Chapter 10 · Verse 42·Spoken by Krishna
अथवा बहुनैतेन किं ज्ञातेन तवार्जुन। विष्टभ्याहमिदं कृत्स्नमेकांशेन स्थितो जगत्
atha vā bahunaitena kiṁ jñātena tavārjuna viṣhṭabhyāham idaṁ kṛitsnam ekānśhena sthito jagat
But what need have you of all these details, Arjuna? I support this whole universe with a single fragment of myself.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
rishna closes the chapter by setting aside the long catalogue of glories he has just given. Chapters before this listed item after item ("I am this among these, that among those"), but here he says, in effect, what is the point of knowing all of it piece by piece? The commentators agree that this is a deliberate pivot. The list was given gradually, partially, with much still left out, so no list could ever be complete. Krishna is telling Arjuna to stop trying to collect the glories one at a time and instead grasp the single truth that holds them all. The detailed teaching was a door; now the seeker is asked to walk through it.
Braided from 15 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
The one truth he gives in place of the list is this: with a single portion of himself (ekamshena, "by one part") he upholds, pervades, and supports this whole world. The Sanskrit verb vishtabhya means he has propped it up, braced it firm, held it steady. The commentators repeatedly anchor this in scripture, the line "one foot of Him is all beings" (from the Purusha Sukta of the Rigveda, also cited as Taittiriya Aranyaka 3.12). The force of the image is that the entire cosmos, with everything in it, rests on a mere fraction of the Lord. He stands, and the world stands because he holds it.
Braided from 14 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak
The word "single portion" (ekamsha) carries a striking implication that several commentators draw out: if only one part of the Lord holds up the entire universe, then the rest of the Lord lies beyond the universe altogether, immeasurably greater than everything that has been named. The scriptural line continues, "the three-footed immortal is in heaven," meaning three quarters of him transcend the world while one quarter appears as all beings. So the catalogue, however vast, was only ever a glimpse of a fraction. The point is not the size of the list but the boundless reserve behind it.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak
The practical aim of the verse, on which most agree, is to lift Arjuna from piecemeal seeing to seeing the Lord everywhere as one. Rather than meditate on this glory and that glory, he is to hold a single vision: the same one being upholds and pervades all of it, and there is nothing apart from him. The commentators call this an even or equal vision (sama-darshana) and Brahman-awareness held everywhere. Several note that this very verse sets up the next chapter, where Arjuna will actually see in vision the cosmic form that this verse states in words.
Braided from 8 commentators
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Swami Sivananda · Vedānta Deśika
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
On this reading the "single portion" by which the Lord upholds the world is his nature as all beings, the conditioned form that one meditates on; but the verse points past that to the unconditioned reality beyond the world. The scriptural "three-footed immortal in heaven" names the full being-consciousness-bliss that exceeds the cosmos, of one undivided savour. One source is explicit that "part" or "foot" is finally a matter of our own ignorance or limiting view: in reality Brahman has no parts or limbs and is formless, so the talk of a fraction is a concession to the meditator, not a real division in the one. The instruction is to drop limited views and hold Brahman-awareness everywhere.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Swami Sivananda
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Here the whole world, both conscious and unconscious, in its states as cause and effect, gross and subtle, is real and is held within the Lord's control so that it may not overstep his resolve. The scale is pressed hard: the world is supported by "a part of a myriad of a myriad" of the Lord's greatness, quoting the sage Parashara that the cosmos abides in a fraction of a fraction of him. The world is not an appearance to be dissolved but a real cosmic field genuinely upheld, while the Lord's remaining fullness exceeds that field altogether. The candidate is to close the chapter looking past the listing to this inconceivable reserve of the Lord.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Dvaita
These commentators take pains to deny that Krishna's question "what use is this knowing?" calls the earlier particular knowledge worthless. The word "what" (kim) is a known idiom for praising one thing by comparison, as in "if there were attachment, what use of austerity?". Were the prior knowledge truly fruitless, Krishna would not have spoken it at all. Its real purpose is to mark the pre-eminence of the knowledge of the all-pervading form over knowledge of limited particulars. Scripture even says that without knowing this boon-giving God together with his particulars none could be freed from bondage, so the detailed knowledge keeps its value. The address "your" (tava) marks Arjuna as fit for a great fruit, and the superiority of the pervasion-knowledge is established because a distinct fruit is promised to "one who sees Me everywhere" (6.30): a point reached by reasoning and then made firm by the text.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Śuddhādvaita
