His glory stands at the head of the serpents, the waters, the ancestors, and the judgment that weighs every deed.
Krishna names four more chiefs, one from each order of being. Even Yama, lord of death and reckoning, is not set against him; that power, too, is one of his glories.
Among the serpents I am Ananta, their king; among the water-dwellers I am Varuna. Among the ancestors I am Aryaman, and among those who keep the world in order by dispensing the fruit of right and wrong, I am Yama.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
The catalogue of glories keeps moving. Here it reaches four classes of being at once, and in each, the one named is that class's own chief.
The teaching
Among the nagas, a kind of serpent, the shared reading meets Ananta, also called Shesha, their king. Sridhara specifies that this is the still, non-poisonous kind, distinct from the ordinary venomous snake, and pictures Ananta as the thousand-hooded serpent of cosmic scale. Among the water-dwellers, the reading meets Varuna, king and presiding deity of the waters and of the creatures within them. Among the ancestors, the departed fathers to whom the living owe rites, the reading meets Aryaman, their chief; on this figure, none of the acaryas gathered here records disagreement. Among those who restrain, who keep the world in order by giving each act its rightful fruit, the reading meets a lord of that office, read by Shankara, Sridhara, and Madhusudana as Yama, and read by Ramanuja instead as Vaivasvata, son of Vivasvat. In each case, the chief of a class carries the Lord's presence for the whole class; the summit is where the pervading presence is most legible. Two of the six acaryas gathered for this page are honestly silent here: Madhva's commentary offers no comment on this verse at all, and Abhinavagupta's surviving text folds this verse into one continuous passage running from 10.19 to 10.42, with the substantive comment given at its opening.
The doubt that rises
Why would Krishna number a serpent-king, a water-god, an ancestor-chief, and the very lord of death and judgment among his own glories, rather than naming only what is plainly beautiful or comforting? And when a source falls silent, as Madhva does here, what is the honest thing to say: nothing at all, or a carefully labeled guess at what he might have held?
Where the paths divide
Read through the plain syntax of chief-for-class, with minimal elaboration.
Shankara and Madhusudana read all four identifications the same way: a class is named, and its chief is given as the figure who carries the Lord's presence into that class. Ananta is king of the nagas, Varuna king of the waters, Aryaman chief of the ancestors, Yama lord of the restrainers. Madhusudana in particular lets the syntax do nearly all the work, adding little beyond the bare identifications, as though the verse's teaching were already complete in its naming.
Read as a close construal of the verse's own grammar and naming.
Ramanuja parts from the shared gloss on two points. He does not read the nagas as one chief selected from the rest; he reads the whole class as characterized by being many-headed. And where others read the restrainer's name as Yama, he reads it as Vaivasvata, the son of Vivasvat. He leaves Aryaman as chief of the ancestors to the common reading, departing only where the grammar, in his judgment, requires it.
Honest silence in the record, not a substantive position.
No comment on this verse survives from Madhva. The record states this plainly, and nothing in his own words addresses Ananta, Varuna, Aryaman, or Yama here. Any suggestion that each named chief holds its supremacy only as a dependent gift from Hari would be a plausible extension of his teaching elsewhere in the Gita, not his recorded reading of this particular verse, and it is offered here, if at all, only under that label.
Bundled several verses earlier; any reading here is a labeled extension.
Abhinavagupta's surviving commentary treats 10.19 through 10.42 as a single passage, with the full comment given at its start. What survives there warns against concluding, from any one named glory, that the Lord is confined to that item and absent elsewhere. Nothing in the surviving text glosses Ananta, Varuna, Aryaman, or Yama specifically. A Kashmir Shaiva extension might read each named chief as a locally intensified instance of the one self-luminous awareness, but this remains extrapolation, clearly marked as such, not his recorded word on this verse.
Read for the precision each kingship brings to its own class.
Sridhara moves through all four identifications as one continuous thread: Ananta, the still and non-poisonous serpent-king, also called Shesha; Varuna, king of the water-dwellers; Aryaman, chief of the ancestors; and among the restrainers, Yama, the one who carries out niyamana, restraint. He introduces no new doctrinal claim here, but his precision about what distinguishes each class, especially the naga from the ordinary snake, gives the verse its particular texture.
Read for what the verse's own brevity might be teaching.
Madhusudana's own comment on this verse is markedly terse: four identifications, almost nothing more. Read for what that silence itself might say, a modern-facing gloss can take this compactness as instructive in its own right, that where the syntax of chief-for-class already carries the teaching in full, no elaboration is owed, and brevity here signals completeness rather than neglect.
