Sanskrit
अमी च त्वां धृतराष्ट्रस्य पुत्राः सर्वे सहैवावनिपालसङ्घैः । भीष्मो द्रोणः सूतपुत्रस्तथाऽसौ सहास्मदीयैरपि योधमुख्यैः ॥
amī ca tvāṃ dhṛtarāṣṭrasya putrāḥ sarve sahaivāvanipālasaṅghaiḥ bhīṣmo droṇaḥ sūtaputras tathā'sau sahāsmadīyair api yodhamukhyaiḥ
Translation
The sons of Dhṛitarâshtra, and with them The multitude of all these kings of earth, Bhîshma, and Drona, Sûta's royal son, And all the noblest warriors of our hosts,
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The vision stops being generically cosmic and turns personal: these are not abstract “worlds” but named men Arjuna has grown up beside — Bhîshma his grandfather-figure, Droṇa his teacher, Karṇa called out obliquely as “Sûta’s son.” Verse 21 already flagged what’s coming here — the same mouths that gods entered to praise are about to receive warriors “not to praise, but to be devoured.” Grammatically the sentence doesn’t even close; it runs on a trailing comma straight into verse 27, so the naming and the devouring arrive as a single continuous breath. The vision turns personal: not abstract “worlds” but named men Arjuna grew up beside — Bhīṣma, Droṇa, Karṇa. The sentence does not close; it runs on a trailing comma into BG 11.27, so naming and devouring arrive as one breath.
Study deeper
Word by word
- amī ca tvāṃ dhṛtarāṣṭrasya putrāḥअमी च त्वां धृतराष्ट्रस्य पुत्राः
- and these sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra (amī + ca + tvām + dhṛtarāṣṭrasya + putrāḥ)
- sarve sahaivāvanipālasaṅghaiḥसर्वे सहैवावनिपालसङ्घैः
- all, together with the hosts of kings (sarve + saha + eva + avani-pāla-saṅghaiḥ)
- bhīṣmo droṇaḥ sūtaputras tathā'sauभीष्मो द्रोणः सूतपुत्रस् तथाऽसौ
- Bhīṣma, Droṇa, and that son of a charioteer [Karṇa] (bhīṣmaḥ + droṇaḥ + sūta-putraḥ + tathā + asau)
- sahāsmadīyair api yodhamukhyaiḥसहास्मदीयैः अपि योधमुख्यैः
- along with our own chief warriors too (saha + asmadīyaiḥ + api + yodha-mukhyaiḥ)
Commentary
Site Commentary
The vision doesn’t name “the Kaurava army” — it names Bhīṣma, Droṇa, the men Arjuna has specific relationships with, at the exact moment their fate turns lethal. This is chapter 1’s original crisis — recognizing kin across the battle lines — recurring inside the vision itself, as if the poem is unwilling to let the resolution reached back in chapter 2 make the coming loss abstract. Strategy language would have kept this at a safe distance; relationship language doesn’t allow that distance.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- When a hard decision starts to feel abstract and manageable, notice if you've quietly swapped out the specific people affected for a category — restoring their names and your relationship to them is often exactly the discomfort you need to make the decision honestly.
Professional
- When discussing a layoff or a hard organizational change, resist letting 'headcount' or 'the affected team' stay abstract in your own head — deliberately picture the specific people and relationships involved; the discomfort of that specificity is doing real ethical work, not just making things harder.
Family & Social
- When a family conflict gets framed in general terms — 'the situation,' 'this whole thing' — try naming the specific people and relationships involved instead; abstraction can quietly make it easier to avoid facing what's actually at stake for the people you love.
Ask yourself
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