यदि मामप्रतीकारमशस्त्रं शस्त्रपाणयः। धार्तराष्ट्रा रणे हन्युस्तन्मे क्षेमतरं भवेत्॥
yadi mām apratīkāram aśastraṃ śastra-pāṇayaḥ / dhārtarāṣṭrā raṇe hanyus tan me kṣemataraṃ bhavet
Better to die with clean hands than to win with blood on them.
Word by word (5)
- yadi mām apratīkāram
- — if me, offering no resistance
- aśastram
- — unarmed / without weapon
- śastra-pāṇayaḥ dhārtarāṣṭrāḥ
- — the sons of Dhritarashtra, weapons in hand
- raṇe hanyuḥ
- — were to slay me in battle
- tat me kṣemataraṃ bhavet
- — that would be better for me / that would be more auspicious for me · 'Kṣema' — welfare, safety, peace. It has a spiritual dimension: the welfare of the soul, not just the body. Arjuna says being killed unarmed would be spiritually better than killing.
'If the sons of Dhritarashtra — weapons ready — were to kill me in battle while I stood unarmed and unresisting, even that would be better for me than what we are about to do.'
A modern analogy
A person who says: 'I would rather lose everything than win by betraying my conscience.' The willingness to bear a devastating personal cost rather than compromise one's moral integrity is a form of moral courage — not weakness. Arjuna means this completely.
What it does NOT mean
This is not passive resignation or cowardice. Arjuna is the most skilled warrior on the field. His statement is not 'I cannot fight' but 'I would rather die than be the one to start this killing.' This is a moral position taken at maximum personal cost.
Take with you
- 'Apratīkāram aśastram' — unresisting, unarmed. This is Arjuna's statement of maximum moral purity.
- The courage to accept personal harm rather than cause it is real courage — and the Gita does not dismiss it.
- Arjuna's final position (V45) is the most morally sympathetic in the chapter. Krishna will build his entire teaching in response to it.
Verse 45 is Arjuna's most powerful moral statement. It anticipates, in some ways, the ahiṃsā (non-violence) teaching that Gandhi would later ground in this very text — the willingness to suffer rather than inflict suffering. Krishna will not tell Arjuna this is wrong. What he will offer is a frame that transcends the either/or: you need not choose between killing with ego-attachment and dying with passive purity. There is a third option: acting from duty, without ego, with the outcome released to the divine order. In that frame, the action remains the same (fighting), but the internal orientation transforms it entirely.
Bhakti lens
Ramanuja sees in V45 Arjuna's highest moment in Chapter 1 — not because the conclusion is right, but because the motivation is pure love (for his kinsmen) rather than personal gain. The bhakti teaching will redirect this love from its personal objects to God — which does not diminish it but deepens and liberates it.
Public-domain translations (4) compare all →
If the sons of Dhritarashtra, weapon in hand, were to slay me in battle unresisting and unarmed, that would be better for me. [4]
It would be better for me if the sons of Dhritarashtra, arms in hand, should slay me in the battle while I was weaponless and offered no resistance. [6]
O, let the sons of Dhritarashtra come in arms! Yea, though they slay me, weaponless I'll stay. [7]
It would be better for me if the sons of Dhritarashtra, with arms in hand, were to kill me in the battle, unresisting and unarmed. [9]
This verse speaks to
Where this thread continues
The soul does not slay, and cannot be slain — both the slayer and the slain have mistaken the soul for the body.
Do your prescribed duty. Action is better than inaction — even the body cannot be maintained without it.
I would rather be killed than kill them — a statement of love that goes beyond self-preservation.
Duryodhana lists his greatest champions — and every name carries its own tragic irony.
From all wombs all bodies arise — but the great Brahman is the womb and Krishna the seed-giving Father.
Three gates to hell, destructive of the self: kāma, krodha, lobha. Therefore abandon this triad.