Chapter 11 · Verse 42·Spoken by Arjuna
यच्चावहासार्थमसत्कृतोऽसि विहारशय्यासनभोजनेषु। एकोऽथवाप्यच्युत तत्समक्षं तत्क्षामये त्वामहमप्रमेयम्
yach chāvahāsārtham asat-kṛito ’si vihāra-śhayyāsana-bhojaneṣhu eko ’tha vāpy achyuta tat-samakṣhaṁ tat kṣhāmaye tvām aham aprameyam
And if I treated you without respect, in jest, while at play, resting, sitting, or eating, whether alone or in company, for all of that I beg your pardon, you who are beyond measure.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
Audio from the Gītā Supersite, IIT Kanpur
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Convergence
rjuna continues his apology from the previous verse, but now he widens it to the small, ordinary moments of friendship. He names the everyday settings where the disrespect happened: in play, in lying down or resting, in sitting together, and in eating. The commentators unpack each of these plainly. 'Play' (vihara) is sport or exercise; 'lying' (shayya) is the couch or bed shared together; 'sitting' (asana) is a seat or throne occupied side by side; 'eating' (bhojana) is taking food together. The point is that the offense was not in some grand moment but woven through the casual fabric of daily companionship, the very places where one drops formality with a friend.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar · Lokmanya Tilak · Śrī Puruṣottama
The slights are confessed in both their private and their public forms. When Arjuna and Krishna were 'eka,' alone and out of sight of others, Arjuna treated him without honor; and 'tat-samaksham,' before his very face, in the presence of friends who were laughing along, Arjuna slighted him too. The commentators stress that the apology makes no exceptions: the whole history of casual familiarity, whether unseen or openly displayed, is brought forward so that not one moment of it can later trouble the relationship.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak
All of this was done 'avahasa-artham,' for the sake of jest, in light-hearted disregard. Arjuna's offense was not malice but the easy teasing of a comrade who did not know whom he was joking with. He took Krishna as an equal, a cousin or chum, and behaved accordingly. The root cause, the commentators agree, is ignorance of Krishna's true greatness; now that the cosmic form has revealed who Krishna really is, that old casual ease feels to Arjuna like a kind of disrespect that must be accounted for.
Braided from 6 commentators
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Swami Sivananda · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrī Puruṣottama
Arjuna closes by asking for pardon and by naming two qualities of the Lord that ground his confidence. He calls him 'Achyuta,' the unchanging, the one who never falls from his supreme place; the address itself hints that Arjuna's disregard could not actually diminish Krishna at all. And he calls him 'aprameya,' the immeasurable, beyond all measure, of unthinkable might and glory. The verb is 'kshamaye,' which the commentators read as 'I cause you to forgive' or 'I beg forgiveness.' Several note that by stressing the Lord's immeasurableness, Arjuna is also pointing to the reason pardon is fitting: one who is boundless and supremely compassionate readily forgives the offenses of one who simply did not know his greatness.
Braided from 11 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Sant Jñāneśvar · Lokmanya Tilak · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Ramsukhdas
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators give a careful grammatical and devotional reading. They parse the word 'eka' (one, alone) as describing Arjuna treating Krishna without honor while in private, apart from friends, and they take 'tat-samaksham' as the contrasting public setting. One adds that Arjuna earlier took Krishna as a cousin and equal and so disregarded him, and now, knowing the immeasurable, he begs pardon, with the name Achyuta hinting that even this disregard could not make the Lord fall from his supreme place. Another grounds the appeal for pardon in the Lord's compassion, noting that Krishna gave even the highest goal to enemies such as Shishupala, so he will surely forgive a friend's jest. The reason pardon is fitting is the Lord's unmeasured, unthinkable, supremely compassionate nature.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri
Dvaita
This school does not read 'eka' as 'alone' at all. It rejects the 'one, beyond perception' construction as strained and instead resolves 'eka' into a statement about the Lord as the sole cause. Taking the first syllable 'e' to indicate 'one,' and 'ka' to indicate being a doer-by-causing, with a causative-implying form of the root for 'do,' the meaning becomes: 'You alone are the one who makes all act; there is no other.' On this reading the verse, even amid the apology, affirms the Lord as the single agent who moves everything, while also acknowledging that though he is utterly unworthy of disrespect, he has been disrespected.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Śuddhādvaita
These commentators read the verse through the lens of pushti (grace) bhakti and the friend's bond (sakhya). They place the slights in tamasic, rough activities such as the hunting-sport and the rough familiarity of comrades, where Arjuna had earlier known Krishna as bound up with tamo-guna and dealt with him as such, only now to see that this 'bound creature' was the all-knowing Purushottama himself. The seeing forces an open accounting. But the key claim is that these very slights carry, in their own form, the seal of the pushti devotee's love. They draw a sharp line: the maryada (rule-bound) devotee can only apologize and stay at a distance, while the pushti devotee apologizes and returns to the very shoulder he had leaned on, now leaning with deeper love because the shoulder has been recognized. They read the coming reply at 11.49 as confirming that this intimacy is to be returned to, not abandoned, so the asking-for-pardon is itself a deepening of love, not its discarding.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Bhakti
