This yoga is not new; it comes to you down an unbroken line from the sun.
Before he says anything further, Krishna reaches back. He names a teaching already given long ago, carried teacher to pupil down a line of kings, so that what follows will not be mistaken for an argument invented on the spot.
The Blessed Lord said: I taught this imperishable yoga to Vivasvan, the sun. Vivasvan taught it to Manu, and Manu taught it to Ikshvaku.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just closed the second chapter's teaching on the steady mind. Before he goes any further, he pauses and looks backward, telling Arjuna where this teaching actually comes from, and how long it has already been alive in the world.
The teaching
This yoga is not something Krishna has invented for this particular afternoon, on this particular field, to talk one particular warrior into fighting. He says he taught it, long ago, to Vivasvan the sun. The sun taught it to his own son Manu. Manu taught it to his own son Ikshvaku, the first king. It comes to Arjuna, then, as an inheritance, carried down through a line of rulers rather than discovered fresh by anyone in this conversation. The commentators agree on why this matters: an old teaching, handed down without a break, cannot easily be dismissed as a trick of the moment. It is called imperishable, and the reason most often given is not that the chain of telling was never broken, but that what the teaching yields does not fail. A steady, true way of seeing, once reached, does not come undone. Some ground that same imperishability further back still, in the eternal Veda itself, of which this teaching is held to be the very sense. And it is worth noticing who carried this teaching: not renunciates withdrawn from the world, but a sun who is said to be always working, and kings who ruled while living by it. Whatever else this yoga asks, it was never asking anyone to first leave the world behind.
The doubt that rises
Why should it matter, to you, that a teaching passed through the sun and a line of ancient kings before it reached this battlefield? Does age make a truth truer, or does it only make an old truth harder to challenge?
Where the paths divide
Read through the surviving note's own emphasis: purpose and undying fruit.
Shankara's extant comment on this verse stays close to two points. First, purpose: the teaching was given to the sun to strengthen the warrior order, so that, joined to the power of yoga, it could protect the priestly order, and so keep the whole world safe. Second, the meaning of imperishable: this yoga never dies because its fruit, a steady true seeing called liberation, never dies. The surviving text does not extend, here, into the fuller argument about knowledge and action that Advaita develops elsewhere in the Gita; it simply establishes why this lineage was worth telling.
Read as an argument against the fear that this teaching is a contrivance of the hour.
Ramanuja reads the verse as answering a doubt before it is even voiced: this is not something Krishna made up to move Arjuna to fight. He taught it, at the very start of an aeon, as the means to liberation, for the saving of the whole world, and it passed unbroken through royal sages until, over a long stretch of time, duller hearers let it nearly slip away. That near-loss is exactly why it must be renewed now, to Arjuna, in this conversation.
Read honestly as a thin source: a brief chapter-preview more than a full gloss.
What survives under Madhva's name here is short: an invocation, and a preview naming the chapter's three coming themes, the greatness of the One beyond the intellect, the varieties of action, and the greatness of knowledge. Within that frame, the lineage is mentioned only in passing, as proof that this path was already walked in older times. The fuller Dvaita teaching on dependence and delegated agency belongs to later verses, not to what has survived here.
Read with full disclosure: the source addresses later verses, not this one.
Here the honest reading is a flag rather than a doctrine. The material preserved under Abhinavagupta's name for this chapter falls mainly on the verses just after 4.1, on the loss of a handed-down knowledge and on Krishna calling Arjuna his devotee and friend. The one thread that touches this verse is the observation that a teaching's very capacity to be lost across succession marks how rare and weighty it must have been. Any further Kashmir Shaiva reading of 4.1 itself, such as hearing the guru-line as a chain of recognition rather than information, would be a labeled extension, not his stated word.
Read as the opening move of praise, before a larger unfolding.
Sridhara frames the whole chapter as Hari singing the praise of the karma-yoga already taught, and reads this verse as establishing the teaching's standing as lineage-received before expanding it further through the offering of works and the discrimination of the great Vedantic terms. The chain from the sun through Manu to Ikshvaku assures the hearer that what follows is the ancient royal tradition itself, never once stepping outside the line of kings.
Read as a deliberate rhetorical move: lineage as an argument against doubt.
Madhusudana reads the recital of lineage as intentional argument: Krishna, as the one who upholds the whole world, taught it to the sun in the highest way precisely so as to uproot every doubt. The word imperishable carries two grounds together, an undying fruit and a root in the undying Veda, and he is careful to place this particular chain in the present age, even while noting that the teaching itself belongs to every age alike.
All six readings agree the lineage matters because it rules out one specific suspicion, that this teaching was invented for the occasion. They differ on how much further that lineage proves. Some ground trust mainly in the teaching's fruit; some in its root in the Veda; one source is honestly too thin here to say much at all; and one, on the surviving text, addresses a different verse altogether. The reading does not resolve how far an old pedigree should carry your trust, only that it was never meant to carry all of it alone.
