Arjuna asks pardon for every ordinary hour of friendship he never knew was spent beside the immeasurable.
This is not a confession of malice. It is what happens when the friend you have teased and leaned on turns out, all along, to have been beyond all measure.
And whatever disrespect I showed you in jest, while at play, resting, sitting, or eating, whether we were alone or you stood in front of others, for all of it, Achyuta, I beg your forgiveness, you who are beyond all measure.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Arjuna has already confessed, one verse back, the headstrong words he spoke to Krishna's face. Now the confession widens. He goes looking through the whole shared history of their companionship, the small hours rather than the large words, to see whether anything there still needs to be laid down.
The teaching
Think of the plainest hours you spend with someone you love easily: playing together, resting on the same couch, sitting side by side, sharing a meal. These are exactly the hours Arjuna names, because these are exactly the hours where two people first let formality go. He confesses the offense in both of its forms. When they were alone, unseen by anyone, he treated Krishna without the honor due him; and just as much, before others, among friends who were laughing along, he did the same in the open. Nothing is set aside as too small. Where the sources speak to cause, they name not malice but simple ease: Arjuna had taken this friend as an equal, a comrade, without knowing his true scope, and that not-knowing, not any ill will, is the whole root of the offense. The plea closes on two names. Achyuta, the unfallen, marks that none of this could actually shake Krishna from his own place. Aprameya, beyond all measure, marks the very reason pardon is easy for him to give: a boundless being is not diminished by a friend's carelessness, and does not need to withhold forgiveness to protect anything of his own. Two of the six commentators on file are honest limits rather than full readings here. Ramanuja's gloss is not written fresh for this verse; it is one continuous passage shared with the one before it, and it should be used as that, not silently repackaged as new. Abhinavagupta offers nothing on this verse at all, and no confident Kashmir Shaiva reading should be invented to fill that space; only a clearly labeled possibility, extended from his treatment of nearby verses, can honestly be offered, and even that must be marked as speculation, not as his own words.
The doubt that rises
If none of this was truly malicious, only the ease of close affection, why does it need forgiving at all? And once you see how much larger your friend has always been, does the friendship have to change its shape, or can the same closeness continue, now simply seen more clearly?
Where the paths divide
Read as a careful grammar of the fault and its two settings.
Shankara and Madhusudana both work through the verse almost word by word: play is the moving of the feet, rest is lying down, the seat is sitting, eating is the taking of food. Both distinguish alone from before others as the private and public forms of the same offense, gathered into the single word 'all of that.' Both close on the same ground for pardon, the Lord's own unfallen, immeasurable nature. Shankara's text breaks off mid-thought at exactly this point; Madhusudana finishes it, naming ignorance of Krishna's greatness as the whole cause.
A joint confession with the verse before it, not a fresh comment.
Ramanuja's actual comment on this verse is not separate from his comment on the one before it; the two are treated as a single passage, anchored at 11.41. Read honestly within that limit, his emphasis is less on the private-public grammar and more on the one cause he names for the whole episode: Arjuna did not know Krishna's endless power or his standing as the inner self of all beings, and out of that not-knowing, mistook long closeness for actual equality.
A single surviving line, read narrowly rather than expanded.
What remains of Madhva's comment here does not read 'alone' as 'alone' at all. It resolves the word instead into a claim about agency itself: the Lord alone is the one who makes every being act, and there is no other doer beside him. Nothing beyond this one grammatical move should be attributed to him on this verse; the source simply does not extend further.
Genuine silence, with any extension clearly flagged as speculation.
The source states plainly that Abhinavagupta offers no comment on this verse. Nothing in his own voice can honestly be reported here. If one wished to extend his broader idiom, a possible thought would be that Arjuna's old ease with Krishna as a friend was itself already a spontaneous recognition of playful self-disclosure between equals, and that the fault being confessed is only a forgetting now dissolving. But this is offered only as a labeled possibility drawn from his wider approach elsewhere, never as a report of what he actually wrote on this verse.
Read as the second, fuller half of a single ongoing confession.
Sridhara calls this the finer of Arjuna's two apologies. The first confessed headstrong words; this one reaches into the whole texture of shared life, both the hidden hours and the open teasing before friends. He stresses that nothing is held back: the entire history of the friendship is laid down complete, so that no piece of it can later rise up to trouble the bond once the closeness resumes its ordinary shape.
Read as evidence the offense was ordinary, not extraordinary.
Taken together, the word-by-word glosses show a confession built entirely from the plainest furniture of companionship: sport, a shared bed, a shared seat, a shared table. Nothing unusual or scandalous is named. The plea reads less like the confession of a crime and more like the natural response of someone who has just discovered that a friend he handled casually was, the entire time, far larger than casual familiarity ever let him see.
