BG 02.05 gurun ahatva hi mahanubhavan... cited

Expressions researched:
"Even though desiring worldly gain, they are superiors" |"It would be better to live in this world by begging" |"bhunjiya bhogan rudhira-pradigdhan" |"everything we enjoy will be tainted with blood" |"gurun ahatva hi mahanubhavan" |"hatvartha-kamams tu gurun ihaiva" |"sreyo bhoktum bhaiksyam apiha loke" |"than to live at the cost of the lives of great souls who are my teachers"

Notes from the compiler: VedaBase query: "2.5" or "Even though desiring worldly gain, they are superiors" or "It would be better to live in this world by begging" or "bhunjiya bhogan rudhira-pradigdhan" or "everything we enjoy will be tainted with blood" or "gurun ahatva hi mahanubhavan" or "hatvartha-kamams tu gurun ihaiva" or "sreyo bhoktum bhaiksyam apiha loke" or "than to live at the cost of the lives of great souls who are my teachers"

BG Chapters 1 - 6

BG 2.5, Translation and Purport:

It would be better to live in this world by begging than to live at the cost of the lives of great souls who are my teachers. Even though desiring worldly gain, they are superiors. If they are killed, everything we enjoy will be tainted with blood.

According to scriptural codes, a teacher who engages in an abominable action and has lost his sense of discrimination is fit to be abandoned. Bhīṣma and Droṇa were obliged to take the side of Duryodhana because of his financial assistance, although they should not have accepted such a position simply on financial considerations. Under the circumstances, they have lost the respectability of teachers. But Arjuna thinks that nevertheless they remain his superiors, and therefore to enjoy material profits after killing them would mean to enjoy spoils tainted with blood.