Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 1, Verse 32: Arjuna to Krishna — Arjuna-Viṣāda-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  na kāṅkṣe vijayaṃ kṛṣṇa na ca rājyaṃ sukhāni ca | kiṃ no rājyena govinda kiṃ bhogair jīvitena vā — Arjuna addresses Kṛṣṇa directly: victory, kingship, and pleasures (*sukhāni*) are indeed attainable through the slaughter of those arrayed before him — *prāptānāṃ yuyutsūnāṃ hiṃsayā vijayo rājyaṃ sukhāni ca labdhuṃ śakyānīti* — yet he *na kāṅkṣe*, does not desire them. The objection then arises: kingship and the rest (*rājyādi*) are universally desired (*sarvākāṅkṣitatvāt*), for by them one might secure the well-being of sons, brothers, and the rest — *putrabhratrādīnāṃ svāsthyam ādhātuṃ śakyam* — and so why the withdrawal from battle? Arjuna preempts this with *kiṃ no rājyena*, pressing the *ākṣepa* (rejection) of *rājyādi* further: what use is sovereignty, what use are *bhogāḥ*, what use is life (*jīvita*) itself? The *hetu* (reason) for this wholesale rejection of *rājyādi* is announced as following — *yeṣām iti* — in the verse that immediately succeeds. Within the Advaita reading, Arjuna's *na kāṅkṣe* registers the surface form of *vairāgya* (dispassion), yet it arises here from *śoka* (grief) rather than *viveka* (discriminative discernment), and so Śaṅkara, commencing his *bhāṣya* only at 2.10, treats this entire chapter as the display of *ajñāna* (nescience) that makes Kṛṣṇa's teaching necessary.

  divergence: Śaṅkara left no direct commentary on 1.32; the B-bucket anchoring draws on Ānandagiri's *ṭīkā*, which supplies the dialectical structure: the prima facie case that *vijayo rājyaṃ sukhāni ca labdhuṃ śakyāni* by fighting, the counter that *rājyādi* is *sarvākāṅkṣita* since it can secure *putrabhratrādīnāṃ svāsthyam*, and Arjuna's preemptive *ākṣepa* of all these through *kiṃ no rājyena*. The Advaita doctrinal gloss on *vairāgya* and *śoka* is added from the school's *siddhānta* as applied context.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Rāmānuja reads verse 1.32 inside a larger description of Pārtha as mahāmanāḥ (great-souled), paramakāruṇika (supremely compassionate), and dīrghabandhu (one of deep familial loyalty) — a man who had already been deceived repeatedly by the Kauravas in the lākṣāgṛha (house of lac) affair and yet bore no malice. Now, beholding kin about to be slain, his body drenched in sweat (atimātra-svinna-sarvagātra) from the combined force of bandhu-sneha (kinship-love) and karuṇā (compassion) and dharma-adharma-bhaya (fear of wrongdoing), he surrenders bow and arrows and sinks onto the chariot-floor. For Rāmānuja, this renunciation of vijaya, rājya, and sukha is not yet mature kainkarya (loving service to Bhagavān) — it is the painful dissolution of ego-investment in outcomes that, if redirected toward Bhagavān's feet, becomes the seed of bhakti-yoga.

• Madhvadvaita

  *Na kāṅkṣe vijayaṃ kṛṣṇa na ca rājyaṃ sukhāni ca* — Arjuna renounces victory, kingship, and pleasure in a single breath. From the Dvaita reading, this utterance lays bare the condition of the *paratantra* (eternally dependent) *jīva* when volition collapses inward on itself: desire aimed at personal gain is precisely the disorder that marks the *jīva*'s forgetting of its constitutional subordination to *svatantra* Hari. *Kiṃ no rājyena govinda kiṃ bhogair jīvitena vā* — the rhetorical questions addressed to *Govinda* are telling; Arjuna instinctively turns toward the Lord even in grief, which registers the *jīva*'s irreducible *bheda* (real distinction) from and orientation toward Hari. Yet the renunciation here is not yet *bhakti* as ontological subordination — it is *śoka*-born *vairāgya* (dispassion born of sorrow), a negation of self-directed desire without the corresponding affirmation of action re-anchored in Hari's will. The *pañca-bheda* (the five-fold real distinction: Lord–jīva, Lord–matter, jīva–jīva, jīva–matter, matter–matter) remains unrecognized by Arjuna at this stage; he sees only the *jīva-jīva* relations — kinsmen he will kill — and not the *svatantra* Hari who orders all action. *Dāsya* (servanthood) to Hari, not the cessation of *karma*, is the corrective the verse anticipates.

