Speaker: Śrī Kṛṣṇa
यथैधांसि समिद्धोऽग्निर्भस्मसात्कुरुतेऽर्जुन ।
ज्ञानाग्निः सर्वकर्माणि भस्मसात्कुरुते तथा ॥३७॥
yathaidhāṁsi samiddho 'gnir
bhasma-sāt kurute 'rjuna
jñānāgniḥ sarva-karmāṇi
bhasma-sāt kurute tathā
Word for word (synonyms)
- yathā
- just as
- edhāṁsi
- firewood
- samiddhaḥ
- blazing
- agniḥ
- fire
- bhasmasāt
- turns into ashes
- kurute
- so does
- arjuna
- O Arjuna
- jñāna-agniḥ
- the fire of knowledge
- sarva-karmāṇi
- all reactions to material activities
- bhasmasāt
- to ashes
- kurute
- it so does
- tathā
- similarly
Translation
As the blazing fire turns firewood to ashes, O Arjuna, so does the fire of knowledge burn to ashes all reactions to material activities.
Defined in the Gītā
Knowledge
What is knowledge?
Humility, pridelessness, nonviolence, tolerance, simplicity, approaching a bona fide spiritual master, cleanliness, steadiness and self-control; renunciation of the objects of sense gratification, absence of false ego, the perception of the evil of birth, death, old age and disease; nonattachment to children, wife, home and the rest, and evenmindedness amid pleasant and unpleasant events; constant and unalloyed devotion to Me, resorting to solitary places, detachment from the general mass of people; accepting the importance of self-realization, and philosophical search for the Absolute Truth—all these I thus declare to be knowledge, and what is contrary to these is ignorance.
Purport
Perfect knowledge of self and Superself and of their relationship is compared herein to fire. This fire not only burns up all reactions to impious activities, but also all reactions to pious activities, turning them to ashes. There are many stages of reaction: reaction in the making, reaction fructifying, reaction already achieved, and reaction a priori. But knowledge of the constitutional position of the living entity burns everything to ashes. When one is in complete knowledge, all reactions, both a priori and a posteriori, are consumed. In the Vedas it is stated: ubhe uhaivaiṣa ete taraty amṛtaḥ sādhv-asādhūnī: "One overcomes both the pious and impious interactions of work."
What this verse teaches
Results and glories of jñāna — no bewilderment, pure vision, and destruction of sins
Śrīla Prabhupāda lectures 3
- Bhagavad-gītā 4.34–38 1966-08-15 · New York
- Bhagavad-gītā 4.37–40 1966-08-17 · New York
- Bhagavad-gītā 4.34–39 1969-01-12 · Los Angeles
Bhagavad-gītā As It Is by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda © The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International.