A question to carry
If you learned tomorrow that something you deeply believe had, in fact, only just been invented for your benefit, would that change whether it was true, or only how willing you were to trust it?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
Think of the sun the verse names: always moving, always at work, and yet never scorched by its own labor. Take up what this day asks of you in that same spirit, not because a lineage commands it, but because the work itself, rightly held, was always going to be enough.
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.
After two chapters laying out knowledge as the goal and selfless action as the way to it, the fourth chapter opens by turning to look backward before Krishna moves the teaching forward.
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 yoga named here is no new subject; it is the very teaching already before you, knowledge as the goal and selfless action as the way.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
All six readings treat 'this yoga' as no new subject sprung up on the battlefield, but the very teaching already laid out across the first two chapters, whether named as knowledge, as action, or as the two held together because they share a single fruit. The chapter opens by looking backward before it moves forward.
The old chain of teacher to pupil is recited to settle a real doubt: that this is reliable and ancient, not a contrivance of the moment.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, Bhakti, AdvaitaRāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Rāmānuja, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
Every commentator on file treats the recitation of the lineage, sun to Manu to Ikshvaku, as purposeful rather than ornamental: it answers, in advance, a doubt Arjuna might otherwise raise, that this is a teaching invented on the spot to move him toward war. An unbroken line of teacher to pupil, reaching back to the dawn of creation, is offered as the opposite of a contrivance of the hour.
Call it imperishable because what it yields, a steady true seeing, does not fail, and because it is rooted in the undecaying Veda.
Across AdvaitaŚaṅkara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara and Madhusūdana’s words
The word imperishable, avyaya, is read across the sources as pointing to the fruit rather than to a claim that the chain itself was never broken: the teaching does not decay because what it yields, liberation or steady true seeing, does not decay. Some also root that imperishability in the eternal Veda itself.
It ran from the sun to Manu to Ikshvaku, the first king, carried by rulers for the sake of the whole world, an inheritance received, not a private discovery.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 3 others’ words
The bare genealogical facts are not in dispute: Krishna taught it first to Vivasvat the sun; Vivasvat taught his own son Manu; Manu taught his own son Ikshvaku, the first king and founder of a royal line. Every acarya on file who addresses the verse directly repeats this same chain without variation.
Where the sources are thin, as for a fragment attributed to Abhinavagupta, the honest reading says so rather than inventing a fuller voice.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
None of the readings treats the teaching as belonging only to renunciates. Whether framed as protection of the world through strengthened kings, or as an inheritance carried by ruling sages, the yoga named here is one that was lived out by people who held thrones and exercised power, not one that required withdrawal from the world to practice.
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 verse as Krishna's direct answer to an unspoken doubt: this is not a teaching invented for the moment to spur Arjuna into battle, but one he himself gave at the very start of an aeon as the means to liberation, for the saving of the whole world. The unbroken chain of transmission is the guarantee of its authority, and its near-loss over time, as hearers grew dull, is precisely why it must be spoken again now.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
The extant note attributed to Madhva here is brief, chiefly an invocation and a preview of the chapter's three themes: the greatness of the One beyond the intellect, the difference among kinds of action, and the greatness of knowledge. Within that frame, the lineage is treated simply as evidence that this path was walked in older times too, without the fuller doctrine of dependence Madhva develops elsewhere in the chapter.
Shaiva, in their fuller words
The source material preserved under Abhinavagupta's name for this chapter does not address 4.1 itself; it falls chiefly on the following verses, on the loss of a handed-down knowledge and on Krishna naming Arjuna his devotee and friend. What can be honestly reported is only the adjacent observation that a teaching's very capacity to be lost across a succession marks how rare and weighty it must be. A Kashmir Shaiva extension to 4.1 proper, reading the guru-line as a chain of recognition rather than of information, would be a clearly labeled extrapolation, not his stated word on this verse.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara frames the whole chapter as Hari singing the praise of karma-yoga, and reads Krishna here as first establishing the teaching's standing as lineage-received before expanding it further. The chain from the sun through Manu to Ikshvaku assures the hearer that what follows is the ancient royal tradition itself, never having stepped outside the line of kings, a teaching that has always belonged as much to those who rule and act as to renunciates.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana treats the recital of lineage as a deliberate answer to skepticism: Krishna, as the Blessed Vasudeva who upholds the whole world, taught it to the sun in the highest way precisely so as to uproot every doubt. He is exact about the word imperishable, grounding it both in the teaching's own undying fruit and in its root in the eternal Veda, and careful to note that though the teaching belongs to all Manus alike, this particular chain is counted from Vivasvat with the present age in view.
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 take up whatever this day asks of you, pause on one plain fact: you did not invent the path you are about to walk. Others walked it before you, some of them while ruling kingdoms, none of them waiting for a quieter life to begin. Let that thought loosen any feeling that your circumstances are too ordinary, or too busy, for this to apply to you.
So receive this teaching as those before you did: not as something you must invent for yourself alone, but as a path long open, carried down to you across a great distance, waiting only for your own steady walking of it.