On this devotional reading the verse seals the chapter's bhakti-import. The "single portion" is decisive precisely because it warns the seeker off the mistake of thinking the whole of the Lord is engaged in the world: the entire cosmic display, with every glory just listed, is the work of one fragment of the Lord (named here the Purushottama, the Supreme Person), while the rest of his being stays in inconceivable reserve, and that very reserve suggests his greatness, since even the visible fragment is already ungraspable. The world is to be seen as the Lord's play (lila), his sport-form upholding the whole. The seeker is not to wear himself out knowing the manifold; he is to see the one portion holding all, and in that single seeing every glory is held. The Lord so disclosed is to be had only by undivided devotion (ananya-bhakti), easily, by his own grace, when he draws the surrendered devotee in.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Bhakti
This stream hears the verse as the Lord lifting the devotee off the long roll of glories and setting him on the firm ground of the one Vasudeva, outside whom there is nothing at all. What showed itself in samples is, in its own being, Krishna alone, who upholds the whole universe with only a small fraction of himself. The "single portion" is spelled out as the Person who is the inner controller within Nature, and the one verb "uphold" is unfolded into a whole work: he supports the world as its ground, directs it, commands and governs it, pervades it as the all-pervading, and creates it as its cause, and so remains. The conclusion is plainly practical and personal: the universe is therefore Krishna alone, so serve him with an intellect he himself has given, for he alone is the sweetness to be savoured.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva
Modern
The modern commentators read the verse mainly as Krishna's preparation of Arjuna for the vision to come and as a corrective to over-counting. One stresses that the "part" or "foot" is finally only a way of speaking suited to our ignorance, since Brahman is partless and formless, and that Arjuna, now knowing the glories, is fit to behold the cosmic form, which he straightaway asks to see. Another, working from the Purusha Sukta, underlines that if the Lord pervades the whole universe with only a portion of himself, then the Lord himself must be far greater than the universe, quoting the hymn's own "the Purusha himself is much greater than this." A third hears the indeclinable "or rather" (athava) as Krishna saying: the question you asked I have answered as asked; now, on my own, for your sake, I add one matter of special weight, the essential point.
Swami Sivananda · Mahatma Gandhi · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If only a single fraction of God holds up this entire universe, how am I supposed to relate to the unimaginable rest of God that lies completely beyond everything I can see or name?
Start with the part you can meet. The verse does not ask you to grasp the boundless remainder directly; it asks you to see that the one Lord upholds and pervades this whole world with a single portion of himself, and that there is nothing whatever apart from him. That is enough to begin: everything you can see or name is already held by him, so he is not distant but the very ground you stand on.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Then let the "single portion" do its work on your sense of scale. The whole point of the word is that what you can see is only a fraction, and the rest of God exceeds it immeasurably; the scripture even says three quarters of him are the immortal beyond, while one foot is all beings. You relate to that reserve not by measuring it but by letting it humble and enlarge your awe: even the fragment you can perceive is already ungraspable, so the immeasurable rest is something to bow before, not to capture.
Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Lokmanya Tilak · Śrī Ānandagiri
The practical move the verse hands you is to stop collecting glories piece by piece and instead hold one even vision: the same one being is everywhere, upholding all. Hold that awareness everywhere and have done with limited seeing. This is exactly why the next chapter follows, where Arjuna, now fit, asks to behold in vision what this verse has just stated in words; the verse readies you to relate to the whole by first seeing the one in all.
Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda
Contemplation
Notice how the verse asks something of you. The long list of glories was never meant to be memorized; it was a door, and now you are asked to step through it. Instead of chasing this divine thing and that one, let your seeing settle on a single truth: the one Lord upholds the whole of it with only a fraction of himself, and outside him there is nothing at all. What showed itself in scattered samples is, in its own being, one. So when your attention runs out to the many, gently bring it back to that one ground that holds the many. This is the wide plateau the verse sets you on after the long roll of names.
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