Jnana

Knowledge — specifically, direct knowledge of the atman. In Vedanta, the sole direct cause of moksha.

Overview

Jnana in the Vedantic sense is not scholarly learning, not accumulation of scripture, and not even correct opinions about the self. It is atman-vishaya-prajna — knowledge whose object is the self — held with the immediacy of direct seeing. This is what the sixteenth verse of chapter two is designed to produce: it walks the student to the point where the “I am” in every experience reveals itself as pure being.

Because ajnana is the diagnosed root of bondage, jnana is the prescribed cure. A pandit is one who has it; a dhira is one who can deploy it when life is hard. jnana-yoga is the explicit discipline aimed at it — the path Krishna opens for Arjuna once he becomes a disciple.

Related concepts

• ajnana — the ignorance jnana removes
• pandit — one who has jnana
• dhira — one who can live from jnana
• jnana-yoga — the discipline
• viveka — discrimination, the working edge of jnana
• moksha — its result

In the Gita

• 02-07 — Arjuna asks for the teaching that will produce it
• 02-11-12 — Krishna begins delivering it
• 02-16 — jnana’s direct object made explicit

Lecture evidence

• Ep. 3 [~12:00]: Jnana is knowledge of the self, the direct remedy for ajnana and the end of samsara.
• Ep. 4 [25:30]: Shankara glosses dhira as dhiman — one possessed of this knowledge and able to deploy it in the face of suffering.