Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 14, Verse 24: Krishna to Arjuna — Guṇatraya-Vibhāga-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  The one who is sama (equal) toward pain and pleasure alike stands sva-stha (self-abiding), resting in the atman alone — not agitated by external fluctuations because the atman is untouched by them. Clod, stone, and gold are equalized not through indifference but because none holds any claim on one who sees only Brahman. Blame and self-praise alike are seen as speech about what is not-Self; the dhira (steady-minded) renunciant knows the yati's equanimity is simply recognition that the guna-play never reached him.

  divergence: Shankara parses each compound as 'yasyaite tulyah sa' — the equalities are marks of the one already established in the Self. Sva-stha is glossed as 'sve atmani sthitah prasannah,' settled and at ease in the Self.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Because the gunatita yogi holds his own atman (svayam) as his only priya (dear), the arising and passing of external joy or grief — birth, death, children — touches him as events in a field he does not claim. His equanimity toward gold and clod flows from this single ground: tad-vyatirikta (other than that beloved Self) objects have no purchase. Ramanuja's dhira is prakrityatma-viveka-kushala — skilled at discriminating prakriti from atman — and it is that skill, not suppression, that holds him equally above blame and praise.

  divergence: Ramanuja specifies 'sva-atmaika-priyatvena' (by the exclusive delight in one's own Self) as the causal ground for all equalities listed. Praise and blame are dismissed because human-birth-pride is recognized as 'sva-asambandhanu-sandhana' — unconnected to the true Self.

• Madhvadvaita

  *Sama-duḥkha-sukhaḥ* (equal in pain and pleasure), *sama-loṣṭāśma-kāñcanaḥ* (equal toward clod, stone, and gold), *tulya-priyāpriyo dhīras tulya-nindātma-saṃstutiḥ* — with these compound epithets Kṛṣṇa states *sarvathā sukhādau tulyatvabuddhiḥ*, the understanding of complete equality across all modes of pleasure and the rest. Jayatīrtha flags that *anyathāpratīti*, a mistaken reading of what this equality means, must be cut off: the *tulyatva-vācinaḥ śabdasya arthaḥ* — the meaning belonging to these words that denote equanimity — is precisely the sense Madhva established before, *pūrastat*, in the preceding verses on the *guṇātīta*. The *dhīra* *jīva* (the individual self), *paratantra* (eternally dependent) on *Hari*, is not claiming *svatantra* (self-sufficient) indifference; rather, *sukhādau tulyatvabuddhiḥ* holds because *prāyaḥ sarvānityādi-ukta-rītyā* — by the method already stated regarding the near-universal impermanence of pleasure and the rest — no *guṇa*-bound object commands a differential response. Praise and blame, the dear and the unwanted, gold and the clod: none possesses a standing that could alter the *jīva*'s orientation toward Hari.

  divergence: Madhva's bhāṣya is a single compressed sentence: *tulyatvārthaḥ uktaḥ purastat* — the meaning of equanimity was stated before. Jayatīrtha expands by specifying that *sama-duḥkha-sukhaḥ* and the following epithets together express *sarvathā sukhādau tulyatvabuddhiḥ* and that his gloss removes *anyathāpratīti*; the elaboration on impermanence comes via *prāyaḥ sarvānityādi-ukta-rītyā*, pointing back to earlier doctrinal groundwork rather than introducing new argument here.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  All the equalities enumerated — pleasure-pain, clod-gold, beloved-unloved — are signs that one lives beyond the harsha (joy) and dvesha (aversion) which are merely guna-karya (effects of the gunas), not Shri Krishna's own nature. Vallabha's gloss points to this equanimity as a smaran of the Sankhya-Yoga sara: the yogi's sva-stha is atma-stha, settled in Brahman as Krishna's own essence, so guna-fluctuations simply do not land. The inference is that true sama-darshana is only possible because Krishna sustains the equanimous soul in His grace.

  divergence: Vallabha opens 'sameti' and explains 'samya-yogah hetuh iti sankhya-yoga-sarabhutam artham smarayati' — equanimity-as-yoga is a reminder of the Sankhya-Yoga essence. Sva-stha is read as atma-stha.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  The gunatita is recognized by converging sama-s: pleasure and pain equal because he abides in his own svarupa (nature); clod, stone, and gold equal as objects that cannot disturb that abiding; beloved and unloved equal as causes of pleasure and pain that no longer reach him; and blame together with atma-stuti (self-praise) equal because his dhirana (steady wisdom) is undisturbed by the opinions of others. Each qualification reinforces a single portrait: the gunatita is identified by inner settledness, not by austerity or renunciation of activity.

  divergence: Sridhara is concise: 'yatah sva-sthah sva-rupe eva sthitah' — because he is established in his own form alone, therefore all these equalities follow. Priya-apriya are glossed as 'sukha-duhkha-hetubhute' — causes of pleasure and pain.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Duhkha and sukha are equalized threefold in Madhusudana's reading: as dvesharaga-shunya (free from aversion and attachment), as anatma-dharma (qualities of the not-Self), and as anrita (unreal in the Advaita sense) — three simultaneous lenses. The sva-stha of this verse is explicitly dvaitadarshana-shunyatva — absence of dual-vision — making equanimity not a practice but a consequence of non-dual recognition. Gold and clod are sama as 'heyopadeyabhava-rahita,' free from the distinction between what is to be adopted and what is to be rejected; even praise and blame are only 'doshakirtana-gunakirtana' — accounts of defects and qualities — that a non-dual seer knows do not touch the Self.

  divergence: Madhusudana explicitly states 'dvaitadarshana-shunyatvat' as the reason for sva-stha. His triple characterization of sama-duhkha-sukha (dvesharaga-shunya, anatmadharmata, anritatva) is specific to his synthesis and absent from the other commentators.