The four names sit differently across these readings. All but Ramanuja agree that Aryaman, chief of the ancestors, needs no correction. But the nagas are read either as one selected chief or as a class marked by its many heads, and the restrainer is named either Yama or Vaivasvata. And for two of the six voices gathered here, nothing verse-specific survives at all: Madhva's silence and Abhinavagupta's bundling into the 10.19 passage are left exactly as thin as the record makes them, without being smoothed into confident readings they do not support.
A question to carry
When a name in this verse turns out to belong to a power you would rather not meet, like the lord of death and judgment, does calling it one of the Lord's own glories change how you carry the day, or only how you talk about it?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
Let the chief of every order you meet today, welcome or unwelcome, be read the way this verse reads its four: not as a stranger set against you, but as the same presence standing at the head of its own kind.
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 long litany of vibhutis continues; here it moves through four more classes of being, the serpents, the water-dwellers, the ancestors, and those who keep the world's order.
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.
Of the nagas I am Ananta, their king, also called Shesha; of the water-dwellers I am Varuna, their king.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
The verse continues Krishna's litany of vibhutis by naming four supreme figures, one from each of four classes of beings: Ananta among the nagas, Varuna among the water-dwellers, Aryaman among the ancestors, Yama among those who restrain. The commentators agree that in each case the genitive marks a class and the name given marks its chief, so that the best representative of a kind stands for the Lord's presence in that kind.
Of the ancestors I am Aryaman, their chief; no acarya on file here disputes this identification.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
Ananta, also called Shesha, is read as king of the nagas, a class specified by several commentators as the still or non-poisonous serpent, distinct from ordinary venomous snakes, and pictured as the thousand-hooded cosmic serpent. Varuna is read, without dispute among these six, as king and presiding deity of the waters and of the sea-creatures within them.
Of those who restrain, who give every act its due fruit, I am named as the one who governs that order; whether the name is Yama or Vaivasvata, the office is the same.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
Aryaman is read as chief of the pitrs, the departed ancestors, the foremost of the ancestral deities to whom the living still owe rites. On this figure there is no recorded disagreement among the acaryas on file here; the divergence in this verse falls elsewhere, on the nagas and on the name given to the restrainer.
Not every source speaks to every name: Madhva offers no comment here, and Abhinavagupta's comment is bundled several verses earlier, at 10.19.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
The fourth glory concerns those who restrain, who keep the world in order by dispensing to every act its fruit of right and wrong. Shankara, Sridhara, and Madhusudana all read the name given here as Yama, lord of that restraining function, the one who governs the moral order rather than standing opposed to it.
The power that weighs your deeds is not an alien force set against you; it is counted among the Lord's own glories.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
For two of the six acaryas on file for this page, Madhva and Abhinavagupta, no verse-specific comment survives: Madhva is recorded as offering no comment at all, and Abhinavagupta's surviving text treats 10.19 through 10.42 as one unbroken passage, with the full comment given at 10.19. The convergence above is therefore drawn from the four acaryas whose words on this exact verse have come down to us.
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 departs from the common gloss on two specific points. He reads the nagas not as a selection of one best serpent but as a class characterized as many-headed in its entirety, and he reads the name among the restrainers not as Yama but as Vaivasvata, son of Vivasvat. He leaves the ancestor-line, Aryaman as chief, to the shared reading.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
No verse-specific reading survives from Madhva here; the source is explicit that he offers no comment on this verse. Any Dvaita-flavored extension, such as reading each named chief's supremacy as a dependent gift sustained by Hari rather than an independent excellence, would be an extrapolation from his general teaching elsewhere, not his recorded word on these four figures.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara continues the thread from the surrounding verses without introducing new doctrinal weight, but he adds a naturalist's precision: the nagas he specifies as the non-poisonous or still serpent, distinct from the venomous kind, and each subsequent identification, Varuna, Aryaman, Yama, is given as king or lord of its named class in turn, read as a single unbroken movement through four orders of being.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read for what it withholds as much as what it states, Madhusudana's terseness here is itself instructive: where the syntax already does the work of identifying a class and its chief, no elaboration is needed, and a modern reader may take the verse's brevity as a cue that its teaching is compact rather than in want of unpacking.
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
Sit for a moment with the fourth name in this verse, Yama, lord of those who restrain. Notice that the power which weighs your actions and returns their fruit is placed here among the Lord's own glories, not set against them. Let that steady your relation to consequence: not dread of an alien judge, but the recognition that the order holding your deeds accountable is itself a face of the same presence you are learning to see everywhere else in this chapter.
Meet the one who restrains and the one who judges as you would meet a king among serpents or a lord among waters: not as a stranger to fear, but as a glory already known.
