Arjuna answers the Lord's own glory with the highest names he has.
Krishna has just told of his own splendor across the world; Arjuna turns and lays every lofty title he knows, supreme Brahman, supreme abode, supreme purifier, on the one seated beside him, and grounds the praise in the word of the seers rather than his own feeling alone.
Arjuna said: You are the supreme Brahman, the supreme abode, the supreme purifier. All the seers, and the divine sages Narada, Asita, Devala, and Vyasa, call you the eternal divine Person, the primal God, unborn and all-pervading. And you yourself tell me this.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
You have just heard Krishna describe his own splendor across the world, verse after verse of it. Now, before he asks anything further, Arjuna turns and answers what he has heard with praise, reaching for the loftiest titles he has.
The teaching
You are the supreme reality, he says, the ultimate ground of everything. You are the supreme abode, and that one word is doing two things at once: you are the radiance by which everything else becomes visible, and you are the final resting-place on which every being stands, from the highest Creator down to a blade of grass, with nothing passing beyond you. You are the supreme purifier, cleansing not merely more than ordinary holy places but at a different depth altogether. Sacred rivers and places of pilgrimage wash away particular faults; knowing you, remembering you, is read as dissolving the ignorance and the accumulated weight of past action that are the actual root from which every fault grows. You are the eternal Person, the conscious indweller, unchanging in form. You are divine and self-luminous. You are the first among the gods, their very source, and because you are that source, you are never born and never absent from anything, anywhere. And Arjuna is careful to say this is not merely his own impression: the seers themselves, he says, call you so, and in the next breath he will name them.
The doubt that rises
If he can be at once the supreme, formless reality and the all-pervading Person seated right here beside me, which is he actually: the Absolute beyond every form, or the personal Lord I can see and speak to?
Where the paths divide
A brief, confirming gloss rather than a fully argued position, on the surviving record for this verse.
Shankara's surviving comment here moves through the titles in order, naming each as belonging to the supreme Self: supreme Brahman, supreme home and light, supreme purifier, eternal Person, divine, first God, unborn, all-pervading. What is not present in this particular fragment is the sharper technical line, familiar from his writing elsewhere, distinguishing the attributeless Absolute from the qualified Brahman that is meditated upon. Read honestly, this is affirmation more than argument.
For the Lord in his own personal form, on a chain of scriptural citation and his own earlier word.
Ramanuja reads every title here, param brahma included, as a name of Narayana in his personal form, never of an abstract impersonal reality. He backs each one with a citation: the supreme Brahman of the Upanishads, the supreme light beyond this one, the supreme purifier whom sin cannot cling to any more than water clings to a lotus leaf. Most decisive of all, for him, is that the Lord has already said as much himself, earlier in this very dialogue; Arjuna's closing words, and you yourself tell me this, are the final proof he leans on.
A narrow, exact philological point rather than a running gloss of the whole verse.
What survives of Madhva's comment traces two words to their roots. Brahman comes from a root meaning to grow or swell, naming the one who is wholly full and who makes others full; a cited Upanishad even asks and answers the question directly, why is he called the supreme Brahman, because he swells and enlarges others by his greatness. Vibhu, all-pervading, is derived from the Lord having become manifold by his own power. Nothing wider than this is claimed on his behalf here.
Left open for lack of available source material on this specific verse.
No commentary from this school's acaryas on this particular verse is present in the source material this file draws from. Rather than invent a reading in their name, this entry is left honestly empty; elsewhere in the chapter their voice is present and can be consulted.
Praise read as deliberate and structured, opening a longer stretch that is about to name its own witnesses.
Sridhara situates the verse as the deliberate opening of seven verses of praise, each epithet answering an implicit whence for the one before it: supreme Brahman, abode, refuge, purifier, because eternal, divine, self-luminous, first among the gods, birthless, all-pervading. He is careful to note that Arjuna stacks these names with deliberate care rather than in an unplanned rush of feeling, since the very next verse will supply the roll of sages who confirm it.
An honest account of what a thin source does and does not support.
What survives under Madhusudana's name for this verse is little more than a restatement of Arjuna's own list of titles. A modern, honest reading does not dress this brevity up as a developed argument; it simply notes that even a thin attestation still counts as assent to the verse's own claim, and leaves any fuller position to where his commentary is actually developed.
The available sources genuinely differ on how far param brahma reaches: toward an attributeless Absolute known only through scripture, or toward the personal Lord seated in front of Arjuna, confirmed by his own earlier word. And they differ, too, in how much they say at all. Ramanuja and Sridhara give full, developed readings; Shankara's surviving comment stays close to naming the titles; Madhva and Madhusudana offer only narrow fragments; and Abhinavagupta, on the record available here, offers nothing at all. Both the doctrinal question and the honest gaps in the record are left open rather than smoothed over.
A question to carry
When you reach for the highest name you know for the Divine, are you sending it toward some distant, formless elsewhere, or letting it come to rest on the presence nearest to you right now?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
Notice that Arjuna does not reach for a far-off God when his highest words are ready. He aims them at the one seated beside him. Let the highest names you have ever learned for the Divine settle, quietly, on what is nearest to you.
