Chapter 18 · Verse 70·Spoken by Krishna
अध्येष्यते च य इमं धर्म्यं संवादमावयोः।ज्ञानयज्ञेन तेनाहमिष्टः स्यामिति मे मतिः
adhyeṣhyate cha ya imaṁ dharmyaṁ saṁvādam āvayoḥ jñāna-yajñena tenāham iṣhṭaḥ syām iti me matiḥ
And whoever studies this sacred dialogue of ours worships me through the sacrifice of knowledge. This is my conviction.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
n the previous verse Krishna promised a reward to the teacher who passes the Gita on. Here he turns to the other person in that chain and names the reward for the one who studies or recites it. The word he uses, 'adhyeshyate', means to study, to recite, to go over the text; the commentators describe this as repetition or japa, going through the dialogue verbally rather than only thinking about it. The conversation is called 'dharmya', a dialogue that does not depart from dharma, that is joined to dharma and even produces dharma. So the verse is a blessing on the simple act of reciting the Gita.
Braided from 11 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Ramsukhdas · Dhanapati Sūri · Vallabhācārya
The heart of the verse is that such study counts as a 'jnana-yajna', a sacrifice of knowledge. A yajna is a sacrificial offering to God; the Gita is calling the recitation of its own words an act of worship. Krishna says that by this knowledge-sacrifice he will have been worshipped. Several commentators add that the knowledge-sacrifice is the highest kind of sacrifice. They classify sacrifices into kinds, the ritual, the muttered, the whispered, and the mental, and place the knowledge-sacrifice in the mental class, which is the most distinguished. This echoes Krishna's own earlier statement, quoted by the commentators, that the knowledge-sacrifice is better than the sacrifice made of material substance.
Braided from 13 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas · Dhanapati Sūri · Sant Jñāneśvar · Lokmanya Tilak
The verse closes with the words 'iti me matih', 'such is my conviction', 'this is my view'. The commentators stress that these words carry weight. Krishna is not loosely praising the Gita; he is stating his own settled judgment, his own valuation. Because the Lord himself fastens this estimate to the recitation, the verse is read as a real declaration of fruit and not merely flattering praise of the scripture. What God himself counts as worship of God is worship indeed.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Vedānta Deśika · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Ramsukhdas · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A striking point that many commentators draw out is that the fruit is promised even to one who recites without grasping the meaning. They reason that when a person recites the Gita, the Lord, hearing it, feels 'this one makes me known, this one calls on me', and so draws near. Sridhara compares it to hearing your own name in a crowd: another person happens to utter it, and you turn and come toward them. He grounds this in the cases of Ajamila and others in the Bhagavata who were saved by an accidental utterance of the divine Name. So even the unschooled recitation is welcomed. The one who recites with understanding gains liberation directly through the purity and knowledge it brings; but even the one who merely recites gains the fruit of the knowledge-sacrifice. The Gita, as one image puts it, is a mother who makes no distinction between a knowing child and an infant.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar · Vallabhācārya
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators raise and settle a technical question: is the verse merely praising the Gita (arthavada), or is it a genuine injunction that promises a real fruit? They conclude it is a real fruit-statement. The reasoning is that the recitation has a fruit equal to the fruit of a knowledge-sacrifice directed at a deity, namely liberation. One develops this as the fruit of aloneness or being the Self of all deities. One frames the knowledge-sacrifice as non-conceptual absorption that pleases the Lord like an abundant rain of dharma. The point is that the verse delivers a concrete soteriological result, not a compliment.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Bhakti
This stream reads the verse as the opening of a bhakti, or devotional, understanding of Gita-recitation. The decisive move is the Lord's nearness: hearing the recitation, the Lord feels called by name and comes close, as he was pleased by Ajamila and others through a mere uttering of the Name in the Bhagavata accounts. Recitation is thus an act that draws the Lord's grace and presence, and the same fruit the learned win by study is secured by the one who simply repeats the text, since the Gita as mother makes no distinction between the knowing and the unknowing child.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar
Śuddhādvaita
For this school the verse is a standing assurance to the simple devotee. Even one who does not know the meaning, by the very recital, receives the fruit, and the Lord welcomes even the unschooled recitation as a knowledge-sacrifice. One adds that by this recitation the reciter becomes the Lord's beloved, and that Krishna's calling it 'my own mind' shows both that the recitation is necessary and that the Lord's own grace is needed for it to be performed. So the act and the grace meet.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Modern
This reading renders 'adhyeshyate' as 'meditates on', stressing inward, reflective dwelling on the dialogue rather than only verbal repetition. On this rendering the one who meditates on the Gita is reckoned by the Lord as having worshipped him by a sacrifice of knowledge.
Lokmanya Tilak
A Seeker Asks
How can simply reciting words I may not even understand count as true worship, rather than empty ritual repetition?
The verse forestalls exactly this worry by having Krishna himself name what the recitation counts as: a knowledge-sacrifice, the highest kind of offering, classed among the mental sacrifices that the Gita earlier ranked above material ones. So it is not your assessment of the act but the Lord's that decides its worth, and he closes with 'this is my conviction' to make that valuation his own.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
The recitation is not empty because of what it does at the Lord's end, not only yours. When you recite, the Lord hears it as being called by name and draws near, just as he came to Ajamila and others who uttered the Name almost by chance. The relationship is begun from his side in response to your voice, so even an imperfect recitation is met.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Sant Jñāneśvar
Understanding is not wasted; it simply is not the entry fee. The one who recites with comprehension reaches liberation directly through the purity and knowledge that ripen in him, while the one who only recites still gains the fruit of the knowledge-sacrifice. The Gita is likened to a mother who does not distinguish between the knowing child and the infant, so beginning without full understanding is a true beginning, not a counterfeit one.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Sant Jñāneśvar · Vallabhācārya
Contemplation
Take the recitation of the Gita lightly in this sense: you do not have to first master its meaning before it can reach God. When you recite it, the Lord hears you the way a person hears their own name spoken in a crowd. They turn, and they come toward the one who spoke it. Sridhara reminds us that the Lord was pleased by Ajamila and others who uttered the Name almost by accident. So begin where you are. Read the dialogue aloud, repeat it, let the words pass through you even before you understand them all. The understanding will deepen with time, but the nearness is offered now, to the unschooled reciter as fully as to the scholar, because what you are doing, in the Lord's own reckoning, is calling on him.
Sit with this · Śrīdhara Svāmī
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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.