The teaching returns, not because it is new, but because it must be heard again to be truly known.
Chapter 13 closed with a single, unexplained line: attachment to nature's three strands is what binds a self to birth. Here Krishna opens that line up, praising in advance the knowledge that will unfold it, and pointing to every sage who has already crossed over by it.
The Blessed Lord said: I will tell you again the supreme knowledge, the best of all knowledge. Knowing it, every sage has passed beyond this world to the highest attainment.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just told Arjuna that whatever is born comes from the meeting of the field and the one who knows the field, and that clinging to nature's three strands is what carries a self into one birth after another. That was said, but not explained. Now, at the opening of a new chapter, he turns to explain it, and before he does, he pauses to praise the knowledge he is about to give.
The teaching
Notice first that Krishna calls this a return, not an addition. He has spoken of this before, in substance, across the chapters already behind you; now he takes it up again, because a truth this subtle is not finished with a single telling, and this time it will be drawn out at length, the three strands set down one by one in their own form. Notice, too, that he praises the teaching before he gives it. He calls it supreme, and he calls it the best of all knowledge, and the commentators agree this is not decoration. It is meant to wake something in you, a longing for what is coming, so that you receive it as a gift rather than sit through it as instruction. The praise is also a ranking: sacrifice, ritual, austerity, the many arts and sciences of the world, all of these have their place, but none of them frees you from the wheel of birth and death, and this alone does. And the verse does not ask you to take that claim on faith alone. It points to a lineage: every sage, without exception, who has truly known this, not merely heard it or studied it, but known it the way you know a thing you have seen with your own eyes, has already gone from here, from this bondage of the body, to the one perfection worth the name.
The doubt that rises
If this is only a return to what has already been taught, what exactly changes by hearing it again? And when the verse says the sages reach the supreme perfection, is that a self restored to its own true nature, or a self that has, in some sense, ceased to be a separate self at all?
Where the paths divide
Read narrowly, from what the available source actually states.
Shankara reads this knowledge as supreme because its object is the supreme thing, and best because its fruit, liberation, is the best of all fruits. He is careful that the object is not a virtue like humility but something to be known outright, unlike sacrifice, which also has an object but does not free. What survives here does not go further into the mechanics of that knowing; it names the fruit and moves on, and this reading keeps to that limit rather than filling in what the source does not say.
Read as the self recovered, not erased.
Ramanuja reads the knowledge as bearing specifically on the gunas within nature and the self, and describes its fruit with real precision: the sages do not dissolve into a featureless absolute. They cross the round of rebirth and arrive at their own true form, recovered and made pure. The goal, on this reading, is restoration, a self given back to itself, not a self undone.
An honest limit: the source here is thin.
What survives under Madhva's name for this verse is a brief salutation, reverence to the Lord as giver of knowledge and bringer of the means, with a note that the coming chapters will chiefly teach that means. Reading forward from his broader pattern, one might expect the accent to fall on the self's total dependence even in receiving this knowledge. But that is an inference beyond what the fragment itself says, and is offered here only as a labeled possibility, not as his stated word on 14.1.
Brief and technical; kept to what the source gives.
Abhinavagupta's surviving note here is short: Krishna returns to teach what he has taught before, now at greater length, so that each strand's own form can be laid out clearly. His one distinctive touch is reading knowing which as marking that this knowledge is tested and proven, not an untested claim. The source does not extend, for this verse, into a fuller reading of recognition, so none is offered here beyond this labeled limit.
Read through Sridhara's word-by-word gloss.
Sridhara opens by setting aside nature's independence entirely: the variety of worldly existence is caused by attachment to the gunas, and that attachment itself unfolds only within the Lord's will. He glosses the praise-words one by one, supreme as set on the highest truth, highest as ranked above the knowledges of ritual and austerity, and reads the closing line as the verse certifying itself: sages who have actually made the crossing are the proof.
Read as the chapter's own stated agenda.
Madhusudana ties this verse to unfinished business: Chapter 13 said attachment to the gunas binds, without saying which gunas, how they bind, or how release comes, and this chapter exists to answer exactly that. He draws a fine distinction between the two praise-words, supreme naming the height of the knowledge's object, highest naming the height of its fruit, since ordinary means like sacrifice and inner disciplines yield real but lesser fruits by comparison.
