The entire content of this mail is from Swami Adidevananda's translation of Ramanuja's Gita Bhashya, published by Ramakrishna Mission.
Swerve not from your Duty - 31-37
1 Gita Sloka every day - Chapter 2 - Samkhya Yoga - Sloka 31
Svadharmam apicha avekshya na vikampitum arhasi I
Dharmyat hi yuddhat shreyah anyat kshatriyasya na vidyate II sloka 31
स्वधर्मं अपिच अवेक्ष्य न विकंपितुं अर्हसि।
धर्मयात हि युद्धात श्रेयः अनयत् क्षत्रियस्य न विद्यते ।।श्लोक ३१
Again Looking at your duty as well, you should not waver; for, there is nothing more welcome to a kshatriya than a righteous war.
Further, even though there is killing of life in this war which has begun, it is not fit for you to waver, considering your own duty, as in Agnisomiya and other sacrifices involving slaughter. To a Kshatriya, there is no greater good than a righteous war, begun for a just cause. It will be declared in the Gita :"Valour, non-defeat by the enemies, fortitude, adroitness and also not fleeing from batte, generosity, lordliness - these are the duties of the Kshatriya born of his very nature". (BG 18.43)
In Agnisomiya, etc., no injury is caused to the animal to be immolated; for according to the vedic texts, the victim, a he-goat, after abandoning an inferior body, will attain heaven with a beautiful body. The text pertaining to immolation declares : "O animal, by this immolation you will never die, you are not destroyed. You will pass through happy paths to the realm of Gods, where the virtuous only reach and not the sinful. May the god Savitr give you a proper place." (Yaj. 4.6.9.46) Likewise the attainment of more beautiful bodies by those who die here in this war has been declared in the Gita, "As a man casts off worn garments and takes others that are new ..... "(BG 2.22). Hence, just as lancing and such other operations of a surgeon are for curing a patient, the immolation of the sacrificial animal in the Agnisomiya is only for its good.
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