Sanskrit
अशोच्यानन्वशोचस्त्वं प्रज्ञावादांश्च भाषसे । गतासूनगतासूंश्च नानुशोचन्ति पण्डिताः ॥
aśocyān anvaśocas tvaṃ prajñāvādāṃś ca bhāṣase gatāsūn agatāsūṃś ca nānuśocanti paṇḍitāḥ
Translation
Thou grievest for those that should not be grieved for, yet speakest words of wisdom. The wise grieve neither for the living nor for the dead.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Krishna opens not with comfort but with a correction. Arjuna has been speaking “the language of the wise” — invoking duty, kinship, consequence — while still grieving as though the people in front of him could actually cease to exist. The rebuke is precise: real wisdom and grief over the imperishable cannot coexist. Everything that follows in the chapter — the teaching on the self’s immortality, on duty, on equanimous action, and on the steady sage — is Krishna making good on this one claim. The word for the wise here is paṇḍita; by BG 2.13 it is dhīra, the steady one, and by verse 54 the sthitaprajña. The whole chapter can be read as one long definition of the person named, but not yet described, in this line.
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Word by word
- aśocyānअशोच्यान्
- those not to be grieved for
- anvaśocasअन्वशोचस्
- you have grieved (anvaśocaḥ)
- tvaṃत्वं
- you
- prajñāvādāṃś caप्रज्ञावादांश् च
- and words of wisdom (prajñā-vādān + ca)
- bhāṣaseभाषसे
- you speak
- gatāsūnगतासून्
- the dead — those whose life-breath is gone (gata-asūn)
- agatāsūṃś caअगतासूंश् च
- and the living (a-gata-asūn + ca)
- nānuśocantiनानुशोचन्ति
- do not grieve (na + anuśocanti)
- paṇḍitāḥपण्डिताः
- the wise
Commentary
Site Commentary
Krishna’s charge isn’t that Arjuna has said anything false — he specifically credits him with “words of wisdom.” The problem is the mismatch between what Arjuna is saying and what he’s actually doing: grieving. It’s possible to say the right things while still being governed by the wrong state, and that gap — not any error in the argument — is what verse 11 targets first.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
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Lessons
Personal
- Notice when your words and your actual state have quietly diverged — you can say all the wise, mature things and still be governed underneath by fear or grief that hasn't caught up. Closing that gap matters more than refining what you say.
Professional
- When a teammate says all the right things about a project — the right process, the right principles — but their actual decisions keep contradicting it, address the gap between the language and the behavior, not the language itself.
Family & Social
- If someone you love keeps saying the mature, reasonable thing while their actions clearly haven't caught up, name the gap gently rather than taking the words at face value — the words being right doesn't mean the underlying state has actually shifted.
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