Shloka 28
गच्छ त्वमपि कौन्तेयमात्मार्थ जहि मा चिरम्,“तुम भी जाओ, अपने हितके लिये कुन्तीकुमार अर्जुनको शीघ्र ही मार डालो। तुम भी तो कुलीन क्षत्रिय हो। मैं आशा करता हूँ, तुममें भी युद्ध करनेकी शक्ति है ही, फिर इन सम्पूर्ण निरपराध क्षत्रियोंको क्यों व्यर्थ कटवाओगे?
gaccha tvam api kaunteyam ātmārthaṃ jahi mā ciram
Sañjaya said: “You too should go—strike down Arjuna, the son of Kuntī, without delay, for your own advantage. You are of noble kṣatriya birth; I trust you have the strength to fight. Why, then, should these wholly blameless kṣatriyas be made to perish in vain?”
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse frames a hard-edged kṣatriya ethic: decisive action against the key opponent is urged to prevent wider, needless slaughter. It highlights the moral tension between strategic necessity and the claim of protecting ‘blameless’ warriors from futile death.
Sañjaya reports a piece of battlefield counsel: someone is being urged to personally engage and quickly kill Arjuna (Kaunteya), arguing that the addressee is a capable noble warrior and that delay only causes many other kṣatriyas to die pointlessly.