Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 15, Verse 16: Krishna to Arjuna — Puruṣottama-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Two distinct groupings of 'puruṣa' (person/principle) are proclaimed in this world (loka): the kṣara (perishable), comprising the entire mass of vikāra (transformations) — all created beings from Brahmā down — and the akṣara (imperishable), which is māyāśakti (the Lord's power of illusion), the seed-ground of the kṣara, the repository of the saṃskāras (latent impressions) of countless transmigratory beings. The kṣara does not inhere in itself but is born from and sustained by the akṣara; the akṣara, though itself not flowing away, is nonetheless conditioned — kūṭastha meaning 'stationed in māyā,' pervading all through the two powers of āvaraṇa (concealment) and vikṣepa (projection). Crucially, both are upādhis (limiting adjuncts): the pure Self that Kṛṣṇa will name Puruṣottama in 15.17 is distinct from and untouched by both — nityaśuddhabuddhamukta by nature.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The kṣara-puruṣa is the collectivity of all jīvas (individual selves) from Brahmā to a blade of grass — they are called 'one' because the single conditioning factor of acit-saṃsarga (contact with unconscious matter) applies universally to all of them, not because they are numerically one. The akṣara-puruṣa is the mukta-ātmā (liberated self), freed from acit-contact and therefore not subject to the transformations of material embodiment, which is why it is called kūṭastha (immovable) — it remains in its own svarūpa (essential nature). Both kṣara and akṣara are real, distinct jīva-categories, not māyā; the liberated are many (as Rāmānuja confirms from BG 4.10: 'many have come to my bhāva'), and neither group is Bhagavān himself.

• Madhvadvaita

  The kṣara-puruṣa is the totality of jīvas from Prajāpati downward — all are eternally distinct from Hari and completely dependent on him. The akṣara is Prakṛti (primordial matter), designated 'kūṭastha' because it stands as the inert substratum underlying all transformation without itself transforming; the Śārkarākṣa-śruti cited in the bhāṣya explicitly names this triad: jīva-s as kṣara, Prakṛti as akṣara, and the supreme Mātariśvan as uttama. The Puruṣottama of 15.17 is Viṣṇu-Hari alone, the inner controller of both, forever beyond both categories — this absolute ontological hierarchy (Hari → jīva → jaḍa) is the frame within which the verse must be read.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Both puruṣas are so named deliberately — neither is strī-prakṛtika (of feminine-natured Prakṛti) — indicating that even the akṣara is not the inert avyakta but a genuinely conscious principle. The kṣaratva (perishability) of the kṣara-puruṣa arises only through bhagavad-icchayā (by Bhagavān's will) via prakṛti-saṃsarga-upādhi (the limiting adjunct of contact with Prakṛti) — it is not ultimately real but a flow-appearance; the jīva as bhagavat-sadaṃśa (a pure portion of Bhagavān) is in truth never bound. The akṣara stands kūṭastha as the pure saccidānanda principle, the substratum of all mahad-ādi creation, knowable through the Upaniṣadic vision ('ātmā vā are draṣṭavyaḥ') and reaching its highest station as kauṣṭubha-ekatva (identity with the Kauṣtubha gem at Kṛṣṇa's chest) in liberation.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  This verse begins Kṛṣṇa's self-disclosure of supreme sovereignty ('that supreme abode is mine,' 15.6): he first establishes the two well-known puruṣas of the world as a baseline. The kṣara comprises all bhūtas (beings) — every body from Brahmā to an immovable — because the ordinary world recognizes puruṣatva only in these embodied forms. The akṣara is the caitanya (sentient witness), the bhoktā (enjoyer-self), who stands like a mountain-summit (kūṭa = peak) unchanging amid bodies that perish — hence kūṭastha — and is therefore called akṣara by the viveki (the discerning). Śrīdhara holds these as body (kṣara) and jīva (akṣara), not as māyā, establishing a clear two-level world for Bhagavān's superior third category.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana reads both kṣara and akṣara as upādhi-s (limiting adjuncts) rather than as the jīva itself: the kṣara is the kārya-rāśi (the entire effect-aggregate, all manifest creation), while the akṣara is Bhagavān's māyāśakti serving as kāraṇa-upādhi (causal adjunct) — the very seed of saṃsāra whose apparent inexhaustibility makes it 'imperishable.' Those interpreters who read akṣara as jīva are corrected: since this chapter aims at establishing Puruṣottama (15.17), kṣara and akṣara must both be jaḍa (inert) upādhis, not the sentient jīva, so that Puruṣottama stands fully beyond both. Liberation in this synthesis is nirupādhika recognition of the pure Self untouched by both the kārya-adjunct and the kāraṇa-adjunct.