Arjuna lays his whole doubt before the one knower who does not have to reason his way to an answer.
This is Arjuna speaking, not Krishna, so no closing blessing is voiced by the Lord here. What the verse offers instead is the shape of an honest, total asking, addressed to the only source its questioner believes can meet it.
Krishna, you alone can cut this doubt of mine to the root, without remainder. No one else is able to settle it.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
The question from the last two verses is still open: what becomes of the seeker who set out on the path of yoga and fell away before finishing it. Rather than keep turning that question over alone, Arjuna stops and hands it, entirely, to Krishna.
The teaching
You ask that this doubt be cut wholly, with nothing left over. Not a partial easing that leaves the root intact, but its complete removal. And you ask this of Krishna specifically, because, as the extant readings agree, no other seer and no god could be fit for this particular cutting. The unfitness is not a matter of unwillingness on their part; it is a matter of what they can and cannot know. What marks Krishna out, on the readings that speak most directly to this verse, is not simply that he knows more than others. It is how he knows. Ramanuja is precise that Krishna sees all things directly, of himself, immediately, at all times, where every other knower, however wise, must reason toward a conclusion or rely on what has been told to them. Madhusudana adds a second ground alongside this: Krishna is also the supreme teacher, the very source of scripture, the compassionate one, so the authority to settle a question of this depth rests specifically on him. Sridhara, whose comment here is shorter still, spends most of his attention on a small point of grammar, the neuter word for 'this' standing in for a masculine word that could mean either the doubt or Krishna himself, an old usage he says needs no further unpacking. What he leaves standing, once that is settled, is simply the tone of the plea: quiet, complete, and addressed to no one else. It should be said honestly that the record thins out further at this exact verse for two of the acharyas gathered here. Madhva's and Abhinavagupta's substantive commentaries both sit one verse earlier, at 6.37, occupied there with the fallen seeker's fate rather than with this verse's own claim about why Krishna alone can answer. Nothing dishonest would be gained by inventing what they might have said here; what can honestly be offered is only where their attention actually lies, and a clearly marked sense of how their wider teaching would likely extend to this verse, offered as extension, not as their word.
The doubt that rises
If only an all-knowing Lord, standing directly in front of him, could meet Arjuna's doubt this completely, what is a seeker meant to do with a question of this depth when no such Lord stands visibly in front of them?
Where the paths divide
A brief, exact confirmation rather than a developed argument.
What survives of Shankara's comment here is short: the doubt is to be cut with nothing left over, and no one but Krishna, neither seer nor god, is fit to cut it. He does not, in the text that survives at this specific verse, build out the larger case for why an all-pervading knower alone could see a soul's whole fate; that fuller architecture belongs to the tradition's broader teaching, and is not offered here as his own extended words on 6.39.
Fitness tied to the manner of knowing, not only its extent.
Ramanuja's single surviving sentence ties Krishna's fitness to something exact: he sees all things directly, of himself, at once, at all times. No other knower has this. The extant material at this verse does not extend into his wider teaching of the Lord as inner controller allotting each soul's fruit; what remains is the narrower, precise claim about unmediated seeing.
Honestly thin here; the substance sits one verse earlier.
Madhva's commentary handles 6.37 through 6.39 as one passage, and what survives of his own words sits at 6.37, glossing a single term describing the fallen seeker. No extant material speaks to 6.39's own claim about Krishna's sole fitness to answer. On a Dvaita reading, one might expect this to rest on the self's total dependence on the Lord for any knowing at all; that extension is not in the surviving text, and is marked here only as a plausible possibility, not his words.
Also thin here; attention sits at the fallen seeker's fate.
Abhinavagupta's commentary likewise treats 6.37 through 6.39 as one passage, with his surviving attention given to whether the seeker who has not perfected yoga perishes or is preserved by faith, a question raised at 6.37 rather than 6.39's own claim. No extant material addresses why Krishna alone is fit to answer that question. One might extend the point, marked clearly as extension, to hold that only an awareness unbounded by any object could see a soul's whole trajectory without inference.
