Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 7, Verse 26: Krishna to Arjuna — Jñāna-Vijñāna-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  I know all beings — those that have perished, those present now, and those yet to arise — across all three times; but no one knows Me in truth. This asymmetry is not accidental: those bound by māyā (illusion) lack the very instrument by which My essential nature could be known. Śaṅkara's bhāṣya makes the pivot explicit — the verse functions as a bridge, raising the implied question: what obstruction keeps all arising beings from knowing Me?

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  I, Vāsudeva, comprehend all beings standing in past, present, and future time as objects of My constant contemplation (anusandhāna); yet among those very beings who might know Me — the One who has descended as the universal refuge — not a single one takes shelter. Rāmānuja reads the verse as a lament: omniscience here illuminates the tragedy that intimate knowledge of the Lord, sufficient to motivate śaraṇāgati (surrender), is almost universally absent, making the jñānī devotee supremely rare.

• Madhvadvaita

  Kṛṣṇa declares: māyā does not bind Me — I know all that has passed and all that will come — whereas no one, however mighty, knows Me through his own capacity. Madhva's terse gloss concentrates the entire verse into a single polemical point: the jīva's (individual self's) incapacity is absolute and intrinsic, not merely contingent; even the most powerful being cannot transcend this limit by self-effort, reinforcing the dvaita (dualist) axiom that Hari's independence is categorically different from any conditioned existence.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Kṛṣṇa reveals His sarvottamatva (supreme excellence) through unobstructed, ever-luminous jñāna-śakti (power of knowledge): He knows all three-time-standing beings completely, while not one being knows Him as Vāsudeva, the one who descended to grant universal liberation. Vallabha follows Rāmānuja closely but reframes the rarity in prasāda (grace) terms: the bhagavān-mārgīya jñānī who does know is not one who arrived through his own effort but one upon whom Kṛṣṇa's sovereign grace has been bestowed — making such knowledge a pure gift of līlā.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Kṛṣṇa knows all three-time-standing beings — moveable and immovable — because māyā, though under His shelter, cannot delude its own sovereign; it only deludes others, never its own āśraya (support). No being knows Him because all are deluded by His māyā. Śrīdhara grounds the asymmetry in a principle he calls publicly well-known: māyā is subservient to its own āśraya and bewildering to all others — a clean causal account that explains both omniscience and universal non-recognition without appeal to devotional categories alone.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Because māyā is entirely under My control and My own jñāna (knowledge) is unobstructed, I, the all-knowing Parameśvara, know all past, present, and future beings — moveable and immoveable — without exception; yet no one, bewildered by that very māyā I wield, knows Me, except the one whom I have made a recipient of My grace (mad-bhakta). Madhusūdana synthesizes both strands: the grammatical particle tu ('but') in 'māṃ tu' signals not mere contrast but the radical obstruction of jñāna itself, and the exemption clause — 'except My devotee' — is where Advaita and bhakti fully converge.