Two of the six sources on file are honest limits rather than full readings: Ramanuja's comment is shared jointly with the previous verse, and Abhinavagupta's is silent altogether. This page does not manufacture what those sources do not give. It also leaves open a further question none of the commentators fully settle: whether seeing a friend's true immeasurability should change the shape of the friendship, or only deepen the same closeness that was already there.
A question to carry
Think of someone you love easily, without much ceremony. If you suddenly saw how much larger they truly are, would your closeness with them have to end, or could it simply become more honest?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
May your easy affections be forgiven their small blindness, and may seeing more clearly never cost you the friendship that taught you to see at all.
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's praise of the cosmic form, begun after his terror, has turned here into apology; this verse is the second and fuller half of that confession, widening it from words already spoken to the whole shared fabric of companionship.
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.
The offense named is the plainest furniture of friendship: play, rest, a shared seat, a shared meal, nothing exotic or rare.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
Arjuna widens his apology from the words of the previous verse into the whole texture of ordinary companionship: play, resting, sitting, eating. The commentators who address the verse directly agree that nothing exotic is named. These are the plainest hours of shared life, the very hours where two friends first let formality go.
Both the hidden and the open moments are gathered into a single plea; nothing is set aside as too small to confess.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
The offense is confessed in two forms with no exception made for either: eka, when the two were alone and unseen, and tat-samaksham, before others, in the open. The word tat, 'all of that,' gathers both into a single, complete plea, leaving no private or public moment set aside as too small to matter.
Where the cause is named, it is not malice but affectionate ease and simple not-knowing of who this friend truly was.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, Advaita, BhaktiRāmānuja · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Rāmānuja, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
Where the sources speak to motive at all, the offense is read as one of easy affection rather than malice. Arjuna took Krishna as an equal, a comrade, and behaved accordingly, not out of contempt but out of long closeness and simple not-knowing of who this friend actually was.
Achyuta and aprameya close the verse by grounding forgiveness in the Lord's own unfallen, boundless nature, not in any merit of the one asking.
Across AdvaitaŚaṅkara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara and Madhusūdana’s words
The two names that close the verse, Achyuta and aprameya, are treated as more than address. Achyuta, the unfallen, marks that nothing Arjuna did could actually diminish Krishna; aprameya, beyond all measure, is read as the very ground on which pardon becomes fitting, since a boundless, compassionate being can absorb a friend's carelessness without strain.
Where a source is thin, as with Ramanuja's joint gloss, or silent, as with Abhinavagupta here, the honest course names that limit rather than inventing a fuller voice.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, Kashmir ŚaivaRāmānuja · AbhinavaguptaIn Rāmānuja and Abhinavagupta’s words
Where a source is thin or silent, this is the second time in as many verses that the honest course is to say so plainly. Ramanuja's comment is given jointly with 11.41 rather than freshly for this verse; Abhinavagupta's Gita commentary offers nothing here at all. Naming that limit is itself part of a faithful reading, not a gap to paper over.
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's comment is not freshly written for 11.42; it is given jointly with 11.41 as a single confession. Read honestly within that limit, his emphasis falls less on parsing eka and tat-samaksham as a technical pair and more on the single cause he names for the whole episode: affection mistaken for equality, arising from not knowing the Lord's endless power and his standing as the inner self of all beings.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
The one line surviving from Madhva on this verse does not read eka as 'alone.' He resolves the word instead into a compressed claim about sole agency: the Lord alone makes all beings act, and there is no other doer. Nothing further should be attributed to him here; the source does not extend to the settings of the offense or the meaning of the closing names.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read together, Madhusudana and Shankara's word-by-word glosses show a confession built almost entirely from the ordinary furniture of companionship, sport, a shared bed, a shared seat, a shared table, with no incident named as unusual. The plea for pardon is not the confession of a moral crime; it is the natural response of someone who has just discovered how much larger a friend has always been than easy familiarity let him see.
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 someone you love easily, without ceremony. Let yourself notice, gently, how much of that ease rests on not fully seeing them. Then let the seeing deepen without asking the ease to leave. That is the whole shape of this verse: greater sight, not less closeness.
When you see more clearly how much larger someone you love has always been, let the seeing deepen the friendship rather than end it, and ask, if you must, only for the same complete honesty this verse offers.
