Lord Krishna
Divine TeacherThe Supreme Lord, the charioteer and divine guide of Arjuna. Krishna delivers the eternal wisdom of the Gita, revealing the nature of the soul, duty, and the path to liberation.
Speaking: Chapter 14, Verse 1
Verse 1
The Yoga of the Three Gunas
The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: I shall again declare the supreme knowledge, the best of all knowledge, by knowing which all the sages have gone from this world to the highest perfection.
Context & Meaning
Krishna opens Chapter 14 with a bold declaration: he is about to share the highest of all knowledge — that which, when truly understood, has carried every sage who has ever lived to supreme perfection. The word bhūyaḥ means "again" — this is not an entirely new teaching but a deepening of what has already been shared. Chapter 13 described the field and its knower; Chapter 14 will now explain the mechanism by which the field operates on the knower — the three qualities of nature (guṇas) — and how the knower can rise above them.
Scholar Commentaries
1 commentary · Public domainAdi Shankaracharya
AdvaitaJñānānāṃ jñānam uttamam — the best of all knowledge. What is being offered here is not another piece of information to add to one's store of learning, but the understanding that reorganises all previous understanding. The sage who knows the guṇas and transcends them has, in effect, solved the deepest puzzle of existence.