Arjuna lays the highest names he knows on the one before him.
Krishna has been telling of his own glory, and Arjuna answers in kind: supreme Brahman, supreme abode, supreme purifier, eternal divine Person, first of the gods, unborn, present everywhere. He rests none of it on his own feeling; the seers say so, and the Lord has said it of himself.
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 Lord has just described his glory and his power; this verse is Arjuna's answer, the first of a stretch of praise he offers before asking to hear that glory in 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 has heard the Lord tell his own glory, and he is moved; before he asks anything more, he answers with praise.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Śuddhādvaita, Bhakti, and the modern voicesŚaṅkara · Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana · Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati · Rāmānuja · Vallabha · Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara · Viśvanātha · Baladeva · Jñāneśvar · RamsukhdasIn Śaṅkara, Ānandagiri, and 11 others’ words
Here Arjuna speaks. Having heard the Lord describe his glory and his power in the verses before, Arjuna responds by addressing Krishna with the highest titles he knows. He says: you are the supreme Brahman (param brahma, the ultimate, infinite reality), the supreme abode (param dhama), and the supreme purifier (pavitram paramam). Most commentators read this not as a cool philosophical statement but as praise. Arjuna has been moved by what he has heard, and he is eager to hear the Lord's glory in more detail, so he opens with adoration before he asks his next question. Several note that this verse begins a stretch of praise that runs across the next several verses.
He is the supreme abode in both senses at once: the light by which everything shines, and the ground on which every being rests.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Bhakti, and the modern voicesŚaṅkara · Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana · Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · Baladeva · Sivananda · RamsukhdasIn Śaṅkara, Ānandagiri, and 8 others’ words
The word 'dhama' (abode) is read in two layers that most commentators hold together. First, dhama means radiance or light: you are the supreme light, the light by which everything else shines. Second, dhama means the supreme support or resting-place: from the Creator down to a blade of grass, every being rests on you as its ground, and nothing passes beyond you. Both senses point to the same truth, that the Lord is the final foundation and the source of all light.
Holy rivers wash particular sins; the Lord purifies at the root, since knowing him, even remembering him, loosens ignorance and the bondage of past action.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Bhakti, and the modern voicesDhanapati · Rāmānuja · Baladeva · Viśvanātha · SivanandaIn Dhanapati, Rāmānuja, and 3 others’ words
The word 'pavitra' (purifier) is given real force. The Lord is not just a purifier but the supreme purifier, the one who cleanses most completely. The reason offered is that ordinary means of purification, like bathing at sacred rivers or visiting holy places of pilgrimage, can wash away particular sins, but the Lord purifies at the root: by mere knowledge of him, or by remembering him, a person is freed from ignorance and from the bondage of past action, which are the root cause of all sin. Several cite scripture for this, comparing how sin fails to cling to the knower as water does not cling to a lotus leaf, or as fire burns up a tuft of reed.
Eternal Person, self-luminous, first of the gods, unborn, present everywhere; and not as private opinion, for the seers themselves call him so.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Śuddhādvaita, Bhakti, and the modern voicesŚaṅkara · Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana · Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati · Rāmānuja · Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara · Viśvanātha · Baladeva · Sivananda · Tilak · RamsukhdasIn Śaṅkara, Ānandagiri, and 11 others’ words
The verse then piles up a chain of further epithets, and the commentators unpack each one. You are the Person (purusha), the conscious indweller. You are everlasting or eternal (shashvata), of one unchanging form always. You are divine (divya), self-luminous, of shining nature, present in the heaven of the heart-space. You are the first God (adi-deva), the source-deity prior to and the root of all other gods such as Brahma. Because you are the root and source, you are unborn (aja); and you are all-pervading (vibhu), present everywhere. Arjuna stresses that this is not his private opinion: 'the seers call you so,' he says, grounding the recognition in the testimony of the sages.
This is the shared ground; it can be carried as it is. Below is where they differ.
Where they differthe divergence
Advaita Vedānta, in their fuller words
These commentators read 'param brahma' as the supreme, attributeless Absolute. The word 'param' (supreme) is taken to mark off this highest Brahman from any lower, worship-able form. Some draw the contrast sharply: the supreme Brahman is not the lesser Brahman that is meditated on with qualities, but the pure reality free of all limiting conditions, which scripture itself points beyond. One states this directly: 'param' indicates the pure, attributeless Absolute, Satchidananda Brahman, while the inferior Brahman is Brahman with qualities or Ishvara, the chosen object of meditation. The supremeness of this Brahman is its changelessness, its freedom from birth, and its utter purity, and it is known not by ordinary reasoning but from trustworthy scripture.
