Sanskrit
अवजानन्ति मां मूढा मानुषीं तनुमाश्रितम् । परं भावमजानन्तो मम भूतमहेश्वरम् ॥
avajānanti māṃ mūḍhā mānuṣīṃ tanum āśritam paraṃ bhāvam ajānanto mama bhūtamaheśvaram
Translation
The foolish disregard Me, when clad in human semblance, ignorant of My supreme nature, the great Lord of beings;
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The tone shifts from cosmology to critique: those who see Krishna’s human form and conclude that’s the whole of him are called “foolish” (mūḍhāḥ), ignorant of the “supreme nature” just laid out in verses 4-10. This sets up the contrast verse 13 completes — the mūḍhāḥ here against the mahātmānaḥ there, same divine reality, opposite responses. Mānuṣīṃ tanum āśritam avajānanti — “they dismiss Me for dwelling in a human form” — is the exact confusion BG 7.24–BG 7.25 named: mistaking the descent for the whole of the Lord.
Study deeper
Word by word
- avajānanti māṃ mūḍhāअवजानन्ति मां मूढा
- the deluded disregard Me (avajānanti + mām + mūḍhāḥ)
- mānuṣīṃ tanum āśritamमानुषीं तनुं आश्रितं
- dwelling in a human form (mānuṣīm + tanum + āśritam)
- paraṃ bhāvam ajānantoपरं भावं अजानन्तो
- not knowing My higher nature (param + bhāvam + ajānantaḥ)
- mama bhūtamaheśvaramमम भूतमहेश्वरं
- [Me,] the great Lord of beings (mama + bhūta-maha-īśvaram)
Commentary
Site Commentary
The failure named here is a specific reasoning error, not only a moral one: seeing a human body and concluding that’s the entirety of what’s present. “Mūḍha” gets translated as “foolish,” but what’s actually being described is mistaking a partial appearance for the whole — a pattern anyone can fall into with people, not just with Krishna’s human form.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- Notice when you've judged someone's full capacity or worth based only on the part of them you happened to see — a limited appearance isn't the same as the whole of what's there, and confusing the two is an easy, ordinary mistake, not a character flaw.
Professional
- When you size up a new hire or a quiet colleague based on a single visible slice of their output, remember you're extrapolating from a partial sample — competence often sits behind what's immediately observable, and dismissing it early costs you the contribution you underestimated.
Family & Social
- If you've written off a family member based on the one dimension of them you usually see, consider that you may be mistaking a partial view for the complete picture — people are rarely fully visible even to those closest to them.
Ask yourself
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