Chapter 7 · Verse 2·Spoken by Krishna
ज्ञानं तेऽहं सविज्ञानमिदं वक्ष्याम्यशेषतः। यज्ज्ञात्वा नेह भूयोऽन्यज्ज्ञातव्यमवशिष्यते
jñānaṁ te ’haṁ sa-vijñānam idaṁ vakṣhyāmyaśheṣhataḥ yaj jñātvā neha bhūyo ’nyaj jñātavyam-avaśhiṣhyate
I will tell you this knowledge in full, together with realization. Once you know it, nothing else here remains to be known.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
rishna is making a deliberate promise here, and the commentators agree he frames it grandly on purpose. He says he himself will declare this knowledge to Arjuna in full, holding nothing back. Several note that he praises the knowledge precisely to draw the listener in: by announcing how rare and complete it is, he makes Arjuna attentive, eager, and ready to receive it with care. The promise is not a casual aside but the load-bearing pledge of the chapter, telling the seeker that what follows is sufficient in itself and needs no supplement from elsewhere.
Braided from 13 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
The verse names two things, jnana and vijnana, and the commentators broadly read them as a pair: jnana is knowledge taught in words, the teaching as it stands in scripture, while vijnana is direct experience or realization that accompanies and confirms it. The distinction matters because the commentators raise a worry: if Krishna merely says 'you will know,' the knowledge might be only secondhand, mediate, known from words alone. Adding vijnana answers that worry. The teaching is meant to ripen into immediate, inward seeing, not to remain mere hearsay; one commentator gives the everyday example of being told 'you are the tenth' (when a counter has forgotten to count himself), where a single word can trigger immediate, direct recognition rather than borrowed report.
Braided from 17 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Madhvācārya · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
The second line carries the great claim: knowing this, nothing further remains here to be known. The commentators ground this in a famous scriptural promise (cited variously from the Upanishads) that by knowing one thing, all things are known. Knowing the supreme reality, the knower becomes, in effect, all-knowing. Many add the qualifier 'here': in this very life, on this path, nothing more is left as a goal still to be reached by knowing. So one who truly knows Krishna has, by that very knowing, accomplished his purpose.
Braided from 14 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
Because its fruit is so distinguished, this knowledge is understood to be hard to win, and the verse leads directly into Krishna's next remark about how rarely anyone attains it. The praise here is therefore not flattery but preparation: the knowledge crowns a person's whole purpose, so it cannot be casually picked up.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
For this school the knowledge is of the one non-dual reality, pure consciousness, the single substrate underlying the whole world. Vijnana is the direct, immediate experience in which the bare being that grounds everything is realized. When that one reality is known, all the imagined, separate things are cancelled and bare being alone remains; doubt is uprooted and everything is seen as the Self alone. This is why knowing the one is knowing all: there is finally only one thing to be known, and once it is realized, nothing else is left over because nothing else ultimately stands apart from it.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Here jnana is knowledge of the Lord's own nature, and vijnana is discernment of the Lord as distinct, knowing how he differs from every conscious and unconscious thing, being the opposite of all that is to be shunned and possessing endless auspicious qualities. The claim that nothing else remains to be known is read carefully: it does not deny the many things of the world, nor say the world has become the Lord. Rather, because the Lord is the inner ground of all, to know the ground is to know the grounded in their grounding, so the knowing of the Lord exhausts the function of knowing. This pair amounts to steady remembrance, which is bhakti-yoga itself, cutting through the knot of nescience; the verse promises a consummation reached in this very body and life, not a monist absorption.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Dvaita
This school keeps the two terms sharply distinct and resists the non-dual reading. 'This knowledge' has the Lord for its object, and vijnana is knowledge of particulars. One source explicitly rejects glossing vijnana as 'joined with one's own experience' in the non-dual sense, arguing instead that the word points to what Krishna is actually about to teach about himself; the back-reference 'this' is justified because the Lord, being the matter under discussion, makes knowledge related to him the matter under discussion too.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Śuddhādvaita
Here jnana is knowledge of the Lord's greatness, and vijnana is right knowing of his variety as both conscious (cit) and unconscious (acit), with each of his glories (vibhuti) understood as a property belonging to him. One source frames the whole teaching as the knowledge of Purushottama's own form, given inclusive of his play (lila); once one knows one's essential nature together with direct experience of it, nothing remains to be known in this path of his devotion, in this land, or in this human birth, and by such knowledge alone the experience of servanthood to him is reached.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Bhedabheda
Knowledge here is the disclosure of the Lord's essential nature, declared together with direct realization of it. This source identifies the special knowledge (vijnana) with the recognition 'I am that,' holding the verse together as the unveiling of the Lord's nature, after knowing which nothing further remains in this world to be known.
