Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 14, Verse 25: Krishna to Arjuna — Guṇatraya-Vibhāga-Yoga
He is called beyond the gunas who is the same toward honor and contempt, toward friend and foe alike, and who has given up all self-initiated action.
Bhāṣyakāra purports
- Śaṅkaraadvaita
In Shankara's reading, the one who is equal toward honor and dishonor (mana-apamanayos tulya) is nirvikarah — without inner modification — because the apparent distinction between friend-faction and enemy-faction belongs only to the projections of others, not to the self of the knower. The qualifier sarvarambha-parityagi means relinquishment of all karma except what is strictly necessary for bodily maintenance (dehadharana-matra), since every purposive action — whether for seen or unseen fruit — is an arambha, a launching of the wheel of guna-bondage. Such a one is called gunatita: what appeared as effortful renunciation for the mumukshu (seeker of liberation) has become the spontaneous natural signature (svasamvedya) of the jivanmukta who has crossed all three gunas.
- Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja anchors equality-of-honor in the prior verse's theme: the discerning one (dhira — skilled in discriminating prakrti from atman) recognizes that praise and blame, and the friend- and enemy-faction built upon them, arise from bodily identification (manusyatva-abhimana) with which the atman has no intrinsic connection (svasambandhabhavat). Sarvarambha-parityagi designates abandonment of all undertakings born from dehi-tva — embodied selfhood — so that only the inner self resting in its own delight (svatma-eka-priyatva) remains. The dominant cause (pradhana-hetu) of this guna-transcendence will be named in the next verse: it is the Lord himself who is the sole agent and ground.
- Madhvadvaita
Madhva comments here in extreme brevity — 'the meaning of equality has been stated previously' (tulyatvartho uktah purastat) — pointing to BG 14.24. For Madhva's school the substance is clear: the jiva's equanimity toward honor and dishonor, friend and foe, is not a dissolution of the jiva's distinct reality but its correct orientation as a wholly dependent worshipper of Hari. Sarvarambha-parityaga means surrender of every self-initiated enterprise, since all true arambha belongs to the Lord; the jiva who ceases to claim authorship of action is precisely the one who is gunatita — beyond the three gunas that constitute prakrti, which is itself only Hari's instrument.
- Vallabhaśuddhādvaita
Vallabha's gloss is deliberately spare: one who relinquishes all undertakings born of embodied existence (dehitva-prayukta-sarvarambha-parityagi) and who is equal toward honor and dishonor — such a one, he says, is called gunatita by the jnana-margiya path. The qualifier 'jnana-margiya' is Vallabha's own insertion: for Pustimarga the truly liberated soul is not the austere renunciant but the one who has received Krsna's grace (pustiprapat) and whose every action is already the Lord's lila; the verse thus describes the outer appearance of the pushti-bhakta from a jnana-lens perspective, not the ultimate condition of pure ananda-seva.
- Śrīdharabhakti
Sridhara reads sarvarambha-parityagi as relinquishment of all udyama — all striving and self-motivated endeavors directed toward both visible (drsta) and invisible (adrsta) fruits. Equanimity toward honor and dishonor, toward the friend-faction and the enemy-faction, combined with this thoroughgoing non-initiation of enterprises, defines the comportment (acara) of the one who transcends the gunas. The verse closes the characterization opened in 14.22, rounding off the signs (laksana) of the gunatita before the teaching turns to the means of transcendence (14.26).
- Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti
Madhusudana carefully distinguishes two senses of mana: bodily deference expressed through physical and mental acts, and mana as mere verbal praise — sharply distinguished from apamanah as tirasakara, active contempt. Sarvarambha-parityagi is glossed in Shankara's line — 'abandonment of all karma except bodily maintenance' — but Madhusudana adds a temporal frame: before the rise of jnana, the practices described from 14.23 onward are sadhana, effortful disciplines for the mumukshu; after jnana arises in the jivanmukta they become laksana, spontaneous signs. The synthesis is Madhusudana's signature: the same outer equanimity is bhakta-sadhana and jnana-phala simultaneously, converging in Krsna-realization.