Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 15, Verse 9: Krishna to Arjuna — Puruṣottama-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  The jiva (individual self), stationed within the body, presides over the five sense-organs — shrotra (hearing), chakshu (sight), sparshanana (touch), rasana (taste), and ghrana (smell) — together with manas (mind) as sixth, and through these instruments experiences the sense-objects beginning with sound. Shankara reads 'adhishtaya' (having presided over) as indicating that the jiva does not merely possess but governs the instruments, though that governance is itself superimposed on the non-dual Atman. The entire circuit of sensation is thus a function of avidya (ignorance), dissolved when the substrate-Atman is discriminated from the sheaths.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The jiva, taking up the six instruments — the five jnanendriyas (sense-faculties) with manas (mind) as sixth — renders each instrument fit for its own proper object-class and thereby enjoys (upabhunkte) sounds and the remaining vishaya (sense-objects). Ramanuja's 'svashvavishajavrittyanuguna kritva' ('having made each apt to its own object-mode') emphasizes that the fitness of each faculty is itself a gift of Ishvara, the Inner Ruler; enjoyment is therefore not autonomous but constitutively dependent on Bhagavan's sustaining presence.

• Madhvadvaita

  The jiva experiences objects even through the avenues of the senses — hearing music as in the shruti cited by Madhva: 'Those who sing on the vina, they sing of Him.' The jiva enjoys only in the mode conditioned by the gunas (qualities of prakrti), and sin does not reach the devatas because the Lord Hari is the true enjoyer at the ground of all experience. Madhva's polemical point is that autonomous jiva-enjoyment is a category error: the jiva is always a dependent, and its sense-experience is worship only when that dependence is acknowledged.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha reads the senses as instruments the jiva takes up — constituted by prakritic ahankara (cosmic self-sense) — and renders each fit for its object before enjoying the vishaya (sense-objects) including sound. The key Vallabha accent is that these very senses were 'taken and carried away' (grihitva gachchhati) from their divine origin, and the entire sensory circuit is therefore a fragment of Krishna's own svashakti (self-power); purification means recognizing each sensation as prasada (grace-gift) rather than personal acquisition.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Shridhara reads the verse as simply mapping the jiva's instrument-set: the five bahyendriyas (external sense-organs) — shrotra, chakshu, sparshana, rasana, ghrana — plus the antahkarana (inner organ) manas, constitute the six means by which the jiva takes up and experiences the vishaya (sense-objects) beginning with sound. The bhakti inflection lies in the word 'upabhunkte' — the jiva's enjoyment is a conditioned borrowing, and the devotee redirects every sensation toward the Lord as its real destination.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusudana extends the list explicitly: shrotra, chakshu, sparshana, rasana, ghrana, and by the particle 'cha' (and) also the karmendriyas (action-organs) and prana (vital force), with manas as sixth, are all presided over — 'adhishthaya' meaning 'having made these its seat' — and the jiva enjoys the vishaya beginning with sound. The synthesis: Advaita sees this sensory web as avidya-rooted superimposition, while bhakti sees it as the very arena in which the jiva may offer every act of perception back to Krishna, converting samsara-bhoga (worldly enjoyment) into bhakti-yoga.