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
he verse continues Krishna's litany of vibhutis by naming four supreme figures, one from each of four classes of beings: Ananta among the nagas, Varuna among the water-dwellers, Aryaman among the ancestors, Yama among those who restrain. The commentators agree that in each case the genitive marks a class and the name given marks its chief, so that the best representative of a kind stands for the Lord's presence in that kind.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Ananta, also called Shesha, is read as king of the nagas, a class specified by several commentators as the still or non-poisonous serpent, distinct from ordinary venomous snakes, and pictured as the thousand-hooded cosmic serpent. Varuna is read, without dispute among these six, as king and presiding deity of the waters and of the sea-creatures within them.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Aryaman is read as chief of the pitrs, the departed ancestors, the foremost of the ancestral deities to whom the living still owe rites. On this figure there is no recorded disagreement among the acaryas on file here; the divergence in this verse falls elsewhere, on the nagas and on the name given to the restrainer.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The fourth glory concerns those who restrain, who keep the world in order by dispensing to every act its fruit of right and wrong. Shankara, Sridhara, and Madhusudana all read the name given here as Yama, lord of that restraining function, the one who governs the moral order rather than standing opposed to it.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
For two of the six acaryas on file for this page, Madhva and Abhinavagupta, no verse-specific comment survives: Madhva is recorded as offering no comment at all, and Abhinavagupta's surviving text treats 10.19 through 10.42 as one unbroken passage, with the full comment given at 10.19. The convergence above is therefore drawn from the four acaryas whose words on this exact verse have come down to us.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara and Madhusudana read all four names as straightforward identifications of the chief of a class with the Lord's own presence: Ananta king of the nagas, Varuna king of the waters, Aryaman king of the ancestors, Yama lord of the restrainers. Madhusudana is markedly terse, letting the plain syntax of chief-for-class carry the whole teaching without added elaboration.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja departs from the common gloss on two specific points. He reads the nagas not as a selection of one best serpent but as a class characterized as many-headed in its entirety, and he reads the name among the restrainers not as Yama but as Vaivasvata, son of Vivasvat. He leaves the ancestor-line, Aryaman as chief, to the shared reading.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
No verse-specific reading survives from Madhva here; the source is explicit that he offers no comment on this verse. Any Dvaita-flavored extension, such as reading each named chief's supremacy as a dependent gift sustained by Hari rather than an independent excellence, would be an extrapolation from his general teaching elsewhere, not his recorded word on these four figures.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta's surviving commentary does not address this verse's four names directly; it treats 10.19 through 10.42 as one unit, with the substantive comment given at 10.19 warning against reading any single named glory as fencing the Lord off from everything else. A labeled Kashmir Shaiva extension would read each named chief as a locally intensified instance of the one self-luminous awareness, but this is offered only as extrapolation, not as his recorded reading of this verse.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara continues the thread from the surrounding verses without introducing new doctrinal weight, but he adds a naturalist's precision: the nagas he specifies as the non-poisonous or still serpent, distinct from the venomous kind, and each subsequent identification, Varuna, Aryaman, Yama, is given as king or lord of its named class in turn, read as a single unbroken movement through four orders of being.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read for what it withholds as much as what it states, Madhusudana's terseness here is itself instructive: where the syntax already does the work of identifying a class and its chief, no elaboration is needed, and a modern reader may take the verse's brevity as a cue that its teaching is compact rather than in want of unpacking.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
Why would Krishna name a serpent-king, a water-god, an ancestor-chief, and the lord of death and judgment as his own glories, rather than pointing only to things that are obviously beautiful or comforting?
The principle running through the whole chapter is that Krishna is present as the chief, the head, the foremost one within each class of beings, however that class strikes us at first glance. He is not curating a list of pleasant categories; he is teaching you to recognize one presence wherever headship or rule appears, in the depths, among the departed, and even in the office of judgment.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Where a verse-specific reading is available, as with Yama, the restrainer's function of giving each act its rightful fruit is treated as a form of the world's order, and that order is not opposed to the divine; it is one of its glories. Read this way, the figure most associated with dread turns out to be named for the same reason as the others: because within his function, he stands at the head.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
It is also honest to say that not every acarya on file speaks to this exact question at this exact verse; Madhva is silent here and Abhinavagupta's comment is bundled several verses earlier. What can be said with confidence rests on the four acaryas whose words on these four names have actually come down to us, and their shared answer is that the chief of any order, comforting or fearsome, is where the Lord's presence is most legible.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Contemplation
Sit for a moment with the fourth name in this verse, Yama, lord of those who restrain. Notice that the power which weighs your actions and returns their fruit is placed here among the Lord's own glories, not set against them. Let that steady your relation to consequence: not dread of an alien judge, but the recognition that the order holding your deeds accountable is itself a face of the same presence you are learning to see everywhere else in this chapter.
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.