Chapter 15 · Verse 4·Spoken by Arjuna
ततः पदं तत्परिमार्गितव्य यस्मिन्गता न निवर्तन्ति भूयः।तमेव चाद्यं पुरुषं प्रपद्ये यतः प्रवृत्तिः प्रसृता पुराणी
tataḥ padaṁ tat parimārgitavyaṁ yasmin gatā na nivartanti bhūyaḥ tam eva chādyaṁ puruṣhaṁ prapadye yataḥ pravṛittiḥ prasṛitā purāṇī
Then that state must be sought, the place from which, once reached, there is no return. I take refuge in that primal Person, from whom the ancient unfolding has streamed forth.
Word by Word
Saved for this reading session
Three movements · tap a label to switch
Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
Audio from the Gītā Supersite, IIT Kanpur
Synthesis · a glossed leaf
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
his verse names the next step after the great tree of worldly existence has been cut. Verse 3 spoke of severing the deep-rooted ashvattha, the upside-down tree that stands for samsara, the round of birth and death. Now the seeker is told what to do once the cutting begins: that supreme station, that 'pada,' is to be sought out. The Sanskrit 'parimargitavyam' means to be searched for, inquired after, tracked down. Several commentators stress that this is not a casual glance but a disciplined inquiry. The station is to be sought through inquiry into the Vedanta sentences, by hearing, reflecting, and contemplating, and by the reasoned conviction 'I am Brahman.' The cutting of the tree and the seeking of the supreme are not two separate jobs but one continuous movement.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Vedānta Deśika · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
What marks this station out is that it is the place of no return. 'Yasmin gata na nivartanti bhuyah': those who have gone there, having entered it, do not come back again into the round of birth and death. This is the defining sign of the goal. The commentators agree that 'going' here means entering by knowledge or realization, not bodily travel, and that 'no return' means final release from transmigration. One source gives the image of water-drops that, once merged into the ocean, can never again be separated out; once the part has reached its whole, it can never fall back into samsara.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Ramsukhdas
The single positive means for reaching this station is taking refuge in the supreme Person. The verse says 'tam eva ca adyam purusham prapadye,' I take refuge in that very first, primal Purusha. 'Adya' means first, original, the one who was at the beginning; 'purusha' is the supreme Person. The commentators unfold the word 'purusha' in two complementary ways: he who fills (or is full of) the whole world, and he who lies in the 'puri,' the city of the body. Above all, refuge, surrender, throwing oneself upon this Lord is named as the way the station is to be sought. The cutting of the tree and the seeking of its root are completed not by neutral inquiry alone but by 'prapatti,' self-surrender, single-minded devotion to that same Person who is the root of the whole tree.
Braided from 10 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Vedānta Deśika · Madhvācārya · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
This first Person is identified as the source from which all activity has streamed forth. 'Yatah pravrittih prasrita purani': from whom the ancient, age-old activity (pravritti) has spread out, has issued. Most commentators read this 'pravritti' as the activity of samsara, the streaming-out of the world of action, which several compare to the illusory display (maya) of a magician or juggler who produces elephants, horses, and the like that have no real substance. The point is that the very Person in whom one takes refuge is the origin of the whole moving world; the seeker is drawn back along that very stream to its source. Some commentators ground 'purani,' ancient, in the scriptural word of the one who 'desired, may I be many,' so that the world's outflowing activity traces to the Lord's original creative wish.
Braided from 10 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
On this reading the station to be sought is the supreme step of Vishnu, identical with Brahman, reached purely by knowledge. 'Going' and 'entering' mean entering by knowledge, and the inquiry is the Vedantic investigation, hearing, reflection, contemplation, and the conviction 'I am Brahman.' The outflowing 'ancient activity' is the maya of samsara, likened to the illusion of a juggler, which has no ultimate reality. One source adds that beyond mere detachment and non-conceptual absorption one must still seek and know the scripture-revealed Brahman; the same source notes that the first-person 'I take refuge' may be the Lord's own word spoken to instruct the world, much as the Lord elsewhere says he too is engaged in action.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Here the verse opens the discipline that follows the cutting of the tree. The station of non-return is to be sought, and the candidate's positive movement after the tree-cutting is the taking of refuge in the supreme. The original Person is read as the real source of all activity, in whom one takes refuge; the accent falls on the seeker's forward, devotional step toward the supreme rather than on resolving the world into illusion.
Vedānta Deśika
Dvaita
On this reading the verse enjoins taking refuge in the Lord alone as the indispensable means, and the supporting scripture says that taking refuge in him one neither grieves nor rejoices, is neither born nor dies; that Brahman is the root, and one who would cut the tree should take refuge in him. There is no refuge other than the Lord. One source works carefully through the grammar: the first-person 'I take refuge' is read, on the authority that 'substitution is manifold' and with scriptural and traditional assent, as an injunction, 'let him take refuge.' The reasoning runs that one who wishes to undertake the consideration of the universe, from which knowledge of Brahman is to arise, must first take refuge in the very Person who is the root of the universe; for, beheld by Narayana who is made gracious by that refuge, the person becomes awakened and so capable of that consideration. A separate text is cited: 'seen by Narayana, the person becomes awakened.'