Viśiṣṭādvaita, in their fuller words
These commentators read every title here as a title of the Lord in his personal form, Narayana, never of an abstract impersonal Brahman. They marshal a chain of revealed texts to show that scripture itself calls the personal Lord the supreme Brahman, the supreme light, and the supreme purifier, and they cite 'Narayana is the supreme Brahman, Narayana the supreme light, the self is Narayana the supreme.' They read across this verse and the next as one passage: Arjuna's recognition is comprehensive and is authorised by the whole lineage of seers, Narada, Asita, Devala, and Vyasa, together with the Lord's own self-attestation, which is the decisive ground. One notes the verses are the chapter's pivot, and that 'param brahma' is used here as a title of the Lord in his personal form, not as the abstract Brahman of the rival school, a personal reading the following list of named glories will make explicit.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
These commentators give a grammatical and scriptural derivation of two key words. 'Brahman' means the wholly full one: from the root 'brh' meaning to grow or swell, the name marks the one who is great, full, and who makes others full. They face the question of why the Lord, who is other than the deity Brahma, is called the supreme Brahman, and answer with 'param' (supreme): he is supreme. 'Vibhu' (all-pervading) they derive from the Lord's having become manifold, of many forms, citing scripture that 'he alone by his power became manifold' and 'he desired, may I be many.' The Lord is 'prabhu' (lord) because he is capable of mighty becoming, and 'vibhu' because he has become manifold.
Śuddhādvaita, in their fuller words
These commentators read the verse as the opening of seven verses of praise, structured around 'dharma and dharmin' (the attribute and the bearer of attributes) and addressed to the Lord as Purushottama, the highest Person, full with the six divine qualities. They read the titles as naming the very self of the devotee's Lord: the supreme dhama is his own self-radiance, the very form of his delight-house. One walks through the epithets as Arjuna answering successive doubts: 'purusha' is the Purushottama; 'shashvata' (eternal) rules out the suspicion that others are eternal; 'divya' marks him as of the very form of play; 'adi-deva' is the root-form; 'aja' is freedom from birth; and 'vibhu' is read as 'capable,' that is, capable of bringing about the appearance of birth in the absence of real birth. One adds that knowledge exists in the Lord alone as a quality, and whatever knowledge arises elsewhere is given by him alone; neither gods nor demons know his unique yoga-power.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
These commentators read the verse devotionally, as Arjuna deliberately stacking the highest epithets one upon another in praise of his beloved Lord. One hears Arjuna doing this not in a rush of emotion but with deliberate care, since the next verse will give his roll-call of witnesses. One reads 'dhama' (abode) through the dictionary as house, body, radiance, and majesty, and identifies the supreme abode with the dark and beautiful (shyamasundara) form of Krishna itself; he adds the key implication that in the Lord there is no division between body and embodied one, as there is for the individual soul, the form and the one who has the form are one. Another renders the verse as Arjuna's vision: the Lord is the haven of rest to which the great elements return, the supreme deity of the triad of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, the Supreme Soul standing behind the veil of Prakriti, untouched by birth and decay, who pulls the strings of past, present, and future time.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
These commentators present the verse plainly for the contemporary reader. One glosses each epithet directly: param Brahma is the highest Self, the pure attributeless Absolute free from limiting adjuncts; param dhama is the supreme light and the support of all from the Creator down to a blade of grass; adi-deva is the primeval God who existed before all other gods; and the supreme purifier is the one who destroys not only sins but ignorance, their root cause. One renders the verse compactly as a string of titles. One reads the whole verse as Arjuna pointing back to the Lord's own earlier words, showing that the param brahma the Lord himself named, the supreme dhama that holds the whole world, the most purifying purifier, the eternal atma, the divine person, the unborn one present everywhere in unmanifest form, are all none other than Krishna seated before him; he ties each title to a specific earlier verse of the Gita.
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 what Arjuna is actually doing here. He is not reaching for a far-off, abstract God. He is praising the one seated right in front of him, and every lofty title he uses points back to something the Lord has already told him. The supreme reality he calls param brahma, the supreme abode that holds the whole world, the great purifier, the eternal Self, the divine Person, the unborn one present everywhere, are not many distant beings but one presence, near and already known. The practice this invites is simple: let the highest names you have heard for the Divine come to rest on what is closest to you, here and now, rather than projecting them onto a remote elsewhere. When you remember that the same one your tradition calls infinite and all-pervading is also the one nearest your own heart, praise becomes natural and the distance you imagined dissolves.