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 widens his apology from the words of the previous verse into the whole texture of ordinary companionship: play, resting, sitting, eating. The commentators who address the verse directly agree that nothing exotic is named. These are the plainest hours of shared life, the very hours where two friends first let formality go.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
The offense is confessed in two forms with no exception made for either: eka, when the two were alone and unseen, and tat-samaksham, before others, in the open. The word tat, 'all of that,' gathers both into a single, complete plea, leaving no private or public moment set aside as too small to matter.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Where the sources speak to motive at all, the offense is read as one of easy affection rather than malice. Arjuna took Krishna as an equal, a comrade, and behaved accordingly, not out of contempt but out of long closeness and simple not-knowing of who this friend actually was.
Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
The two names that close the verse, Achyuta and aprameya, are treated as more than address. Achyuta, the unfallen, marks that nothing Arjuna did could actually diminish Krishna; aprameya, beyond all measure, is read as the very ground on which pardon becomes fitting, since a boundless, compassionate being can absorb a friend's carelessness without strain.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Where a source is thin or silent, this is the second time in as many verses that the honest course is to say so plainly. Ramanuja's comment is given jointly with 11.41 rather than freshly for this verse; Abhinavagupta's Gita commentary offers nothing here at all. Naming that limit is itself part of a faithful reading, not a gap to paper over.
Rāmānujācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara and Madhusudana both work through the verse's grammar with care, glossing each named setting of the offense and distinguishing eka from tat-samaksham as the private and public forms of the same fault. Both close on the same ground for forgiveness: Achyuta shows nothing was actually lost by Krishna, and aprameya shows why pardon costs him nothing to give. Shankara's text breaks off in a short fragment at the very point of stating this ground; Madhusudana completes the thought explicitly, naming ignorance of Krishna's greatness as the whole cause of the offense.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja's comment is not freshly written for 11.42; it is given jointly with 11.41 as a single confession. Read honestly within that limit, his emphasis falls less on parsing eka and tat-samaksham as a technical pair and more on the single cause he names for the whole episode: affection mistaken for equality, arising from not knowing the Lord's endless power and his standing as the inner self of all beings.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
The one line surviving from Madhva on this verse does not read eka as 'alone.' He resolves the word instead into a compressed claim about sole agency: the Lord alone makes all beings act, and there is no other doer. Nothing further should be attributed to him here; the source does not extend to the settings of the offense or the meaning of the closing names.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
The source states plainly that Abhinavagupta offers no comment on this verse. No confident Kashmir Shaiva reading can honestly be reported in his name. A clearly-labeled extrapolation only, not his own words, might extend his treatment of nearby verses to suggest that Arjuna's old ease as sakha was already a spontaneous recognition of the Lord's own playful self-disclosure, and the fault confessed is only a forgetting now dissolving; this remains a possibility consistent with the school's idiom, not a report of anything he wrote.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara reads this as Arjuna's second and finer apology, reaching past the headstrong words of 11.41 into the whole shared history of friendship, both its hidden hours and its public teasing. He stresses that the devotee makes no exceptions, laying down the entire sakhi-bhava so that nothing is left standing outside the plea, protecting the friendship from any debt it might otherwise carry forward.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read together, Madhusudana and Shankara's word-by-word glosses show a confession built almost entirely from the ordinary furniture of companionship, sport, a shared bed, a shared seat, a shared table, with no incident named as unusual. The plea for pardon is not the confession of a moral crime; it is the natural response of someone who has just discovered how much larger a friend has always been than easy familiarity let him see.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śaṅkarācārya
A Seeker Asks
If my familiarity with someone I love was never actually disrespectful, only affectionate, why does this verse ask for pardon at all, and does growing in reverence mean I must grow more distant?
The verse itself does not treat the familiarity as a crime; several readings name its cause as simple not-knowing rather than malice. What is being repaired is not a moral debt so much as a gap between how large the friend actually is and how small the easy friendship had been letting him appear.
Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Sridhara's reading points the other way from distance: the apology exists precisely so the friendship can continue undisturbed, with nothing left owed. The plea clears the ground; it does not close the relationship down.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Where the sources are thin or silent, as with Ramanuja's joint gloss and Abhinavagupta's absence here, that thinness is itself worth sitting with rather than resolving too quickly. Not every verse yields a full answer from every school, and a seeker can hold that incompleteness honestly, the same way Arjuna holds his own incomplete knowledge in this very verse.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Contemplation
Sit for a moment with someone you love easily, without ceremony. Let yourself notice, gently, how much of that ease rests on not fully seeing them. Then let the seeing deepen without asking the ease to leave. That is the whole shape of this verse: greater sight, not less closeness.
Sit with this · sonnet-5-authored
All the translations and commentary
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