Arjuna stops asking for proof and simply takes the Lord's word as true.
This is a narration verse, Arjuna speaking, not Krishna. Its weight is quieter than the verses around it: it names the exact moment when years of hearing finally becomes holding as true.
I take all of this as the plain truth, whatever you tell me, Keshava. Truly, my Lord, neither the gods nor the demons know how you come to appear.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
A verse earlier, Arjuna recited a roll call of witnesses, the sages, Narada, Vyasa, all naming Krishna as the Supreme Brahman. Now, in his own voice, Arjuna adds his own assent to theirs, and explains why even the gods cannot independently confirm what he has just accepted.
The teaching
Arjuna's word here, rtam, is the strongest register of acceptance available: not a guess that something is probably so, but a declaration that it is simply true, in accord with reality itself. What the sages said earlier and what Krishna has now confirmed in his own voice are both folded into this one act of assent, and Arjuna's own earlier uncertainty as a student is resolved in the same breath. He gives a reason for trusting this word so completely: neither the gods nor the demons know how Krishna comes to appear, his vyakti, despite standing far above ordinary beings in knowledge and power. The reasoning offered is not that the gods have failed through some deficiency of effort. It is structural. Krishna is himself the beginning and source of the gods and of everything else, and what arises from a source and depends on it cannot turn back and comprehend that very source. If the gods, marked by abundant knowledge, fall short here, human striving falls short still further. What is left, then, is not a ladder to climb by more knowing, but a word to receive. Arjuna does not claim to have verified Krishna's nature by his own power; he recognizes that no outside check on an ultimate source was ever available, even to gods, and he accepts the self-disclosure as it is given.
The doubt that rises
If even the gods and demons cannot know how Krishna truly shows himself, what real hope does an ordinary person have of ever knowing him, and is 'knowing' even the right word for what is being offered here?
Where the paths divide
Read plainly as Arjuna's settled conviction.
Arjuna is now convinced that what the sages and Krishna both said is simply true, with no residue of doubt. Krishna's manifestation cannot be known by the gods because he is their very source, and a source is never comprehended by what depends on it; if gods marked by great knowledge fail here, human effort fails further still. The name Keshava is read as already asserting this: the one addressed governs Brahma and Rudra, the very gods later said to fall short of knowing him.
Read as a lesson in how to receive the Lord's own word.
Arjuna's assent is complete inner acceptance, not a request for further proof. Krishna's lordship is natural to him, unsurpassed, and his auspicious qualities have no end; since nothing stands above the Lord to verify such a claim from outside, his self-description is testimony rather than boast, and the fitting reply to it is exactly the whole-hearted trust Arjuna offers.
An honest gap, read only as a labeled extension of the wider framework.
The source available for this verse gives no comment specific to 10.14; Madhva's remarks for this stretch of the chapter are placed at 10.12 instead. Extended carefully, and clearly marked as inference rather than the master's own words here: the gods' failure would follow from their own dependent, graded status within his system, since only an independent being could be expected to fully know another independent being's free self-manifestation, and the gods are not independent.
Also an honest gap; offered only as a conditional extension.
Abhinavagupta's compressed commentary passes over this verse in silence, and no paragraph of his own can honestly be supplied. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading extended from the school's broader idiom, without claiming it as his own statement, the failure to know Krishna's vyakti might be read as bounded perceivers mistaking their own limited sense of self for the one consciousness appearing as all things, rather than any actual distance from the Lord.
Read as the moment hearing becomes holding-as-true.
Sridhara reads Arjuna as already carried past the beginner's uncertainty; the sages' roll call has done its work, and Arjuna now simply declares his own conviction rather than only reporting others' words. He adds a distinction to the gods' and demons' shared failure: the gods do not know that Krishna's disclosure is meant as grace toward the devoted, and the demons do not know it functions as restraint toward themselves, one manifestation serving two ends unseen by either party.
Read as a question about the limits of independent verification.
Arjuna's acceptance can be read as recognizing a structural feature of the situation rather than a personal leap of faith: some claims about an ultimate source admit no outside check, even in principle, since any checker would itself be a dependent, downstream thing. What looks like faith may be, more precisely, an accurate read of when reception of testimony is the only option actually available.
