Chapter 2 · Knowledge of the Self
Bhagavad Gita 2.31
Look to your own duty, and do not waver.
Shri Bhagavan
स्वधर्ममपि चावेक्ष्य न विकम्पितुमर्हसि ।
धर्म्याद्धि युद्धाच्छ्रेयोऽन्यत्क्षत्रियस्य न विद्यते ॥
svadharmamapi cāvekṣya na vikampitumarhasi / dharmyāddhi yuddhācchreyo’nyatkṣatriyasya na vidyate
Look also to your own duty, and do not waver. For one born to protect, there is nothing better than a fight that is right.
हिंदी · अपने स्वधर्म को देखकर भी तुम्हें विचलित नहीं होना चाहिए। क्षत्रिय के लिए धर्मयुक्त युद्ध से बढ़कर और कुछ नहीं।
What it means
Look to your own duty, and do not waver.
Consider the work that is actually yours to do, and let that steady you rather than shake you. For one born to protect, there is nothing higher than standing up for what is right.
This is the Trust’s own reading, written for this site. The verse above it is the text.
Verses that share its vocabulary
Near it in the text’s own words.
- 2.33But if you will not fight this rightful fight, then you will have abandoned your own duty and your good name, and you will take on wrong instead.
- 3.35Your own svadharma, even carried out imperfectly, is better than another's dharma done well. It is better to die in your own dharma; another's brings danger.
- 18.47Better is one's own duty, though imperfectly done, than another's duty well carried out. Doing the work appointed by one's own nature, a person incurs no fault.
- 1.1Tell me, Sanjaya: gathered on the field of dharma, the field of the Kurus, eager to fight, what did my sons and the sons of Pandu do?
- 1.40When a family is destroyed, the ancient duties of that family perish with it; and when those duties are gone, lawlessness overtakes the whole family.
- 1.41Krishna, when lawlessness prevails, the women of the family are corrupted; and when the women are corrupted, Varshneya, the mixing of social orders follows.
Chosen by shared uncommon vocabulary, weighted so that a rare word counts for far more than a common one. A reading aid, not a claim that these verses mean the same thing.