Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 15, Verse 5: Krishna to Arjuna — Puruṣottama-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Shankaracharya reads the five qualifications — freedom from mana (pride) and moha (delusion), conquest of sanga-dosa (the defect of attachment), constancy in adhyatma (inquiry into the nature of the Self), complete renunciation of kama (desire), and liberation from the dvandvas (pairs such as pleasure and pain) — as the purificatory sequence that strips the sannyasin of every obscuring superimposition. The undeluded (amudhah) who have accomplished this traversal reach the avyaya-pada (imperishable state), which Shankara glosses as the already-known, self-luminous Brahman — not a place attained but a recognition restored. The verse thus names not a journey outward but the removal of what concealed the destination that was never absent.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Ramanuja opens with the phrase 'mam sharanam upagamya' — having taken refuge in Me — embedding all five qualifications inside the logic of prapatti (surrender): freedom from the moha of identifying the non-Self as Self, conquest of the pull of guna-driven enjoyment, constancy in atma-dhyana (meditation on the individual Self as distinct from matter), renunciation of desires for everything other than the Lord, and release from the dvandvas that veil the jiva's natural clarity. Those who arrive thus reach the avyaya-pada as the jiva in its anavachchhinna-jnana-akara (unobstructed knowledge-form) — the eternal individual Self fully realised within the body of Vishnu. Ramanuja adds the decisive Vishishtadvaita inflection: all these capacities become achievable by the grace of the Lord toward those who have come to Him as refuge.

• Madhvadvaita

  Madhva's bhashya here is maximally terse — 'sadhanantaram aha: nirmana iti' — he marks the verse as introducing an additional means (sadhanantara) without further expansion in this passage. Anchoring in the Dvaita corpus overall: the five qualifications are the jiva's dependent effort (svabhava-anuguna-sadhana), exercised only by the grace of Hari who is the svatantra-kartri (independently acting agent); pride and delusion dissolve because the jiva recognises its intrinsic paratantrya (dependence). The avyaya-pada is Vishnu's own abode, categorically distinct from the jiva — the jiva arrives there as a worshipper, not as identity. [NOTE: Madhva bhashya for this verse is one-line in the supplied payload; rendering draws on standard Dvaita doctrinal position.]

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha lists the qualifications in his characteristic enumerative style — freedom from mana-moha, from sanga-dosa, constancy in adhyatma-jnana, cessation of kama, and release from sukha-duhkha dvandvas — and calls them 'sadhanasampannah' (those who are endowed with the means). Those so equipped reach the avyaya-pada glossed as 'tad Vishnoḥ paramam padam sarva-dosa-rahitam vyapi Vaikunthatmakam aksaram Brahma' — the all-pervading, flawless, imperishable Brahman that is the essence of Vaikuntha. In Shuddhadvaita the qualifications are not the seeker's achievement alone; they are Pushti (nourishing grace) removing the obscurations so that Krishna's own form, which is the only real substance, shines without obstruction.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Sridhara Svami identifies mana (pride, ahankara-flavor) and moha (false conviction, mithya-abhinivesha) as the pair to be expelled; sanga here is specifically the defect of attachment to son, kin, and intimates (putra-adi-sanga-rupa-dosha). Constancy in adhyatma is parinishthita — a settled, completed rootedness in atma-jnana, not merely periodic contemplation. The dvandvas — heat-cold, hunger-thirst — are called sukha-duhkha-samjnani because they generate those experiences; freedom from them is thus freedom from the very production-mechanism of suffering. Those so freed are amudhah — 'nivrtta-avidyah', ones from whom ignorance has been withdrawn — and they reach the Vaishnava avyaya-pada. Sridhara's bhakti-register names the destination explicitly as Vaishnava, anchoring liberation in the Lord's abode rather than in abstract cessation.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusudana Sarasvati synthesizes by reading mana as ahankara-garva (pride of ego) and moha as aviveka or viparyaya (confusion of real and unreal), and then specifying that jita-sanga-dosha means freedom from raga-dvesha (attraction-aversion) even in the presence of the pleasant and unpleasant — a Vedantic precision that goes beyond mere absence of attachment to indifference within contact. He notes the variant reading 'sukha-duhkha-sangaih' (dvandvas whose mark is association with pleasure-pain) alongside 'sukha-duhkha-samjnaih', taking both as pointing to the bondage-generating contact-mechanism. The undeluded are those in whom 'vedanta-pramana-samjata-samyag-jnana' (right knowledge born from Vedantic authority) has removed the residue of self-ignorance; they reach the avyaya-pada glossed as Vaishnava — the Advaita goal and the Bhakti destination held in the same compound without reduction of either.