Krishna says yes, and names only the chief of his glories, for their reach has no end.
Arjuna has just asked to hear of Krishna's glories, and Krishna answers with a single word of assent before turning at once to the telling. He will name only the chief ones, the foremost of each kind, because there is no end to his extent.
The Lord said: Yes, I will tell you my divine glories, but only the chief ones, for there is no end to their reach, O best of the Kurus.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
You have just asked Krishna to speak of his glories, the powers and excellences by which he shows himself in the world. Now the answer comes: a small word of assent, and the long telling opens.
The teaching
The answer to your asking is yes. A short word of consent comes first, almost a reassurance, what you have prayed for, that you shall receive. Then the telling begins at once. What you are about to hear are divine glories, and the Self's own. Divine means exalted, uncommon, the very opposite of ordinary. And the glory is his own. Any brilliance you meet anywhere is really his, so what follows is not a survey of impressive things for their own sake. It is a showing of God through the finest things in which his power becomes visible. Only the chief ones are named, the foremost of each kind, not every one. The selection is deliberate. It gives you the highest, most striking instance in each class on which to fix your attention, rather than an exhaustive catalogue that could never be finished anyway. Why only the chief ones? Because there is no end to the extent of these glories. The list must be partial because the reality it points to is endless. So even after the whole roll has been heard, infinitely more remains. The list is a sign pointing onward, not a full account, and you are named the best of the Kurus, more than courtesy, a mark that you are fit to hear and hold such teaching.
The doubt that rises
If the glories are endless and only the chief ones can be named, how is a short, partial list of impressive things supposed to help you know an infinite reality? And when even a master's own comment on a verse has not survived, as with Madhva here, what should a reader do with that silence?
Where the paths divide
Read with an exact, clarifying eye on the words alone.
Shankara takes the word of assent soberly: it grants the request and states, plainly, whatever glories are mine, those I shall tell, by way of the chief ones. He gives one stated reason for the partial telling, that to tell them all would be impossible even in a hundred years since their reach has no end, and closes with a brief instruction rather than further doctrine: first of all, hear this.
For one learning that to be a glory is to be ruled and set going.
Ramanuja reads vibhuti as being-governed. To be a glory of the Lord is to be ruled and set going by him, tying this back to earlier lines that all states of being arise from him alone. The Lord is creator, protector, and withdrawer; the glories are the beings so set going and governed. The list that follows is therefore a display of rulership, to be received as worship rather than mere information.
Read as an honest silence, with only a flagged extension offered.
No comment from Madhva on this verse has come down to us, and this page will not invent one. On a Dvaita reading, one might extend his larger teaching to suggest that the endlessness named here fits his insistence that the Lord's glory alone is truly without limit, every dependent self's glory being only ever borrowed. But that is offered here as a conditional extension of his method, never as his own words.
For one who longs to know the Lord's whole, undivided pervasion.
Abhinavagupta reads this line as the opening of a unit that closes much later with Krishna standing abiding in the world with a single portion. The danger he guards against is a listener hearing a single named glory and concluding that this alone is the Lord, which would cut apart an undivided whole. The teaching beginning here, he holds, is meant for the seeker who longs to know that whole, partless pervasion.
For the heart that hears a beloved warmly relenting, not a list being read.
Sridhara hears the opening word not as flat consent but as tenderness, compassion, an inward yielding, the emotional centre of the whole telling. The Lord is not coolly cataloguing but warmly relenting, so the entire roll that follows should be received as a tender unfolding to a beloved devotee, its sweetness as much the teaching as anything named within it.
Read as the hinge between a promise and its performance.
Madhusudana reads the opening word as reassurance: what you have prayed for, that I shall do, do not be troubled. He treats the rest of the verse as setting the register, divine and uncommon, and the method, telling only the chief, in the space of two short lines, functioning as the hinge before the great catalogue itself opens.
All six readings agree that the telling is partial and that the partiality is deliberate, not a failure. They part on why: plain grammatical necessity, a display of rulership, a guard against mistaking one glory for the whole, tenderness overflowing a strict count, or a hinge that simply sets the terms for what follows. And on one voice, Madhva, nothing at all survives on this particular line; this page leaves that gap open rather than filling it with an invented confidence.
