Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 16, Verse 7: Krishna to Arjuna — Daivāsura-Sampad-Vibhāga-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  The asuric (demoniac) people do not know pravṛtti (engagement) — meaning the dharma in which one must engage for the sake of puruṣārtha (human ends) — nor nivṛtti (withdrawal) — meaning the turning away from that which causes harm. Therefore, Shankara concludes, there is no śauca (purity), no ācāra (right conduct), and no satya (truth) in them. These three deficiencies are not independent but consequent: without discriminating knowledge of what to do and what to refrain from, the demonic nature issues in impurity of body and mind, violations of established conduct, and habitual falsehood — all of which obstruct the jñāna-mārga (path of knowledge) entirely.

  divergence: Shankara: 'pravṛttim ca... yasyam puruṣārthasādhane kartavye pravṛttiḥ... nivṛttim ca... yasmāt anarthaheto nivartitavyam... na śaucam... aśaucāḥ anācārāḥ māyāvinaḥ anṛtavādino hi āsurāḥ'

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The asuric persons do not know the vaidika dharma (Vedic duty) of pravṛtti — the means to abhyudaya (worldly flourishing) — nor of nivṛtti — the means to mokṣa (liberation through Bhagavan's grace). The absence of śauca (purity) means specifically the Shastra-prescribed inner and outer fitness for karmayoga, and the ācāra (conduct) referenced is the daily ritual practice of sandhyāvandana and similar observances that generate that purity. Without this two-fold purity and conduct, satya — understood as truthful speech that is both accurate and beneficial to beings — is also absent; and all three together constitute the dharmic foundation for kainkarya (service) to Bhagavan.

  divergence: Ramanuja: 'abhyudayasādhanam mokṣasādhanam ca vaidikam dharmam āsurā na viduḥ... śaucam vaidikakarmayogyatvam śāstrasiddham tad bāhyam ābhyantaram ca... sandhyāvandanādina ācāreṇa jāyate... satyam yathārthajñānam bhūtahitarūpabhāṣaṇam'

• Madhvadvaita

  *Āsurāḥ janāḥ* (demonic persons) do not know *pravṛtti* (the path of right engagement in sanctioned action) or *nivṛtti* (the path of withdrawal from action toward liberation) — *pravṛttiṃ ca nivṛttiṃ ca janā na vidur āsurāḥ*. This ignorance is not accidental. The *āsurika jīva* (demonic individual self), though *paratantra* (eternally dependent) on *svatantra* Hari, actively resists the *anugraha* (grace) by which alone *pravṛtti* and *nivṛtti* are discerned. In the *pañca-bheda* scheme, Lord–*jīva* distinction is real and permanent; the demonic *jīva* does not collapse into Hari nor dissolve, but persists in its ontological subordination while refusing to honor it. From that refusal the three deficiencies follow necessarily: *na śaucam* — no inner or outer purity, because purity is the body's readiness for *bhakti*; *na ācāraḥ* — no right conduct, because *ācāra* (proper observance) is the enacted acknowledgment of Hari's sovereignty; *na satyam* — no truth, because *satya* in its deepest register is alignment with the order Hari sustains. *Teṣu vidyate* is emphatically absent: these qualities do not merely go unpracticed but are constitutively absent, marking the demonic *jīva*'s position in the *taratamya* (graded ontological hierarchy) at its lowest grade, farthest from Hari's light.

  divergence: No Madhva or Jayatīrtha bhāṣya extant for this verse; reading is constructed directly from Dvaita *siddhānta* primitives applied to the mūla.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha reads this verse as Krishna's own śrīmukha (sacred utterance) warning that the demonic nature is to be utterly abandoned — he introduces the next twelve verses as a single sustained vivecana (analysis) of what must be renounced. The asuric ones lack ruci (taste or delight) for the Veda-ordained paths of pravṛtti and nivṛtti alike, and their triple deficiency — mental impurity, bodily misconduct, verbal untruth — disqualifies them from karma and from the śāstra that reveals karma's nature. In Puṣṭi-mārga terms, they are completely without prasāda (grace-receptivity), having neither the inner orientation nor the outer form that opens one to Krishna's līlā.

  divergence: Vallabha: 'pravṛttimārgam vedoktam nivṛttimārgam ca na vidur āsurāḥ — rucis teṣām na kutracit iti śrīmukhoktir iyam... mānasākāyikavācikadoṣasadbhāvena'

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Shridhara, reading the verse in the context of the next twelve ślokas on the asuric nature, gives a clean philological rendering: the asuric people do not know pravṛtti toward dharma nor nivṛtti away from adharma. Consequently — not as a separate fact but as the same diagnosis seen from three sides — śauca, ācāra, and satya are simply absent in them. His commentary is deliberately spare, trusting the verse's own structure: the first line names the epistemic failure and the second line names its manifest symptoms. Bhakti here is the implicit positive: what the asuric person lacks is precisely the devotional attentiveness that makes moral discrimination natural.

  divergence: Shridhara: 'dharme pravṛttim adharman nivṛttim ca āsurasabhāvā janā na jānanti. ataḥ śaucam ācāraḥ satyam ca teṣu nāstyeva'

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusudana synthesizes Shankara's structure with devotional depth: pravṛtti here means both the dharma of engagement and the vidhi-vākya (injunctive Vedic sentence) that enjoins it; nivṛtti means both the dharma of abstention and the niṣedha-vākya (prohibitive sentence) that enforces it. The asuric do not know either the content or the scriptural authority. The two forms of śauca (inner and outer purity as per Manu), the ācāra ordained by Manu and others, and satya understood as priyahitayathārthabhāṣaṇa (speech that is agreeable, beneficial, and accurate) are all absent. He cites the brahmaṇa-parivrājaka nyāya to explain why satya and śauca are named separately even though they could be subsumed under ācāra: each represents a distinct register of integrity that the demonic nature violates independently.

  divergence: Madhusudana: 'pravṛttim pravṛttiviṣayam dharmam cakārāt tatpratipādakam vidhivākyam ca... priyahitayathārthabhāṣaṇam... sātyaśaucayoḥ ācārāntarbhāve'pi brāhmaṇaparivrājakanyāyena pṛthagupādānam'