A grammatical gloss, then the plea allowed to stand plain.
Sridhara settles a small point of Sanskrit usage, the neuter 'this' standing for the masculine 'this doubt,' an old habit of the ancient seers, and then says only that the rest is plain. What he leaves standing is tone rather than argument: Arjuna's quiet, complete insistence that the Lord alone is the one physician equal to this doubt.
Two grounds distinguished and named together.
Madhusudana's is the fullest surviving reading, and it separates two claims that easily blur together: an epistemic claim, that Krishna alone sees directly rather than by inference, and an authority claim, that Krishna alone is the supreme teacher and source of scripture. Read together, these converge on the same conclusion from two different directions, which is part of why this reading carries the most weight of any preserved here.
Where the extant readings actually speak, they converge tightly: the doubt must be cut wholly, and Krishna alone, who knows directly rather than by inference, is fit to cut it. What this page does not pretend to resolve is the honest gap in the record itself. Two of the six traditions gathered here, Madhva's and Abhinavagupta's, simply do not address this verse's own claim in what survives; their attention lies one verse earlier, on a different question. Rather than paper over that gap with invented confidence, it is left open, along with a clearly marked sense of how each tradition's wider teaching might extend to it.
A question to carry
When you carry a question this deep, about where your own striving finally leads, do you notice yourself quietly hoping that only a certain kind of answer, seen rather than reasoned, could ever really settle it?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
May the shape of this asking, total and undivided, be available to you even without a visible answerer in front of you, and may what is honestly unknown remain honestly unknown, rather than dressed up as more than it is.
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 voiced his fear that the seeker who fell from the yoga path is lost between worlds; here, before Krishna answers, Arjuna turns and insists that only Krishna is fit to settle it.
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.
Arjuna asks for the doubt to be removed with nothing left over, its very root pulled up, not merely its surface answered.
Across Advaita, ViśiṣṭādvaitaŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
Arjuna turns from wrestling with his own question to laying it directly before Krishna, asking that the doubt raised in the previous verses, about the fate of the seeker who fell from the yoga path before completing it, be cut wholly, without remainder. Shankara and Madhusudana both read this totality as pulling the doubt up by its root, not merely answering its surface, and Ramanuja's spare reading agrees that the cutting is meant to be complete.
No ordinary seer or god is fit for this, on the extant readings, because their knowing is bounded; only Krishna knows directly, without inference.
Across AdvaitaŚaṅkara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara and Madhusūdana’s words
Every extant reading agrees on the reason Arjuna gives: no one but Krishna is fit to cut this doubt. Shankara names another seer or a god as simply unfit for the task, not through unwillingness but through incapacity. Madhusudana widens the same point, ruling out any seer or god, however wise, because none but the Lord is all-knowing.
Ramanuja and Madhusudana both single out the manner of Krishna's knowing, immediate and unmediated, as the actual ground of his fitness.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, AdvaitaRāmānuja · MadhusūdanaIn Rāmānuja and Madhusūdana’s words
The reason Krishna alone suffices is tied specifically to the manner of his knowing, not merely its scope. Ramanuja is precise that Krishna sees all things directly, of himself, at once, at all times, where every other knower must reason, infer, or be told. Madhusudana reaches the same point from a different angle, naming Krishna the one who sees directly rather than the one who merely knows the most.
Madhva's and Abhinavagupta's substantive comments sit one verse earlier, on the fallen seeker's fate, not on this verse's own claim; the record here is honestly thin.
Across AdvaitaMadhusūdanaIn Madhusūdana’s words
Madhusudana adds that Krishna's fitness is not knowledge alone. He is also named the supreme teacher, the maker of scripture, and the compassionate one, so the authority to settle a question that touches a soul's fate after death is read as resting on him specifically, not on knowledge in the abstract.
Sridhara lets a small grammatical note give way to the devotional weight of the plea itself: the Lord alone as physician for this doubt.