A question to carry
When something in front of you shines today, a person's brilliance, a beauty in nature, a striking turn of events, do you let it point back to its source, or do you stop at the thing itself?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
May the yes you have just heard settle in you, and may whatever brightness crosses your path today be received as only the edge of an extent that has no end.
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.
Arjuna has just asked to hear of Krishna's glories at length; this verse grants the request and opens the great catalogue that fills the rest of the chapter.
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.
First comes the small yes, hanta: what was asked for will be given, and the giving begins at once.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
This verse is Krishna's yes. Arjuna had just asked to hear of Krishna's glories, his vibhutis, the divine powers by which God shows himself in the world, and Krishna opens with hanta, a small word of assent, before turning at once to the telling. The line is both a granting of the request and the doorway into the long roll of glories that follows.
These glories are divine, the Self's own; whatever splendor you meet anywhere in the world is really his.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
What Krishna promises to tell are divine glories, and the Self's own: not lowly things, but splendors that are truly his. The specialness that shines anywhere in the world is, on this reading, always traced back to one source, so the coming list is a showing of God through the finest things, never a survey of impressive objects for their own sake.
Only the chief ones are named, the foremost of each kind, giving the mind a foothold rather than an exhaustive list.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Krishna says he will tell them by the chief ones only, naming the foremost instance in each class rather than attempting every one. This selection is read as deliberate method: it hands the seeker the highest, most striking instance on which to fix attention, which is why the list that follows so often reads as, of these, I am the head.
The telling must be partial, for there is no end to his extent; even the whole roll leaves infinitely more unsaid.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Kashmir Śaiva, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 3 others’ words
The reason given for naming only the chief ones sits in the verse's own second line: there is no end to the extent of these glories. The telling must be partial because the reality it points to is endless, so that even after the whole roll has been heard, infinitely more remains unsaid; the list points onward rather than closing an account.
He calls Arjuna best of the Kurus, marking him a fit, trusted, and beloved listener for what is about to be given.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, Bhakti, AdvaitaRāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Rāmānuja, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
Krishna addresses Arjuna as best of the Kurus, and this is read as more than a polite form. It marks Arjuna as the fit recipient, one worthy to hear and to hold such teaching, so that the whole verse announces a beloved listener being trusted with something vast.
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 vibhuti as being-governed: to be a glory of Krishna is to be ruled and set going by him. He ties the verse back to earlier lines where Krishna said all states of being arise from him alone, and distinguishes discipline, his being creator, protector, and withdrawer, from glory, the beings so set going and governed. The list of glories is therefore a display of God's rulership, offered to a fit listener as worship, not mere information.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
No comment from Madhva on this verse survives; the honest report is silence, not a reconstructed position. On a Dvaita reading, one might extend his larger teaching on the Lord's unbounded independence to suggest that the endlessness named here fits his insistence that only the Lord's glory is truly without limit, every dependent self's glory being only ever borrowed, but this is a conditional extrapolation offered by this page, clearly not his own words.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara hears hanta as the emotional centre of the chapter, a vocative of compassion and inward yielding rather than flat consent. The Lord is not coolly listing but warmly relenting, so the whole vibhuti-roll that follows should be received as a tender unfolding to a beloved devotee, its sweetness as much the point as anything actually told.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana reads hanta as reassurance: what you have prayed for, that I shall do, do not be troubled. He then reads the rest of the verse as setting the terms for everything that follows, naming the register, divine and uncommon, and the method, telling only the chief, in the space of two short lines, before the great catalogue itself opens.
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
Before you read the long roll of glories that follows this verse, pause on its single opening word of assent. Notice what it is like to be told yes, plainly, by something you have asked for. Let that small reassurance settle in you, and only then turn to the particulars, holding each one lightly, as an instance rather than the whole.
Whatever brightness crosses your path today, let it be received as his, and let it point past itself toward an extent no list could exhaust.
