अर्जुन उवाच । स्थितप्रज्ञस्य का भाषा समाधिस्थस्य केशव । स्थितधीः किं प्रभाषेत किमासीत व्रजेत किम् ॥
arjuna uvāca | sthita-prajñasya kā bhāṣā samādhi-sthasya keśava | sthita-dhīḥ kiṃ prabhāṣeta kim āsīta vrajeta kim ||
Arjuna asks: what does the truly wise person look like? How do they speak, sit, and move?
Word by word (3)
- sthita-prajñasya
- — of the one of steady wisdom · Sthita = fixed, steady, established. Prajñā = wisdom that discriminates, the penetrating insight of direct knowing (from pra + jña, 'to know fully'). Sthita-prajña is thus one in whom wisdom is not a belief or achievement but a stable state — like a mountain: present regardless of weather.
- kā bhāṣā
- — what is the mark / language / manner of speech · Bhāṣā means both 'language/speech' and 'description/mark.' Arjuna is asking: how do we recognize this person? What does their speech sound like? What do they look like sitting still, or walking? The question is profoundly practical — wisdom must have an observable expression.
- kim āsīta vrajeta kim
- — how does he sit; how does he move? · Āsīta from ās (to sit). Vrajeta from vraj (to walk, to move). The three questions — speak? sit? move? — cover the totality of human expression. The sthitaprajña is characterized in all modes: speech, stillness, motion. This reveals the Gita's interest in embodied wisdom, not just theoretical liberation.
Arjuna asks: O Krishna, what is the description of a person who has steady wisdom, who is established in samādhi? How does such a steady-minded person speak? How do they sit? How do they walk?
A modern analogy
A student who has heard great theory about emotional intelligence asks their mentor: 'But what does a truly emotionally intelligent person actually look like in a meeting? How do they handle conflict? How do they listen? What does their body language communicate?' Arjuna is doing the same — moving from abstract teaching to embodied description.
Take with you
- Arjuna's question is the most practical question in the Gita — he asks for observable signs, not just philosophy.
- The sthitaprajña portrait (V55-72) is the Gita's 'user manual for wisdom' — 18 verses describing what wisdom looks like in daily life.
- This question mirrors your own: what does inner peace actually look like in action, not just in meditation?
- Notice that Arjuna does not ask 'how do I attain wisdom?' but 'how do I recognize it?' — wisdom is first recognized in others, then cultivated in oneself.
V54 is Arjuna's most important question in the entire Gita — and it is structurally brilliant. V53 ended with 'then you will attain yoga.' Arjuna immediately asks: what does that actually look like? The three questions — bhāṣā (speech), āsīta (sitting), vrajeta (walking) — cover the three modes of human expression: verbal, passive, active. The sthitaprajña portrait that follows (V55-72) is the Gita's answer in 18 verses — the longest single response to any of Arjuna's questions in the text. Shankaracharya notes this is the most comprehensive practical description of the liberated individual found anywhere in the Upanishadic/Gita corpus. The fact that Arjuna asks a philosophical question in a moment of military crisis shows his genuine transformation beginning: he has moved from 'should I fight?' (Ch.1) to 'what does the wisest possible human being look like?' (Ch.2 V54).
Advaita lens
Shankaracharya reads V54's question as pointing to the practical necessity of the jñāni's visible life. If Atman-realization is the goal, how does it manifest in embodied living? The question itself is the key tension in Advaita: if Brahman alone is real and the ego is illusory, what becomes of the jñāni's behavior in the world? Krishna's answer (V55-72) will show: the body continues to act through the gunas, but the jñāni no longer identifies with those actions — hence the specific quality of their speech, stillness, and movement.
Bhakti lens
For bhakti, the sthita-prajña (steady-minded sage) of V54 is also the perfect bhakta — the one whose ānanda (delight) comes from within the ātman (ātmany evātmanā tuṣṭaḥ, V55), not from external praise, pleasure, or attachment. The sthita-prajña portrait (V54-72) is the portrait of a person fully surrendered to the inner Divine — their steadiness is not self-achieved through willpower but is the natural fruit of the constant inner reality of the Divine. The bhakta recognises in V54's question (kimāsīta? how does such a person sit?) an invitation: this is what unconditional love of the Divine looks like in a human life — utterly unshakeable from the inside, utterly engaged from the outside.
Karma-Yoga lens
For Tilak and the karma-yoga reading, V54 is crucial: Arjuna asks about action — how does the wise person walk and move? — not just how they sit in meditation. The sthitaprajña portrait is not a portrait of a renunciant in a cave but of someone fully alive in the world: speaking, sitting, moving — acting. This confirms that the Gita's vision of wisdom is not world-withdrawal but world-engagement from inner freedom.
Public-domain translations (5) compare all →
Arjuna said: What, O Keshava, is the description of the man of steady wisdom, steadfast in samādhi? How does the steady-minded speak, sit, and move about? [1]
Arjuna said: What, O Keshava, is the description of him who has steady wisdom, who is steadfast in meditation? How does the steady-minded one speak? How sit? How walk? [4]
Arjuna: What, O Keshava, are the marks of one who is firmly fixed in wisdom, established in deep contemplation? How does such a person speak, sit, walk? [6]
Arjuna: What is his mark who hath that steadfast heart, Confirmed in holy meditation? How Speaks such a one, O Kesava? How moves? How sits? How walks? How lives? [7]
Arjuna said: What, O Keshava, is the characteristic of one whose mind is steady, who is fixed in deep meditation? How does one of steady mind speak? How does he sit? How walk? [9]
This verse speaks to
Where this thread continues
When your mind — shaken by conflicting teachings — stands still in samādhi: that is yoga attained.
Steady wisdom begins here: when all desires fall away and the Self finds fullness in itself alone.
Arjuna asks: what are the signs of the guṇa-transcendent? What is his conduct? How does he cross all three?
The person unmoved by pleasure and pain is fit for liberation — equanimity is not coldness but freedom.
Transcending the three guṇas, the embodied one is freed from birth-death-age-pain and attains immortality.
No being — neither on earth nor among the devas in heaven — is free from these three guṇas born of Prakṛti.