Sanskrit
अपि चेदसि पापेभ्यः सर्वेभ्यः पापकृत्तमः । सर्वं ज्ञानप्लवेनैव वृजिनं सन्तरिष्यसि ॥
api ced asi pāpebhyaḥ sarvebhyaḥ pāpa-kṛttamaḥ sarvaṃ jñāna-plavenaiva vṛjinaṃ santariṣyasi
Translation
Even if thou art the most sinful of all sinners, yet shalt thou cross over all sin by the raft of wisdom.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Even the worst wrongdoer crosses every sin on the “raft of wisdom,” jñāna-plavena — a deliberately extreme claim, since the phrasing reaches for the most absolute superlative Sanskrit allows, pāpa-kṛttamaḥ, “most sin-doing of all.” The image matters as much as the claim: a raft doesn’t erase the ocean, it carries you across it, so jñāna isn’t being described here as retroactively undoing past deeds so much as making them stop being the obstacle to crossing over that they would otherwise remain.