This devotional reading hears the apology as the offering up of the whole history of the sakhi-bhava (friend-feeling) relationship at the feet of the cosmic form, so that no moment of it should ever later trouble the bond. One commentator stresses that this second apology is even finer than the first, because Arjuna brings in not only the private familiarities but even the public teasing in the company of laughing friends, making no exceptions. The Marathi commentary pours out a long, vivid confession in Arjuna's own voice: wrestling and dueling with the bludgeon, cheating at dice and claiming the best things, turning his face away in anger, refusing a shared meal out of pride, sleeping in Krishna's own bed, calling him merely 'Krishna' as if he were just another Yadava. It then turns to the Lord's boundless mercy, asking him to swallow these offenses as the sea swallows muddy rivers and to forgive as a true mother would, since they arose only from ignorance of his infinite divinity.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar
Modern
These voices read the verse as the plain, heartfelt apology of a friend who has just realized whom he was joking with. One renders Arjuna's inner speech directly: 'I have been stupid, I have treated Thee with familiarity not knowing Thy greatness, I have taken undue liberties with Thee, kindly forgive me.' Another gives the development its sharpest psychological turn: the friendship-apology is the very pulse of bhakti, because the moment the devotee realizes whose intimate friend he has been, he is not only awed but pierced. He asks pardon not because he did anything wrong, but because the One he has been casually calling 'sakha' (friend) is the One whose greatness is boundless, and so his old easy familiarity now feels to him like a kind of insult. This commentator also notes the social grain of the offense: the great are not addressed by name but with respectful words, yet Arjuna had called him by name as 'Krishna,' 'Yadava,' 'friend,' precisely because he had not known the immeasurable glory in even a single portion of him.
Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If Arjuna's informality with Krishna was the ease of real friendship and not a wrong, why does he apologize, and does recognizing God's greatness require trading intimacy for cold distance?
The apology is not the confession of a sin but the response of love that has just seen how large its object truly is. Arjuna treated Krishna as a cousin and equal, joking, sharing a bed and a seat, all in the easy familiarity of comrades. The slights were 'for the sake of jest,' and their only cause was ignorance of Krishna's real greatness. So Arjuna asks pardon not because he did wrong, but because the One he had been calling 'friend' is the very One whose glory is unboundable, and his old casual ease now feels to him like a kind of insult to that immeasurableness.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Swami Ramsukhdas · Swami Sivananda
The seeing does not destroy the friendship; it deepens it. The Lord is 'Achyuta,' unchanging, who never falls from his supreme place, so Arjuna's disregard never actually diminished him, and he is 'aprameya,' immeasurable and supremely compassionate, the kind of being who readily forgives one who simply did not know him. The appeal rests on that boundless mercy, which gives even the highest goal to enemies, so it will surely embrace a friend's jest.
Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
And the answer to the fear of cold distance is explicit in the richest devotional readings. The apology is not a retreat from intimacy but its deepening. The rule-bound devotee can only apologize and keep his distance, but the devotee of grace apologizes and returns to the very shoulder he had leaned on, now leaning with a deeper love because the shoulder has been recognized. The coming reply at 11.49 will confirm that this intimacy is to be returned to, not abandoned. So awe and nearness are not opposites; the bowing of the head and the leaning of the heart belong together.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Contemplation
Sit for a moment with the strange shape of this apology. Arjuna is not confessing a crime. He is confessing love that did not know how large its object was. He had called Krishna by name, slept in his bed, cheated him at dice, and all of it was the ease of true friendship. What pierces him now is not guilt but the sudden sense of the immeasurable in the one he had treated so casually. This is the very pulse of devotion: the moment you realize whose friend you have been, you are both awed and tenderly ashamed, not because you wronged anyone, but because the One you leaned on so freely is boundless beyond all thought. Notice too that he names the cause honestly: 'I had not known this greatness of Yours; my sight never even turned toward Your glory.' That is a clean, useful prayer for anyone. We rarely turn our attention to who the Beloved really is. Let the awe come without letting it freeze you into distance; the asking of pardon is itself an act of nearness, the heart drawing closer even as it bows.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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