Let the highest names you know come home to the one nearest your heart.
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
ere Arjuna speaks. Having heard the Lord describe his glory and his power in the verses before, Arjuna responds by addressing Krishna with the highest titles he knows. He says: you are the supreme Brahman (param brahma, the ultimate, infinite reality), the supreme abode (param dhama), and the supreme purifier (pavitram paramam). Most commentators read this not as a cool philosophical statement but as praise. Arjuna has been moved by what he has heard, and he is eager to hear the Lord's glory in more detail, so he opens with adoration before he asks his next question. Several note that this verse begins a stretch of praise that runs across the next several verses.
Braided from 13 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Ramsukhdas
The word 'dhama' (abode) is read in two layers that most commentators hold together. First, dhama means radiance or light: you are the supreme light, the light by which everything else shines. Second, dhama means the supreme support or resting-place: from the Creator down to a blade of grass, every being rests on you as its ground, and nothing passes beyond you. Both senses point to the same truth, that the Lord is the final foundation and the source of all light.
Braided from 10 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
The word 'pavitra' (purifier) is given real force. The Lord is not just a purifier but the supreme purifier, the one who cleanses most completely. The reason offered is that ordinary means of purification, like bathing at sacred rivers or visiting holy places of pilgrimage, can wash away particular sins, but the Lord purifies at the root: by mere knowledge of him, or by remembering him, a person is freed from ignorance and from the bondage of past action, which are the root cause of all sin. Several cite scripture for this, comparing how sin fails to cling to the knower as water does not cling to a lotus leaf, or as fire burns up a tuft of reed.
Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Swami Sivananda
The verse then piles up a chain of further epithets, and the commentators unpack each one. You are the Person (purusha), the conscious indweller. You are everlasting or eternal (shashvata), of one unchanging form always. You are divine (divya), self-luminous, of shining nature, present in the heaven of the heart-space. You are the first God (adi-deva), the source-deity prior to and the root of all other gods such as Brahma. Because you are the root and source, you are unborn (aja); and you are all-pervading (vibhu), present everywhere. Arjuna stresses that this is not his private opinion: 'the seers call you so,' he says, grounding the recognition in the testimony of the sages.
Braided from 13 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators read 'param brahma' as the supreme, attributeless Absolute. The word 'param' (supreme) is taken to mark off this highest Brahman from any lower, worship-able form. Some draw the contrast sharply: the supreme Brahman is not the lesser Brahman that is meditated on with qualities, but the pure reality free of all limiting conditions, which scripture itself points beyond. One states this directly: 'param' indicates the pure, attributeless Absolute, Satchidananda Brahman, while the inferior Brahman is Brahman with qualities or Ishvara, the chosen object of meditation. The supremeness of this Brahman is its changelessness, its freedom from birth, and its utter purity, and it is known not by ordinary reasoning but from trustworthy scripture.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Swami Sivananda
Viśiṣṭādvaita
These commentators read every title here as a title of the Lord in his personal form, Narayana, never of an abstract impersonal Brahman. They marshal a chain of revealed texts to show that scripture itself calls the personal Lord the supreme Brahman, the supreme light, and the supreme purifier, and they cite 'Narayana is the supreme Brahman, Narayana the supreme light, the self is Narayana the supreme.' They read across this verse and the next as one passage: Arjuna's recognition is comprehensive and is authorised by the whole lineage of seers, Narada, Asita, Devala, and Vyasa, together with the Lord's own self-attestation, which is the decisive ground. One notes the verses are the chapter's pivot, and that 'param brahma' is used here as a title of the Lord in his personal form, not as the abstract Brahman of the rival school, a personal reading the following list of named glories will make explicit.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Dvaita
These commentators give a grammatical and scriptural derivation of two key words. 'Brahman' means the wholly full one: from the root 'brh' meaning to grow or swell, the name marks the one who is great, full, and who makes others full. They face the question of why the Lord, who is other than the deity Brahma, is called the supreme Brahman, and answer with 'param' (supreme): he is supreme. 'Vibhu' (all-pervading) they derive from the Lord's having become manifold, of many forms, citing scripture that 'he alone by his power became manifold' and 'he desired, may I be many.' The Lord is 'prabhu' (lord) because he is capable of mighty becoming, and 'vibhu' because he has become manifold.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Śuddhādvaita
