Bhagavad Gita Chapter 9, Verse 3

Chapter 9 – Raja Vidya Raja Guhya Yoga · Speaker: Krishna

Sanskrit verse

अश्रद्दधानाः पुरुषा धर्मस्यास्य परन्तप ।
अप्राप्य मां निवर्तन्ते मृत्युसंसारवर्त्मनि ॥

Transliteration

aśraddadhānāḥ puruṣā dharmasyāsya parantapa .
aprāpya māṃ nivartante mṛtyusaṃsāravartmani ॥

Meaning

O scorcher of foes, those who have no faith in this dharma do not attain Me; they return again and again to the path of this mortal world.

Word meanings

अश्रद्दधानाः – those without faith
पुरुषाः – persons
धर्मस्य – in the dharma
अस्य – this
परन्तप – O scorcher of foes (Arjuna)
अप्राप्य – without attaining
माम् – Me
निवर्तन्ते – they return
मृत्युसंसारवर्त्मनि – on the path of the world of death

Anvaya (word order)

परन्तप, अस्य धर्मस्य अश्रद्दधानाः पुरुषाः माम् अप्राप्य मृत्युसंसारवर्त्मनि निवर्तन्ते ।

Explanation

If this knowledge is the highest and also the easiest, why does not everyone take it up? Krishna answers in a single word: ashraddha, lack of faith. Even the simplest road stays closed to one who refuses to set foot on it.

Faith here is not blind belief. Shraddha is the trust that a teaching given by scripture and a realised teacher is true, together with the willingness to act upon it. A patient who distrusts the physician will not swallow even the best medicine, and so cannot be cured. In the same way, one who has no faith in this dharma will never practise it, and without practice there can be no fruit. Shankara describes such people as those who take the body to be the Self and therefore treat sense-pleasure as the final goal.

They ‘return to the path of death and worldly existence’. The world is called the path of death because everything born in it is certain to perish. Without reaching the Lord, the soul keeps circling through birth and death, like a traveller who, not knowing the road home, keeps coming back to the same crossroads.

The phrase aprapya mam, ‘not attaining Me’, is gentle but telling. The Lord is available to all; the obstacle is not His severity but our own lack of trust. By calling Arjuna parantapa, scorcher of foes, Krishna reminds him that the warrior who conquers outer enemies must now conquer the inner enemy of doubt.

Context

Having glorified the royal knowledge in verse 2, Krishna now explains why the faithless fail to benefit from it. From the next verse He begins the actual teaching: that the whole universe is pervaded by His unmanifest form.

Life lesson

Even the finest teaching bears fruit only when we trust it enough to practise it. Chronic doubt sends us back again and again to the same sorrows. Conquering inner doubt is the greatest victory.

Key terms

Shraddha: faith: trust in the teaching joined with readiness to live it
Mrityu-samsara-vartma: the road of mortal, recurring worldly existence
Parantapa: scorcher of foes, an epithet of Arjuna