Skip to content

Bhagavad Gita 4.5

श्री भगवानुवाच · śrī bhagavānuvāca

बहूनि मे व्यतीतानि जन्मानि तव चार्जुन।तान्यहं वेद सर्वाणि न त्वं वेत्थ परन्तप॥

bahūni me vyatītāni janmāni tava cārjuna |tānyahaṃ veda sarvāṇi na tvaṃ vettha parantapa ||

The Blessed Lord said, "Many births of Mine have passed, as well as of thine, O Arjuna; I know them all, but thou knowest not, O Parantapa (scorcher of foes)."

Translation by Swami Sivananda · Public domain in India (translator d. 1963)

Lord Shri Krishna replied: I have been born again and again, from time to time; thou too, O Arjuna! My births are known to me, but yours are unknown to you.

Translation by Shri Purohit Swami · Public domain in India (translator d. 1941)

Our plain-language meaning of this verse is waiting for scholar review.

Edition: Common 700-verse recension. Arjuna's opening question in chapter 13, absent from that recension, is kept as 13.0.

Transliteration in IAST, generated from the Devanagari text.

Source: Sanskrit text via gita/gita (Unlicense), from the Gita Supersite, IIT Kanpur. Sanskrit text public domain.