If understanding, knowledge, is held by You, O Janārdana, to be better, more excellent, than action, then Arjuna's words make their point. If a combination of understanding and action were what is desired, then, since the means to the highest good would be one single thing, calling understanding 'better than action' would set understanding apart from action, and Arjuna would not have done that; for one of the two could not be set apart from the other in respect of its fruit. So, since the Blessed Lord called understanding the more good-bearing and yet bids him do action, the less good-bearing, Arjuna asks, as if reproaching the Blessed Lord, what then is the reason: 'why do you set me to this terrible, cruel action, marked by violence, O Keśava?' And if a combination with smṛti action had been taught by the Blessed Lord for all, and grasped by Arjuna, then those words 'why do you set me to this terrible action' (Gītā 3.1) would make no sense. Further.

Arjuna spoke. If understanding is held by you to be better than action, why then do you set me to this terrible work? This is what is meant: it is the standing in knowledge alone that is the means to the beholding of the self, while the standing in action is what brings that about; and the standing in knowledge, the means to the beholding of the self, was said to be accomplished by the withdrawal of all the senses and the mind from their working upon sound and the other objects. If the beholding of the self, to be accomplished by the withdrawal of the senses from their working, is what you wish to bring about, then I ought to be set in the standing in knowledge alone, preceded by the cessation of all action. Why do you set me to terrible work, action in the form of the working of all the senses, which is opposed to the beholding of the self?

The own-form of the self, and the means to knowledge, were stated in what went before. In the chapter to follow, action is enjoined, after non-action has been censured as a means to knowledge. The Lord has declared that knowledge is far better than action, in 'mere action stands far below' (2.49) and the like. If that is so, then why do you set me to a terrible action called war, leaving aside the duties of withdrawal? So Arjuna asks, with 'if you hold the buddhi better'. If, in your view, the buddhi is better than action, then, in that case, why this command?