All six readings agree this knowledge frees, and that the sages who reached it are the proof. They do not agree on what, exactly, is reached: a self restored to its own purified form, a self whose sense of separateness dissolves into the one knowing-light, or a further teaching on the means whose fruit is still ahead. Two of the six sources available for this verse are themselves too brief to settle even their own school's view with confidence. This page holds that thinness open rather than filling it in.
A question to carry
When you hear a teaching for the second time, what are you actually listening for that you could not hear the first time?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
Let the praise in this verse do exactly what it is meant to do: not flatter the teaching, but wake in you enough longing to receive what comes next as something to be known for yourself, the way the sages knew it, and not only heard.
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.
Just after naming the field and the field-knower, Krishna turns to what was left unsaid, why attachment to the gunas binds, and begins the chapter that will answer it strand by strand.
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.
What Chapter 13 stated in a single line, that clinging to nature's strands binds you to birth, this chapter now opens, strand by strand.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 3 others’ words
This verse is read as a deliberate bridge from the chapter before. Chapter 13 had said only that whatever is born comes from the joining of field and field-knower, and that attachment to the gunas casts a self into good or bad wombs, without unpacking any of it. Here Krishna opens the inquiry that this chapter exists to answer: which the gunas are, how they bind, and how release comes.
Again does not mean something extra; it means a return to what has already been taught, now drawn out slowly because the matter is subtle.
Across Advaita, Kashmir Śaiva, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Abhinavagupta, and 2 others’ words
The word again, bhuyah, is not read as a promise of something extra. It means Krishna will return to a truth already given in substance across earlier chapters, and say it once more because the matter is subtle and needs to be drawn out slowly and at length, this time setting the gunas down one by one.
The double praise, supreme and best, is not ornament; it is meant to wake your longing before the teaching itself begins.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The double praise, supreme and best, is read as purposeful rather than ornamental: it is meant to wake a longing in the listener before the teaching itself is given, so the instruction that follows is received with eagerness rather than mere attention.
This knowledge outranks sacrifice, ritual, and the ordinary arts and sciences on one ground alone: those do not free you, and this does.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
This knowledge is called the best by contrast with every other kind: sacrifice, ritual lore, austerity, the ordinary arts and sciences. Those may serve a purpose, but they do not free a person from bondage, and this alone does, which is why it stands above them.
The claim rests on people, not just words: every sage who has truly known this, by direct realization and not by hearsay, has already crossed over.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The verse certifies its own claim by pointing to a tested lineage: all the sages, without exception, who have truly known this, not merely heard of it, have gone from the body's bondage to the supreme perfection. The sage here is read as one whose very nature is sustained reflection, not merely a title.
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 the knowledge here as specifically concerning the gunas within nature and the self, and its fruit with unusual precision: the sages do not dissolve into an undifferentiated absolute, they cross the round of rebirth to reach the self's own true form, recovered and made pure. The goal is restoration of the self, not its erasure.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
The surviving comment attributed to Madhva here is only a brief salutation to the Lord as giver of knowledge, who brings about the means, with a note that the coming chapters will chiefly concern that means. Extending this conditionally in his broader Dvaita idiom: one would expect this opening read less as praise of an isolated knowledge and more as the start of a stretch of chapters on sadhana, with even the reaching of this knowledge understood as wholly dependent on the Lord's sanction. This extension is flagged as inference beyond the extant fragment, not as his stated word on 14.1.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara frames the whole chapter as unfolding the variety of worldly existence caused by attachment to the gunas, arising only within the Lord's will rather than nature's own independence, against the godless Sankhya's claim otherwise. He glosses each praise-word individually, supreme as set on the highest truth, highest as ranking above the knowledges of austerity and ritual, and reads the closing line as the verse certifying itself by the sages who have actually made the crossing.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana's reading functions almost as a technical preface to the whole chapter: he ties the verse to the unfinished business of Chapter 13 and draws a careful distinction between the two praise-words, supreme naming the height of the knowledge's object and highest naming the height of its fruit, since even ordinary rituals and inner disciplines yield real but lesser fruits by comparison. The praise, on his reading, functions to make the listener love the teaching before it is even given.
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 claim this verse makes before you have even heard the teaching it introduces: that something can be known which loosens the grip of birth and death entirely, and that everyone who has actually known it, not merely studied it, has been freed by it without exception. Let that claim itself be the object of your attention. Notice what in you doubts it, and what in you already leans toward it.
Let this praise do its work in you before the teaching arrives: let it wake, in you, the longing to hear what comes next, and to hear it as something meant to be known, not merely repeated.
