7.16 Four kinds, all doing well Krishna speaks
चतुर्विधा भजन्ते मां जनाः सुकृतिनोऽर्जुन
आर्तो जिज्ञासुरर्थार्थी ज्ञानी च भरतर्षभ
chatur-vidhā bhajante māṁ janāḥ sukṛitino ’rjuna
ārto jijñāsur arthārthī jñānī cha bharatarṣhabha
Four kinds of people come to me, Arjuna, and all of them do well: the distressed, the one who wants to know, the one who wants something, and the one who knows.
Explanation
Four kinds of people, and all four do well.
- the distressed
- the one who wants to know
- the one who wants something
- the one who knows
The striking thing is the third. Someone who comes because they want a result is called sukṛtin — doing well — alongside the sage. The door is wider here than almost anywhere in the book.
Going further
Word by word
- chatuḥ-vidhāḥ
- four kinds
- bhajante
- worship
- mām
- me
- janāḥ
- people
- su-kṛitinaḥ
- those who are pious
- arjuna
- Arjun
- ārtaḥ
- the distressed
- jijñāsuḥ
- the seekers of knowledge
- artha-arthī
- the seekers of material gain
- jñānī
- those who are situated in knowledge
- cha
- and
- bharata-ṛiṣhabha
- The best amongst the Bharatas, Arjun
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Four kinds of people, and the striking thing is that the list includes the distressed and the one who simply wants something — and calls all four su-kṛitinaḥ, doing well.
Most traditions rank the motives and disparage the lower ones. This verse ranks them and then, in 7.18, says all of them are worthy. Arriving because you are in pain or because you want a thing is not treated as a failure of purity; it is treated as arriving.