Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 17, Verse 13: Krishna to Arjuna — Śraddhātraya-Vibhāga-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  A yajña (sacrifice) is declared tamasic (tamas-driven) when it is vidhi-hina (devoid of scriptural injunction) — that is, performed contrary to what the texts prescribe. Equally disqualifying: no anna is distributed to brahmanas (asrishta-anna), the mantras are defective in svara (accent) or varna (phoneme), the prescribed dakshina (honorarium) is withheld, and shraddha (reverential intent) is wholly absent. Shankara's gloss is terse and enumerative: each defect is a category of negation, and their conjunction produces rite that generates tamas rather than antahkarana-shuddhi (purification of the inner instrument) needed as prerequisite for jnana.

  divergence: Shankara lists: vidhi-hinam = 'viparita of what the text commands'; asrishta-annam = 'anna not given to brahmanas'; mantra-hinam = 'defective in svara, varna, or the mantra itself'; adakshinam = 'without the stipulated honorarium'; shraddha-virahitam = tamo-nirvritta (produced by tamas).

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Ramanuja specifies that vidhi-hina means lacking the directive of qualified brahmanas who know proper conduct (sadachara-yukta, vidhi-vid brahmanas) — concretely, the rite performed without those knowers saying 'yajasva' (you should sacrifice). Asrishta-anna for him is achudita-dravya, material not enjoined by the canon. The remaining defects — mantra-hina, adakshina, and shraddha-virahita — compound the disqualification. In Ramanuja's frame, a rite stripped of Bhagavan's sanction through proper brahmana mediation fails as kainkarya (service) and cannot serve as upaya (means) toward bhakti-yoga.

  divergence: Ramanuja: 'vidhi-hinam = brahmana-ukta-vidhi-hinam... yajasya iti ukti-hinam; asrishta-annam = achudita-dravyam' — the emphasis is on brahmana-mediated sanction, not mere textual compliance.

• Madhvadvaita

  *Vidhi-hīnam* (devoid of Vedic injunction), *asṛṣṭānnam* (without distribution of food), *mantra-hīnam* (lacking proper mantra-recitation), *adakṣiṇam* (without sacrificial honorarium), and *śraddhā-virahitam* (bereft of *śraddhā*, faith) — a sacrifice carrying all five deficiencies is declared *tāmasa*. From the dvaita reading, each of these five elements is not merely formal but ontologically required: the *paratantra* *jīva* has no independent capacity to generate valid worship; prescribed *vidhi*, mantra, *dakṣiṇā*, anna-distribution, and *śraddhā* together constitute the structure through which *bhakti* as ontological subordination actually reaches *svatantra* Hari. Strip any one, and the rite falls outside *Viṣṇu-sevā* altogether. Strip all five, and the act is not a degraded sacrifice — it is no sacrifice at all, a *tāmasa* counterfeit that reinforces *bheda*-blindness rather than realizing the *pañca-bheda* (the five-fold real distinction: Lord–*jīva*, Lord–matter, *jīva–jīva*, *jīva*–matter, matter–matter) in its proper devotional order. *Taratamya* (graded ontological hierarchy) demands that offerings ascend through exact prescription; a *tāmasa* rite, performed without these qualifications, cannot occupy any position in that ascent.

  divergence: No bhāṣya from Madhva or Jayatīrtha is extant on this verse. The reading is voiced directly from dvaita siddhānta applied to the mūla's five named deficiencies.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  *Vidhi-hīna* (devoid of injunctive order), *asṛṣṭānna* (with no food distributed), *mantra-hīna* (stripped of sacred utterance), *adakṣiṇam* (without honorific gift), and *śraddhā-virahita* (emptied of faith) — such a *yajña* (sacrifice) is declared *tāmasa* (of the nature of *tamas*). In *śuddhādvaita*, Brahman alone is real and the world is Brahman's own self-manifestation (*svābhāvika* expression), not a māyā-conjured shadow. Sacrifice therefore belongs to this real world as a genuine act of *sevā* (loving service) before Śrī Kṛṣṇa. A rite meeting none of these five conditions is not merely procedurally deficient; it is wholly severed from the current of *puṣṭi* (Kṛṣṇa's sustaining grace). *Puṣṭi-mārga* (the path of grace) holds that Kṛṣṇa's descent of grace requires a vessel — an act offered with *śraddhā* (faith-filled earnestness), proper *vidhi* (injunctive form), *mantra*, *dakṣiṇā*, and shared *anna* (food). When all five are absent, the act carries no *brahma-sambandha* (binding relation to Brahman); the one who performs it is, in effect, acting for himself alone, which is the mark of *tamas*. The *rasa* (devotional-aesthetic flavor) that transforms rite into *prasāda*-occasion requires at minimum the *śraddhā* that opens the jīva to *puṣṭi*; without it, Kṛṣṇa's grace finds no opening, and what remains is mechanical motion devoid of *prema* (love).

  divergence: No bhāṣya from Vallabhācārya on this verse is transmitted. The reading is voiced directly from *śuddhādvaita* siddhānta — the real-world-as-Brahman-manifestation doctrine, *puṣṭi-mārga*, *brahma-sambandha*, and *sevā* — applied to the five defects named in the mūla.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Sridhara introduces the verse explicitly as 'he now describes tamasic sacrifice' and glosses vidhi-hina as shastra-ukta-vidhi-shunya (wholly empty of the procedure the shastra has articulated). Asrishta-anna: the food ingredient not given forth, not prepared for brahmanas and the like. The wise (shishtas) declare such a rite — mantra-defective, honorarium-lacking, faith-empty — to be tamasic. His voice is balanced and pedagogical: the five defects form a complete checklist of what the tradition's practitioners would recognize as disqualifying a public rite.

  divergence: Sridhara: 'vidhi-hinam = shastra-ukta-vidhi-shunyam; asrishta-annam = brahmanadi-bhyah na srishtam na nishpaditam annam yasmin tam; ... shishtas tamasam parichakshate.'

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusudana accepts Shankara's enumeration but extends it analytically: each of the five defects (vidhi-hina, anna-dana-hina, svara-varna-mantra-hina, dakshina-hina, shraddha-rahita) constitutes a distinct tamasic species — five mono-defect variants, one penta-defect form, and multiple combinatorial forms. He adds a pointed contrast: in a rajasic rite, even without antahkarana-shuddhi, apurva (unseen karmic result) accrues because the procedure is correctly executed; in the tamasic rite, incorrect execution produces no apurva whatsoever — making it worse than the rajasic in metaphysical yield. The synthesizing voice surfaces in his noting that the shraddha-defect often arises from rtvij-dvesha (animosity toward the officiants), pointing toward the bhakti-register of interior disposition.

  divergence: Madhusudana: 'vidhi-hinatvad-eka-eka-visheshanah pancha-vidhah... sarva-visheshana-samuccayena chaikavido iti shat... tamase tv ayatha-shastra-anushthanan na kimapi apurvam asti iti atishayah; rtvij-dvesha-adina shraddha-rahitam.'