In the supplied attestations śreyas denotes "the good," "what is better," or "the higher/most beneficial outcome" as an object of judgment, deliberation, and inquiry. It functions both comparatively ("better than" some alternative — e.g., living on alms over killing teachers; 2.5) and superlatively/absolutely (the decisive good Arjuna asks Kṛṣṇa to declare with certainty; 2.7). It appears in Arjuna's reasoning that he foresees no good resulting from slaying kinsmen (1.31) and in the maxim that for a kṣatriya nothing is more excellent than a righteous war (2.31). All four loci are from the mūla of the Bhagavad Gītā; the term consistently marks a beneficial or preferable end weighed against alternatives.
Senses
The reading surface. A later ingestion attaches a locus to a settled sense, or proposes a new one (dashed) for human triage — it never rewrites settled prose.
1 · A good or beneficial outcome (as an object of foresight): the benefit Arjuna does not fore…settledadded v1
A good or beneficial outcome (as an object of foresight): the benefit Arjuna does not foresee arising from killing his own kinsmen in battle.
smṛti (epic-philosophical)
bhagavadgita:1.31
2 · What is comparatively 'better' or more preferable between alternatives: here, subsisting o…settledadded v1
What is comparatively 'better' or more preferable between alternatives: here, subsisting on alms is judged better than killing the venerable teachers.
smṛti (epic-philosophical)
bhagavadgita:2.5
3 · The (highest/decisive) good asked to be told with certainty — the proper course requested …settledadded v1
The (highest/decisive) good asked to be told with certainty — the proper course requested by the inquirer of his teacher.
smṛti (epic-philosophical)
bhagavadgita:2.7
4 · The higher or more excellent thing for a class of agent: declared not to exist for a kṣatr…settledadded v1
The higher or more excellent thing for a class of agent: declared not to exist for a kṣatriya beyond a righteous (dharmya) war.
smṛti (epic-philosophical)
bhagavadgita:2.31
Attestation concordance — tier 2, every locus
Append-only. Grows by locus as texts arrive; stays one collapsed table so the senses remain the reading surface.
All 4 attestations ▾
Locus
Witness
Tradition
Stratum
Snippet
bhagavadgita:1.31
Bhagavad Gītā (mūla)
smṛti (epic-philosophical)
mula
na ca śreyo 'nupaśyāmi hatvā svajanam āhave | na kāṅkṣe vijayaṃ kṛṣṇa na ca rājyaṃ sukhāni ca ||31||
bhagavadgita:2.5
Bhagavad Gītā (mūla)
smṛti (epic-philosophical)
mula
gurūn ahatvā hi mahānubhāvāñ śreyo bhoktuṃ bhaikṣyam apīha loke | hatvārtha-kāmāṃs tu gurūn ihaiva bhuñjīya bhogān rudhira-pradigdhān ||5||
bhagavadgita:2.7
Bhagavad Gītā (mūla)
smṛti (epic-philosophical)
mula
kārpaṇya-doṣopahata-svabhāvaḥ pṛcchāmi tvāṃ dharma-saṃmūḍha-cetāḥ | yac chreyaḥ syān niścitaṃ brūhi tan me śiṣyas te 'haṃ śādhi māṃ tvāṃ prapannam ||7
bhagavadgita:2.31
Bhagavad Gītā (mūla)
smṛti (epic-philosophical)
mula
sva-dharmam api cāvekṣya na vikampitum arhasi | dharmyād dhi yuddhāc chreyo 'nyat kṣatriyasya na vidyate ||31||
Editions & provenance
v1Bhagavad Gītā mūla (ch. 1) — +4 loci 4 sense(s) drafted from 4 Gītā locus/loci.
Caveats
All four attestations are from the mūla (root text) of the Bhagavad Gītā only; no commentary loci (Gauḍapāda / Śaṅkara) were supplied, so no commentarial position can be attributed.
The corpus here is a single tradition/text stratum (Bhagavad Gītā mūla); no cross-text or cross-tradition senses can be grounded from this evidence.
The senses given are usage-based readings of the four cited verses, not a doctrinal definition of śreyas beyond what these loci show.