Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 16, Verse 20: Krishna to Arjuna — Daivāsura-Sampad-Vibhāga-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Those who have entered demonic wombs are the deluded ones (mudhah), thick with tamas (tamobahulah), lacking discriminative intelligence (aviveka). Being born again and again only in such tamas-dense births, descending ever lower, they never reach Me — that is, they never attain the path of virtuous conduct (sadhu-marga) instructed by Me, the Lord. From each such birth they proceed to an even more degraded destination (adhama gatim), the most contemptible of all possible conditions.

  divergence: Shankara glosses 'mam aprapya' as 'macchistasadhum margam aprapya' — not reaching the path of the virtuous pointed out by Me. The 'eva' in 'aprapyaiva' forecloses any anxiety about attaining Me: there is no such hope here. Each birth is more tamas-laden than the last, so the fall is not cyclical but strictly descending.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Born again and again in wombs antagonistic to My grace (madanukulya-pratyanika-janma), these deluded ones possess knowledge that is the inverse of truth about Me — they do not attain even the recognition that Vasudeva is Sarvishvara (the Lord of all). From each such birth they proceed to one yet more degraded. Their fundamental error is not merely moral but epistemic: ignorance of the Lord's sovereign nature is itself the demonic disposition's deepest root.

  divergence: Ramanuja specifies 'madanukulya-pratyanikajannma' — birth constitutively opposed to Bhagavan's grace. He then identifies 'mam aprapya' as failure to attain the knowledge 'asti bhagavan Vasudevah sarveshvarah.' The degradation is birth-by-birth, not a single fall.

• Madhvadvaita

  *Mūḍhā* (the deluded) — *jīvas* (individual selves) who, by their own *paratantra* (eternally dependent) nature turned relentlessly against *svatantra* Hari — take *āsurīṃ yonim* (demonic birth) *janmani janmani*, birth upon birth. *Mām aprāpyaiva*: without ever reaching Hari, who alone is the *upāya* (means) and the *upeya* (end), they descend to *adhamāṃ gatim*, the lowest station in the *taratamya* (graded ontological hierarchy) of *saṃsāra*. *Bheda* (real distinction) between *jīva* and Hari is not obscured here — it is enacted in its most degraded mode: the *paratantra* soul, refusing subordination to Hari, falls ever lower through successive births rather than ascending toward *bhakti* as ontological subordination. The descent is real, not apparent; *adhamāṃ gatim* names an actual position in the ordered gradation of existence, not a provisional ignorance to be dissolved.

  divergence: No bhāṣya from Madhva or Jayatīrtha on this verse; the reading is voiced directly from dvaita *siddhānta*: *pañca-bheda*, *taratamya*, Hari as sole *svatantra*, and *bhakti* as the only ascent.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  They attain the degraded path without even being connected to Me by sight or any other mode of relation (drishtyadina api asambaddhya eva). The 'eva' — 'without ever reaching Me' — signals something more terrible than missing the goal: they cannot even reach the virtuous path (sanmarga) that would be the means to Me. Where there is no access to the means, how much less is there access to Me Himself? From that condition only blinding darkness (andhantamas), maya itself, is the degraded destination.

  divergence: Vallabha's bhashya reads 'mam aprapyaiva drishtyadina api asambaddhya eva adhomam gatim yanti.' The 'eva' is doing double work: no union even by seeing, and therefore no means (mat-prapti-upayabhuta sanmarga) either. Andhantamas as maya is Vallabha's specific framing of adhama gati.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  The 'eva' in 'mam aprapyaiva' shuts down any question of their reaching Me: the particle itself asks rhetorically, 'from where would the thought of reaching Me even arise for them?' They cannot reach the virtuous path (sanmarga) which is the prerequisite means to Me; therefore from each birth they descend further to the births of worms and insects (krmikitadi-yoni) and the like. The rest is clear from the text itself.

  divergence: Sridhara uses the 'eva' in 'aprapyaiva' as a rhetorical device — 'mat-prapti-shanka kutah tesham' (from where would the anxiety about reaching Me arise?). He specifies adhama gati as krmikitadi-yoni — worm and insect births — which is the most concrete gloss in the panel.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  To the objection 'will they not eventually reach the good after many births?' — No. Once fallen into the demonic womb, each subsequent birth is more degraded than the one before it (uttarottaram nikrishtatara-nikrishtatama-yoni-labha), with no capacity for reversal, because tamas is so overwhelming that they become constitutionally unfit (svarupayogya) even for the Veda-path. The address 'O Kaunteya' — invoking Arjuna's lineage — quietly signals: you have already crossed this. Therefore, for as long as the human body lasts, strive with great effort now; in animal and plant bodies there is no capacity for sadhana and thus no escape ever.

  divergence: Madhusudhana explicitly addresses the purvapaksha (prior objection) of eventual salvation and rejects it. He reads 'uttarottaram nikrishtatama gatim' as strictly monotonically descending. The Kaunteya address is glossed as 'tvam ito nistirna iti suchayati' — it signals Arjuna has crossed beyond this. The urgency verse cited: 'ihaiva narakavyadhesh chikitsam na karoti yah / gatva niraushadham sthanam sarujah kim karishyati.'