भीष्मद्रोणप्रमुखतः सर्वेषां च महीक्षिताम्।उवाच पार्थ पश्यैतान्समवेतान्कुरूनिति॥
bhīṣma-droṇa-pramukhataḥ sarveṣāṃ ca mahī-kṣitāmuvāca pārtha paśyaitān samavetān kurūn iti
Word by word
The verse says
There, in front of Bhishma and Drona and all the kings of the earth, he said: Partha, behold these Kurus gathered here.
In plain words
Krishna parks the chariot directly in front of the two men Arjuna loves most on that side, and says nine words.
Behold these Kurus.
Not the enemy. Not Duryodhana's army. Kurus — the family name. The name Arjuna belongs to as well. In one word Krishna turns an opposing force into relatives, and then says nothing more for the rest of the chapter.
Where you've felt this · in family life
Someone in a long-running family dispute stops saying them and uses the family surname instead, the one everyone shares. It takes half a second. The whole argument has to be re-fought on different ground.
Going deeper
These are Krishna's only words in Chapter 1, and they are not comfort. They are the precise thing that will break Arjuna.
He positions the chariot in front of Bhishma and Drona — grandfather and teacher — and uses the shared family name. Then he lets it work. There is no follow-up, no softening, no argument. He waits nineteen verses while Arjuna comes apart, and only begins to teach in the next chapter.
This is a genuine puzzle for readers, and it is better faced than smoothed over. Why does Krishna make it worse?
The answer the Gita gives, by its structure rather than by statement, is that Arjuna's collapse had to be complete before anything could be built. A man half-convinced that he is doing the right thing cannot be taught much. Arjuna has to reach the point in verse 47 where he sits down and drops his bow — where his own position has failed entirely — before he can ask, in Chapter 2, to be taught. Krishna is not being cruel here. He is making the break clean.