Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 16, Verse 22: Krishna to Arjuna — Daivāsura-Sampad-Vibhāga-Yoga
Free from these three gates of darkness, desire, anger, and greed, you can pursue what is truly good for yourself and so reach the highest destination.
Bhāṣyakāra purports
- Śaṅkaraadvaita
When a person is freed from these three — kama (desire), krodha (anger), and lobha (greed) — which are the gates to tamas (darkness, i.e., the hell of suffering and delusion), he is no longer obstructed and can now practice what conduces to his own sreyas (highest good). Shankara specifies: previously these impulses blocked the very performance of sreyas; their removal does not produce sreyas but removes the obstruction to it. From that practice of sreyas, the person attains parama gati (the supreme destination), which Shankara glosses as moksa (liberation) itself.
divergence: Shankara reads sreyas as preparation for jnana; the three gates block even niṣkama-karma. Liberation is the explicit terminus. The causal chain is purely via removal of obstruction, not positive bestowal.
- Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita
Freed from kama, krodha, and lobha — which Ramanuja calls 'causes of knowledge opposed to knowledge of Me (Bhagavan)' — the person attains true jnana (knowledge) of the Lord and turns toward what is anukulya (favourable alignment) to Him. The parama gati (supreme destination) Ramanuja identifies explicitly as 'Me alone' (mam eva), not an abstract liberation. The entire verse thus anchors the three abandonments in bhakti-yoga: their removal restores the devotee's capacity to know and serve Bhagavan.
divergence: Ramanuja reframes sreyas as mad-anukulya (favourable conduct toward the Lord) rather than generic ethical practice, and parama gati as personal attainment of Bhagavan rather than impersonal moksa.
- Madhvadvaita
*Etair vimuktaḥ* — freed from these three *tamo-dvārāḥ* (gates of darkness): *kāma* (desire), *krodha* (rage), *lobha* (greed) — the *nara* (human being) is no longer occluded from *Hari-smaraṇa* (remembrance of Hari). The *jīva*, eternally *paratantra* (dependent on the Lord), now *ācaraty ātmanaḥ śreyas*: it acts toward its own *śreyas* (highest good) as dependent worship, not as self-sufficient striving. The *pañca-bheda* (five-fold real distinction) between Lord and *jīva* is never dissolved — *parā gati* (the supreme destination) is real arrival in Hari's presence, not absorption into undifferentiated being. *Tato yāti parāṃ gatim*: that destination is reached solely through Hari's *anugraha* (grace), since the *jīva* possesses no autonomous power of liberation. Removal of the three *tamas*-gates clears the *jīva*'s obstruction so that *bhakti* (devotion) as ontological subordination may operate — but Hari's grace is the efficient cause of *mukti* (liberation), not the *jīva*'s own effort.
divergence: Madhva and Jayatīrtha are silent on this verse. The reading is voiced directly from Dvaita *siddhānta* off the *mūla*, grounding *parā gati* in *anugraha* and *paratantra* dependence rather than any autonomous *jīva*-capacity.
- Vallabhaśuddhādvaita
Vallabha's bhashya on this verse is a single identifying line — the verse 'speaks of the special fruit (visiṣṭa phala) of abandonment of what constitutes the gates of hell.' In Pushti-marga reasoning: kama-krodha-lobha are obstructions to Krsna's prasada (grace-gift); their abandonment opens the soul to lila-rasa (the bliss of Krishna's sport). Sreyas here is not effortful self-improvement but receptivity to Krsna's self-giving; parama gati is entry into Goloka-lila.
divergence: FLAG — Vallabha bhashya is minimal (one identifying clause). Pushti-marga elaboration draws on school doctrine, not extended commentary on this verse.
- Śrīdharabhakti
Sridhara reads the verse plainly and devotionally: freed from the three — which are gates to naraka (hell, the realm of tamas) — the person performs tapas-yoga and other karma that are the sadhana (means) of sreyas (highest good) for the self. From that practice he attains moksha (liberation). Sridhara's gloss 'tapoyogadi karma' (austerity, yoga, and related acts) indicates a graduated sadhana-path, not a single leap, as the mechanism between freedom from the three gates and the supreme destination.
divergence: Sridhara occupies the middle register: more sadhana-specific than Shankara's bare jnana-preparation, less bhakti-exclusive than Ramanuja's mam-eva. Liberation is the explicit fruit without personalist qualification.
- Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti
Madhusudana gives the fullest psychological account: one bound by kama-krodha-lobha 'does not practice sreyas by which the purusartha (human aim) would be accomplished, and does practice asreyas (harmful acts) by which naraka-pata (falling into hell) results.' Freed from these obstructions, the person now reverses this: performs no asreyas, practices sreyas — including ihika-sukha (worldly well-being as a stage) — and through samyag-dhi (correct understanding) attains parama gati as moksha. The synthesis: the jnana-path to moksha is prepared by bhakti-discipline that dismantles the three obstructions first.
divergence: Madhusudana uniquely names the pathological state explicitly (asreyas-performance), adds ihika-sukha as a penultimate stage, and uses samyag-dhi as the proximate cause of liberation — a synthesis absent in the other schools.