Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 11, Verse 44: Krishna to Arjuna — Viśvarūpa-Darśana-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Therefore, prostrating myself and laying my body flat to the ground in complete submission (praṇidhāya), I seek your grace, O Lord (Īśa) worthy of all praise (Īḍya). As a father bears the transgression of a son, as a friend the fault of a friend, as a beloved the offense of the one dear to him — so, O God (Deva), you are fit to forgive (soḍhum, kṣantum) all this. Śaṅkara reads the three relational triplets strictly as illustrative analogies for tolerance of lapses, not as expressions of intrinsic devotional intimacy; the appeal is to Īśvara's capacity to condone the delusion-born speech of a jīva not yet fully awake.

  divergence: praṇidhāya prakарṣeṇa nīcaiḥ dhṛtvā kāyam — Śaṅkara: laying the body down in the most abased way; soḍhum = prasahitum, kṣantum — the request is for forbearance, not reciprocal love.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Therefore, having bowed and prostrated this body before you, Īśa and Īḍya, I seek to propitiate you. Just as a father, when approached with prostration and supplication, pardons even the guilty son, just as a friend pardons a friend's offense — so you, supremely compassionate (parama-kāruṇika), who are the Priya (beloved) of all your devotees, are fit to bear all my transgressions. Rāmānuja stresses that the Lord's grace flows from his own essential nature as the inner-self (antaryāmin) of Arjuna; the three relationships are not mere analogies but point to the organic union of cit and Brahman.

  divergence: parama-kāruṇikaḥ priyaḥ priyāya — Rāmānuja explicitly names supreme compassion as the ground of the Lord's capacity to forgive; the appeal runs through love, not merely through overlordship.

• Madhvadvaita

  *Tasmāt praṇamya praṇidhāya kāyam* — Arjuna, the *paratantra* (eternally dependent) *jīva*, prostrates his body entire before *īśam īḍyam*, the Lord who is sovereign and alone worthy of praise. Having witnessed the *viśvarūpa*, he knows the *pañca-bheda* (the five-fold real distinction) not as abstract doctrine but as lived terror and awe: Hari is *svatantra* (the independently real, self-sufficient); Arjuna is not. The three similes — father to son, friend to friend, *priya* to *priyā* — do not collapse the ontological distance but name the registers in which the *svatantra* Lord, across real *bheda* (real distinction), may extend forbearance. A father corrects without destroying; a friend tolerates what a stranger cannot; a beloved bears what mere duty would refuse. Arjuna appeals to all three not to dissolve the distinction between *jīva* and Hari but to invoke the Lord's sovereign compassion from within it. Forgiveness here is no erasure of *bheda*: it is Hari's free act of grace toward a dependent who has transgressed out of the familiarity *bhakti* (devotion) permits. *Arhasi deva soḍhum* — 'O Lord, thou art fit to endure it' — is the petition of one who knows the asymmetry is absolute and precisely therefore throws himself upon it.

  divergence: Madhva and Jayatīrtha are silent on this verse; the reading is voiced directly from dvaita siddhānta off the mūla.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Because the Lord is Īśa — sovereign ruler (rājā) of all, the one who governs through rajo-bhāva yet remains seated in the chariot out of bhakta-vātsalya (parental tenderness toward devotees) — Arjuna propitiates him by prostration. The verse enacts puṣṭi-mārga's core logic: the Lord's very condescension into sārathya (chariot-service) is already his grace-overflow (puṣṭi); requesting that he bear offenses merely makes explicit the relationship of unconditional nurture (poṣaṇa) that was already operative.

  divergence: Vallabha: bhakta-vātsalyena sārathye karmaṇi sthitam — the Lord's sārathya is itself the expression of vātsalya; soḍhum is therefore already accomplished in that prior act.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Therefore, laying the body flat like a staff (daṇḍavat nipātya), bowing with the highest reverence, I propitiate you — Īśa, master of the world, Īḍya, worthy of all praise. As a father with compassion (kṛpayā) endures the fault of a son; as a friend (sakhā, the unconditional companion, nirupādhi-bandhu) endures a friend's misstep; and as a beloved (priyaḥ) for the sake of the beloved (tat-priyārtham) endures her fault — exactly so, you should bear my transgression. Śrīdhara's gloss nirupādhi-bandhu marks friendship here as unconditional, without qualifying stipulation, making the appeal maximally tender.

  divergence: Śrīdhara: sakhā nirupādhi-bandhuḥ — the friend is one whose bond is without condition; tat-priyārtham — the beloved endures for the sake of the beloved's own happiness.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Having bowed and prostrated flat on the ground like a staff (daṇḍavad bhūmau patitvā), I — the offender (aparādhī) — seek to propitiate you who are Īśa and Īḍya, praised by all. O God, as a father bears a son's offense, as a friend a friend's fault, as a loving husband (priyaḥ patiḥ) the transgression of his devoted wife (priyāyāḥ pativratāyāḥ) — so you are fit to forgive my offense. Madhusūdana adds a Chandas-note: the elision in priyāyārhasi is a Vedic sandhi (chāndasaḥ), signaling that this petition echoes the register of śruti itself; ananya-śaraṇatva (having no other refuge) is the ground of the appeal.

  divergence: Madhusūdana: ananya-śaraṇatvān mama — 'because I have no other refuge'; priyaḥ patiḥ priyāyāḥ pativratāyāḥ — husband to a devoted wife, adding the conjugal reading; chandas note on sandhi.