Skip to content

Bhagavad Gita 5.16

ज्ञानेन तु तदज्ञानं येषां नाशितमात्मनः।तेषामादित्यवज्ज्ञानं प्रकाशयति तत्परम्॥

jñānena tu tadajñānaṃ yeṣāṃ nāśitamātmanaḥ |teṣāmādityavajjñānaṃ prakāśayati tatparam ||

But to those whose ignorance is destroyed by knowledge of the Self, like the sun, knowledge reveals the Supreme Brahman.

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

Surely, wisdom is like the sun, revealing the supreme truth to those whose ignorance has been dispelled by the wisdom of the Self.

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.