The chapter opens with a question from Arjuna based on the earlier teaching. This is not an independent question, but a question that arises from what has already been taught. In the previous chapter, Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa revealed Viśvarūpa īśvara, and Arjuna now wants clarity regarding the relative place of saguṇa and nirguṇa contemplation.

In the first line, Arjuna describes the saguṇa upāsakas. evaṁ means “as taught before,” that is, as presented in the previous chapter. Here the reference is to Viśvarūpa saguṇa īśvara — Bhagavān as the entire cosmos. These devotees are satatayuktāḥ: they meditate with constant commitment, sincerely and steadfastly.

Then Arjuna introduces the second group: those who meditate upon akṣaram avyaktaṁ. akṣaram is nirguṇa brahman, the attributeless absolute. Since it is nirguṇa, it is avyaktam — not available to any sense organ, not objectifiable through seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, or tasting. Such meditation is therefore of a very different order.

Arjuna’s question is straightforward: between these two groups — the saguṇa meditators and the nirguṇa meditators — who are superior? He is asking about the meditators, and indirectly about the relative place of these two orientations.