Sanskrit
अहो बत महत्पापं कर्तुं व्यवसिता वयम् । यद्राज्यसुखलोभेन हन्तुं स्वजनमुद्यताः ॥
aho bata mahat pāpaṃ kartuṃ vyavasitā vayam yad rājyasukhalobhena hantuṃ svajanam udyatāḥ
Translation
Alas! in committing a great sin are we engaged, we who are endeavouring to kill our kindred from greed of the pleasures of kingship.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The emotional and rhetorical peak of Arjuna’s speech. Everything argued since verse 31 collapses into this single cry — and notice the turn: he now accuses “we,” his own side, of the very greed-driven motive he attributed to the Kauravas back in verse 38. The accusation that began pointed outward has, by this point, turned fully on himself.
Study deeper
Word by word
- aho bataअहो बत
- alas!
- mahat pāpaṃमहत् पापं
- a great sin
- kartuṃकर्तुं
- to commit
- vyavasitā vayamव्यवसिता वयं
- we are resolved
- yadयद्
- in that
- rājya-sukha-lobhenaराज्य-सुख-लोभेन
- out of greed for the pleasures of kingship
- hantuṃहन्तुं
- to kill
- svajanamस्वजनं
- our own people
- udyatāḥउद्यताः
- we stand ready
Commentary
Site Commentary
After seven verses of careful argument-building — omens, cost-benefit, a formal “therefore,” a whole social-consequences chain — the speech suddenly breaks into pure exclamation, “aho bata,” alas. The logic doesn’t get abandoned so much as it arrives here; reasoning and lament turn out to be the same track, converging at exactly the point where the accusation turns fully on himself.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- When careful reasoning about a hard decision finally lands somewhere painful, don't be surprised if it arrives as a raw feeling rather than a tidy conclusion — logic and emotion aren't actually on separate tracks, and the feeling can be the reasoning finishing its work.
Professional
- If a careful, data-driven case you've built ends in a genuinely uncomfortable conclusion about your own team or decision, let that discomfort register instead of suppressing it in favor of the tidy summary — the reaction is often the argument completing itself, not a distraction from it.
Family & Social
- If working through a family disagreement logically eventually brings up real grief or guilt, don't treat that as a detour from the reasoning — it's often exactly where the reasoning was always heading.
Ask yourself
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