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Bhagavad-Gītā with Śaṅkara's bhāṣya · 2.34
akīrtiṃ cāpi bhūtāni kathayiṣyanti te 'vyayām | saṃbhāvitasya cākīrtir maraṇād atiricyate
Translation. And beings will also recount your long-lasting disgrace;
and, for one esteemed for qualities such as being righteous-souled and heroic, disgrace is worse than death.
Grammar check: 12 words pass / 0 flagged / 0 beyond the checkerPāṇini-verified
Every word's claimed grammar is re-derived with vidyut-prakriya, software implementing Pāṇini's rules. Flags are shown, never hidden; some are the text taking epic or Vedic liberties the classical rules do not generate.
Word by word
| surface | lemma | grammar |
|---|
| akīrtim | akīrti | pass |
| ca | ca | pass |
| api | api | pass |
| bhūtāni | bhūta | pass |
| kathayiṣyanti | katha | pass |
| te | tvad | pass |
| avyayām | avyaya | pass |
| saṃbhāvitasya | saṃbhāvita | pass |
| ca | ca | pass |
| akīrtiḥ | akīrti | pass |
| maraṇāt | maraṇa | pass |
| atiricyate | ric | pass |
How the commentary settled it
Where the verse alone is ambiguous, the reading follows Śaṅkara's commentary; the deciding lines are quoted below each decision.
The syncretic form bhūtāni is nominative plural and is the subject of kathayiṣyanti, not an accusative plural object.
→ Prathama Bahu, because the plural finite verb requires a subject and akīrtim already supplies its accusative object.
Te is the enclitic genitive singular of tvad and expresses the possessor of akīrtim.→ Genitive singular of tvad, directly glossed as tava by Śaṅkara.
gita [1]te tava
te means ‘your’ (tava).
Avyayām describes the disgrace as persisting for a long time, rather than asserting metaphysical imperishability.→ ‘Long-lasting,’ following Śaṅkara’s explicit gloss dīrgha-kālām.
gita [1]avyayāṃ dīrgha-kālām
‘Undiminishing’—lasting for a long time.
Saṃbhāvitasya denotes a person held in esteem on account of recognized virtues, not merely someone imagined, self-important, or conceited.→ ‘For one esteemed for virtues,’ because Śaṅkara identifies the relevant reputation through qualities such as being righteous-souled and heroic.
gita [2]dharmātmā śūra ity evam ādibhiḥ guṇaiḥ saṃbhāvitasya
Of one held in esteem through qualities such as ‘righteous-souled,’ ‘heroic,’ and so forth.
Maraṇāt is the ablative standard of comparison, and atiricyate means that disgrace exceeds death in intolerability—not that disgrace is preferable to death.→ ‘Disgrace is worse than death.’ Śaṅkara reverses the comparison in paraphrase: death is preferable to disgrace for an esteemed person.
gita [2]akīrtiḥ maraṇāt atiricyate, saṃbhāvitasya ca akīrteḥ varaṃ maraṇam ity arthaḥ
Disgrace exceeds death; the meaning is that, for an esteemed person, death is preferable to disgrace.
Atiricyate is morphologically analyzed as Karmani, while being translated with the lexical comparative sense ‘is worse than.’
→ Karmani, following Vyākaraṇī and the passive form recorded in [MW s.v. atiric, 15,2].
Śaṅkara's commentary on this unit
1akīrtiṃ cāpi yuddhā bhūtāni kathayiṣyanti te tava avyayāṃ dīrgha-kālām |
2dharmātmā śūra ity evam ādibhiḥ guṇaiḥ saṃbhāvitasya ca akīrtiḥ maraṇāt atiricyate, saṃbhāvitasya ca akīrteḥ varaṃ maraṇam ity arthaḥ ||bhgs_2.34||
3kiṃ ca--