Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 2, Verse 2: Krishna to Arjuna — Sāṅkhya-Yoga
Where did this fog come from, Arjuna, overtaking you here of all places? It is not the way of the honorable, it shuts the door to heaven, and it will cost you everything you have earned as a warrior.
Bhāṣyakāra purports
- Śaṅkaraadvaita
Where has this defilement (kaśmala) come from to seize you here, at this moment of crisis (viṣama)? It is not the behavior of one who knows what is real, it does not lead toward the higher good, and it destroys the only thing a kṣatriya can leave behind. [Note: Śaṅkarācārya's bhāṣya is absent for this verse; this rendering follows the logical structure of 2.10 onward, where he opens by identifying grief as rooted in the confusion between ātman and body — the kaśmala is thus the symptom of avidyā (ignorance of one's true nature) before the diagnosis is named.]
- Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita
Having seen Arjuna seated in paralysis, the Lord immediately challenges him: whence has this grief (śoka) arisen in you, here in the midst of this crisis — grief that is practiced only by those without wisdom (avidvat-sevita), that runs counter to your welfare in the world beyond (paraloka-virodhī), and that is, at its root, nothing more than the product of a heart gone weak (hṛdaya-daurbalya-kṛta)? Abandon this utterly petty (atikṣudra) thing and rise to fight — for Bhagavān's command is itself the call that restores right relation.
- Madhvadvaita
Whence has this impurity (kaśmala) seized you, Arjuna, at this critical juncture (viṣama)? It is not the way of those who stand correctly in relation to Hari; it obstructs the dharma that leads beyond, and it ruins the only standing a warrior earns before others. [Note: Madhvācārya's bhāṣya is absent for this verse; this rendering follows Dvaita structural logic wherein the jīva's collapse into grief is a failure of dependent relationship with the Lord, not a mere emotional event — the Dvaita gloss on kaśmala would identify it as the jīva forgetting its ontological subordination to Viṣṇu.]
- Vallabhaśuddhādvaita
O Arjuna, you whose essential nature is pure (śuddha-svarūpa) — how has this defilement (kaśmala) even arrived? You stand in the midst of danger (viṣame saṅkaṭe), yet the impurity is not outside you; it is the delusion that has moved into the space where Kṛṣṇa's prasāda (grace-overflow) should be. The slayer of delusion's intoxication (moha-madhuhantā) now speaks precisely to dissolve what should never have been yours.
- Śrīdharabhakti
Kṛṣṇa asks: for what reason (kuto hetoḥ) has this kaśmala — this spiritual filth, this fog of delusion (moha) — come over you in a moment of crisis? It is a thing the noble (āryāḥ) do not practice; it stands against right action and the good that follows from it (asvargyam adharmyam); and it will strip away the only renown (yaśas) you have built.
- Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti
He who is called Bhagavān is so named precisely because he holds, undivided and without obstruction, all six fullnesses — lordship, right action, renown, beauty, detachment, and liberation (aiśvarya, dharma, yaśas, śrī, vairāgya, mokṣa) — and such a one now turns to Arjuna, foremost among all kṣatriyas (sarva-kṣatriya-pravara), and asks: how has this kaśmala, this thing censured by every learned person (śiṣṭa-garhita), arrived in you? It serves neither those who seek liberation (mumukṣu), for the noble do not practice it; nor those who seek the higher worlds, for it opposes the dharma that leads there; nor those who seek glory, for it produces only its opposite — and therefore it is, by triple proof, indefensible.