Krishna's Own Words in the Bhagavad-gita

On other pages, the evidence about a person often comes from what someone else says about him. This page is different, because the Bhagavad-gita is not someone else's report about Krishna. It is eighteen chapters of Krishna speaking about Himself, in His own voice, to a friend who has just watched Him drive a chariot onto a battlefield. Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition treats this as decisive. Here we do not depend on how anyone else understood Krishna, because the words come from Krishna Himself. Whatever others conclude about Krishna's position, the Gita records what Krishna Himself claimed His position to be.

"There Is No Truth Superior to Me" #

In the Seventh Chapter, still early in His instruction to Arjuna, Krishna states plainly: "O conqueror of wealth, there is no truth superior to Me. Everything rests upon Me, as pearls are strung on a thread" (Bhagavad-gita 7.7). Srila Prabhupada's purport to this verse argues directly against a different view held by many philosophers. They say that the Absolute Truth is finally impersonal, and that any personal form is only a temporary allowance made for limited human beings. In the same purport, Srila Prabhupada also quotes the Brahma-samhita's own statement and insists "these authorities leave no doubt that the Absolute Truth is the Supreme Person, the cause of all causes." The same claim is examined from Brahma's side on Brahma-samhita's Testimony.

"I Am the Source of All" #

The Tenth Chapter, traditionally titled Vibhuti-yoga, "The Opulence of the Absolute," contains Krishna's fullest description of Himself as the origin. "I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds," He tells Arjuna. "Everything emanates from Me. The wise who perfectly know this engage in My devotional service and worship Me with all their hearts" (Bhagavad-gita 10.8). Srila Prabhupada's purport shows that this claim is not meant for Arjuna alone: "All Vedic literature agrees that Krishna is the source of Brahma, Shiva and all other demigods." The purport then turns to the Upanishads for support, quoting the Gopala-tapani Upanishad of the Atharva-veda (1.24): "It was Krishna who in the beginning instructed Brahma in Vedic knowledge and who disseminated Vedic knowledge in the past." That one line connects this verse with two other topics in this account. One is the claim that Krishna, not any lesser figure, taught Lord Brahma at the dawn of creation. This is examined in full on The Source of This Parampara. The other is the wider Vedic testimony gathered on Vedic and Upanishadic Testimony.

Purushottama, Beyond Both the Perishable and the Imperishable #

Late in the Gita, the Fifteenth Chapter has a passage on the Purushottama-yoga. It is short, but its philosophy is deep. Here Krishna makes an even more exact claim about which category He belongs to. Vedantic philosophy generally recognizes two broad categories of existence: kshara, the perishable material world, and akshara, the imperishable individual souls. Krishna places Himself in neither category, and above both: "Because I am transcendental, beyond both the fallible and the infallible, and because I am the greatest, I am celebrated both in the world and in the Vedas as that Supreme Person" (Bhagavad-gita 15.18). The next verse says directly what depends on accepting or missing this claim: "Whoever knows Me as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, without doubting, is the knower of everything. He therefore engages himself in full devotional service to Me" (15.19). Srila Prabhupada's purport shows how central this one distinction is to the whole book. "Throughout the whole of Bhagavad-gita, this fact is being stressed at every step," he writes. He says this against those he calls "so many stubborn commentators" who take the Supreme and the individual soul to be finally one and the same.

The Gita's Own Conclusion #

Krishna does not leave His position for the reader to work out by careful reading. Near the very end of the text, He has already explained knowledge of Brahman, the Supersoul, the different social orders, renunciation and a dozen other paths. Then He gives the essence of the whole teaching in a single verse: "Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reactions. Do not fear" (Bhagavad-gita 18.66). In this instruction Krishna speaks in the first person and asks for surrender to Himself. Nothing in it points to some higher principle beyond Him, as if that surrender should finally be passed on to someone else. Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition reads this as the Gita's own final word on the question of Krishna's supreme identity. The text has taught many other things, about the nature of the soul, the material world, and the paths of knowledge and action. But its author clearly places Himself as the goal to which all of it finally points.

Why This Matters as Independent Evidence #

A reader who has doubts might reasonably ask a question. Why should Krishna's own claims about Himself count as evidence? Could they not simply be a devotional writer's way of speaking? Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition's answer is that the Gita's claims do not stand alone. Other sources confirm them independently: Srimad-Bhagavatam's direct verdict, the Vedic and Upanishadic record, and the careful philosophical case that Jiva Goswami later built from these same sources in his Krishna-sandarbha. But the Bhagavad-gita gives something that none of those later sources can give. It gives the claim in its most direct possible form, because in none of them is Krishna speaking in the first person. It is not what scripture says about Krishna. It is what Krishna says about Himself.