Pātra No. 9
The greatest archer alive.
“The bow Gāṇḍīva slips from my hand and my skin is burning.”
Arjuna is the greatest archer of his age. Before the first arrow, his bow Gāṇḍīva slips from his hand, his skin burns and he cannot stand. The Gītā begins with a hero falling apart.
Arjuna asked his. Samvāda answers yours with the Gītā's own verses.
Samvāda is software, an AI companion tuned to the Bhagavad Gītā. It is not a person. It answers from the verse and shows you which one, and it never pretends to be Kṛṣṇa.
गाण्डीवं स्रंसते हस्तात्त्वक्चैव परिदह्यते।
न च शक्नोम्यवस्थातुं भ्रमतीव च मे मनः।।
gāṇḍīvaṁ sraṁsate hastāt tvak caiva paridahyate na ca śaknomy avasthātuṁ bhramatīva ca me manaḥ
The bow Gandiva slips from my hand and my skin is burning. I can no longer stand. My mind seems to be reeling.
1.30 is verse 30 of 700, and verse 30 of 47 in chapter 1.
Gāṇḍīva (Arjuna's bow), in any form, appears in exactly one verse of the 700, 1.30.
1.30 falls under the speaker label of Arjuna.
Counted by Vāṇi on the 700-verse text at getvani.app/gita.
1.30 continues the account Arjuna begins in 1.29, where his limbs have weakened, his mouth has gone dry, his body trembles and his hair stands on end. In 1.30 the bow Gāṇḍīva slips from his hand, his skin burns, he cannot stand and his mind seems to be whirling. The man describing this is the archer the story calls the greatest of his age, and he is describing himself, in the first person, to Kṛṣṇa. 1.31 moves from the body to the reasons: he sees bad omens and can see nothing good in killing his own people in battle. The Gītā starts from here, with a hero who can no longer stand, and everything Kṛṣṇa teaches later answers it. You can read the scene in chapter 1, and what the Gītā says about fear collects related verses.