BG 10.38 — Vibhūti-Yoga — Sūtrakṛt-Gītā

Bhagavad Gītā 10.38Chapter 10 · Vibhūti-Yoga · Krishna → Arjuna · anuṣṭubh

दण्डो दमयतामस्मि नीतिरस्मि जिगीषताम् ।

मौनं चैवास्मि गुह्यानां ज्ञानं ज्ञानवतामहम् ॥

daṇḍo damayatām asmi nītir asmi jigīṣatām

maunaṃ caivāsmi guhyānāṃ jñānaṃ jñānavatām aham

spokensingle-voice recital; rendered via IndicF5 conditioned on a Sanskrit reference clip

meaning

Among those who discipline, I am the rod of correction; among those who seek victory, I am statecraft. I am the silence that guards secrets, and the knowledge that lives in those who truly know.

ekras · bhāṣya

Among those who discipline, the danda — the rod; among those who seek victory, niti; among secrets, mauna — silence; among the jnanavats, the jnana. Four chiefs in four functional classes.

Shankara reads each precisely. The danda is the chief instrument of the king or magistrate who restrains wrongdoing. Niti — statecraft, ethical strategy — is the chief instrument of those who seek victory. Mauna — silence — is the chief among guhyas, what guards the secret most reliably. Jnana — pure knowledge — is the operating possession of those who know. Each is what makes the function actually function.

Madhusudana reads each as the operating chief of its class. The mauna pick is doctrinally significant: among all guhyas, the silence that holds them is itself Krishna's vibhuti — the meditator's discipline of restraint over speech.

Ramanuja reads each as Bhagavan's sharira-mode in its specific function.

Madhva reads on the bheda-frame: each chief is paratantra; recognition channels through.

Vallabha reads through pushti-marga: each is prasada's structural channel.

Shridhara reads cleanly: four chiefs of disciplinary, strategic, secret-holding, and knowing functions.

Context

where

Chapter 10 · Vibhūti-Yoga · meter anuṣṭubh

who speaks

Krishna → Arjuna

preceded by — BG 10.37

Among the Vrishnis I am Vasudeva, among the Pandavas I am Arjuna, among the sages I am Vyasa, and among the seers of far vision I am the poet Ushanas.

What's going on

Among those who discipline, I am the rod of correction; among those who seek victory, I am statecraft. I am the silence that guards secrets, and the knowledge that lives in those who truly know.

Sūtras through this verse (21)

RāmānujaclassicalA

World as the Lord's body (antaryāmin)between

10.21Highest of each kind.───→here10.38───→10.39No exception outside Me.

ŚrīdharaclassicalJ

Insight given as a gift, not earned alonebetween

10.11I dispel the dark of unknowing for them.───→here10.38───→18.65By My grace, you reach Me through what is given.

AbhinavaguptaclassicalC

Vision is the structural centerbetween

10.18Even more detail asked, Abhinava already framed.───→here10.38───→11.1Instruction yields, experience opens up.

show all 21

Ekrasmoderntrigunametry

Trigunametry — guṇas as embodied statesbetween · v2

10.36Sattva of the strong───→here10.38───→18.14Five causes of action

RāmānujaclassicalC

Three ṣaṭkas (1–6 / 7–12 / 13–18)between

10.1His glory becomes the chapter's evidence.───→here10.38───→11.1The aiśvarya-delusion now to be removed.

RāmānujaclassicalE

Bhakti as continuous recollectionbetween

10.10I give the buddhi-yoga to those who love.───→here10.38───→11.54Undivided love beholds it.

RāmānujaclassicalI

Vibhūti as evidence for antaryāminbetween

10.21Highest of every kind.───→here10.38───→10.39No exception is possible.

Ekrasmodernforgiveness

Forgivenessapproach · other

───→here10.38───→12.13Friendly, compassionate

Ekrasmodernmeditation

Meditation — the dhyāna tourexit · v2

8.12Om at the close───→here10.38───→

ŚrīdharaclassicalD

The path that turns no one awayexit

9.32Women, śūdras, all, also reach the goal.───→here10.38───→

ŚrīdharaclassicalE

Inner cleansing reconciles work and knowingexit

8.7Without a clean mind, steady remembrance fails.───→here10.38───→

ŚrīdharaclassicalK

Death-memory as the test of daily habitexit

8.14Remembrance comes only from constant daily practice.───→here10.38───→

MadhusūdanaclassicalF

Every middle chapter opens with a bow to the teacherbetween

10.1Royal knowledge, royal secret, Kāśirāja.───→here10.38───→11.1I worship the unborn, the self-luminous teacher.

MadhusūdanaclassicalH

Krishna with form is the ground beneath formless Brahmanbetween

10.8From Me everything flows; wise ones know this and worship.───→here10.38───→11.55The crystal verse names the saguṇa in absolute form.

RamsukhdasclassicalI

The Lord already inside the heartbetween

10.20I am the Self in every heart.───→here10.38───→13.17The Knowable lives as the inner light.

Ramsukhdasclassical

Sādhaka Sañjīvanī commentary at this versebetween

───→here10.38───→

ŚaṅkaraclassicalH

The Lord is friend of every beingbetween

9.13The great know Me as beginning of beings.───→here10.38───→10.42With one part I pervade this whole world, and stand.

VedāntadeśikaclassicalC

Antaryāmin — the indweller as standing referentbetween

10.20I am the Self seated in every heart.───→here10.38───→13.2'Cāpi' marks two — not one identity.

VallabhaclassicalA

Two paths — rule-bound and grace-onlybetween

10.14Faith comes only from the Lord's own giving.───→here10.38───→11.55Grace-soul acts only when the Lord wills.