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
ll six readings treat 'this yoga' as no new subject sprung up on the battlefield, but the very teaching already laid out across the first two chapters, whether named as knowledge, as action, or as the two held together because they share a single fruit. The chapter opens by looking backward before it moves forward.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Every commentator on file treats the recitation of the lineage, sun to Manu to Ikshvaku, as purposeful rather than ornamental: it answers, in advance, a doubt Arjuna might otherwise raise, that this is a teaching invented on the spot to move him toward war. An unbroken line of teacher to pupil, reaching back to the dawn of creation, is offered as the opposite of a contrivance of the hour.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The word imperishable, avyaya, is read across the sources as pointing to the fruit rather than to a claim that the chain itself was never broken: the teaching does not decay because what it yields, liberation or steady true seeing, does not decay. Some also root that imperishability in the eternal Veda itself.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The bare genealogical facts are not in dispute: Krishna taught it first to Vivasvat the sun; Vivasvat taught his own son Manu; Manu taught his own son Ikshvaku, the first king and founder of a royal line. Every acarya on file who addresses the verse directly repeats this same chain without variation.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
None of the readings treats the teaching as belonging only to renunciates. Whether framed as protection of the world through strengthened kings, or as an inheritance carried by ruling sages, the yoga named here is one that was lived out by people who held thrones and exercised power, not one that required withdrawal from the world to practice.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara's surviving comment stresses purpose more than doctrine: this yoga was given first to the sun so that the warrior order, strengthened by it, could protect the priestly order, and so keep the whole world safe. Its imperishability rests entirely on one point, that its fruit, a steady true seeing called liberation, does not perish. The note stays close to the verse's letter and does not extend, here, into the fuller Advaita claim that knowledge alone liberates directly while action only purifies; that argument belongs to later verses in this source.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja reads the verse as Krishna's direct answer to an unspoken doubt: this is not a teaching invented for the moment to spur Arjuna into battle, but one he himself gave at the very start of an aeon as the means to liberation, for the saving of the whole world. The unbroken chain of transmission is the guarantee of its authority, and its near-loss over time, as hearers grew dull, is precisely why it must be spoken again now.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
The extant note attributed to Madhva here is brief, chiefly an invocation and a preview of the chapter's three themes: the greatness of the One beyond the intellect, the difference among kinds of action, and the greatness of knowledge. Within that frame, the lineage is treated simply as evidence that this path was walked in older times too, without the fuller doctrine of dependence Madhva develops elsewhere in the chapter.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
The source material preserved under Abhinavagupta's name for this chapter does not address 4.1 itself; it falls chiefly on the following verses, on the loss of a handed-down knowledge and on Krishna naming Arjuna his devotee and friend. What can be honestly reported is only the adjacent observation that a teaching's very capacity to be lost across a succession marks how rare and weighty it must be. A Kashmir Shaiva extension to 4.1 proper, reading the guru-line as a chain of recognition rather than of information, would be a clearly labeled extrapolation, not his stated word on this verse.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara frames the whole chapter as Hari singing the praise of karma-yoga, and reads Krishna here as first establishing the teaching's standing as lineage-received before expanding it further. The chain from the sun through Manu to Ikshvaku assures the hearer that what follows is the ancient royal tradition itself, never having stepped outside the line of kings, a teaching that has always belonged as much to those who rule and act as to renunciates.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana treats the recital of lineage as a deliberate answer to skepticism: Krishna, as the Blessed Vasudeva who upholds the whole world, taught it to the sun in the highest way precisely so as to uproot every doubt. He is exact about the word imperishable, grounding it both in the teaching's own undying fruit and in its root in the eternal Veda, and careful to note that though the teaching belongs to all Manus alike, this particular chain is counted from Vivasvat with the present age in view.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
Why should it matter that a teaching is old and handed down through others? Shouldn't a truth stand or fall on its own merit, regardless of who taught it first?
The verse itself is not offering age as a substitute for truth, but as an answer to a specific and reasonable suspicion: that this teaching is being invented on the spot to serve the moment's purpose. An unbroken line reaching back to the dawn of creation rules out that particular doubt, even if it does not, by itself, prove every claim within the teaching.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Several readings root the teaching's reliability somewhere deeper than mere age: in the fruit it yields, a steady true seeing that does not fail, and in its being the very sense of the eternal Veda. Antiquity is the visible sign of something more fundamental, not the fundamental thing itself.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
And the lineage was never handed down as one warrior's private consolation before a single battle. It came for the sake of the whole world, carried by rulers who lived by it while still governing kingdoms, which is part of why it can be trusted to apply as well to your own ordinary, engaged life as it did to theirs.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Contemplation
Before you take up whatever this day asks of you, pause on one plain fact: you did not invent the path you are about to walk. Others walked it before you, some of them while ruling kingdoms, none of them waiting for a quieter life to begin. Let that thought loosen any feeling that your circumstances are too ordinary, or too busy, for this to apply to you.
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.