Chapter 10 · Verse 2·Spoken by Krishna
न मे विदुः सुरगणाः प्रभवं न महर्षयः। अहमादिर्हि देवानां महर्षीणां च सर्वशः
na me viduḥ sura-gaṇāḥ prabhavaṁ na maharṣhayaḥ aham ādir hi devānāṁ maharṣhīṇāṁ cha sarvaśhaḥ
Neither the gods nor the great sages know my origin. I am the source of them all in every way.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
Audio from the Gītā Supersite, IIT Kanpur
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machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
rishna says plainly that no one knows his origin: not the hosts of gods (sura-gana, the celestial powers like Indra and Brahma), and not even the great seers (maharshis like Bhrigu). The Sanskrit word at the center is prabhava, which the commentators read in two linked ways. It can mean his origin or coming-forth (his manifestation, his birth, his appearing in the world), and it can mean his power or surpassing lordly might (the greatness of his glory). Most read it as both at once. So the verse is saying: neither how I come forth nor how great I am is grasped by even the highest beings in creation.
Braided from 18 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
The reason for this ignorance is given in the second line: 'for I am the beginning of the gods and the great seers, in every way' (aham adir hi devanam maharshinam cha sarvashah). Krishna is their source, their cause. The commentators stress that he is the cause completely: he produces them and also sets their intellect in motion, acting as both the efficient cause (the maker) and the material cause (the stuff they are made from). Because they are his effects, his products, they cannot know their own source. The point is structural, not accidental: the produced cannot know the one who produced it. The word sarvashah, 'in every way,' underlines that there is no angle from which they stand outside this dependence.
Braided from 15 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
Several commentators draw out the logic with a vivid image: an effect that comes later in time cannot reach back and know what was before it. Once a body has arisen, the intellect that comes with it can only measure what is present or after; it cannot weigh what existed prior to its own arising. The repeated comparison is the child and the parent: a son does not know the truth of his father's birth, and a child cannot know the mother's age or even his own birth. So the gods and seers, arising from Krishna and being his work (karya), simply have no instrument with which to grasp the cause (karana) from which they came. As one source puts it, the effect can dissolve back into its cause but can never grasp it.
Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Swami Ramsukhdas · Sant Jñāneśvar
Because knowing him by one's own effort is impossible, the verse points toward a different way of knowing: knowing by Krishna's own self-disclosure or grace. The devotional and qualified-nondualist readers especially stress this. The gods and seers know only the surface of his coming-forth (that he bears the earth's burden, protects dharma) but not its supreme purpose or supreme form; that, they cannot reach without his grace. So this verse sets up the chapter's whole movement: the Lord is the knower of all, but none is the knower of him, unless he makes himself known. The teaching Arjuna is about to receive is therefore a gift of disclosure, not a conquest of effort.
Braided from 7 commentators
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators read prabhava chiefly as Krishna's origin and his surpassing lordly might, and they explain the gods' and seers' ignorance through cause and effect. Krishna is the cause both as the maker (efficient cause) and as the very substance (material cause) of the gods and seers; they are his modifications or transformations, and a modification cannot turn around and comprehend that of which it is a modification. One develops this with a clear epistemic point: the intellect of the gods arises only after their bodies arise, and with such a later-born intellect the matter existing before one's own arising cannot be measured at all. The accent here is on the unknowability of the one cause by anything that is its product.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri
Viśiṣṭādvaita
These readers stress that the gods and seers are genuinely high knowers: they see beyond the senses and have far greater knowledge than ordinary beings, yet even they fall short. What they fail to know is spelled out fully: Krishna's name, deeds, own form, own nature, and the rest, as it truly is. The reason is that the very knowledge they possess was itself given by Krishna, measured out to fit the merit by which they became gods and seers; their knowledge is therefore bounded, and a bounded knowledge cannot reach his unbounded reality. They add a soteriological note absent from the others: this very knowledge of Krishna's unthinkable nature is the means of release from the sin that blocks the rise of devotion, so the Lord goes on to state it. The accent falls on asymmetry resolved only by the Lord's self-disclosure to the candidate.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Dvaita
These commentators take a distinctive turn: they use the verse to establish that Krishna is birthless. They read prabhava as both his power and his origination of the world (an origination that is in his control, which is why it is called 'his'). Then they argue: if the Lord himself had a birth, then beings even below the gods, being all-knowing in their own range, would know it; but no one knows it; therefore he has no birth at all. The clause 'for I am the origin' is taken precisely to show that one whose very origination of the world is under his own control can himself have no birth. They anchor this in scripture, citing the Rigveda hymn that asks who can know whence creation arose, since the gods themselves came after the world's making, and a supplementary hymn that says neither seers nor gods know his power. They also point ahead to the next verse, 'he who knows Me as unborn,' as confirming that birthlessness is the verse's deeper meaning. The accent is on causelessness and the Lord's freedom from birth.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Śuddhādvaita
