Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 1, Verse 19: Arjuna to Krishna — Arjuna-Viṣāda-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  That tumultuous (tumula) roar — sky (nabhas) and earth (pṛthivī) resonating together — split open the hearts of Dhṛtarāṣṭra's men. From the standpoint of Advaita, the terror that splits a heart is the terror of a self that believes it can be lost; the man who knows ātman (the imperishable self) as non-different from Brahman would hear only sound arising in māyā (the cosmic appearance). The battlefield roar thus serves as a preliminary śravana (hearing) that will force exactly this inquiry — but Śaṅkara himself left no direct comment here.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  That thunderous uproar — heaven and earth made to resound by the tumult — rent apart the hearts of all the Dhārtarāṣṭras, and they understood in that instant that their army (bala) was already finished. Rāmānuja's bhāṣya is explicit: Duryodhana, seeing the inadequacy (aparyāptatā) of his own forces against Bhīṣma's protected Pāṇḍava array, had already fallen into despondency (viṣāda); Bhīṣma's lion-roar and conch were meant to revive his courage — yet when the divine conch Pāñcajanya (wielded by the sarveśvareśvara, the Lord of all lords, acting as Pārtha's charioteer) answered, it was not merely sound but the declaration of omnipotence that caused the splitting (bhedana). The kaiṅkarya (service) of Hṛṣīkeśa here is to be charioteer precisely so that the Pāṇḍava cause — which is Bhagavān's own cause — cannot fail.

• Madhvadvaita

  That roar of conches, filling sky and earth with tumult, shattered the hearts of Dhṛtarāṣṭra's warriors. From Dvaita's standpoint the significance is theological and precise: the sound issuing from Kṛṣṇa's own Pāñcajanya declares the irreducible sovereignty (svatantra) of Hari over all jīvas (dependent selves). Duryodhana's men feel not merely fear but the metaphysical rupture that comes when a being who has denied Hari's supremacy confronts its direct manifestation — the roar is the sound of paratantra (dependent reality) being reminded of its dependence.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Yudhiṣṭhira, Bhīma, and the rest blew their conches separately (pṛthak pṛthak), and that uproar split the hearts of Duryodhana and his companions. Vallabha's śuddhādvaita reading sees even this shattering as Kṛṣṇa's līlā-prasāda (grace-play): the Dhārtarāṣṭra heart is not merely frightened but is being emptied by Kṛṣṇa's will so that, at the proper moment, it might receive the divine influx — destruction as preparation for grace. Every vibration of Pāñcajanya is Kṛṣṇa's own breath, not a warrior's instrument.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  That conch-roar generated great fear in your (Dhṛtarāṣṭra's) men — it split apart (vidāritavān) the hearts of the Dhārtarāṣṭras — while reverberating (vyanunadayan) tumultously through sky and earth alike. Śrīdhara's gloss moves economically: he marks the verse as Sañjaya explaining to Dhṛtarāṣṭra the psychological effect on 'your side' (tvadīyānām), so the bhakta's ear hears the possessive pronoun as the king's attachment — these are 'your' men whose hearts break because they fight against the side on which Bhagavān himself stands as charioteer.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  The Dhārtarāṣṭra conch-din was great but it did not disturb (kṣobha, agitation) the Pāṇḍava camp at all; it was the Pāṇḍava conch-roar alone that split the hearts of all on Dhṛtarāṣṭra's side — not only Duryodhana's soldiers but even Bhīṣma and Droṇa felt the pain equal to heart-splitting (hṛdaya-vidāraṇa-tulyāṃ vyathām). Madhusūdana draws the asymmetry sharply: the sound of the side sheltered by Hṛṣīkeśa, the master of the senses, produces no perturbation in the just; the same sound is existential rupture for those whose cause is adharma. In his synthesis, the conch-roar enacts at the acoustic level what Advaita holds at the metaphysical level — māyā's projections (the Dhārtarāṣṭra world-view) shatter on contact with the real.