Devanagari
गीतं भगवता ज्ञानं यत् तत् सङ्ग्राममूर्धनि ।
कालकर्मतमोरुद्धं पुनरध्यगमत् प्रभु: ॥ ३० ॥
Verse text
gītaṁ bhagavatā jṣānaṁ
yat tat saṅgrāma-mūrdhani
kāla-karma-tamo-ruddhaṁ
punar adhyagamat prabhuḥ
Synonyms
gītam
—
instructed
;
bhagavatā
—
by the Personality of Godhead
;
jṣānam
—
transcendental knowledge
;
yat
—
which
;
tat
—
that
;
saṅgrāma
—
mūrdhani — in the midst of battle
;
kāla
—
karma — time and actions
;
tamaḥ
—
ruddham — enwrapped by such darkness
;
punaḥ adhyagamat
—
revived them again
;
prabhuḥ
—
the lord of his senses .
Translation
Because of the Lord’s pastimes and activities and because of His absence, it appeared that Arjuna forgot the instructions left by the Personality of Godhead. But factually this was not the case, and again he became lord of his senses.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
Arjuna again understood the knowledge sung by the Lord in the battlefield, which was not forgotten by the influence of time, action or darkness caused by separation from the Lord.
Purport
A conditioned soul is enwrapped in his fruitive activities by the force of eternal time. But the Supreme Lord, when He incarnates on the earth, is not influenced by
kāla,
or the material conception of past, present and future. The activities of the Lord are eternal, and they are manifestations of His
ātma-māyā,
or internal potency. All pastimes or activities of the Lord are spiritual in nature, but to the laymen they appear to be on the same level with material activities. It so appeared that Arjuna and the Lord were engaged in the Battle of Kurukṣetra as the other party was also engaged, but factually the Lord was executing His mission of incarnation and association with His eternal friend Arjuna. Therefore such apparently material activities of Arjuna did not drive him away from his transcendental position, but on the contrary revived his consciousness of the songs of the Lord, as He sang them personally. This revival of consciousness is assured by the Lord in the
Bhagavad-gītā
(18.65)
as follows:
man-manā bhava mad-bhakto
mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru
mām evaiṣyasi satyaṁ te
pratijāne priyo ’si me
One should think of the Lord always; the mind should not forget Him. One should become a devotee of the Lord and offer obeisances unto Him. One who lives in that fashion becomes undoubtedly endowed with the blessing of the Lord by achieving the shelter of His lotus feet. There is nothing to doubt about this eternal truth. Because Arjuna was His confidential friend, the secret was disclosed to him.
Arjuna had no desire to fight with his relatives, but he fought for the mission of the Lord. He was always engaged in the execution of His mission only, and therefore after the Lord’s departure he remained in the same transcendental position, even though it appeared that he forgot all the instructions of the
Bhagavad-gītā.
One should, therefore, adjust the activities of life in pace with the mission of the Lord, and by doing this one is sure to return back home, back to Godhead. This is the highest perfection of life.
Commentary (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
It is said that when a person is burning in separation from a beloved person, by remembering the words of the beloved the flames of that pain are extinguished. Therefore he began to recite the nectar of the Gītā which emanated from the cooling moon-like mouth of the Lord. This relieved him of all pain. That knowledge of Gītā was not forgotten (aruddham) by the influence of time, action or ignorance. Tamas here means the situation similar to darkness caused by separation from the Lord.