Bhagavad Gita Chapter 7 in English IAST: Jñāna Vijñāna Yoga

oṃ tatsaditi śrīmadbhagavadgītāsūpaniṣatsu brahmavidyāyāṃ yogaśāstre śrīkṛṣṇārjunasaṃvāde jñānavijñānayogo nāma saptamo’dhyāyaḥ ||

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About Jnana Vijnana Yoga

The sixth chapter closed with the words ‘the one who worships me with faith is the most steadfast’. The seventh begins to say who the Lord at the centre of that devotion is. In the tradition that sees the Gita as three groups of six chapters, the second group begins here.

The chapter holds both a large picture of the origin of the world and small everyday things. Its special way of seeing finds the Lord in the taste of water, the fragrance of the earth, the light of the moon and the sun, and the intelligence of the intelligent. Its last two verses leave six new words behind, and the eighth chapter opens with the question about them.

How the chapter moves

• Verses 1 to 3: The promise to teach knowledge and realised knowledge in full, and a word on how rare that knowledge is.
• Verses 4 to 7: The lower nature of eight parts, the higher nature that is the principle of life, and the world strung on the Lord like gems on a thread.
• Verses 8 to 12: The taste in water, the fragrance of the earth, the strength of the strong, desire not contrary to dharma: the Lord in the essence of each thing.
• Verses 13 to 15: The delusion of the three gunas, the maya that is hard to cross, surrender as the way across, and those who do not take refuge.
• Verses 16 to 19: The four kinds of devotees, the distressed, the seeker of knowledge, the seeker of wealth and the wise, and the rare great soul who knows ‘Vasudeva is all’.
• Verses 20 to 23: The worship of other deities, the Lord who makes even that faith firm, and the difference between limited and endless fruit.
• Verses 24 to 28: The error of taking the Lord for an ordinary man, the veil of yoga-maya, the delusion of liking and aversion, and release from it.
• Verses 29 and 30: Six words, Brahman, adhyatma, karma, adhibhuta, adhidaiva and adhiyajna, and remembrance at the time of departure from this world.

The higher nature: three readings

The acharyas understand the ‘jivabhuta’ higher nature of the fifth verse differently. For Shankara it is the knower of the field, the pure nature that is the Lord’s own self. For Ramanuja it is the whole body of conscious selves, different in kind from insentient nature. For Madhva it is Shri, whose nature is consciousness and who holds the life of the jivas.

These pages do not decide between the readings. Wherever the acharyas part, each position is recorded in its own terms.

Four kinds of devotees

The sixteenth verse calls even the distressed and the seeker of wealth ‘sukritinah’, people of merit. Though the wise one is special, the eighteenth verse says ‘all these are noble’. The twenty-first carries this generosity further: whatever form anyone worships with faith, the Lord makes that very faith firm.

Sources: several.