Chapter 13 · Verse 26·Spoken by Arjuna
अन्ये त्वेवमजानन्तः श्रुत्वाऽन्येभ्य उपासते।तेऽपि चातितरन्त्येव मृत्युं श्रुतिपरायणाः
anye tv evam ajānantaḥ śhrutvānyebhya upāsate te ’pi chātitaranty eva mṛityuṁ śhruti-parāyaṇāḥ
Others, who do not know this, worship after hearing it from others. They too, devoted to what they hear, cross beyond death.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
n the most widely shared reading, this verse names one more kind of seeker, after the earlier verse described those who reach the Self by meditation, by analytic knowledge, and by the path of action. These 'others' do not know the Self by any of those methods on their own. They are the duller or weaker aspirants, those who lack the skill in reasoning or the power to inquire for themselves. What they do instead is simple: they listen. They hear the truth of the Self from others, from compassionate teachers and trusted scriptures, and they take it on faith.
Braided from 10 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas · Vedānta Deśika
What these listeners then do with what they have heard is worship: they contemplate or meditate on the Self exactly as it was taught to them. Several commentators stress that this is not a casual hearing but a wholehearted, sustained holding of the teaching. They are 'devoted to hearing' (shruti-parayana), meaning that the act of listening itself, plus firm faith in what was heard, is their chief and supreme means; they do not have an independent power of knowing, so the teacher's instruction is the very ground they stand on.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
The verse's promise is that these faithful hearers 'too' cross over death, that is, the whole round of birth and death, samsara. The little word 'too' carries real weight: if even those who cannot inquire for themselves cross over by faithful listening, then it goes without saying that those who are able to inquire and discern cross over as well. Faith in what is heard is therefore not a second-rate substitute for knowledge. In the Lord's own reckoning, the path of trusting what is heard from a reliable source is by itself enough to carry a person beyond death.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas · Vedānta Deśika
This whole verse is offered as the cause or ground of an earlier claim, that knowing the oneness of the field-knower and the Lord is the means to the deathless. By listing several different routes, including this easiest one of faithful hearing, the teaching shows that there are paths suited to every temperament and capacity. Whichever path one follows, the end is the same: the knowledge of the Self, freedom from ignorance and its effects, and final release from birth and death.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators read the verse as describing the duller seeker who, lacking the discernment to know the Self directly, relies wholly on hearing the teaching from a teacher and crossing death by faith. They locate this within the larger Advaita point that the knowledge of the oneness of the field-knower (the Self) and the Lord is what liberates: there are no creatures apart from that one supreme Self, so liberation comes from the knowledge of oneness alone, and the field-and-field-knower connection is finally a superimposition to be removed by discriminative knowledge. One source within this group adds a subtle epistemological point of its own: such faith-born realization, contemplating the 'thou' as if it were the lustre of the 'that', may even begin as a 'truth-corresponding error' (samvadi-bhrama), like mistaking a gem's glow for the gem yet reaching the real gem when you grasp it; even so, at the moment of realization the true cognition of the non-different Self genuinely arises.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Ānandagiri
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Within this school the two sources read two different lines. One takes the verse at hand as naming a distinct fourth class of seekers, those who do not know directly but who, by faithful hearing and obedient worship, are pledged to cross death; the lesson is that a candidate need not begin with direct knowing, since faithful hearing and worship are themselves valid means. The other source comments instead on the line that whatever being, moving or unmoving, comes to be, comes to be only from the mutual conjunction of the field and the field-knower joined together, never the one apart from the other.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Bhakti
Here too the sources fall on two lines. One reads the verse as honoring the path of hearing-based worship (shravana-upasana) as itself a form of devotion to the Lord, a slow but sure crossing for the very dull aspirant who hears of Him from teachers and then meditates on Him. The others comment on the line that whatever creature, lower or higher, moving or unmoving, is born, arises from the union of the field and the knower of the field. One develops this with vivid images: as waves arise when water meets wind, as mirage-floods arise when sun-rays meet the heated plain, as plants sprout when rain soaks the earth, so the whole universe of names and forms arises from the union of field and field-knower, and is therefore not distinct from the field-knower and primeval matter. Another frames it theistically: nature and the living being are conjoined from beginningless time, and the Lord, regulating both, sets them in motion, so that creatures are produced from their union.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar
Dvaita
This source is concerned to correct how an earlier verse's terms are read. It argues that 'Sankhya' here should not be taken as the discriminative knowledge of nature and spirit taught in Kapila's system, because that system is non-Vedic and cannot be the chief means in the vision of the Lord; rather 'Sankhya' should mean knowledge, specifically mediate knowledge. It clarifies that meditation and the rest are not, taken alone, the means to the vision of the Lord; the vision is to be attained by those who also perform works, and the ascending means (meditation and so on) are stated for seekers of different stages, including those incapable of the direct vision.
