Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 4, Verse 5: Krishna to Arjuna — Jñāna-Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga
Many births of mine and yours have gone by, Arjuna; I know them all, but you do not, O scorcher of foes.
Bhāṣyakāra purports
- Śaṅkaraadvaita
Many births of mine and yours, Arjuna, have passed away — I know them all, you do not, O Parantapa. This knowledge-asymmetry is not a difference of degree but of kind: my awareness is nitya-shuddha-buddha-mukta (eternally pure, aware, free) by nature, while yours is obstructed by the accumulated weight of dharma and adharma. The births I appear to take are not real bondage; the births you undergo are — and that very obstructed knowledge (dharmadharma-prati-baddha-jnana-shakti) is what must be burned away by jnana.
divergence: Shankara: 'nityashuddhbuddhamuktasvabhavatvat anavaranajanashakti' — because my nature is eternally pure-aware-free, my knowledge-power is unobstructed.
- Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita
The Lord here confirms the reality (satyatva) of his births by stating them as historical fact — 'many births of mine have passed' — and uses Arjuna's births as the illustrative instance (drishtanta) for the jiva's karmic cycle. This verse opens the disclosure of the mode of avatara (avatara-prakara): how the Supreme Person who is the inner self of all takes embodied form while remaining the substrate of all. Arjuna's ignorance of his own prior births is not a mere cognitive gap but a mark of his condition as a jiva subject to karma-krita bondage.
divergence: Ramanuja: 'anen janmanah satyatvam uktam' — by this statement the reality of his birth is declared; 'atmanah avatara-prakaram deha-yathatmyam janmahetum ca aha' — he next declares the mode of avatara, the true nature of the body, and the cause of birth.
- Madhvadvaita
*Bahūni me vyatītāni janmāni tava cārjuna* — many births of mine have passed, and of yours too, Arjuna; *tāny ahaṃ veda sarvāṇi na tvaṃ vettha parantapa* — all of these I know; you do not. Jayatīrtha marks the governing logic: the Lord is *jñātāśayaḥ* (one who knows the inner intention), and it is precisely for this reason — *ata eva* — that Kṛṣṇa preempts the objection latent in Arjuna's silence: *tava ca na tvaṃ vetsi* — 'you, however, do not know.' Without this distinction the preceding teaching would be *anupayuktam* (inapplicable, without purpose) and should not have been stated at all: *tan na vaktavyam eva*. The asymmetry is not incidental. *Sarvajna* (omniscience) belongs to the *svatantra* (the independently real) Hari as *svabhāva* (inherent nature); the *jīva*'s not-knowing registers the permanent *paratantra* (eternally dependent) condition. The *pañca-bheda* (the five-fold real distinction) holds: Lord and *jīva* are really distinct, and that distinction shows itself here in the differential grasp of births — total in Hari, absent in the *jīva* — not as a cognitive deficiency to be remedied by instruction alone, but as an ontological mark of what each essentially is.
divergence: Madhva left no direct commentary on 4.5. Jayatīrtha's Nyāya-Dīpikā supplies the operative bhāṣya move — ata eva jñātāśayaḥ / tava ca na tvaṃ vetsi / anupayuktam tan na vaktavyam eva — and the rendering is anchored there, with Dvaita siddhānta primitives filling the doctrinal register Madhva's silence leaves open.
- Vallabhaśuddhādvaita
Vallabha reads the plural 'many births' as a direct disclosure that the Lord is always the fully complete (sarva-amsha-paripurna) avatarin — his every descent is already whole, already Purna-Brahman in motion, not a partial manifestation. The verse establishes two facts simultaneously: Krsna's nitya-siddha-jnana-shakti (eternally self-established knowledge-power), and the contrast-structure that points to the jiva's dependence, here named through Arjuna as illustrative. Tava ca (yours too) invokes the broader category of all jiva-births including the nara-avatara lineage.
divergence: Vallabha: 'sarvada sarvamshaparipurnam upadishati' — he teaches that the avatarin is always fully complete in all aspects; 'nityasiddhajnanadi-shaktimattvam svasyopadistam' — his eternally self-established knowledge-power is what is being taught here.
- Śrīdharabhakti
The Lord responds to the implied question — how could the teacher of Vivasvan forget? — by anchoring the asymmetry in the nature of knowledge itself: his knowledge is alupata-vidya-shakti (non-diminishing knowledge-power), while Arjuna's is avidya-vrta (veiled by ignorance). The many births are real historical events across cosmic time; the Lord's knowing of them is not memory retrieval but continuous omniscient presence to all moments. Arjuna's inability to know is not a defect to be criticized but a natural condition of the embodied jiva, compassionately named.
divergence: Shridhara: 'aluptavidyashaktitvat' — because my knowledge-power is undimmed; 'tvam tu na janasi avidyavrtatvat' — you do not know because you are veiled by ignorance.
- Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti
Madhusudana reads 'births' (janmani) as lila-deha-grahana — the Lord's taking of playful bodies as seen from the world's perspective, like the sun 'rising' daily without actually moving. Arjuna's births, by contrast, are karma-arjita-deha-grahana — bodies acquired through accumulated action. The double address in the verse (Arjuna the name of the arjuna tree, and Parantapa the conqueror of enemies) is a deliberate hermeneutic signal: the first vocative hints at Arjuna's obstructed awareness (avarana), the second at his outward misdirection toward false enemies (vikshepa) — the two arms of ajnana displayed in a single half-verse.
divergence: Madhusudana: 'lila-deha-grahanani lokadrshty-abhiprayena' — the births are lila-body-takings in the world's understanding, like the sun's rising; 'sambodhanadvayena avarana-vikshepau dvav-apy-ajnanadharmu darshitau' — by the two vocatives, both arms of ignorance (veiling and misdirection) are shown.