These commentators read prabhava as Krishna's distinguished birth or coming-forth together with his yoga-vaibhava (the glory of his power). They stress that even seers who see beyond the senses do not see him, because he is anterior to them, the rootmost source both of the gods' divine substance and of their very being-as-gods. One adds a precise limit on what the gods do manage to grasp: they know his coming-forth only as the bearing of the earth's burden, the safeguarding of himself, the safeguarding of dharma; the supreme purpose for which, and the supreme form in which, he comes forth, that they cannot know without his grace. The 'hi' ('for') is read as a particle of certainty that removes all doubt: by their very station as gods and seers the knowledge ought to be theirs of necessity, and yet it is not, which throws the whole weight onto his self-disclosure. The accent is on grace as the sole opening.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Bhakti
These devotional readers center the verse on grace and on Krishna's personal appearing. One reads prabhava as his most excellent self-disclosure, his becoming manifest through many vibhutis (glories) though he himself is birthless; another reads it concretely as his eminent, wholly extraordinary birth from Devaki, and insists the word must not be twisted to some other meaning, since the later verse 10.14 restates that gods and demons do not know his manifestation. Their shared logic is the family image (sons do not know the truth of their father's birth) and the structural point that even the topmost ranks of creation stand on Krishna's side of the causal line, so to know him by their own light is impossible by the very shape of the case. Another adds that Krishna gave the gods their godhood and lordship, pleased by their worship, which is exactly why they cannot know the one who is established before them. One renders the whole as soaring poetry: the Vedas were struck dumb, mind and breath were crippled reaching for him, and as vainly as a fish would fathom the depth of the sea, so the wisdom of the sages cannot penetrate his being. The conclusion in every case: without his grace none whatsoever knows him.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar
Modern
The modern commentators keep both senses of prabhava (origin and great lordly power) and emphasize Krishna's total causal role: he is not only the source of the gods and sages but their efficient cause, their inner ruler, and the dispenser and guide of their intellect. One develops the verse at length and non-sectarianly: the gods' bodies, intelligence, worlds, and materials are all divine, yet they still do not know his coming-forth, its purpose, or its causes; the great rishis, who brought forth so many hymns and powers and rose above samsara, equally fall short. Whatever intelligence, power, station, and greatness these beings have was received from Krishna alone, so with borrowed power they cannot know the giver. He frames it temporally: before they came into being he was just as he is, and when they dissolve he will remain just as he is, so beings with beginnings and ends cannot draw the beginningless, endless Paramatma into the compass of their limited intellect. He also folds in 10.14: the gods are absorbed in enjoyments and do not even find time to know him, and the demons, given to deceit through maya, simply cannot. The accent is on the limited grasping the limitless, which is impossible by definition.
Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If even the gods and the greatest seers cannot know Krishna's true origin and greatness, what hope does an ordinary seeker have of knowing him at all?
First, see exactly why the high beings fall short. It is not that they are dull; it is structural. Krishna is their very source and cause, both their maker and the substance they are made from, and an effect cannot turn around and comprehend the cause it came from. Their knowledge, however vast, was itself given to them and is bounded; a bounded knowledge cannot reach an unbounded reality. So the gap is not between you and them; it is between every created intellect and its limitless source.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Swami Ramsukhdas
This actually levels the ground. The seer's superior power gives no real advantage here, because the very thing that would have to do the knowing is itself a gift received from Krishna, and borrowed power cannot grasp the giver. The child cannot know the parent's origin no matter how grown the child becomes. So your ordinariness is not the obstacle it felt like; the obstacle is the same for all.
Śrīla Viśvanātha · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrīdhara Svāmī
And here is the hope the verse opens. Because knowing by one's own effort is closed to everyone, the verse points to the one way that stays open: knowing by Krishna's own self-disclosure, his grace. The teaching Arjuna is about to receive is itself such a disclosure. The seeker's part is not to conquer him with the intellect but to become someone to whom he reveals himself; for some readers this very knowledge of his unthinkable nature is even the means of clearing away what blocks the rise of devotion. Knowledge of God comes as gift, and a gift is available to the small as much as to the great.
Braided from 6 commentators
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva
Contemplation
Notice where this verse quietly sets you free. The whole burden of knowing Krishna does not rest on the strength of your intellect. The gods have divine bodies, divine intelligence, divine worlds, and still they cannot weigh him out; the great seers rose above the whole round of birth and death, brought forth hymns and vidyas and uncommon powers, and still his coming-forth in its fullness stays beyond them. So if you ever feel too small, too unlearned, too ordinary to know God, see clearly that no one, however high, knows him by their own measure. The reason is gentle and exact: whatever intelligence and capacity any being has was received from him alone, and borrowed light cannot illumine its own source. The effect can dissolve back into its cause; it cannot grasp the cause. This is not a wall against you; it is an invitation to stop straining to seize him with the mind and instead to long for him, as even the gods long for his darshan. Let the knowing come as his gift, not your conquest.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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