Krishna
अकीर्तिं चापि भूतानि कथयिष्यन्ति तेऽव्ययाम् । संभावितस्य चाकीर्तिर्मरणादतिरिच्यते ॥
akīrtiṃ cāpi bhūtāni kathayiṣyanti te'vyayām | saṃbhāvitasya cākīrtirmaraṇādatiricyate ||
People will also speak of your lasting disgrace. And for one who has been honored, disgrace is worse than death.
Explanation Krishna continues urging Arjuna to fight, now appealing to his reputation. If Arjuna abandons the battle, people will remember him with disgrace (akīrti) for ages. For a respected warrior, Krishna says, that is worse than dying. The argument is about social standing and duty, and it follows his earlier warning that giving up his own duty (svadharma) would bring sin (pāpa).
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About the Bhagavad Gita
The Bhagavad Gita, in Sanskrit श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता (Śrīmad Bhagavad Gītā ), “the song of the Lord”, is a dialogue of 18 chapters and 700 verses from the Bhishma Parva of the Mahabharata. On the battlefield of Kurukshetra, as the war is about to begin, the warrior Arjuna loses heart at the thought of fighting his own kin, and his charioteer Krishna answers him: on duty, on acting without attachment to the results, on knowledge, meditation and devotion. Sanjaya recounts the conversation to the blind king Dhritarashtra. The name is also written Bhagwad Gita, Bhagvad Gita, Bhagavat Gita or Bhagavad Geeta; with the honorific, Shrimad Bhagavad Gita, Srimad Bhagavad Gita or Shrimad Bhagwat Geeta; and often simply the Gita or Geeta.
Every verse is here in the original Sanskrit, with a Roman (IAST) transliteration, a plain-language translation and a short explanation, in English, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish, French and Tamil. The translations were made from the Sanskrit for this site and reviewed; they follow no published translation. Reading is free, with no account or advertising, and your progress stays in your browser. The verses are numbered 1.1 to 18.78, 701 in all, counting the question that opens chapter 13.
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