Sanskrit
किं तद्ब्रह्म किमध्यात्मं किं कर्म पुरुषोत्तम । अधिभूतं च किं प्रोक्तमधिदैवं किमुच्यते ॥
kiṃ tad brahma kim adhyātmaṃ kiṃ karma puruṣottama adhibhūtaṃ ca kiṃ proktam adhidaivaṃ kim ucyate
Translation
What is that Eternal, what Self-knowledge, what Action, O Purushottama? And what is declared to be the knowledge of the Elements, what is called the knowledge of the Shining Ones?
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Arjuna opens with a rapid-fire list of technical terms Krishna had used without defining at the close of chapter 7: brahman, adhyatma, karma, adhibhuta, adhidaiva. Krishna works through this list in order across verses 3-4, but the chapter’s real weight lands on a seventh question, held back for verse 2, about what happens at the moment of death — that question, not this one, is what the rest of the discourse is actually about. The five terms here are picked straight out of BG 7.29–BG 7.30; this is Arjuna asking for the glossary Krishna deferred. The answers take four verses; the follow-up question takes the rest of the chapter.
Study deeper
Word by word
- kiṃ tad brahmaकिं तद् ब्रह्म
- what is that Brahman? (kim + tat + brahma)
- kim adhyātmaṃकिं अध्यात्मं
- what is adhyātma? (kim + adhyātmam)
- kiṃ karma puruṣottamaकिं कर्म पुरुषोत्तम
- what is karma, O Supreme Person? (kim + karma + puruṣottama)
- adhibhūtaṃ ca kiṃ proktamअधिभूतं च किं प्रोक्तं
- and what is called adhibhūta? (adhibhūtam + ca + kim + proktam)
- adhidaivaṃ kim ucyateअधिदैवं किं उच्यते
- what is said to be adhidaiva? (adhidaivam + kim + ucyate)
Commentary
Site Commentary
Arjuna’s six-part question reads like technical due diligence, but notice what’s absent from this opening list: nothing here asks about death. That question shows up only in verse 2, appended almost as an afterthought to a technical inquiry — a familiar pattern where the real question surfaces only after the safer, more abstract ones have already been asked and cleared out of the way.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- When you find yourself asking several careful, technical questions about a decision, check whether a more urgent, harder question is hiding just behind them — the real question often only surfaces once the safer ones have been asked and cleared away.
Professional
- When a stakeholder opens a meeting with a long list of clarifying questions, listen for the one that arrives last or almost as an aside — it's often the actual concern, with the earlier questions serving as a run-up to it.
Family & Social
- If someone close to you leads with a string of practical questions before finally asking the one that's actually bothering them, be patient through the list — the real conversation is usually the one that comes last.
Ask yourself
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