Chapter 6 · Verse 39·Spoken by Arjuna
एतन्मे संशयं कृष्ण छेत्तुमर्हस्यशेषतः। त्वदन्यः संशयस्यास्य छेत्ता न ह्युपपद्यते
etan me sanśhayaṁ kṛiṣhṇa chhettum arhasyaśheṣhataḥ tvad-anyaḥ sanśhayasyāsya chhettā na hyupapadyate
Krishna, you should clear away this doubt of mine completely. No one but you can dispel it.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
rjuna here turns directly to Krishna and begs him to settle the doubt he just raised. That doubt is the question of the previous verses: what happens to the person who set out on the yoga path but fell away before completing it. Arjuna asks Krishna to cut this doubt 'wholly,' without remainder. Several commentators stress that 'without remainder' means pulling the doubt up by its root, not just answering the surface question but removing the very ground from which the doubt grows.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrī Puruṣottama
The reason Arjuna gives is that no one but Krishna is fit to cut this doubt. An ordinary teacher, a sage (rishi or muni), or even a god (deva) cannot do it, because each of them is limited in knowledge. The doubt concerns the destiny of a soul after death, the path it travels, and this lies beyond what any limited knower can see. So the question can only be answered by one who is all-knowing.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Krishna is fit precisely because he is omniscient: he is the supreme Lord who sees all things directly, all at once, at all times. Where another knower must reason or infer, Krishna sees. This is why he, and he alone, can give the right and final answer. Several commentators add that he is also the supreme teacher and the compassionate one, the very maker and source of scripture, so the authority to settle a scriptural-spiritual question rests with him.
Braided from 7 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Arjuna's words therefore confess that Krishna is his only refuge for this question. The doubt is not a small puzzle of scriptural interpretation, which a learned man could clear up; it is a matter that exceeds all lesser teachers, so Arjuna throws himself wholly on Krishna. The very name 'Krishna,' the one who attracts, underlines this turning toward him as the sole resort.
Dhanapati Sūri · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Ramsukhdas
Divergence
Modern
This source draws a careful line between two kinds of knowers to show why only Krishna suffices. A learned man can untie a knotty passage of scripture, but he cannot tell the fate of the yoga-fallen soul. Even an accomplished yogi falls short: he is a 'practiced' yogi (yunjana yogi), one who became a yogi by effort, so his knowing reaches only as far as his practice has carried it, and he cannot know the going and coming of all beings. Krishna is the 'perfected' yogi (yukta yogi), all-knowing everywhere without any effort or practice, the very Lord in person. So he alone can answer.
Swami Ramsukhdas
Śuddhādvaita
This source frames the whole exchange around personal dependence on the Lord. The doubt arose in a heart already bound to Krishna's word, so it can be undone only by that same word; faith in his word, working as ordered reasoned instruction, is what cuts the doubt and all its branches. When an objection is raised that one might instead approach gurus or devotees to settle it, the answer is that for one whose sole resting place is Krishna's word, no other cutter exists at all. The point is read as scripture teaching personal dependence on Bhagavan.
Śrī Puruṣottama
Bhakti
These devotional sources note a small grammatical point and let the devotional tone carry. The verse's neuter 'etat' (this) stands for the masculine 'enam' (this doubt, or him), an archaism of the ancient seers; with that settled, the rest is plain. The emphasis falls on Arjuna's quiet, heartfelt insistence that the Lord, the all-knower, is the only physician for this doubt.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva
Dvaita
This source offers only a brief note tied to the wording of the earlier verses, guarding against a misreading of who the 'fallen' person is: the phrase should not be taken to mean someone outside the fourth order of life, but is glossed by 'one who does not strive.' It does not develop a separate reading of this verse's main claim.
Śrī Jayatīrtha
A Seeker Asks
If only an omniscient Lord can answer the question of a soul's fate after death, what use is this verse to a seeker today who has no Krishna standing in front of them?
The verse is not chiefly about a teacher physically present; it is about the kind of question being asked and where its answer can come from. Arjuna's doubt concerns what no limited knower can see, the destiny of a soul after death, so the verse teaches the seeker to recognize that some questions exceed every human authority and require the one who sees all things directly.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya
Its lasting use is the model of complete surrender it shows. Arjuna does not shop among sages and gods; he turns wholly to the Lord as his only refuge and asks for the doubt to be cut to the root. The seeker today inherits both that posture and its fruit: Krishna's actual answer follows in the verses that come next, so the verse hands the reader straight into the teaching that resolves the doubt.
Dhanapati Sūri · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Ramsukhdas
And the verse marks the practical boundary every seeker still needs. A learned person can clear up a difficult passage, and for that you rightly go to such a person; but for the deepest question of your own spiritual fate, you must turn to the all-knowing Lord, not to any limited knower, however accomplished.
Swami Ramsukhdas · Swami Sivananda
Contemplation
When a real question about your own spiritual fate weighs on you, notice first what kind of help it actually needs. Some doubts are like a hard line in a book: a knowledgeable person can untie them, and you should go to such a person. But the deepest doubt, about where your striving finally leads, about the going and coming of the soul, no merely learned man and not even an accomplished practitioner can fully settle, because their knowing reaches only as far as their own effort has carried it. For that doubt, turn, as Arjuna does, to the one who knows all beings everywhere without effort, the Lord himself. Let your asking become that honest and that complete: lay the whole question down before him, holding nothing back, and trust that he alone can cut it to the root.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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