Bhagavad-gita Reader for Students of Sanskrit, Chapter 1, Verse 1: Syntax and Sentence Construction

The first verse of the Gita contains a question posed by Dhritarashtra, addressed to Sanjaya. This verse may be thought of as divided into three parts: the description of the battlefield, the description of the opponents, and the posing of the question itself.

Bhagavad-gita, Chapter 1, Verse 1: Construction

The first verse of the Gita may be thought of as divided into three parts: (1) one part containing some nouns describing the geographical location of a battlefield in northern India; (2) a second part containing some adjectives describing the opponents; (3) and a third part containing a main clause, in which a question is asked, concerning the opponents and the overall situation at the battlefield.

1. The location

The first part may be thought of as the “location” part:

धर्म-क्षेत्रे कुरु-क्षेत्रे
dharma-kṣetre kuru-kṣetre

This set of words is used to specify not only the geographical location of the Bhagavad-gita as being located in the northern part of India, but also serves the purpose of pointing to the ethical and religious historical importance of that location, as a setup for the religious-philosophical discussions in the rest of the work. This specification of a sense of location is done with the help of (compounded) nouns in the locative case, which in English might be expressed using prepositions such as ‘in’, ‘on’, or ‘at’: धर्म-क्षेत्रे dharma-kṣetre ‘in the dharma-field’, i.e. in the field of religious duty; कुरु-क्षेत्रे kuru-kṣetre ‘in the kuru-field’, i.e. at Kurukshetra, an ancient place for sacrifices to the gods.

This first ‘location’ part of the verse may be thought of as an introductory phrase that just precedes the rest of the verse; or it may be thought of as “belonging” to the main clause (in virtue of being regarded as a “pseudo-object” of the conjugated verb akurvata).

2. The adjectives

The two adjectives may be thought of as coinciding with the second fourth of the verse:

समवेताः युयुत्सवः
samavetāḥ yuyutsavaḥ

Both of these words might loosely be called adjectives, since their function is to collectively describe some of the traits of those soldiers on the battlefield who are referred to in the main clause (i.e. the Kauravas who are being mentioned implicitly, and the Pandavas who are being mentioned explicitly).

3. The main clause

The main clause may be thought of as coinciding with the second half of the verse:

मामकाः पाण्डवाः च एव किम् अकुर्वत सञ्जय
māmakāḥ pāṇḍavāḥ ca eva kim akurvata sañjaya

The subject of the main clause is the two groups of soldiers which are specified by the first four words of the clause: मामकाः māmakāḥ ‘my [sons]’ or ‘my [ones]’, i.e. the speaker’s [Dhritarashtra’s] own sons, along with their allies; पाण्डवाः pāṇḍavāḥ ‘the Pandavas’, i.e. the sons of Pandu, along with their allies; च ca ‘and’; एव eva ‘certainly’, ‘indeed’.

The core part of the question in the main clause is formed by three words: किम् kim ‘what?’, an interrogative indeclinable that introduces a question; अकुर्वत akurvata ‘they did‘, a conjugated verb in the imperfect tense, being part of an active sentence construction (agent construction–kartari prayoga); and सञ्जय sañjaya ‘O Sanjaya!’, the person Sanjaya, who is addressed (using the sg. voc. case).

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First published: 4 Mar 2013
Last revised: 4 Mar 2013