Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 1, Verse 21: Arjuna to Krishna — Arjuna-Viṣāda-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Śaṅkarācārya provides no bhāṣya on BG 1.21; his running commentary opens only at 2.10, treating the first adhyāya as narrative prologue unworthy of dialectical unpacking. What the verse shows is simply Arjuna exercising vāk (speech) toward Hṛṣīkeśa (the lord of the senses) — an address that already encodes the jñāna-mārga's first move: locate the one who governs indriya before issuing any command. The request to halt the ratha (chariot) between both armies is thus, on an Advaitic reading, an unwitting staging of the antaḥkaraṇa (inner instrument) between rajasic momentum and sattva-informed pause.

  divergence: ABSENT — Śaṅkara's bhāṣya does not cover BG 1.21. Rendering is constructed from Advaitic interpretive principles applied to the verse's vocabulary (Hṛṣīkeśa, ratha, sthāpaya); it is inferential, not textually anchored. Flagged per honesty protocol.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Rāmānuja's bhāṣya notes that Kṛṣṇa, the moment Arjuna spoke, acted — instantly and without hesitation — executing the command in full view of Bhīṣma, Droṇa, and all the assembled mahīkṣit (earth-rulers). For Rāmānuja this immediacy is doctrinally luminous: Bhagavān enacts kainkarya (willing service) in reverse, honoring the devotee's bhāva (intent) before the devotee can doubt himself. The bhāṣya also notes that Kṛṣṇa voiced back the state of the Pāṇḍava victory-position — a sārathi (charioteer) who is simultaneously sākṣin (witness) and commentator on his own side's standing.

  divergence: Anchored in: 'स च तेन चोदितः तत्क्षणाद् एव भीष्मद्रोणादीनां सर्वेषाम् एव महीक्षितां पश्यतां यथाचोदितम् अकरोत् । ईदृशी भवदीयानां विजयस्थितिः इति च अवोचत्।'

• Madhvadvaita

  Madhvācārya's bhāṣya text on BG 1.21 is absent from the supplied corpus. On Dvaita principles the verse would be read as follows: Arjuna addresses Kṛṣṇa as Hṛṣīkeśa — the īśvara (lord) who is the indriya-pravarttaka (activator of all senses) — and as Acyuta, the one who never falls from his own svabhāva (nature). That Arjuna issues a command to Hari and Hari complies does not compromise Hari's supremacy; it demonstrates the jīva's adhikāra (fitness) to petition and Hari's svātantrya (absolute independence) expressing itself as grace toward the surrendered.

  divergence: ABSENT — Madhva's bhāṣya field is empty in the supplied payload. Rendering is constructed from Dvaita interpretive principles. Flagged per honesty protocol.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabhācārya's bhāṣya groups verses 1.20–1.23 as a single narrative arc: the yuddha-icchā (battle-eager) Dhārtarāṣṭras are already arrayed; Arjuna, blessed by Hanumān whose mahāvīra (great-hero) form graces his dhvaja (banner), turns to Hṛṣīkeśa — here glossed as sva-āśrita-jana-poṣaka, the one who nourishes his dependents — and asks for the ratha to be held until he can nirīkṣe (survey) both armies. The word sthāpaya carries the full weight of Puṣṭi-mārga here: Arjuna is not commanding but entrusting — placing the moment entirely in Kṛṣṇa's sārathya (charioteer-ship), which is Kṛṣṇa's own līlā (play) in the guise of service.

  divergence: Anchored in: 'स्वाश्रितजनपोषकं स्वसारथ्ये स्थितं हृषीकेशं जगाद यावदेतान् निरीक्षेऽहं तावत् उभयोः सेनयोर्मध्ये मम रथं स्थापयेति।' Note: Vallabha's bhāṣya covers 1.20–1.23 as a continuous unit; attribution to 1.21 specifically is contextual.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara Svāmī's surviving Sanskrit on this verse is minimal — two half-sentences pointing to Arjuna naming Hṛṣīkeśa and then to the deployment between the armies — but his philological instinct is clear: the first epithet, Hṛṣīkeśa (lord of the senses), and the last, Acyuta (immovable), frame the entire request. Arjuna is addressing the one who governs all indriya while asking him to still the ratha; the prayer for external stillness mirrors a deeper plea for the charioteer of consciousness to hold steady. Śrīdhara's balanced, bhakti-inflected reading sees in tad eva vākyam ('that very speech') the sign that Arjuna spoke from bhāva, not from mere tactical calculation.

  divergence: Anchored in clean Sanskrit only: 'हृषीकेशमिति। तदेव वाक्यमाह सेनयोरिति।' HTML/whitespace artifacts (  markup) in the supplied payload discarded; only Sanskrit content used.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana Sarasvatī opens his bhāṣya by situating 1.21 as the pivot-point where the Pāṇḍava resolve is displayed in direct contrast to the Dhārtarāṣṭra panic that preceded it. Arjuna, he notes, is kapi-dhvaja (he whose banner bears Hanumān) — sarva-thā bhaya-śūnya (entirely free from fear) — and lifts gāṇḍīva not from delusion but from deliberate vijigīṣā (will to victory). He addresses Hṛṣīkeśa precisely because Kṛṣṇa is the indirya-pravartaka (activator of all inner faculties) and sarva-antaḥkaraṇa-vṛtti-jña (knower of every movement in every inner instrument). The address to Acyuta at the verse's close, Madhusūdana argues, is Arjuna's pre-emption of any objection: 'who could dislodge one who is acyuta (immovable) in deśa, kāla, and vastu?' — thereby removing even the shadow of doubt about Kṛṣṇa's capacity to hold position under fire.

  divergence: Anchored in: 'कपिध्वजः पाण्डवो ... हृषीकेशमिन्द्रियप्रवर्तकत्वेन सर्वान्तःकरणवृत्तिज्ञं श्रीकृष्णमिदं वक्ष्यमाणं वाक्यमाहोक्तवान्' and 'देशकालवस्तुष्वच्युतं त्वां को वा च्यावयितुमर्हतीति भावः।'