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
his verse is Krishna's yes. Arjuna had just asked to hear of Krishna's glories, his vibhutis, the divine powers by which God shows himself in the world, and Krishna opens with hanta, a small word of assent, before turning at once to the telling. The line is both a granting of the request and the doorway into the long roll of glories that follows.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
What Krishna promises to tell are divine glories, and the Self's own: not lowly things, but splendors that are truly his. The specialness that shines anywhere in the world is, on this reading, always traced back to one source, so the coming list is a showing of God through the finest things, never a survey of impressive objects for their own sake.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Krishna says he will tell them by the chief ones only, naming the foremost instance in each class rather than attempting every one. This selection is read as deliberate method: it hands the seeker the highest, most striking instance on which to fix attention, which is why the list that follows so often reads as, of these, I am the head.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The reason given for naming only the chief ones sits in the verse's own second line: there is no end to the extent of these glories. The telling must be partial because the reality it points to is endless, so that even after the whole roll has been heard, infinitely more remains unsaid; the list points onward rather than closing an account.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Krishna addresses Arjuna as best of the Kurus, and this is read as more than a polite form. It marks Arjuna as the fit recipient, one worthy to hear and to hold such teaching, so that the whole verse announces a beloved listener being trusted with something vast.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads hanta soberly, as a plain particle of assent, and stays close to the sentence's own grammar: whatever glories are mine, those I shall tell, by way of the chief ones. His only stated reason for the partial telling is the plain necessity given in the verse itself, that the reach of these glories has no end, and to tell them all would be impossible even in a hundred years. His comment closes with a short instruction, first of all, hear this, rather than an extended doctrinal claim.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja reads vibhuti as being-governed: to be a glory of Krishna is to be ruled and set going by him. He ties the verse back to earlier lines where Krishna said all states of being arise from him alone, and distinguishes discipline, his being creator, protector, and withdrawer, from glory, the beings so set going and governed. The list of glories is therefore a display of God's rulership, offered to a fit listener as worship, not mere information.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
No comment from Madhva on this verse survives; the honest report is silence, not a reconstructed position. On a Dvaita reading, one might extend his larger teaching on the Lord's unbounded independence to suggest that the endlessness named here fits his insistence that only the Lord's glory is truly without limit, every dependent self's glory being only ever borrowed, but this is a conditional extrapolation offered by this page, clearly not his own words.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta reads this verse as opening a unit that runs to Krishna's later line, I stand abiding in the world with a single portion, and treats it as a guard against a fatal misreading: hearing that a chief glory will be named, such as of immovable things I am the Himalaya, a listener might conclude that only the Himalaya is the Lord, cutting apart what should remain an undivided whole. The teaching, beginning here, is meant for the seeker who longs to know that whole, partless pervasion.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara hears hanta as the emotional centre of the chapter, a vocative of compassion and inward yielding rather than flat consent. The Lord is not coolly listing but warmly relenting, so the whole vibhuti-roll that follows should be received as a tender unfolding to a beloved devotee, its sweetness as much the point as anything actually told.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana reads hanta as reassurance: what you have prayed for, that I shall do, do not be troubled. He then reads the rest of the verse as setting the terms for everything that follows, naming the register, divine and uncommon, and the method, telling only the chief, in the space of two short lines, before the great catalogue itself opens.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If God's glories are endless and only the chief ones can be named, how can a short, partial list ever help me know an infinite reality?
The list is meant as a seed, not a complete inventory. Krishna names only the chief glories, the foremost instance in each class, precisely because that is enough to set your seeing in the right key; attempting to name them all would only fail, since they have no end.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya
The named glories are given as concrete material for contemplation, so that even after the whole roll has been heard, infinitely more remains. A finite list works not by summing up the infinite but by training the eye to find the same one reality wherever it looks next.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
And if the list is received in the temper this verse sets, warmly, as a beloved's unfolding rather than a lecture, then the incompleteness stops feeling like a lack. What is given is not the whole inventory but the invitation to keep looking, held inside a relationship already begun.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Contemplation
Before you read the long roll of glories that follows this verse, pause on its single opening word of assent. Notice what it is like to be told yes, plainly, by something you have asked for. Let that small reassurance settle in you, and only then turn to the particulars, holding each one lightly, as an instance rather than the whole.
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.