All six angles agree that neither gods nor demons can independently verify Krishna's manifestation, and that this is a structural limit, not a lack of effort. Two of the usual six voices, Madhva and Abhinavagupta, leave no comment on this verse in particular, and this page has said so plainly rather than inventing readings in their names. What remains open is whether Arjuna's acceptance models a path any seeker can walk, or whether it depends on a kind of proximity to Krishna, and a moment of grace, that cannot simply be willed.
A question to carry
Is there something you have heard praised for years without ever quite holding it as true? What would it take for you, like Arjuna, to stop merely hearing it and start declaring it your own conviction?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
May what you have long heard, and not yet held, find its season. And may you recognize, when a source discloses itself freely, that receiving is sometimes the whole of the path, not a lesser substitute for knowing.
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 sages have just been named as witnesses to Krishna's supreme nature; here Arjuna adds his own voice to that testimony and explains why even the gods cannot verify what he now simply accepts.
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.
Rtam is full acceptance as established truth, not a polite or probable agreement.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Arjuna declares that he takes everything Krishna has said, and everything the sages said before him, as rtam, established truth rather than probable opinion. His own earlier uncertainty as a student is resolved, and his assent now stands alongside the sages' testimony rather than waiting on it.
Neither gods nor demons know Krishna's manifestation, whatever their knowledge or power.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, AdvaitaRāmānuja · MadhusūdanaIn Rāmānuja and Madhusūdana’s words
The reason such trust is warranted is that only Krishna is positioned to speak the truth of his own being. Nothing stands above the Lord to verify the claim from a further vantage, so his self-description is testimony, not boast, and Arjuna's acceptance needs no additional proof to be reasonable.
The reason is structural: a source cannot be comprehended by what depends on and arises from it.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
The verse turns on vyakti, the Lord's manifestation or coming-forth into visible appearance. Neither the gods nor the demons know this, despite being far above ordinary beings in knowledge or power; they may see the forms without recognizing them as the Lord's own self-disclosure.
Only the Lord can rightly witness the Lord's own being, so his self-description is testimony, not boast.
Across AdvaitaŚaṅkara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara and Madhusūdana’s words
The underlying logic given for the gods' failure is structural rather than a matter of degree: Krishna is himself the beginning and source of the gods, and what arises from a source and depends on it cannot turn back and comprehend that source. What fails for gods, marked by abundant knowledge, fails still further for ordinary human striving.
Two of the six acaryas leave no verse-specific comment here, and that gap is stated honestly rather than papered over.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Two of the six commentary sources available for this exact verse, Madhva and Abhinavagupta, do not offer a comment on 10.14 specifically in the texts consulted here; Madhva's remarks are folded into his comment at 10.12, and Abhinavagupta's compressed Gitartha-samgraha passes over this verse in silence. Any Dvaita or Kashmir Shaiva reading given below is therefore an honestly labeled extension of each school's wider framework, not a verse-specific statement from either master.
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 Arjuna's assent as a model of right reception: complete inner acceptance of the Lord's self-declared, unsurpassed lordship and endless auspicious qualities, offered with no demand for further proof, since bounded knowers, gods included, cannot take the measure of an unbounded being from below.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
The available source gives no comment specific to 10.14, folding it into the treatment at 10.12. Extended honestly as a labeled inference from Madhva's wider framework of radical dependence: the gods' failure to know Krishna would follow from their own graded, dependent status, since dependence forecloses the comprehension only an independent knower could have of the Lord's free self-manifestation.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara distinguishes a double purpose within the single failure: the gods do not know that Krishna's self-disclosure is meant as grace toward those devoted to him, and the demons do not know that the same disclosure serves as restraint toward themselves. He also reads Arjuna's shift from hearing to holding-as-true as the real event the verse records.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Set beside a contemporary question about epistemic humility: the verse distinguishes trust grounded in a source's own self-disclosure from trust that would require an external check the structure of the situation cannot supply. Arjuna does not claim to have independently verified Krishna's nature; he recognizes that no independent verification of an ultimate source is available even in principle, and treats reception of the testimony itself as the fitting response.
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 something ordinary in your own life you have heard praised for years without it ever quite landing, and ask what would need to happen for it to stop being a rumor and become, for you, simply true. Arjuna names the gap: hearing is not yet holding as true. See if you can let today's version of that gap close a little, not by more arguing, but by receiving.
May what you have long heard finally be held, not as rumor waiting to be proven, but as something received and trusted.