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Śuddhādvaita
On this reading the single positive means set down even at the chapter's hinge, where the cutting-out is taught, is 'prapatti,' the throwing of oneself upon the same Lord who is the root of the tree; the cutting and the surrender are not two acts but one. One source reads the outflowing 'pravritti' specifically as the bhakti-current: from the Purushottama the devotion-natured activity, the following-after-the-Lord, has spread through the world, and the devotee is drawn back along that very channel of devotion to its source. On this view the seeking of the station is not an outward search for a far-off place but a deliberating that is itself drawn forward by the Lord's own devotional current to its spring.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Bhakti
On this reading the station beyond samsara, the very root of the inverted tree, is approached not by neutral inquiry but by surrender (saranagati) and single-minded devotion (ekanta-bhakti) to the Adi-Purusha already named as the tree's root; the cutting of the tree and the seeking of its root are one continuous act of devotion ripened by discernment. One source, in a long meditative passage, describes the realized Self as self-same and beyond all 'this or that,' warns against the duality of treating a mirror-reflection as a second self, and gives many images for non-dual self-viewing: spring-water resting in itself with no well dug, a reflected disc sinking back into the original when the water dries, the small space in a pot merging into the great sky when the pot breaks, fire going out into itself when the fuel is spent; it adds that only those wholly saturated with knowledge, who vow to reach the place and not return, attain it.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar
Modern
The modern commentators read the verse in distinct keys. One stresses that the 'detachment' of the previous verse means dispassion, aversion to sense-objects, and warns that one dare not play with the senses with impunity. One reads the verse as describing the inner conviction (bhavana) a person should hold while cutting the tree of action: 'I am now going to that primordial Purusha from whom this ancient activity arose,' and argues at length, on grammatical grounds, that the first-person 'prapadye' must carry an implied 'iti,' a quoted thought, not a third-person injunction. One presents the goal devotionally as the immortal abode of Vishnu, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss, reached by single-minded devotion and refuge in the Primeval Purusha. One, non-sectarian and devotional, makes the strongest claim that the supreme is already one's own: the soul is the part (amsha) of the supreme, the supreme is full everywhere and ever-present, so 'search' here is not using a special technique to discover what is far off but ceasing to take shelter in body, family, and wealth that were never one's own and taking shelter instead in the supreme who has always been one's own and is right now; the supreme comes by grace, not as the fruit of any action, since a beginningless reality cannot be the fruit of an action that begins and ends.
Mahatma Gandhi · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If the supreme is already my own and present everywhere, what does it mean to 'search' for it, and why is taking refuge needed at all?
The 'search' in this verse is not a hunt for something absent or far away. One commentator is explicit: the supreme is the soul's own whole, of which it is the part, and it is full everywhere and ever-present from the very beginning, so it is only to be looked for, not produced. Searching applies to what already exists. What blocks the experience is not distance but a mistaken shelter, the imagined bond with the world, body, and possessions; remove that bond and the ever-present reality comes into experience and its memory reawakens.
Swami Ramsukhdas
This is also why refuge, not technique, is the means. The supreme cannot be the fruit of any action, however excellent, because an action that begins and ends can only yield a result that begins and ends, while the supreme is beginningless and eternal; it comes by grace. Taking refuge is exactly the turning away from every false shelter to the one true shelter, giving back the sense of 'mine' over body, mind, and wealth. The verse's own word 'prapadye,' I take refuge, names this surrender as the single positive means, and the 'eva,' only, makes plain that every other shelter is to be left and the Lord alone taken.
Swami Ramsukhdas · Vallabhācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Seen this way, the cutting of the tree and the seeking of the station are one act, not two. Severing the deep-rooted ashvattha of worldly existence and surrendering to the Person who is its very root are the same continuous movement; the seeker is drawn back along the stream of the world's own activity to its source. So 'searching' and 'taking refuge' are not in tension: to cease clinging to what is unreal and to throw oneself upon the supreme are the inward and the outward face of the same turning.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Contemplation
If you have ever felt that the supreme is something you must travel far to find, this verse gently turns you around. The supreme is already your own, present in every place, time, and circumstance, right now, in you. What stands in the way is only the imagined bond with the world, the body, the family, and the wealth that were never truly yours and never will be. So the practice is not to manufacture a new state by some special technique, but to keep withdrawing your sense of 'mine' from all of that and to take shelter instead in the One who has always been your own. Do your spiritual practice diligently, for there is no greater work; but do not think the supreme will be the prize you earn by it, because that quietly feeds pride, and pride is the chief obstacle. Practice has one real job: to dissolve the false bonds you yourself set up. The supreme comes by grace. Even the strength to break those bonds comes by grace, when you set yourself to it with sincere longing. So never despair. When every effort of your own has failed to remove your faults and you finally surrender to the Lord alone, his grace surely does what your strength could not. To take refuge is simply to hand over body, senses, mind, and possessions and to rest in the quiet conviction, 'I am his alone.'
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.