Each school is voiced from the commentators named above. Their full words, every translation, and where the schools agree and differ wait in the reading desk just below. Open the commentary desk.
The Lord has just finished describing his glory and power at length; this verse is Arjuna's first answer, the opening of a short stretch of praise before he asks to hear that glory told in still fuller detail.
Where they agreethe convergence
Across schools and centuries the commentators come to the same ground. These are the points they share, and the voices that hold each one.
Arjuna answers what he has just heard with adoration before he asks anything further, naming the highest titles he knows.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Arjuna has just heard Krishna describe his own glory and power at length, and this verse is his answer: not a further question yet, but praise, offered before he asks to hear that glory told in fuller detail. The commentators read this as a real turn in the dialogue, the moment adoration overtakes analysis, however briefly, before the questioning resumes.
The supreme abode is read as both light and ground at once: the radiance by which all things shine, the support on which all things rest.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
The word dhama, abode, is read as carrying two senses at once. It is the supreme light, the radiance by which everything else shines; and it is the supreme resting-place, the ground on which every being stands, from the highest Creator down to a blade of grass, with nothing passing beyond it. Both senses converge on one claim: the Lord is the final foundation and the source of all light together.
The supreme purifier cleanses at the root, where holy places cleanse only particular faults, since knowing him dissolves ignorance itself.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiRāmānuja · ŚrīdharaIn Rāmānuja and Śrīdhara’s words
Pavitra, purifier, is read as more than a matter of degree. Where sacred rivers and holy places wash away particular faults, the supreme purifier is read as cleansing at the root, since knowing or remembering the Lord dissolves the ignorance and the accumulated weight of past action that are the actual cause of all wrongdoing, not merely its visible symptoms.
Where a source is thin, as with Madhva and Madhusudana here, or missing outright, as with Abhinavagupta, the honest course is to say so rather than to invent.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The chain of further epithets, eternal Person, divine and self-luminous, first among the gods, unborn, all-pervading, is unpacked title by title rather than treated as decorative repetition. Each name is read as answering a specific question about the nature being praised: what endures, what shines, what precedes, what is never born, what is never absent.
Arjuna insists this recognition is not his alone; the seers themselves, he says, call the Lord so, and he will soon name them one by one.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiRāmānuja · ŚrīdharaIn Rāmānuja and Śrīdhara’s words
Arjuna is careful, on every reading that addresses the point, to ground this recognition outside his own private feeling: the seers say this of you, he insists, and in the second half of the verse he will name them one by one. The praise claims scriptural and sagely warrant, not merely a devotee's momentary enthusiasm.
This is the shared ground; it can be carried as it is. Below is where they differ.
Where they differthe divergence
Viśiṣṭādvaita, in their fuller words
Ramanuja reads every title here as belonging to the Lord in his personal form, Narayana, and marshals a chain of Upanishadic and epic citations to show that scripture itself, not merely devotional feeling, calls the personal Lord the supreme Brahman, the supreme light, and the supreme purifier. He treats the Lord's own earlier self-declaration in the Gita as the most decisive confirmation of all, since Arjuna explicitly says the Lord has told him this himself.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva's surviving comment is narrow and philological: he derives Brahman from a root meaning to grow or swell, the wholly full one who makes others full, and derives vibhu, all-pervading, from the Lord having become manifold by his own power. He does not, in what survives, gloss the whole verse epithet by epithet, and an honest reading keeps his contribution to this precise grammatical point rather than extending it further.
Śuddhādvaita, in their fuller words
No commentary from this school's acaryas is authored in this file's source material for this verse; this entry is left without content rather than invented.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara reads the verse as the deliberate opening of a seven-verse stretch of praise, each epithet answering an implicit whence for the one before it: supreme Brahman, abode, refuge, and purifier, because eternal, divine, self-luminous, first of the gods, birthless, all-pervading. He notes that Arjuna stacks these names with care rather than in a rush of feeling, since the very next verse supplies his roll-call of witnesses.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
The surviving fragment attributed to Madhusudana here is little more than a restatement of Arjuna's own list of titles, offered as simple assent rather than fresh argument; this file treats it honestly as thin rather than filling in a developed position he may hold elsewhere but did not, on this evidence, set out on this particular verse.
A few questions to carry
These ask for understanding, not recall; each answer is settled by the commentary itself.
For a second sitting
Carry this with youwhat stays
Notice that Arjuna does not reach for a distant, abstract God when he wants his highest words to land somewhere. He aims every lofty title, supreme Brahman, supreme light, supreme purifier, at the one seated directly in front of him. Try the same turn in your own remembrance: instead of sending your best words for the Divine out toward some imagined elsewhere, let them come to rest on whatever presence is nearest and most immediate to you right now.
Let the highest names you have ever heard for the Divine come to rest, quietly, on the presence already nearest to you.
Read deeper
Everything a full study holds, folded below.
