Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 10, Verse 3: Krishna to Arjuna — Vibhūti-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  He who knows Me as the unborn (aja, without origination) and without beginning (anādi, causeless), and as the supreme sovereign (loka-maheśvara, the great lord of all worlds) — that person, undeluded (asaṃmūḍha, free from confusion) among mortals, is released from all accumulated actions (sarva-pāpa, all karmic residue). Śaṅkara presses the logical spine: anāditva (beginninglessness) is the ground of ajatva (birthlessness); because no prior cause produces Me, I am without birth. 'Great lord' here signals the turīya state — the fourth, stripped of ignorance and its products — not a cosmic governor seated above.

  divergence: Śaṅkara reads loka-maheśvara not as a personal ruler but as the non-dual witness beyond the three states; liberation is by vijñāna (direct knowing), not devotion.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Knowing Me as unborn distinguishes Me from inert matter and from bound souls whose birth is karma-produced (karma-kṛtāciṭ-saṃsarga, contact with matter through action). Knowing Me as beginningless (anādi) distinguishes Me from liberated souls, who are indeed birthless but whose birthlessness was preceded by a history of bondage — a history I never had. One who grasps Me — the lord of lords, entirely other in kind from every category of created being — without the confusion of sameness (saṃmoha, the mistake of assimilating Me to other lords) is freed from all the sins that obstruct the arising of bhakti (devotion).

  divergence: Rāmānuja uniquely differentiates aja from anādi: both apply to God, but freed souls share ajatva without sharing anāditva. Liberation here is framed as removal of bhakti-obstacles, not mere jñāna.

• Madhvadvaita

  I am anādi because I am the initiating mover (aneṣṭayitā, the one who sets all else in motion) and the origin of all — precisely because I am aja (unborn), my being the ādi (source) of all others follows necessarily. Knowing this eternal, absolute distinction between the Lord and all other categories of being — undeluded among mortals — one is freed entirely from sin.

  divergence: Madhva's commentary is markedly brief, emphasizing the ontological primacy of Hari's independence (svātantrya): the logical implication, not elaborated bhakti-soteriology, is foregrounded.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  I am aja precisely because even the seers of mantras (mantra-draṣṭṛ, the revealed-seer ṛṣis) cannot grasp my origin; what arises — ākāśa, jīvas, Hiraṇyagarbha — arises from Me, not I from anything. Though I appear in the world (mārtyeṣu, among mortals) through My own desire (svecchayā), whoever knows Me in this world as entirely unlike all conditioned beings (vijātīya-vilakṣaṇa, distinct in kind) — undeluded — is freed from all sins that are the causes of saṃsāra and that obstruct the arising of bhakti.

  divergence: Vallabha uniquely stresses Kṛṣṇa's voluntary descent (svecchā-avatāra logic) and the epistemological failure of even ṛṣis to grasp His origin — the highest mark of absolute transcendence.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Because I am the cause of all (sarva-kāraṇatva), nothing is My cause; thus I am anādi (without beginning). Because I am without beginning, I am aja (without birth). Whoever knows Me — birthless, beginningless, the great lord of all worlds — stands among human beings as undeluded (asaṃmūḍha, free from the confusion that takes Me for one lord among many) and is freed from every sin.

  divergence: Śrīdhara's voice is economical and philologically tidy — he derives anāditva directly from kāraṇatva (causality) and ajatva from anāditva, without Rāmānuja's categorical distinctions or Śaṅkara's turīya gloss.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Because I am the cause of all, I have no cause (kāraṇa) — hence anādi; being without beginning, I am without birth — hence aja. Whoever knows Me as birthless, causeless, the supreme lord of worlds — stands undeluded (moha-varjita) among mortals and is freed from all sins, even those performed with deliberate intent (mati-pūrva-kṛta), because the root-cause of those sins is destroyed (kāraṇoccheda) and their impressions cannot re-form.

  divergence: Madhusūdana alone adds the mechanism of liberation: not mere forgiveness but structural impossibility of recurrence through kāraṇa-uccheda (root-cause extirpation) — a synthesis of Advaita causation-logic with bhakti's promise of complete purification.