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Confusion of castes leads to hell the slayers of the family, for their forefathers fall, deprived of the offerings of rice-ball and water (libations).

This confusion leads to hell both the destroyers of the family and the family itself, for their ancestors fall when the offerings of rice and water cease.

Arjuna appeals to the ancestral rites. In Vedic practice, descendants offered balls of rice and water, piṇḍa and udaka, to sustain the departed ancestors, the pitṛs. If the family line is broken and these rites stop, the ancestors were believed to lose their place and fall. So the harm of war, in Arjuna's view, reaches back to past generations as well as forward. The verse shows how deeply his reasoning is rooted in the religious life of his culture, where the living and the dead were bound by duty.