Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 13, Verse 29: Krishna to Arjuna — Kṣetra-Kṣetrajña-Vibhāga-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  All actions are performed entirely by prakrti (primordial nature); the Self — pure awareness, changeless — does not act. Sankara insists: the ajnani (ignorant one) repeatedly kills his own atman by misidentifying it with the body-mind complex, taking up each new birth as a fresh false self. The one who truly sees the Self as akarta (non-agent), ever-identical across all beings, neither injures the Self by superimposition nor accumulates karma — and thus attains para gati, liberation named moksa.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  *Prakṛtyaiva* (by *prakṛti* alone) all actions are performed in every mode — *sarvāṇi karmāṇi kāryakāraṇakartṛtve hetuḥ prakṛtiḥ* (prakṛti is the cause of all effect-cause-agency), as stated at 13.20. One who sees *kriyamāṇāni* (the actions as being performed) by *prakṛti* in this *pūrvokta-rīti* (manner set out earlier), and who also sees *ātmānam akartāraṃ jñānākāraṃ ca* (the self as non-agent and of the nature of knowledge), that one sees further that *prakṛti-saṃyogaḥ tad-adhiṣṭhānaṃ taj-janyu-sukha-duḥkhānubhavaḥ ca karma-rūpājñāna-kṛtāni* — the self's conjunction with *prakṛti*, its being governed by it, and its experience of *prakṛti*-born pleasure and pain, are all the work of *karma-rūpājñāna* (ignorance taking the form of action). Such a one sees *ātmānaṃ yathāvad avasthitam* (the self as it truly abides): as *viśeṣaṇa* (qualifier) of the Lord who is *bhartā bhoktā maheśvaraḥ* (sustainer, enjoyer, supreme ruler, 13.23), residing in each body with the specific standing that accrues from *tat-tat-śeṣitvena* (being ordered to the respective Lord as its *śeṣin*). Veṅkaṭanātha notes that *sama-vasthitam* carries a force beyond mere presence — the *upasarga* (prefix) marks a *sthiti-vaiśeṣya* (special mode of abiding) defined by *śeṣitva* and *niyantṛtva* (lordship and inner control). The *sama*-word here negates the *vaiṣamya* (differentiation) that arises from *dehātmābhimāna* (the misconception of body as self) — not the *jīva*'s real ontological distinctness, which stands. One who sees thus does not wound the self through *āṭmani vaiṣamya-darśana* (seeing differentiation within the self), and is thereby kept from *bhava-jaladhi* (the ocean of *saṃsāra*), attaining *parā gatiḥ* in the sense proper to the *jīva*-context of this chapter.

• Madhvadvaita

  *Prakṛti* (primordial matter, the field) performs all actions *sarvaśaḥ* (in every respect, entirely); the *jīva* who sees the *ātman* as *akartā* (non-agent) — sees truly. In the dvaita reading, this *akartṛtva* (non-agenthood) of the *jīva* does not dissolve the *jīva* into *brahman*: the *pañca-bheda* (the five-fold real distinction) stands unreduced. The *jīva* is *paratantra* (eternally dependent), and all genuine causal initiative belongs to *svatantra* Hari whose *saṅkalpa* (sovereign will) moves *prakṛti* at every point. What the seeing named here strips away is the *jīva*'s false claim to independent authorship — *kartṛtva* seized as though the *jīva* were *svatantra*. That false seizure is bondage; relinquishing it is not non-dual absorption but the *jīva*'s right recognition of its place in the *taratamya* (graded ontological hierarchy): real, distinct, and wholly instrument to Hari's will. *Prakṛtyaiva ca karmāṇi kriyamāṇāni sarvaśaḥ* — *prakṛti* acts; Hari moves *prakṛti*; the *jīva* undergoes and witnesses. Seeing this clearly is the discriminative vision (*darśana*) that turns toward *bhakti* as ontological subordination and, at maturation, toward the real arrival of the liberated *jīva* in Vaikuṇṭha — distinct, *paratantra*, and forever in Hari's proximity.

  divergence: Advaita reads *akartāraṃ* as pointing to the *ātman*'s identity with *nirguṇa brahman*, for whom agency is *adhyāsa* (superimposition). Dvaita refuses this: the *jīva* remains a real, graded, distinct existent; its non-agency is relational subordination to Hari, not ontological collapse.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha anchors his reading in the Yajurveda sruti: 'He who sees the self other than it truly is — what sin has he not committed, this thief who steals the self?' The one who sees samyak (correctly) does not 'see otherwise' — he does not substitute an alien identity for the real Self. This correct seeing protects the sadhaka; it is not cold knowledge but the recognition that sat-cid-ananda is the Self's true form. Para gati is Bhagavad-dhama, the aksara abode of saccidananda, described in the same sruti he cites.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Sridhara Svami explains the logic plainly: because the yogi sees Paramatman abiding sama (equally), svapracyuta-svarupa (with its own form undiminished) in every being, he does not destroy the Self through avidya. The contrast class is the dehatmadars'i — one who identifies self with body — who injures the atman and descends to asurya lokas (sunless worlds) cited from the Isa Upanisad: 'Into blind darkness enter those who slay the self.' Seeing samata protects, not seeing it harms.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusudana synthesises Sankara's epistemology with devotional urgency: the ajnani kills himself in two ways — he obscures the real Self through avidya, and he discards each false-self body only to don another (karma-driven rebirth). The true jnanin, recognising 'ayam aham asmi — this is what I am' through sastra-drishti (scriptural vision), dissolves anAtmani-atma-abhimana (false self-identification) through suddhatma-darsana (pure Self-vision). The Sakuntala-vacana cited by both Sridhara and Madhusudana seals it: misidentifying the Self is the theft that underlies all sin. Para gati is mukti, cessation of avidya and all its effects.