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 declares that he takes everything Krishna has said, and everything the sages said before him, as rtam, established truth rather than probable opinion. His own earlier uncertainty as a student is resolved, and his assent now stands alongside the sages' testimony rather than waiting on it.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The reason such trust is warranted is that only Krishna is positioned to speak the truth of his own being. Nothing stands above the Lord to verify the claim from a further vantage, so his self-description is testimony, not boast, and Arjuna's acceptance needs no additional proof to be reasonable.
Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The verse turns on vyakti, the Lord's manifestation or coming-forth into visible appearance. Neither the gods nor the demons know this, despite being far above ordinary beings in knowledge or power; they may see the forms without recognizing them as the Lord's own self-disclosure.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The underlying logic given for the gods' failure is structural rather than a matter of degree: Krishna is himself the beginning and source of the gods, and what arises from a source and depends on it cannot turn back and comprehend that source. What fails for gods, marked by abundant knowledge, fails still further for ordinary human striving.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Two of the six commentary sources available for this exact verse, Madhva and Abhinavagupta, do not offer a comment on 10.14 specifically in the texts consulted here; Madhva's remarks are folded into his comment at 10.12, and Abhinavagupta's compressed Gitartha-samgraha passes over this verse in silence. Any Dvaita or Kashmir Shaiva reading given below is therefore an honestly labeled extension of each school's wider framework, not a verse-specific statement from either master.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Read plainly as Arjuna's settled conviction: he holds as true both that Krishna is the supreme reality the seers named and that the gods cannot know his manifestation, since a source cannot be comprehended by what arises from and depends on it. Madhusudana sharpens the point through the name Keshava, read as one who governs or looks with compassion on Brahma and Rudra, making the very name a compressed statement of the verse's claim.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja reads Arjuna's assent as a model of right reception: complete inner acceptance of the Lord's self-declared, unsurpassed lordship and endless auspicious qualities, offered with no demand for further proof, since bounded knowers, gods included, cannot take the measure of an unbounded being from below.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
The available source gives no comment specific to 10.14, folding it into the treatment at 10.12. Extended honestly as a labeled inference from Madhva's wider framework of radical dependence: the gods' failure to know Krishna would follow from their own graded, dependent status, since dependence forecloses the comprehension only an independent knower could have of the Lord's free self-manifestation.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta offers no comment on this verse; his compressed commentary passes over it. Offered only as a clearly conditional extension of the school's broader idiom: bounded perceivers might fail to know Krishna's vyakti not through distance but through mistaking their own bounded sense of self for the one consciousness appearing as all things. This is not Abhinavagupta's own statement.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara distinguishes a double purpose within the single failure: the gods do not know that Krishna's self-disclosure is meant as grace toward those devoted to him, and the demons do not know that the same disclosure serves as restraint toward themselves. He also reads Arjuna's shift from hearing to holding-as-true as the real event the verse records.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Set beside a contemporary question about epistemic humility: the verse distinguishes trust grounded in a source's own self-disclosure from trust that would require an external check the structure of the situation cannot supply. Arjuna does not claim to have independently verified Krishna's nature; he recognizes that no independent verification of an ultimate source is available even in principle, and treats reception of the testimony itself as the fitting response.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya
A Seeker Asks
If even the gods and demons cannot know Krishna's true manifestation, what real hope does an ordinary person have of ever knowing him?
The gods' failure is not a failure of raw capacity but of approach: they try to grasp the source from the position of what the source produced, and a beginning cannot be comprehended by what comes after it and depends on it. Ordinary striving repeats the same mistake at a smaller scale, so more effort in that same direction will not close the gap.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The verse points to a different route already open to anyone: Arjuna does not climb up to knowledge of Krishna by his own power, he receives it because Krishna has spoken and Arjuna accepts the word as true. That receptive acceptance is available to an ordinary person exactly as it was available to Arjuna, and it is not barred by lacking a god's power.
Rāmānujācārya
What the two silent sources in this verse's commentary record, Madhva folding this verse into 10.12 and Abhinavagupta passing over it, is itself worth sitting with: not every text speaks to every verse with equal weight, and a seeker's hope need not depend on every tradition saying the same full thing here. Sridhara's reading suggests the manifestation itself is already grace toward whoever turns toward it in trust.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Contemplation
Notice something ordinary in your own life you have heard praised for years without it ever quite landing, and ask what would need to happen for it to stop being a rumor and become, for you, simply true. Arjuna names the gap: hearing is not yet holding as true. See if you can let today's version of that gap close a little, not by more arguing, but by receiving.
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.