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 read as a deliberate bridge from the chapter before. Chapter 13 had said only that whatever is born comes from the joining of field and field-knower, and that attachment to the gunas casts a self into good or bad wombs, without unpacking any of it. Here Krishna opens the inquiry that this chapter exists to answer: which the gunas are, how they bind, and how release comes.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The word again, bhuyah, is not read as a promise of something extra. It means Krishna will return to a truth already given in substance across earlier chapters, and say it once more because the matter is subtle and needs to be drawn out slowly and at length, this time setting the gunas down one by one.
Śaṅkarācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The double praise, supreme and best, is read as purposeful rather than ornamental: it is meant to wake a longing in the listener before the teaching itself is given, so the instruction that follows is received with eagerness rather than mere attention.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
This knowledge is called the best by contrast with every other kind: sacrifice, ritual lore, austerity, the ordinary arts and sciences. Those may serve a purpose, but they do not free a person from bondage, and this alone does, which is why it stands above them.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The verse certifies its own claim by pointing to a tested lineage: all the sages, without exception, who have truly known this, not merely heard of it, have gone from the body's bondage to the supreme perfection. The sage here is read as one whose very nature is sustained reflection, not merely a title.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads this knowledge as supreme because its very object is the supreme thing, and best because its fruit is the best, namely liberation. He is precise that its object is not humility or the other listed virtues but something to be known, the way sacrifice has an object, only this object, unlike sacrifice's, actually frees. The available material for this verse does not extend into the deeper technical account of what that knowing itself consists of; it states the fruit and moves on.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja reads the knowledge here as specifically concerning the gunas within nature and the self, and its fruit with unusual precision: the sages do not dissolve into an undifferentiated absolute, they cross the round of rebirth to reach the self's own true form, recovered and made pure. The goal is restoration of the self, not its erasure.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
The surviving comment attributed to Madhva here is only a brief salutation to the Lord as giver of knowledge, who brings about the means, with a note that the coming chapters will chiefly concern that means. Extending this conditionally in his broader Dvaita idiom: one would expect this opening read less as praise of an isolated knowledge and more as the start of a stretch of chapters on sadhana, with even the reaching of this knowledge understood as wholly dependent on the Lord's sanction. This extension is flagged as inference beyond the extant fragment, not as his stated word on 14.1.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
What survives of Abhinavagupta's note here is brief and largely technical: Krishna returns to teach the same knowledge again, now at a higher pitch and greater length, in order to lay out each guna's own form. His one distinctive touch is reading knowing which as marking that this knowledge is tested and proven, standing on established ground. The source does not extend into a fuller Kashmir Shaiva reading of recognition (pratyabhijna) for this particular verse, so none is attributed to him here beyond a clearly labeled possibility.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara frames the whole chapter as unfolding the variety of worldly existence caused by attachment to the gunas, arising only within the Lord's will rather than nature's own independence, against the godless Sankhya's claim otherwise. He glosses each praise-word individually, supreme as set on the highest truth, highest as ranking above the knowledges of austerity and ritual, and reads the closing line as the verse certifying itself by the sages who have actually made the crossing.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana's reading functions almost as a technical preface to the whole chapter: he ties the verse to the unfinished business of Chapter 13 and draws a careful distinction between the two praise-words, supreme naming the height of the knowledge's object and highest naming the height of its fruit, since even ordinary rituals and inner disciplines yield real but lesser fruits by comparison. The praise, on his reading, functions to make the listener love the teaching before it is even given.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If Krishna already taught this in earlier chapters, why tell it again, and what am I actually meant to listen for differently this time?
The commentators agree the word again does not promise something new. It signals a deliberate return to a truth already given in substance, because the subject is subtle enough that a single telling does not fix it. What changes this time is depth and order, not content.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
This time the teaching will set the gunas down one by one in their own form, rather than stating only that attachment to them binds. Listen for the anatomy this time, not just the verdict you already accepted.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
And notice that the fruit named is not abstract: sages who have actually known this, by direct realization and not by hearsay, have crossed over. Ramanuja is specific that what they reach is their own true form, recovered and purified, not an erasure of themselves. Listen, this time, for what is being restored to you, not only what is being taken away.
Rāmānujācārya
Contemplation
Sit for a moment with the claim this verse makes before you have even heard the teaching it introduces: that something can be known which loosens the grip of birth and death entirely, and that everyone who has actually known it, not merely studied it, has been freed by it without exception. Let that claim itself be the object of your attention. Notice what in you doubts it, and what in you already leans toward it.
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.