Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 16, Verse 12: Krishna to Arjuna — Daivāsura-Sampad-Vibhāga-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Bound by hundreds of snares that are nothing but hope itself (asha-pasha), these beings are dragged in every direction, wholly given over to kama (desire) and krodha (anger) as their sole refuge. They strive, not for dharma, but purely to amass wealth (artha-sancaya) for the enjoyment of desired objects (kama-bhoga), and they do so through injustice (anyayana) — seizure of others' property and the like. The commentator underscores that the purpose is kama-bhoga, never dharma: the asura's activity is structurally incapable of yielding liberation.

  divergence: Shankara's terse gloss: ‘asha eva pashas tat-shatais baddha niyantritah santah sarvatah akrshyamanah' — hope itself IS the snare; kama-krodha are the ‘supreme resort' (paramayanamashraya); artha-sancaya is for kama-bhogaprayojana, explicitly not dharma-artha. Bhashya present and anchored.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Fettered by hundreds of snares named hope (asha-pasha-shatais), wholly fixed on kama and krodha as their single resort (kama-krodha-eka-nishtha), they exert themselves toward the accumulation of wealth (artha-sancaya) by unjust means, all for the sake of sensory enjoyment (kama-bhoga). For Ramanuja, this verse diagnoses the inversion of kainkarya (selfless service to Bhagavan): desire and anger replace devotion as the organizing principle, and artha gathered by adharma binds the jiva ever more tightly to the cycle it cannot escape without bhakti.

  divergence: Ramanuja's compact gloss confirms: ‘asha-pasha-shatais baddhas, kama-krodhair-eka-nishtha, kama-bhogartham anyayena artha-sancayan prati ihante.’ Minimal elaboration; reading extrapolated from Vishishtadvaita theological frame. Bhashya present.

• Madhvadvaita

  Reconstructed from the dvaita school's doctrine, not translated from Madhva's commentary at this verse.

  Āśā-pāśa-śatair baddhāḥ — bound by hundreds of hope-snares — the āsura jīvas (individual selves oriented against Hari) are wholly given over to kāma-krodha (desire and anger) as their supreme refuge (parāyaṇāḥ). Their īhā (striving) is directed solely toward the enjoyment of sensory objects (kāma-bhogārtham), and they accumulate (saṃcayān) wealth by anyāya (injustice, means contrary to dharma). Within the pañca-bheda (the five-fold real distinction between Lord, jīva, and jaḍa-matter), all wealth subsists as the property of svatantra (independently real, self-sufficient) Hari alone; the āsura jīva, paratantra (eternally dependent) yet refusing subordination, seizes it through illicit means. This is not mere moral failure but an ontological disposition: the taratamya (graded hierarchy) assigns these jīvas a constitution (svabhāva) deeply adverse to bhakti as ontological subordination to Hari. The hundreds of āśā-pāśas are not metaphor but real bondage — real bheda (distinction) between the entrapped jīva and the liberating Lord persists even in bondage, and liberation from these snares comes only through Hari's grace extended to those whose svabhāva permits it.

  divergence: No attested bhāṣya from Madhva or Jayatīrtha on this verse. Reading voiced directly from Dvaita siddhānta primitives applied to the mūla.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha's gloss is minimal: ‘atah eva asha-pasha-shatair iti' — precisely because of this (the preceding verse's description of the asura's delusion) they are bound by hundreds of hope-snares. In Pushti-marga reading, the asura trait is the antithesis of pushti (grace-nourishment): where the bhakta receives every action as Krishna's lila-prasada, these bound souls treat the world as raw material for self-satisfaction, accumulating wealth by injustice. Their hunger is structurally infinite because they have closed themselves to the single source of genuine saturation, Krishna's prasada.

  divergence: Vallabha's recorded gloss is a single connective phrase. Full rendering extrapolated from Pushti-marga theological frame.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Āśā (hope) itself is the snare — āśā eva pāśāḥ — and hundreds of such snares bind them, pulling them here and there, itastat ākṛṣyamāṇāḥ. Kāma (desire) and krodha (anger) are their supreme refuge: kāma-krodhau parama-yanam āśrayo yeṣāṃ te. For the sake of sensory enjoyment, kāma-bhogārtham, they desire accumulation of wealth by unjust means — theft and similar acts, anyāyena cauryādinā arthānāṃ saṃcayāvāśīn īhante icchanti. No movement toward bhakti is possible where āśā has replaced Bhagavān as the governing bond.

  divergence: Re-anchored to Śrīdhara's bhāṣya: āśā eva pāśāḥ, itastat ākṛṣyamāṇāḥ, kāma-krodhau parama-yanam āśrayaḥ, and cauryādinā arthānāṃ saṃcayāvāśīn are all quoted verbatim from the source. The prior rendering's closing ‘self-reinforcing triad' gloss was a projected synthesis absent from the bhāṣya; removed.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  These asuras are bound by hundreds of hopes directed toward objects whose means are either impossible or unknown (ashakya-upaya-artha or anavagata-upaya-artha) — and these hopes function as snares (pasha) because they drag the aspirant away from shreyas (the highest good) in every direction. Fixed on kama (the longing for sensory conjunction, stri-vyatikara-abhilasha) and krodha (the desire for others' harm), they strive to amass piles of wealth by unjust means. Madhusudana adds a precise psychological observation: the plural ‘artha-sancayan' (accumulations) reveals that even after wealth is obtained, the desire (trishna) not only persists but intensifies — viShaya-prapti-vardhaman-trishnata, the structure of loba (greed), is made visible in the grammar.

  divergence: Madhusudana's extended gloss: explains asha as prayer toward the impossible or unknown, pashas as binding by pulling away from shreyas, kama-krodha as stri-vyatikara and paranishtha respectively, and crucially: ‘sancayaniti bahuvachanena dhana-praptav api tat-trishnanuvrittyur vishaya-prapti-vardhamana-trishnatva-rupo lobho darshitah.’ Bhashya present and richly elaborated.