here to 1.44 Arjuna argues sociology: destroy the family and tradition goes, then order goes, then lineage, then the ancestral rites, and the ruin runs backwards through the generations.
Whether or not you accept the cosmology, watch the move he is making. He has shifted from I cannot do this to this would be objectively wrong. That is what distress does when it becomes articulate: it recruits principle. Krishna's first words in the next chapter go straight at this — you speak like a wise man, and you are in pieces.