Gita Explained
Sanjaya speaks1.7

अस्माकं तु विशिष्टा ये तान्निबोध द्विजोत्तम।नायका मम सैन्यस्य संज्ञार्थं तान्ब्रवीमि ते॥

asmākaṃ tu viśiṣṭā ye tānnibodha dwijottamanāyakā mama sainyasya sanjñārthaṃ tānbravīmi te

Word by word
asmākamourstubutviśiṣṭāḥspecialyewhotānthemnibodhabe informeddwija-uttamabest of Brahmnisnāyakāḥprincipal generalsmamaoursainyasyaof armysanjñā-arthamfor informationtānthembravīmiI recountteunto you

The verse says

But know too, best of the twice-born, who among us stands out — the leaders of my army. Let me name them for you.

In plain words

Duryodhana turns at last to his own side. Notice what he needs before he can do it.

He addresses Drona with a title of honour and then says, essentially, now let me tell you about us. He has to announce the change of subject. He needs a run-up.

And there is the small word mamamy army. Not ours.

Where you've felt this · in community

In a long argument about a shared problem, listen for the moment someone switches from we to my. The plan becomes my plan, the team my team. It usually happens just as they start to feel they are carrying it alone.

Going deeper

That possessive is worth catching, because it rhymes with the opening line of the whole book.

Dhritarashtra began by dividing the field into my men and the sons of Pandu. His son now does the same thing with his own army — mama sainyasya, my army's. It is a family habit of speech, and this family's habit of speech is the reason there is a war at all.

The Gita is going to spend much of its length on this exact word. Mama — mine — sits at the root of mamatā, the sense of ownership that Krishna names again and again as what binds a person. In Chapter 12 he will describe the people who have come closest to him as nirmama, without-mine.

The first chapter shows you the disease at work in ordinary speech, long before anyone gives it a name.