Word by word
All the commentary, woven together
The commentary, woven together
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
rjuna has just heard Krishna describe his own glory and power at length, and this verse is his answer: not a further question yet, but praise, offered before he asks to hear that glory told in fuller detail. The commentators read this as a real turn in the dialogue, the moment adoration overtakes analysis, however briefly, before the questioning resumes.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The word dhama, abode, is read as carrying two senses at once. It is the supreme light, the radiance by which everything else shines; and it is the supreme resting-place, the ground on which every being stands, from the highest Creator down to a blade of grass, with nothing passing beyond it. Both senses converge on one claim: the Lord is the final foundation and the source of all light together.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Pavitra, purifier, is read as more than a matter of degree. Where sacred rivers and holy places wash away particular faults, the supreme purifier is read as cleansing at the root, since knowing or remembering the Lord dissolves the ignorance and the accumulated weight of past action that are the actual cause of all wrongdoing, not merely its visible symptoms.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
The chain of further epithets, eternal Person, divine and self-luminous, first among the gods, unborn, all-pervading, is unpacked title by title rather than treated as decorative repetition. Each name is read as answering a specific question about the nature being praised: what endures, what shines, what precedes, what is never born, what is never absent.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Arjuna is careful, on every reading that addresses the point, to ground this recognition outside his own private feeling: the seers say this of you, he insists, and in the second half of the verse he will name them one by one. The praise claims scriptural and sagely warrant, not merely a devotee's momentary enthusiasm.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara's surviving remark on this verse stays close to naming each title in turn, supreme Brahman, supreme Self, supreme home and light, supreme purifier, eternal eternal Person, divine, first God, unborn, all-pervading, without here elaborating the sharper technical distinction, familiar elsewhere in his writing, between the attributeless supreme Brahman and the Brahman endowed with qualities that is meditated upon. Read honestly, this verse's fragment is a confirming gloss more than an argued position.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja reads every title here as belonging to the Lord in his personal form, Narayana, and marshals a chain of Upanishadic and epic citations to show that scripture itself, not merely devotional feeling, calls the personal Lord the supreme Brahman, the supreme light, and the supreme purifier. He treats the Lord's own earlier self-declaration in the Gita as the most decisive confirmation of all, since Arjuna explicitly says the Lord has told him this himself.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva's surviving comment is narrow and philological: he derives Brahman from a root meaning to grow or swell, the wholly full one who makes others full, and derives vibhu, all-pervading, from the Lord having become manifold by his own power. He does not, in what survives, gloss the whole verse epithet by epithet, and an honest reading keeps his contribution to this precise grammatical point rather than extending it further.
Madhvācārya
Śuddhādvaita
No commentary from this school's acaryas is authored in this file's source material for this verse; this entry is left without content rather than invented.
Bhakti
Sridhara reads the verse as the deliberate opening of a seven-verse stretch of praise, each epithet answering an implicit whence for the one before it: supreme Brahman, abode, refuge, and purifier, because eternal, divine, self-luminous, first of the gods, birthless, all-pervading. He notes that Arjuna stacks these names with care rather than in a rush of feeling, since the very next verse supplies his roll-call of witnesses.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
The surviving fragment attributed to Madhusudana here is little more than a restatement of Arjuna's own list of titles, offered as simple assent rather than fresh argument; this file treats it honestly as thin rather than filling in a developed position he may hold elsewhere but did not, on this evidence, set out on this particular verse.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
When Arjuna calls Krishna both the supreme, formless Brahman and the all-pervading divine Person standing right in front of him, which is he actually naming: the Absolute beyond all form, or the personal Lord?
Notice first that the sources genuinely diverge here, and honestly so, rather than the difference being a matter of emphasis alone. Shankara's surviving comment treats these names as pointing to the supreme Self, without here drawing out the sharper line, familiar elsewhere in his writing, between the attributeless Absolute and the qualified Brahman of meditation.
Śaṅkarācārya
Ramanuja reads every one of these titles, param brahma included, as names of the Lord in his own personal form, and treats the Lord's earlier self-declaration to Arjuna as the decisive proof that settles the question in that direction.
Rāmānujācārya
But look at what all the available sources agree on regardless of how they finally read the word Brahman: every title converges on one and the same reality, praised as the supreme light, the supreme ground, the supreme purifier, and grounded not in Arjuna's private feeling but in the testimony of the seers. Whichever way you approach that reality, formless ground or personal Lord, the verse is pointing you toward one single source of all light, all support, and all purity, not two.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Contemplation
Notice that Arjuna does not reach for a distant, abstract God when he wants his highest words to land somewhere. He aims every lofty title, supreme Brahman, supreme light, supreme purifier, at the one seated directly in front of him. Try the same turn in your own remembrance: instead of sending your best words for the Divine out toward some imagined elsewhere, let them come to rest on whatever presence is nearest and most immediate to you right now.
Sit with this · sonnet-5-authored
All the translations and commentary
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, open a tradition in the doorways below, or add a voice by name above.
Also hear this verse, tradition by tradition.