Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 15, Verse 7: Krishna to Arjuna — Puruṣottama-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  The jiva (individual self) who appears as a portion (amsha) of the supreme Brahman in the realm of samsara is not truly a fragment of a divisible whole, but a reflection-like superimposition — as sunlight reflected in water is not a piece of the sun, or as space enclosed in a pot is not a piece of the sky. This jiva, sanatanam (eternally) appearing as doer and enjoyer, is only so through avidya-produced upadhi (limiting adjunct), not in ultimate reality. Shankara anchors: 'an-arth-antaram — amsha, bhaga, avayava, ekadesha are all synonymous; the flaw of sa-avayavatva does not apply because the division is avidya-kalpita (superimposed by ignorance), as explicitly shown in the Kshetra chapter.' The manas and five sense organs are drawn toward objects because they rest in prakrti (their natural seat), and so samsara persists — not because the jiva truly wanders, but because ignorance sustains the illusion of a wanderer.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The eternal jiva who is My amsha (portion) has its own authentic svabhava (essential nature) — a real, distinct sentient mode of Brahman, not a reflection or superimposition. Veiled by beginningless karma-rupa-avidya (ignorance in the form of past karma), this jiva enters embodied existence in the worlds of deva and manushya, and as controller of its instrument-body, draws the six — the five sense-organs plus manas — to act according to karma. Ramanuja distinguishes: one category of jiva so veiled, compelled to traverse; another, freed by the upaya taught in preceding verses, stands in its own true form (svena rupena avatishthate). The 'portion' is real — the jiva is a genuine mode of Ishvara, eternally self-luminous but contractible by karma into narrow jnana-aisvarya.

• Madhvadvaita

  *Mamaivaṃśo jīva-loke jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ* — the *jīva* (individual self) is Hari's own *aṃśa* (portion), yet not a fragment broken off from a composite whole. *Aṃśa* here names a genuinely *paratantra* (eternally dependent) entity whose very being is held in existence by Hari's *svatantra* (self-sufficient, sovereign) will. The term *sanātanaḥ* forecloses any reading in which the *jīva* is dissolved back into its source: it is eternally *jīva*, distinct in liberation no less than in bondage. *Pañca-bheda* — the five-fold real distinction — is not suspended at any point; Lord–*jīva* *bheda* (real distinction) is constitutive of the *jīva*'s nature, not an adventitious condition. Drawing the *manaḥ-ṣaṣṭhāni indriyāṇi* (the six — mind and five senses) *prakṛti-sthāni* (situated in *prakṛti*), the *jīva* acts under the load of *karma*, yet Hari remains the inner mover behind every such drawing. *Bhakti* is the *jīva*'s proper response to this ontological subordination: not a path toward identity with Hari, but the full flowering of dependence recognized as such.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  The jiva is an anu (atomic) pure-cit portion (amsha) of the sac-cid-ananda Purushottama, held separate not by any ontological gap but by Krsna's own free will — sva-icchaya prthag-bhavitah (made distinct by His own choice, as Vallabha's bhashya states). Ananda, the third constituent of the jiva's own nature, is not lost — it is tirobhuta (veiled), the hiding being itself a feature of the Lila. The jiva in samsara draws the senses across the theater of prakrti-parinaama-bodies because the ananda-svarupa is under that veil; liberation in this marga is not return to source but the lifting of the veil so the jiva shines as what it always was — an ananda-amsha of Krsna enjoying Him in seva.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Shridhara opens with a genuine dialectical jijasa (inquiry): if all jivas dissolve into You in deep sleep and pralaya, who remains a samsarin? The answer lies in the crucial distinction between two kinds of laya (mergence): the jiva veiled by avidya and samskaras dissolves only into sa-prakrtika Brahman (Brahman with the causal upadhi intact), not into shudha Brahman — so it re-emerges. Only the vidvan attains shudha-svarupa-prapti and does not return. The amsha-ship is real enough to ground the jiva's sanatanatva (eternity), but the manas and senses persist in subtle seed-form through pralaya and are 'drawn out' again by the jiva's karma — as the tortoise extends its limbs.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusudana Sarasvati holds two simultaneous registers with characteristic precision: in paramarthika satya (ultimate reality), the amsha is a maya-kalpita reflection — like the sun in water or space in a pot — and the jiva's 'going' to Brahman at jivanmukti is only figurative (aupacarikatva), because jiva and Brahman were never two. In vyavaharika (conventional truth), the same verse explains why sleep-merger does not liberate: the antahkarana along with its avidya-and-samskara load persists in subtle causal form in sushupti, and thus re-projects; only jnana that eliminates the root avidya prevents re-emergence. So 'drawing the senses from prakrti' maps to sushupti-return, not to ultimate reality — the jiva is ultimately Brahman, provisionally a samsarin, and the two halves of the verse address those two registers simultaneously.