Across BhaktiŚrīdharaIn Śrīdhara’s words
Sridhara's short comment carries the same plea in a different register: rather than arguing for Krishna's fitness, he settles a small point of grammar, that the neuter 'this' stands for the masculine 'this doubt,' and lets the devotional weight of Arjuna's insistence, that the Lord alone is the physician for this doubt, stand largely on its own.
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 single surviving sentence ties Krishna's fitness strictly to his manner of knowing: he sees all things directly, of himself, at once, at all times, which is what no other knower has. The verse's extant material does not develop, at this specific passage, his wider teaching of the Lord as inner controller who allots each soul's fruit; what is preserved is the narrower claim about direct, unmediated seeing, offered here without further elaboration beyond what the text itself states.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva's commentary treats 6.37 through 6.39 as one passage, with its content given at 6.37 rather than restated here; the surviving line there is a brief gloss on vocabulary, not a comment on why Krishna alone can cut this doubt. No extant Madhva material addressing 6.39's own appeal to Krishna's sole fitness could be located. On a Dvaita reading, one would expect this to rest on the self's total dependence on the Lord for any knowledge, but that extension is not stated in the surviving text and is offered here only as a marked possibility, not as his words.
Shaiva, in their fuller words
Abhinavagupta's commentary likewise treats 6.37 through 6.39 as one passage, with its substance at 6.37, where he asks whether the seeker who has not perfected yoga perishes or is preserved by faith. No extant material addresses 6.39's own claim about Krishna's sole fitness to answer. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading, one might extend the point to hold that only an awareness unbounded by any object could see a soul's whole trajectory without inference; this is offered here as a clearly marked extrapolation, not as anything the surviving text states about this verse.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara's comment is mostly a grammatical note, that the neuter 'etat' stands for the masculine 'enam,' an old usage of the ancient seers, after which he says only that the rest is plain. What he lets carry the verse is tone rather than argument: Arjuna's quiet, complete insistence that the Lord alone is the physician for this doubt, offered without further doctrinal expansion in the surviving text.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana gives the fullest surviving account, naming Krishna's fitness on two grounds together: he alone is all-knowing, seeing directly rather than reasoning, and he alone is the supreme teacher and source of scripture, the compassionate one. Read for a modern-facing gloss, this distinguishes two different claims often blurred together, an epistemic claim about the kind of knowing required and an authority claim about who is fit to teach, both converging on Krishna alone.
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
Notice, before reaching for an answer, what kind of question is actually troubling you. A hard line in a text, a practical uncertainty about how to act, these can rightly be brought to anyone with more experience than your own. But the deepest question, about where your own striving finally leads, is not settled by degrees of learning; it asks for a seeing that does not depend on inference at all. Let your asking, like Arjuna's, be total rather than partial: state the whole of what troubles you, without holding part of it back, and let the very completeness of the asking be itself a kind of trust.
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 turns from wrestling with his own question to laying it directly before Krishna, asking that the doubt raised in the previous verses, about the fate of the seeker who fell from the yoga path before completing it, be cut wholly, without remainder. Shankara and Madhusudana both read this totality as pulling the doubt up by its root, not merely answering its surface, and Ramanuja's spare reading agrees that the cutting is meant to be complete.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Every extant reading agrees on the reason Arjuna gives: no one but Krishna is fit to cut this doubt. Shankara names another seer or a god as simply unfit for the task, not through unwillingness but through incapacity. Madhusudana widens the same point, ruling out any seer or god, however wise, because none but the Lord is all-knowing.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The reason Krishna alone suffices is tied specifically to the manner of his knowing, not merely its scope. Ramanuja is precise that Krishna sees all things directly, of himself, at once, at all times, where every other knower must reason, infer, or be told. Madhusudana reaches the same point from a different angle, naming Krishna the one who sees directly rather than the one who merely knows the most.
Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Madhusudana adds that Krishna's fitness is not knowledge alone. He is also named the supreme teacher, the maker of scripture, and the compassionate one, so the authority to settle a question that touches a soul's fate after death is read as resting on him specifically, not on knowledge in the abstract.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Sridhara's short comment carries the same plea in a different register: rather than arguing for Krishna's fitness, he settles a small point of grammar, that the neuter 'this' stands for the masculine 'this doubt,' and lets the devotional weight of Arjuna's insistence, that the Lord alone is the physician for this doubt, stand largely on its own.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
The extant Shankara material at this verse is brief: he confirms that the doubt is to be cut with nothing left over, and that no one other than Krishna, neither seer nor god, is fit for that cutting. He does not, in the surviving text at this verse, extend the point into the wider Advaita architecture of an all-pervading witness-consciousness that grounds Krishna's omniscience; that broader case belongs to the tradition's larger reading, not to a passage composed here, and is not presented as his own stated words on 6.39.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja's single surviving sentence ties Krishna's fitness strictly to his manner of knowing: he sees all things directly, of himself, at once, at all times, which is what no other knower has. The verse's extant material does not develop, at this specific passage, his wider teaching of the Lord as inner controller who allots each soul's fruit; what is preserved is the narrower claim about direct, unmediated seeing, offered here without further elaboration beyond what the text itself states.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva's commentary treats 6.37 through 6.39 as one passage, with its content given at 6.37 rather than restated here; the surviving line there is a brief gloss on vocabulary, not a comment on why Krishna alone can cut this doubt. No extant Madhva material addressing 6.39's own appeal to Krishna's sole fitness could be located. On a Dvaita reading, one would expect this to rest on the self's total dependence on the Lord for any knowledge, but that extension is not stated in the surviving text and is offered here only as a marked possibility, not as his words.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta's commentary likewise treats 6.37 through 6.39 as one passage, with its substance at 6.37, where he asks whether the seeker who has not perfected yoga perishes or is preserved by faith. No extant material addresses 6.39's own claim about Krishna's sole fitness to answer. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading, one might extend the point to hold that only an awareness unbounded by any object could see a soul's whole trajectory without inference; this is offered here as a clearly marked extrapolation, not as anything the surviving text states about this verse.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara's comment is mostly a grammatical note, that the neuter 'etat' stands for the masculine 'enam,' an old usage of the ancient seers, after which he says only that the rest is plain. What he lets carry the verse is tone rather than argument: Arjuna's quiet, complete insistence that the Lord alone is the physician for this doubt, offered without further doctrinal expansion in the surviving text.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana gives the fullest surviving account, naming Krishna's fitness on two grounds together: he alone is all-knowing, seeing directly rather than reasoning, and he alone is the supreme teacher and source of scripture, the compassionate one. Read for a modern-facing gloss, this distinguishes two different claims often blurred together, an epistemic claim about the kind of knowing required and an authority claim about who is fit to teach, both converging on Krishna alone.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If only an all-knowing Lord standing directly in front of him could settle Arjuna's doubt, what use is this verse to me, who has no Krishna to ask?
Notice first what kind of question is actually being modeled here. It is not every doubt that requires this; Sridhara's own gloss treats plenty in the surrounding text as ordinary matters that plain reading settles. What this verse marks out is a narrower class of question, one about a soul's ultimate fate, that no amount of learning alone can reach.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
For that narrower class of question, the verse teaches the shape of the asking more than it promises a visible answerer. Total, not partial; addressed to the one source capable of answering it, rather than distributed piecemeal among lesser authorities. That posture of asking is available to a seeker in any age.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya
And its most direct answer is simply this: Krishna does answer, in the very next verse and those that follow it. The plea is not left hanging. Read together with what comes after, this verse hands the reader forward into the actual resolution, which is nearer at hand than the question alone might suggest.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Contemplation
Notice, before reaching for an answer, what kind of question is actually troubling you. A hard line in a text, a practical uncertainty about how to act, these can rightly be brought to anyone with more experience than your own. But the deepest question, about where your own striving finally leads, is not settled by degrees of learning; it asks for a seeing that does not depend on inference at all. Let your asking, like Arjuna's, be total rather than partial: state the whole of what troubles you, without holding part of it back, and let the very completeness of the asking be itself a kind of trust.
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.