Bhagavad Gita Chapter 9 in English IAST: Rājavidyā Rājaguhya Yoga

ಲಿಪಿ · लिपिः · Script: ಕನ್ನಡ · संस्कृतम् · English IAST

Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 9: Rājavidyā Rājaguhya Yoga

Thirty-four verses. The secret that is king of all knowledge, the Lord who pervades everything yet clings to nothing, the ways of seeing him in all things, and a devotion that even a leaf, a flower, a fruit or water can express are here.
Tap any verse card to open its page with the word-by-word meaning. Pages are ready for every verse of this chapter.

All eighteen chapters are listed here: Śrīmad Bhagavad Gītā.

oṃ tatsaditi śrīmadbhagavadgītāsūpaniṣatsu brahmavidyāyāṃ yogaśāstre śrīkṛṣṇārjunasaṃvāde rājavidyārājaguhyayogo nāma navamo’dhyāyaḥ ||

About Raja Vidya Raja Guhya Yoga

The seventh chapter opened with words about knowledge and its realisation. The ninth chapter opens again with the same words, adding the adjective ‘most secret’. Krishna calls this knowledge the king of knowledge and the king of secrets. That is where the chapter gets its name.

The first part of the chapter states one of the subtlest principles of the Gita: the Lord who pervades everything and yet clings to nothing. The second part states the simplest word on devotion: a leaf, a flower, a fruit, a little water, given with devotion, is enough for him. Two of the Gita’s best known promises, ‘yogakshemam vahamy aham’ and ‘na me bhaktah pranashyati’, are also in this chapter.

How the chapter moves

Verses 1 to 3: The secret knowledge that is king of all knowledge. It comes within direct experience and is easy to practise. Those without faith return again to samsara.
Verses 4 to 6: The paradox that all beings are in me, I am not in them, and they are not in me either, with the image of the wind in space.
Verses 7 to 10: The cycle in which beings dissolve into his prakriti at the end of a kalpa and are born again. Action does not bind him, who remains as though indifferent.
Verses 11 and 12: The deluded who, not knowing his higher nature in human form, disregard him.
Verses 13 to 15: The devotion, praise and bowing of great souls of divine nature. Three ways of worshipping him through the sacrifice of knowledge.
Verses 16 to 19: The garland that begins ‘I am the rite, I am the sacrifice’: father, mother, goal, friend, immortality and death, being and non-being, all are he.
Verses 20 to 22: Ritualists who go to heaven and return, and the promise that he himself carries the gain and keeping of those devoted to nothing else.
Verses 23 to 25: Worship of other deities too reaches him in the end, but worshippers go to whatever they worship.
Verses 26 to 28: A leaf, a flower, a fruit, water. The yoga of renunciation that offers all doing, eating and giving to him.
Verses 29 to 34: The Lord who is the same to all, a path open even to one of bad conduct, the promise ‘my devotee never perishes’ and the closing call ‘manmana bhava’.

All in him: three readings

The acharyas resolve the paradox of verses four, five and six in three ways. For Shankara beings are in him because he is their Self. He is not in them, for he has contact with nothing. For Ramanuja beings are his body, and he is the inner controller who rules them from within. His being does not depend on them, and he bears them by his will. For Madhva the key is the word ‘avyaktamurti’: that is why, though pervading everything, he is not seen. In his reading, ‘not in me’ means beings do not rest touching him as things rest on the ground.

At ‘ekatvena prithaktvena bahudha’ in verse fifteen the acharyas part again. For Shankara these are three kinds of worshippers. For Ramanuja it is a single meditation on the one who has the whole world for his body. For Madhva they are the oneness of Narayana, his distinctness from everything and his many forms.

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

A path open to all

From verse twenty-six the chapter opens the door of devotion to everyone. No costly offerings are needed, a leaf is enough. Even when past conduct has been bad, a right resolve changes a life. Verse thirty-two speaks of birth and social station. Shankara and Ramanuja read its word ‘papayonayah’ together with the list that follows, while Sridhara Swami separates them into distinct groups. The classical commentators wrote with the society of their own time in mind. Only the closing words of the verse are the same for all: all who take refuge reach the highest goal. On that verse’s page we have given the verse and the commentaries without altering them.

Sources: several.