[From virtuous deeds follow attainment of heaven and happiness.
Such being the case, the cycle of births and deaths - characterized by passing through desireable and undesirable births, and meeting with happiness, sorrow, etc. Even when they engage in their own duties their actions with speech, mind, body, etc., are certainly motivated by hankering for rewards, and are accompanied by egoism. there verily follows, as a matter of course, abandoning their own duties and resorting to prohibited ones. It is thus that in the case of all creatures whose minds come under the sway of the defects of sorrow, delusion, etc. It is verily because his discriminating insight was overwhelmed by sorrow and delusion that, even though he had become engaged in battle out of his own accord as a duty of the Ksatriyas, he desisted from that war and chose to undertake other's duties like living on alms etc. Kinsmen (1.37), relatives (1.34) and friends, have been shown by him with the words, 'How can I (fight).in battle (against) Bhisma' (4), etc. Thus indeed, Ajuna's own sorrow and delusion, cuased by the ideas of affection, parting, etc., originating from the erroneous belief, 'I belong to these they belong to me', with regard to kingdom, elders, sons, comrades, well-wishers (1.26),Sri Sankaracharya begins his commentary of the Gita only from the 10th verse of 2nd Chapter.1 which are the sources of the cycles of births and deaths of creatures.
Srimad Bhagavad GitaEnglish Translation of Sri Sankaracharya's Sanskrit CommentaryĬhapter 21 2.10 O descendant of Bharata, to him who was sorrowing between the two armies, Hrsikesa, mocking as it were, said these words: English Translation of Sri Sankaracharya's Sanskrit Commentary - Swami Gambhirananda 2.10 And here, the text commencing from 'But seeing the army of the Pandavas' (1.2) and ending with '(he) verily became silent, telling Him (Govinda), "I shall not fight"' is to be explained as revealing the cause of the origin of the defect in the from of sorrow, delusion, etc.