Chapter 4 · Verse 42·Spoken by Krishna
तस्मादज्ञानसंभूतं हृत्स्थं ज्ञानासिनाऽऽत्मनः। छित्त्वैनं संशयं योगमातिष्ठोत्तिष्ठ भारत
tasmād ajñāna-sambhūtaṁ hṛit-sthaṁ jñānāsinātmanaḥ chhittvainaṁ sanśhayaṁ yogam ātiṣhṭhottiṣhṭha bhārata
So with the sword of knowledge cut away this doubt in your heart, born of ignorance. Take refuge in yoga. Arise, Arjuna.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
rishna draws the whole chapter to a close with a single command. The doubt that is troubling Arjuna is born of ajnana, ignorance, meaning a failure of viveka, the power to discriminate or see things rightly. This doubt sits in the heart, which the commentators read as the intellect or understanding (buddhi). Krishna tells Arjuna to cut it away. The 'therefore' (tasmat) ties this instruction back to what came just before: since knowledge has the power to burn away the binding force of action and dissolve all doubt, Arjuna should now apply that knowledge to his own case.
Braided from 15 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
The instrument for cutting the doubt is named precisely: the sword of knowledge (jnana-asi). Doubt cannot be wished away or simply waited out. It must be severed, decisively, by knowledge of the Self. Several commentators stress how grave this doubt is, calling it the worst of evils, the root of all calamity, the cause of one's own ruin. A person stuck in doubt perishes, while the one whose doubt has been cut by knowledge is no longer bound. This is why Krishna does not minimize the doubt but tells Arjuna to kill it ruthlessly and completely, leaving not a grain behind.
Braided from 15 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
Having cut the doubt, Arjuna is told to take his stand on yoga, which the commentators consistently identify as karma-yoga, the path of desireless action that is the means to right knowledge of the Self. Cutting doubt is not the end; it clears the way to act. Knowledge removes the obstruction, and then action, performed without craving for its fruit, becomes the means by which the Self is finally seen. So the verse joins the two together: knowledge severs the doubt, and yoga is the standing-ground from which one then lives and acts.
Braided from 15 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
The verse ends with a concrete, immediate call: rise up and fight. The battle is supplied as the object of 'rise.' Krishna addresses Arjuna as 'Bharata,' and the commentators read this address as deliberate. Born in the great line of Bharata, of the warrior caste, Arjuna's very nature (kshatratva) makes battle his own dharma (svadharma); to turn away from the fight now standing before him would be unfitting for one of that lineage. Some add that the lineage also marks his fitness for liberation. The teaching is therefore not abstract: the recovered yoga is to be enacted by this man, on this field, in the very act of standing up for the duty that is his.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Ramsukhdas
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators dwell on a fine point about why the verse calls the doubt 'one's own' (atmanah). Their answer is that the doubt is about the Self and rests in the Self, and so must be cut by a knowledge that also rests in the same Self. They draw a contrast: a doubt about an external object, like mistaking a post for a man, can be removed by another person's knowledge; but a doubt whose very object is your own Self can only be cut by your own self-knowledge. Hence the qualification is purposeful, not redundant. One source notes the doubt is mentioned as seated both in the heart and in the intellect, that is, in both the locus and the instrument, which is why it can be slain with ease once the right sword is applied. For this school the chapter's grand conclusion is that, for the one free of doubt, knowledge-establishment is chief and action-establishment subordinate.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
These commentators keep the emphasis personal and devotional. The doubt is born of beginningless ignorance and concerns the self; the sword is the self-knowledge that Krishna himself has taught, and the yoga is the discipline of action that he himself has taught. One source reads 'maya' in the verse as pointing to the all-knowing compassion of the speaker, that is, of Krishna, so the teaching and the means both flow from the Lord's grace. Rising up is rising for one's own dharma in the form of battle, which is itself how karma-yoga arises in practice.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Śuddhādvaita
Here the doubt that is cut is specifically doubt about the Lord's own word, a mistrust of what Krishna has said. And the sword is not abstract gnosis but knowledge of the Lord's own form, given by his grace through the guru. With that doubt cut, the disciple does not merely speculate; he rises into the yoga whose very self is Bhagavan, the yoga of attainment to the Lord through loving service in the pushti (grace) mode. Action done under the Lord's command and for his sake carries no further bondage, and the seeker stands ready on this very battlefield to act as the Lord wills. One source adds that this cutting is to be done by the discriminating intelligence (the 'buddhi of sankhya'), severing a doubt that does not truly belong to the Self.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Bhakti
This group reads the verse as the climactic chord of the whole chapter. One source notes that the sword is the knowledge of discrimination between the body and the Self (deha-atma-viveka), placed by the avatara into the disciple's own hand; the lineage of yoga that came down from Vivasvat now reaches this one Pandava on this one field, and the lost yoga is recovered now, by him, in the act of rising. On the relation of knowledge and action, this school holds that knowledge is here commended as superior, yet action alone is the means to that knowledge. One source gives a vivid image: action and knowledge are like grain, where knowledge is the more excellent substance-part as rice is more excellent than the husk, but the husk-part of action is still what carries one to it.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar
Modern
These commentators read the closing as a deliberate fusion of knowledge and action rather than a choice between them. One source argues that, just as scripture elsewhere directs one to act without giving up either knowledge or its complement, the Gita here advises Arjuna to perform action with the joint help of knowledge and yoga: knowledge removes mental confusion and brings release, while action, though not itself necessary for release, cannot be escaped and is needed for the welfare of all; therefore one should rely on neither alone but on both, and fight. The other source locates Arjuna's actual doubt very concretely: how can my welfare come through the terrible work of war, and should I take up action or renunciation? He reads 'yoga' here as samata, evenness of mind (as in 'samatvam yoga uchyate'), so Krishna is telling Arjuna to rise and fight while standing in evenness, since to one who acts in evenness no sin attaches. For this source all doubt springs from ajnana, which is the basic error of taking actions and objects as one's own and for oneself; the whole cure is the vidya of doing karma, namely, to do nothing for yourself.
Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If knowledge alone is supposed to free me, why does Krishna end the chapter by ordering Arjuna back into action, and into a battle at that?
Because in this verse cutting the doubt and acting are not rivals but two moments of one movement. Knowledge of the Self is the sword that severs the doubt, and once the doubt is gone, yoga, the path of desireless action, is the very ground you then stand on. Knowledge removes the obstruction; action without craving is how you live from that clarity and how the Self comes to be fully seen.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Vedānta Deśika
The closing is best read as a fusion rather than a choice. Knowledge is what removes mental confusion and leads to release; action, though not itself the cause of release, cannot be avoided and is needed for the good of all. So the counsel is to rely on neither alone but on both together, and to rise and act.
Lokmanya Tilak · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva
And the action is not arbitrary violence but your own dharma. Krishna calls Arjuna 'Bharata' precisely to remind him that his nature and lineage make this battle his rightful duty; to turn from it now would be a betrayal of who he is. The deeper point is that the doubt is cured not by withdrawing from action but by acting in evenness of mind, doing the duty in front of you without doing it for yourself, since to one who acts in such evenness no sin attaches.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Dhanapati Sūri · Swami Ramsukhdas · Vedānta Deśika
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