Śrī Bhāskara
Bhakti
For this school jnana is the scriptural teaching about Krishna and vijnana is the accompanying direct experience, but the content is read devotionally. One source distinguishes knowledge of Krishna's majesty, which can come even before deep attachment in devotion, from the later direct realization of his sweetness; both are promised here. Another reads the knowledge as concerning Krishna's essential nature as possessor of the conscious and unconscious potencies, with vijnana being the discernment of that nature as distinct from those two potencies. Notably, one source holds that even knowledge of Krishna's impersonal Brahman-nature is included within this very knowledge, so the devotional knowing does not exclude but contains the impersonal. By this knowing the seeker on the path of the highest good becomes one whose purpose is fully accomplished.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva
Modern
These voices largely affirm the broad Vedantic reading while drawing out particular emphases. One identifies jnana as indirect knowledge of Brahman gained through study of the Upanishads and vijnana as direct Self-realization, and reads the verse as the promise of omniscience: knowing the Self, one knows everything. Another argues, on the authority of the Upanishads (the clay-ball illustration and the Mundaka question), that jnana and vijnana are the synthetic and analytical knowledge of the supreme, and insists this knowledge is offered not independently but as a means for perfecting karma-yoga taken up after one has taken shelter in the Lord. A third stresses the force of 'I myself shall declare it': Krishna, the complete supreme, teaches from his own unbroken knowledge that was never ignorant and never hidden, unlike any human teacher whose knowledge is borrowed and partial, so the teaching is given from the very root reality and leaves nothing further to be said or known.
Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
How can knowing one thing, even God, possibly mean there is nothing left to know, when the world is plainly full of countless things still unknown to me?
The claim is not that you will suddenly hold every fact about every object. It rests on a scriptural promise that by knowing one thing, all is known, and the commentators take this to mean that the supreme is the inner ground and substrate of everything else. To know the ground is to know the grounded in their grounding; the function of knowing, when turned to the source of all, is fulfilled, because nothing stands finally apart from that source.
Śrī Ānandagiri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Lokmanya Tilak · Vedānta Deśika
The qualifier 'here' is doing quiet work. The verse says nothing further remains to be known here, in this life, on this path, as a goal still to be reached. It is the end of seeking, not the end of all learning. Once the one reality is realized, the seeker has accomplished his very purpose and becomes, in effect, all-knowing; the restless search that drives a person from object to object comes to rest.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Śrī Puruṣottama
The schools differ on exactly why nothing is left over, and the difference is worth keeping in view. For the non-dual reading, the separate things were finally imagined upon one bare being, so when that being is realized they are cancelled and only it remains. For the qualified-non-dual and devotional readings, the world is real but held within the Lord as its inner ground, so knowing the Lord is knowing all without the world ceasing to be many. Either way, the verse promises completion of the knower's purpose, not a magical inventory of facts.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrīla Viśvanātha
Contemplation
Notice who is speaking. Krishna does not say a teacher will tell you about him; he says, I myself shall declare it, and I shall declare it in fullness. Every human guide first learned and only later came to know, so what they pass on is borrowed and shaped by their own small portion of understanding. Krishna's knowledge was never broken, never hidden, never preceded by ignorance. So when you come to this teaching, come trusting that it is given from the very root of reality, complete and lacking nothing. You are not being handed a fragment to piece together later. You are being told the whole, from the one who has always known it, so that knowing it, nothing essential is left for you still to seek.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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