  divergence: No Madhva or Jayatīrtha bhāṣya was available for this verse; the reading is voiced directly from Dvaita *siddhānta* applied to the *mūla*.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  *Na kāṅkṣe vijayaṃ kṛṣṇa na ca rājyaṃ sukhāni ca* — Arjuna declares he desires neither victory, nor kingdom, nor pleasures. Within *puṣṭi-mārga* (the path of divine grace), desire for *rājya* belongs to the sphere of *sādhāraṇa-dharma*, the ordinary course of worldly striving; Kṛṣṇa's own *sevā* (loving service) renders every such object without weight. The address *Govinda* — he who gladdens cows, earth, and senses — at the very moment Arjuna disclaims all enjoyment (*bhoga*) and life (*jīvita*) discloses the paradox *puṣṭi-mārga* holds at its center: the senses and their objects belong to Kṛṣṇa alone, are sustained by his *anugraha* (grace), and when a *jīva* (individual self) moves to renounce them out of grief rather than *brahma-sambandha* (the consecrating bond with Brahman), the renunciation is incomplete. Arjuna's *kiṃ no rājyena govinda* — 'what is kingdom to us, Govinda?' — is not yet the *sevā* in which kingdom and self alike are surrendered into Kṛṣṇa's own real manifestation of the world. The world is no illusion to be cast aside; it is Kṛṣṇa's *svakīya* (his own), and sorrow-driven disavowal does not become *puṣṭi*. Grace has not yet descended; Arjuna stands at the threshold where *bhoga* is refused but *prasāda* (Kṛṣṇa's freely given grace) has not yet been received.

  divergence: Bucket re-assigned from B to C: Vallabha left this verse without commentary; the rendering is voiced directly from *śuddhādvaita* siddhānta off the mūla.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara's bhāṣya on 1.32 is tightly economical. He poses the opponent's question: 'Do you not see the fruits — vijaya and the rest?' — and has Arjuna reply with 'na kāṅkṣa iti' (I do not desire). He then expands: 'Those very persons for whose sake we desired rājya and the rest — those prāṇa-dhana-tyāgis (those who have renounced life and wealth) — have themselves taken their stand on the battlefield for the sake of this war. Therefore, what use have we for rājya and the like?' The logic is a complete collapse of the instrumental chain: the beneficiaries of victory have become instruments of the war itself; the goal-structure is self-annihilating, and thus Arjuna's refusal is not emotion but reasoned futility.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  *Phala-kāṅkṣā* (desire for fruit) is the cause of *upāya-pravṛtti* (engagement with means): *phalaākaṅkṣā hyupāya-pravṛttau kāraṇam*. Where that desire is absent, engagement in the means — war — is as senseless as a man without hunger being urged toward cooking: *bhojanecchā-virahiṇa iva pākādau mam pravṛttir anupapannā*. The objection that *dṛṣṭa-prayojana* (visible purpose) — *vijayo rājyaṃ sukhāni ca* — remains unimpeached even where *adṛṣṭa* fails is thus closed: Arjuna severs all three. The address *govinda* is not incidental. Madhusūdana glosses: *go-śabda-vācyāny indriyāṇy adhiṣṭhānatayā nityaṃ prāptas tvam* — the term *go* names the *indriya*s (senses), and Govinda is he who presides over them as their constant witness; invoking this name, Arjuna signals that Kṛṣṇa already perceives his *aihi-ka-phala-virāga* (dispassion toward this-worldly fruit) directly. A final counter-objection — that even a dispassionate man should strive for the sake of his own people — is also met: *ye yeṣāṃ tu bandhūnām arthe tad apekṣitaṃ, te ete prāṇān prāṇāśāṃ dhanāni dhanāśāṃ ca tyaktvā yuddhe avasthitāḥ* — those very kinsmen for whose benefit *rājya* might have been sought have already cast away *prāṇāśā* (hope of life) and *dhanāśā* (hope of wealth) by standing in battle. No self-interest and no other-regarding motive survives. The *bhoga*-term, earlier used as synonym for *sukha*, is here read as pointing to the material means and objects of pleasure, distinguished from *sukha* proper by the verse's independent mention of both.