These commentators read the verse as the opening of seven verses of praise, structured around 'dharma and dharmin' (the attribute and the bearer of attributes) and addressed to the Lord as Purushottama, the highest Person, full with the six divine qualities. They read the titles as naming the very self of the devotee's Lord: the supreme dhama is his own self-radiance, the very form of his delight-house. One walks through the epithets as Arjuna answering successive doubts: 'purusha' is the Purushottama; 'shashvata' (eternal) rules out the suspicion that others are eternal; 'divya' marks him as of the very form of play; 'adi-deva' is the root-form; 'aja' is freedom from birth; and 'vibhu' is read as 'capable,' that is, capable of bringing about the appearance of birth in the absence of real birth. One adds that knowledge exists in the Lord alone as a quality, and whatever knowledge arises elsewhere is given by him alone; neither gods nor demons know his unique yoga-power.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Bhakti
These commentators read the verse devotionally, as Arjuna deliberately stacking the highest epithets one upon another in praise of his beloved Lord. One hears Arjuna doing this not in a rush of emotion but with deliberate care, since the next verse will give his roll-call of witnesses. One reads 'dhama' (abode) through the dictionary as house, body, radiance, and majesty, and identifies the supreme abode with the dark and beautiful (shyamasundara) form of Krishna itself; he adds the key implication that in the Lord there is no division between body and embodied one, as there is for the individual soul, the form and the one who has the form are one. Another renders the verse as Arjuna's vision: the Lord is the haven of rest to which the great elements return, the supreme deity of the triad of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, the Supreme Soul standing behind the veil of Prakriti, untouched by birth and decay, who pulls the strings of past, present, and future time.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar
Modern
These commentators present the verse plainly for the contemporary reader. One glosses each epithet directly: param Brahma is the highest Self, the pure attributeless Absolute free from limiting adjuncts; param dhama is the supreme light and the support of all from the Creator down to a blade of grass; adi-deva is the primeval God who existed before all other gods; and the supreme purifier is the one who destroys not only sins but ignorance, their root cause. One renders the verse compactly as a string of titles. One reads the whole verse as Arjuna pointing back to the Lord's own earlier words, showing that the param brahma the Lord himself named, the supreme dhama that holds the whole world, the most purifying purifier, the eternal atma, the divine person, the unborn one present everywhere in unmanifest form, are all none other than Krishna seated before him; he ties each title to a specific earlier verse of the Gita.
Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
When Arjuna calls Krishna both the supreme impersonal Brahman and the all-pervading divine Person standing before him, which is he really, the formless Absolute or the personal Lord?
Notice first that this is exactly where the schools part ways, and honestly so. Some commentators read 'param brahma' as the supreme, attributeless Absolute, taking 'param' (supreme) to lift it above any form that is merely worshipped, so that the highest reality is beyond all qualities and is known only through scripture.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Swami Sivananda
Others read every title here, including 'param brahma' itself, as a name of the Lord in his personal form, never of an abstract impersonal reality, and they bring forward scripture that calls the personal Lord the supreme Brahman, the supreme light, and the supreme purifier; for them the long list of named glories that follows settles the personal reading.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīla Baladeva
But step back and see what they all agree on, because that is the real answer to the verse. Every commentator, whichever way they finally read 'Brahman,' takes the titles to converge on one and the same supreme reality: the ultimate, the supreme light and support of all, the great purifier, the eternal divine Person, the source of all gods, unborn and all-pervading. Arjuna is not naming two beings. He is heaping the highest names he knows onto one presence, and grounding the recognition not in his own opinion but in the testimony of the seers. Whether you approach that one reality as formless ground or as the personal Lord, the verse points you to the single source from which all light, all support, and all purity come.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas · Lokmanya Tilak
Contemplation
Notice what Arjuna is actually doing here. He is not reaching for a far-off, abstract God. He is praising the one seated right in front of him, and every lofty title he uses points back to something the Lord has already told him. The supreme reality he calls param brahma, the supreme abode that holds the whole world, the great purifier, the eternal Self, the divine Person, the unborn one present everywhere, are not many distant beings but one presence, near and already known. The practice this invites is simple: let the highest names you have heard for the Divine come to rest on what is closest to you, here and now, rather than projecting them onto a remote elsewhere. When you remember that the same one your tradition calls infinite and all-pervading is also the one nearest your own heart, praise becomes natural and the distance you imagined dissolves.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
All the translations and commentary
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