Śrī Jayatīrtha
Śuddhādvaita
These commentators read the verse as describing the most weakly qualified seekers, who hear from the knowers of truth and then contemplate the Self, and so by the Self-vision cross death, being faithful to the scripture and the teaching-line. They underline that the path of hearing-based worship is not refused, but works only when the hearer is genuinely faithful to scripture and the line of teaching, not by his own private contrivance. One adds a striking devotional note in the Lord's voice: for the sake of the truthfulness of his own word, the Lord rescues even these weakest ones, drawing them across, not by mere fondness; this is what the words 'too' and 'indeed' are meant to signal.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Modern
Among the modern voices, two read the faithful-hearing verse: one stresses that there are several paths to suit aspirants of different temperaments, and that those who listen to a teacher or study the books of realized seers with unshakable faith and live by them also overcome death and reach final liberation; the other offers the verse as a great solace to the seeker who feels his own intellect inadequate to meditation or analysis, insisting that faith (shraddha) is not a poor cousin of knowledge, for in the Lord's reckoning the person of faith also crosses death. A third modern voice comments instead on the other line, that whatever movable or immovable thing is created comes into existence from the union of the body and the Self.
Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If I cannot reason my way to the Self and can only trust what my teacher and the scriptures tell me, is that really enough to free me, or am I settling for a lesser, second-class path?
It is genuinely enough. The verse deliberately names the seeker who does not know the Self by meditation, analysis, or action, but only hears it from others and worships in faith, and it pledges that these hearers 'too' cross over death. That little word 'too' is doing real work: it tells you that faithful hearing belongs in the same company as the harder paths, not below them.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Vedānta Deśika · Swami Sivananda
What makes it work is not raw cleverness but the quality of your trust. The teaching calls such a person shruti-parayana, one for whom faithful listening is the supreme means; firm faith in what is heard from a reliable teacher and from scripture is itself the ground on which liberation stands. The one condition the commentators stress is that the faith be wholehearted and loyal to the genuine teaching-line, not a matter of your own private invention.
Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī
And the destination is the same. Whichever path suits your temperament, it ends in the knowledge of the Self and release from birth and death; faith is not a poor cousin of knowledge but, in the Lord's reckoning, a way that carries the person across just as surely.
Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Contemplation
If you have ever felt that your mind is too restless for meditation and too untrained for fine philosophical analysis, this verse is meant as a direct comfort to you. The path it points to asks only one thing of you: to hear the truth from a source you trust, a true teacher, a realized soul, the scriptures, and then to hold firmly to what you have heard, contemplating it again and again in faith. You do not have to manufacture insight by force of intellect. Faith is not a lesser substitute for knowledge here; in the Lord's own accounting, the one who simply trusts and holds fast also crosses over death. So let the inadequacy you feel become permission to lean fully on what you have been given, and to keep returning to it with a quiet, steady heart.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
Pull up a chair.
You have come to sit with this verse. When you are ready to hear the translators and the commentators in full, tap a name in The seating.