Sanskrit
आश्चर्यवत्पश्यति कश्चिदेनमाश्चर्यवद्वदति तथैव चान्यः । आश्चर्यवच्चैनमन्यः शृणोति श्रुत्वाऽप्येनं वेद न चैव कश्चित् ॥
āścaryavat paśyati kaścid enam āścaryavad vadati tathaiva cānyaḥ āścaryavac cainam anyaḥ śṛṇoti śrutvāpy enaṃ veda na caiva kaścit
Translation
As marvellous one regardeth him; as marvellous another speaketh thereof; as marvellous another heareth thereof; yet having heard none indeed understandeth.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
A rare moment of Krishna undercutting his own teaching’s ease: some see the self as a marvel, some speak of it as a marvel, some hear of it as a marvel — and even then, “none indeed understandeth.” It’s an honest admission that everything argued since verse 16 is easy to state and hard to actually realize, echoing verse 25’s “unthinkable” rather than contradicting it. The threefold āścaryavat — seeing, speaking, hearing, all “as a wonder” — maps onto the stages of transmission, and the verse says the chain can run its whole length and still not deliver knowing. That gap is exactly what chapters 4 and 6 propose disciplines to close.
Study deeper
Word by word
- āścaryavat paśyati kaścid enamआश्चर्यवत् पश्यति कश्चिद् एनं
- someone sees this as a wonder (āścaryavat + paśyati + kaścit + enam)
- āścaryavad vadati tathaiva cānyaḥआश्चर्यवद् वदति तथैव चान्यः
- and another likewise speaks of it as a wonder (āścaryavat + vadati + tathā + eva + ca + anyaḥ)
- āścaryavac cainam anyaḥ śṛṇotiआश्चर्यवच् चैनं अन्यः शृणोति
- and another hears of it as a wonder (āścaryavat + ca + enam + anyaḥ + śṛṇoti)
- śrutvāpy enaṃ veda na caiva kaścitश्रुत्वाप्य् एनं वेद न चैव कश्चित्
- and even having heard, none truly knows it (śrutvā + api + enam + veda + na + ca + eva + kaścit)
Commentary
Site Commentary
The verse builds three rungs of engagement — seeing it as marvelous, speaking of it as marvelous, hearing of it as marvelous — and then drops all three at once: even having done all three, understanding still doesn’t follow. It’s a warning against mistaking engagement for comprehension; you can be fully attentive to a teaching, from every angle available to you, and still not have arrived at what it’s actually saying.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- Don't mistake how deeply something moves you for how well you understand it — you can find an idea genuinely marvelous, discuss it, and hear it explained repeatedly, and still not have actually grasped it. Keep checking your understanding, not just your engagement.
Professional
- In a design review, don't equate a team's enthusiasm or fluent discussion of an architecture with actual comprehension of it — ask people to explain the failure modes in their own words before assuming the concept landed.
Family & Social
- Don't assume someone has understood an important conversation just because they engaged with it attentively at the time — check back later, since attention and comprehension aren't the same thing.
Ask yourself
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