Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 1, Verse 22: Arjuna to Krishna — Arjuna-Viṣāda-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Arjuna asks: let me survey (nirīkṣe — see clearly, without attachment to outcome) those arrayed for battle, so that I may know with whom this engagement (raṇa-samudyama — exertion toward combat) is truly required. The act of looking is not the act of a spectator but the first motion of viveka (discrimination), which must precede any karma. Before the jīva can perform action rightly, it must perceive the field — and perceiving the field, it begins to sense the unreality of the distinction between the one who fights and those fought.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Prompted by Bhagavān's grace, Arjuna does not hesitate: he wishes to survey (nirīkṣe) those who stand arrayed with the desire to fight (yoddhukāmān avasthitān), so that in this great exertion of battle he may discern with whom the service of combat (kainkarya-yuddha) must be rendered. Rāmānuja's Sañjaya notes the immediacy of the response — Arjuna acts the instant Bhagavān moves — because the bhakta's will is co-substantial with the Lord's will; even reconnaissance is an act of surrender.

• Madhvadvaita

  Arjuna, finite jīva (eternally distinct from Hari), seeks to survey (nirīkṣe) those who desire combat — an act permitted only because Kṛṣṇa-Hari stands as sārathi and sovereign. The raṇa-samudyama (enterprise of war) is not Arjuna's own project; it is a field of service assigned by an independent Bhagavān to a dependent jīva. Wanting to see who must be fought is not autonomy but obedience: a servant maps the field because the Master has placed him there.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Arjuna turns to Hṛṣīkeśa — the one whose delight is to nourish those who take refuge in him — and makes a single request: place me where I may see. This seeing (nirīkṣe) is not strategic calculation; it is Kṛṣṇa's own līlā unfolding through the instrument of Arjuna's curiosity. The whole raṇa-samudyama is Kṛṣṇa's play-field, and even the warrior's wish to identify his opponents is a form of prasāda — a gift of participation in the divine drama.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara acknowledges the tension squarely: Arjuna is a yoddhā (fighter), not a yuddha-prekṣaka (spectator of battle). So why does he ask for time to look? Because the question 'with whom must I fight?' (kaiḥ saha mayā yoddhavyam) is itself the act of a warrior, not a tourist. Arjuna's survey is purposive — to identify the precise adversaries in this raṇa-samudyama — and Śrīdhara's terse gloss preserves that purposiveness without sentimentalizing it.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana excavates Arjuna's request in layers. He wants to see those who desire to fight — not those who might yet sue for peace — and those who stand firm, not those already broken by dread. The chariot must be placed at exactly the distance from which Arjuna can encompass them all with his gaze. And beneath this practical concern Madhusūdana discerns the deeper motion: this curiosity (kautuka) about who must be opposed is itself a form of knowledge (jñāna), the first stirring of the discriminative faculty that will eventually, by Kṛṣṇa's grace, ripen into liberating wisdom.