4.7 Whenever the right declines Krishna speaks
यदा यदा हि धर्मस्य ग्लानिर्भवति भारत
अभ्युत्थानमधर्मस्य तदाऽऽत्मानं सृजाम्यहम्
yadā yadā hi dharmasya glānir bhavati bhārata
abhyutthānam adharmasya tadātmānaṁ sṛijāmyaham
Whenever what is right declines and what is wrong rises up, then I bring myself forth.
Explanation
Whenever what is right declines.
Read as structure rather than as doctrine, the claim is about recurrence: this is not a single intervention in history but a pattern.
And the trigger is stated in both directions — dharma declining and its opposite rising. The two are not the same event, and the verse names both.
Going further
Word by word
- yadā yadā
- whenever
- hi
- certainly
- dharmasya
- of righteousness
- glāniḥ
- decline
- bhavati
- is
- bhārata
- Arjun, descendant of Bharat
- abhyutthānam
- increase
- adharmasya
- of unrighteousness
- tadā
- at that time
- ātmānam
- self
- sṛijāmi
- manifest
- aham
- I
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Whenever what is right declines and what is wrong rises up.
Read as structure rather than doctrine, the claim is about pattern: decline is not the end of the sequence. This is the verse people reach for in bad decades, and its usefulness does not depend on how literally you take the theology — it asserts that collapse has a shape, and that shape includes a turn.