Who is who in the Gita
Shri Krishna
Arjuna’s kinsman, friend and charioteer; in the Gita, his guru and Bhagavan.
Shri Krishna is one of the four who actually speak in the Gita. How many verses, and where they turn →
Who is Shri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita?
Arjuna’s kinsman, friend and charioteer; in the Gita, his guru and Bhagavan. The relationship changes before our eyes. Arjuna first instructs Krishna where to place the chariot; by 2.7 he asks Krishna to instruct him. Krishna then teaches as friend, guru and Lord, culminating in the Vishvarupa of Chapter 11 and the call to refuge in Chapter 18.
Hansi Gita Bhawan Trust · The Gita for Life
Where this person stands in the house
Not a Kuru at all. Krishna belongs to the Vrishni clan of the Yadavas, and he is inside this family by marriage and by choice: his sister Subhadra is Arjuna’s wife, which makes Abhimanyu on the field his nephew as well as Arjuna’s son. His mother Devaki’s brother is Kamsa; his father is Vasudeva, whose sister Pritha is Kunti. That last link is the one readers miss — Krishna and Arjuna are first cousins, and the epithets पार्थ and कौन्तेय that Krishna uses forty-two and twenty-five times are the name of his own aunt.
Family and relationship
Krishna is Arjuna’s kinsman and intimate ally; Arjuna is married to Krishna’s sister Subhadra. At Kurukshetra Krishna has chosen not to fight with weapons and serves as Arjuna’s charioteer. This makes the opening reversal striking: the warrior initially tells the charioteer where to drive, but by 2.7 the warrior asks the charioteer to become his teacher.
Before Kurukshetra
The wider epic presents Krishna as deeply involved in Pandava affairs and in attempts to prevent war. He therefore enters the Gita neither as a stranger nor as a detached lecturer. The battlefield teaching occurs after political conciliation has failed (Vyasa, trans. Ganguli, 1883–1896, Udyoga Parva).
What changes inside the Gita
Krishna is progressively disclosed as friend, guru, knower of ancient Yoga, source and sustainer of beings, Bhagavan, and revealer of the Vishvarupa. A new reader should allow that disclosure to unfold rather than importing the full Chapter 11 revelation into every earlier scene.
In the text
What the Gita calls Shri Krishna
34 names, across 70 verses. Every reference below was checked against the Devanagari of the verse it cites, and the build fails if one of them stops matching.
कृष्ण Kṛṣṇa12
The name itself: dark, dark-blue, black.
1.28 · 1.32 · 1.41 · 5.1 · 6.34 · 6.37 · 6.39 · 11.35 · 11.41 · 17.1 · 18.75 · 18.78
हृषीकेश Hṛṣīkeśa7
Lord of the senses — hṛṣīka, the sense-organ, and īśa, its master.
जनार्दन Janārdana6
The one who stirs people; also read as the one whom people implore.
केशव Keśava6
Of beautiful hair; read by the tradition also as the slayer of Keshin.
मधुसूदन Madhusūdana5
Destroyer of Madhu — an act from the epic past, used as a name.
पुरुषोत्तम Puruṣottama5
Highest of purushas. In 15.18 he applies it to himself.
वासुदेव Vāsudeva4
Son of Vasudeva. The only patronymic the Gita gives him — formed, unlike Arjuna’s, from a father’s name.
योगेश्वर Yogeśvara4
Lord of yoga. Sanjaya’s word for him in the closing verses.
अच्युत Acyuta3
The one who has not slipped, has not fallen away, does not fail.
देव Deva3
God, plainly. Three times inside the vision, and never outside it.
देवेश Deveśa3
Lord of the gods.
जगन्निवास Jagannivāsa3
The dwelling-place of the world — not its ruler, its address.
महाबाहो Mahābāho3
Mighty-armed. Arjuna returns Krishna’s own word to him.
The same word names Arjuna elsewhere in the Gita. How the two are told apart →
सखा sakhā3
Friend. Twice as a claim, once as the thing being apologised for.
भगवन् Bhagavan2
The word the text uses for him in its own श्रीभगवानुवाच line — and twice a character says it to his face.
भूतभावन Bhūtabhāvana2
The one who brings beings into being.
देवदेव Devadeva2
God of the gods.
गोविन्द Govinda2
Keeper and finder of cows; go also means the earth.
हरि Hari2
Sanjaya’s word, not Arjuna’s. It bookends the vision: 11.9 as it opens, 18.77 as he remembers it.
माधव Mādhava2
Of the line of Madhu — the Yadava descent.
प्रभो Prabho2
Lord — the plainest of the honorifics, and the one Arjuna uses when asking a practical question.
वार्ष्णेय Vārṣṇeya2
Of the Vrishni clan. A clan name, not a title.
विष्णु Viṣṇu2
Named as Vishnu only inside the vision of Chapter 11.
अनन्त Ananta1
Endless. A vocative once only, at 11.37, inside the vision.
भूतेश Bhūteśa1
Lord of beings.
देववर Devavara1
Best of the gods. Once, at 11.31, in the verse that asks who he is.
जगत्पते Jagatpate1
Lord of the world. One of five names piled into the single verse 10.15.
कमलपत्राक्ष Kamalapatrākṣa1
Lotus-petal-eyed. The Gita’s one epithet for a face rather than for arms or a body.
परमेश्वर Parameśvara1
Supreme lord. A vocative once, at 11.3, in the request to be shown the form.
सहस्रबाहो Sahasrabāho1
Thousand-armed — said at 11.46, in the same breath as the plea to come back to four arms.
विश्वरूप Viśvarūpa1
You whose form is everything. The name the eleventh chapter is known by, used in it once as an address.
विश्वेश्वर Viśveśvara1
Lord of all that is. Spoken inside the vision, at 11.16.
यादव Yādava1
Of the line of Yadu. Spoken once, in an apology.
योगिन् Yogin1
O yogin. Said once, at 10.17, while asking how he is to be known at all.
Thirty-four names across seventy verses, and where they fall is the interesting part. Chapters 1 to 9 use the familiar ones — Krishna, Madhava, Govinda, Keshava, Madhusudana — the names of a kinsman and a friend. From Chapter 10 a second set begins, and it does not stop: Bhagavan, Purushottama, Devadeva, Jagatpate, and then Devesha, Jagannivasa, Vishveshvara, Sahasrabaho, Vishnu. Fifteen of the thirty-four occur only from Chapter 11 onward, and twelve of those fifteen never occur outside that one chapter. Arjuna is not finding new names for his friend. He is finding them for what he has just been shown — and at 11.41 he apologises for the old ones.
The verse this presence makes hard
Bhagavad Gita 11.41
सखेति मत्वा प्रसभं यदुक्तं
Having seen the form, Arjuna apologises — for calling him friend. “Whatever I said carelessly, thinking you a companion: Hey Krishna, hey Yadava, hey friend.” The three names he is apologising for are the three easiest names in the book. The verse makes the reader decide what to do with every warm, ordinary thing they have ever said to God, and the Gita does not resolve it for them: Krishna’s answer, two verses on, is not that the friendship was a mistake.
What this page will not say
The Trust does not settle here whether Krishna is to be read as an avatara of Vishnu, as Brahman itself, or as the supreme person beyond both — the three major traditions differ on exactly this, and the difference is a real one, not a misunderstanding to be smoothed away. What the Gita’s own text supports is stated on this site: he calls himself unborn and imperishable at 4.6, he is called Vishnu inside the vision at 11.24 and 11.30, and he asks for refuge in himself at 18.66. What any school builds on those verses is that school’s, and is named as theirs where this site discusses it.