AbhinavaguptaclassicalI

Anugraha: grace as the active powerapproach

───→here10.38───→11.8The eye is given; seeing is grace.

Gauravmodernmemorial_pastoral

Memorial Pastoralexit

8.6'Yam yam vapi smaran bhavam.' Whatever state of being one remembers at the last ───→here10.38───→

Śabda · lemmas (12 unique · 14 occurrences)

अस्मि √as ×3 — to be (verbal root) · present indicative 1st person singular verb · also at 1.22, 7.10, 10.21, 10.22, 10.24, 10.28 +5
ज्ञानवताम् jñānavat — (jñāna + -vat: knowledge) · genitive masculine plural noun

show all 12

दण्डः daṇḍa — rod, staff, punishment · nominative masculine singular noun
दमयताम् √damay — to tame, subdue (caus. of √dam) · genitive masculine plural present participle verb
नीतिः nīti — guidance, prudence, polity (from √nī 'lead') · nominative feminine singular noun
जिगीषताम् √jigīṣ — to desire to conquer (desid. of √ji) · genitive masculine plural present participle verb
मौनम् mauna — silence (from muni) · nominative neuter singular noun
च ca — and; (homonym: also the consonant ca)
एव eva — indeed, truly, only (emphatic particle)
गुह्यानाम् guhya — secret, hidden (gerundive of √guh) · genitive neuter plural noun
ज्ञानम् jñāna — knowledge, wisdom, cognition · nominative neuter singular noun
अहम् mad — I, me (1st person pronoun stem); also: to rejoice (verbal root) · nominative singular noun

Praśna · so what (7)

01If the rod of punishment (daṇḍa) is itself a divine vibhūti, does that mean coercive discipline — in parenting, governance, or institutional life — can be a form of sacred action rather than a failure of compassion?
02Madhusūdana reads 'mauna' (silence) both as tactical speech-restraint and as Vedāntic nididhyāsana. When you choose silence in a charged situation, which kind of silence are you actually practicing?

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03Statecraft (nīti) is the vibhūti of 'those who wish to conquer.' What distinguishes nīti as divine manifestation from nīti as mere strategic cunning — and does the Gītā's framing place any limits on legitimate conquest?
04The knowledge (jñāna) named here is 'of knowers' — already achieved. How does the text treat the asymmetry between the person who has jñāna and the person still seeking it, and whose role in the relationship is the actual vibhūti?
05Vallabha's commentary anchors the abstract term 'daṇḍa' in a specific story — Kṛṣṇa subduing Kālīya. What does it mean for doctrine that a philosophical vibhūti-list is secured by a narrative rather than a logical definition?
06If silence is the vibhūti among 'secret things,' is the Gītā encoding something about when disclosure becomes a form of destruction — and what makes some knowledge constitutively secret rather than merely inconvenient?
07Four items in this verse (daṇḍa, nīti, mauna, jñāna) span the domains of power, strategy, restraint, and insight. Is there a developmental arc across these four, or are they genuinely co-equal vibhūtis without hierarchy?

Vyavahāra · try it in your life

Advaita

When you correct a child, student, or employee firmly — and the correction actually works — notice that the corrective force is not yours alone; it flows through you from the one principle that sustains all order. This recognition does not soften the correction but removes the ego-claim on it.

Viśiṣṭādvaita

In any negotiation or conflict, the moment you find yourself planning the principled sequence of moves — conciliation first, then appeal, then firm boundary — you are enacting nīti as kainkarya (service to the Lord's order). Approach strategic thinking as an act of worship rather than self-advancement.

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Dvaita

When you sit in meeting or conversation and choose not to speak — holding back a clever rejoinder or a correction — practice inwardly recognizing that the silence is Hari's own restraint operating through your imperfect jīva. The discipline is real, the credit is not yours.

Śuddhādvaita

Call to mind a concrete moment when a painful rebuke or a hard rule changed you for the better. Vallabha's lens: that specific event of daṇḍa was Kṛṣṇa's own touch in your life, not merely a human instrument. Return gratitude there, not only to an abstraction.

Bhakti

Before entering any sensitive conversation, ask: is my silence here the 'avacana' Śrīdhara names — the kind that protects what should not be said — or is it avoidance dressed as restraint? Real mauna has a specific object it guards; undifferentiated silence is merely fear.

Advaita-Bhakti

Madhusūdana's double reading of mauna — as speech-restraint and as sustained inner attention on the Self — suggests a daily practice: treat periods of literal silence (commute, early morning, between meetings) as potential nididhyāsana, not merely as absence of noise. The gap is the vibhūti.

Adhiṣṭhāna · substrate signature

substratev2.6-frozen

parserByT5-Sanskrit-multitask (Nehrdich/Hellwig/Keutzer EMNLP 2024)

mūlaBelvalkar critical edition (BORI 1947), via Ambuda multi-witness

show all metadata

weightsa=1 · b=0.01 · e_v=0.005 · z=0.2 · h=0 · th=0.01

anchorfit on Ramsukhdas's Sādhak Sañjīvanī (1980), frozen across the eight-commentator panel; cross-validated R@4 = 71.6% on Śaṅkara

extracted2026-04-21

methodPaper 1, Section II.B

↓ view raw per-verse object (JSON)↗ per-verse-object schema ↗ substrate code (MIT) + data (CC-BY 4.0)

The schema generalizes to any bounded-polysemy corpus with discrete primary text units, attested witness traditions, identifiable schools, and formal substrate. Port the per-verse object; refit weights on a domain-appropriate Layer-3 anchor; ship.

Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 10, Verse 38: Krishna to Arjuna — Vibhūti-Yoga