Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 17, Verse 27: Krishna to Arjuna — Śraddhātraya-Vibhāga-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Steadiness (sthiti) in sacrifice, austerity, and gift-giving is called ‘sat' by the wise — meaning that such activity, when performed without desire, partakes of the real. Action undertaken for the sake of that triple designation of Brahman is likewise called ‘sat.’ Even deficient action, performed with sraddha (faith) and prefaced by the three sacred syllables, is transformed into sattvika action fit for purifying the inner instrument toward jnana.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  For the three varnas (varna, social order), steadiness in yajna, tapas, and dana is declared auspicious and thus called ‘sat.’ Action done for the sake of those three-varna persons — the whole field of Vedic karma — is equally called ‘sat.’ In this way the syllables ‘Om tat sat' demarcate Vedic agents and Vedic acts from the non-Vedic, marking out kainkarya (service) performed within the divinely ordered social body as the true register of the real.

• Madhvadvaita

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

  Steadiness (sthiti) in yajña (sacrifice), tapas (austerity), and dāna (giving) is called sat — and karma performed for that purpose (tad-arthīyam) is likewise named sat. In dvaita siddhānta, sat here is not a pointer toward non-dual absorption but a mark of ontological alignment with the svatantra (independently real, self-sufficient) Hari. Acts of yajña, tapas, and dāna receive the designation sat precisely when grounded in brahma-viṣayatva — orientation toward Brahman as the sovereign referent — and sustained by niṣṭhā (steadfast commitment). Jayatīrtha reads tad-arthīyam karma as action whose very purposiveness (arthīya) is defined by that Brahman-directedness: the sac-chabda (the word sat) is thus not predicated of the jīva (individual self) in isolation but of the jīva‘s acts insofar as they express paratantra (eternal dependence) on the svatantra Lord. No bheda (real distinction) between Hari and jīva is dissolved by the label; if anything, sat confirms the pañca-bheda (the five-fold real distinction) by locating all meritorious action in its proper subordinate relation to the independently real. Bhakti expressed through ritual, austerity, and giving is sat because its terminus is Hari, not because the doer becomes Hari.

  divergence: Madhva himself is silent; the reading draws on Jayatīrtha's Nyāya-Sudhā gloss that sac-chabda in this verse is explicated through brahma-viṣayatva and niṣṭhā, and on dvaita pañca-bheda and taratamya (graded ontological hierarchy) as the governing scheme for interpreting Kṛṣṇa's use of sat.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  The word ‘sat' here carries both the sense of sreyovacana (the excellent, the auspicious) and nisthavacana (steadfast commitment). Steadiness in yajna, tapas, and dana is ‘sat' because all things find their bhavartha (the sense of their very being) in Bhagavan — ‘tasya api Bhagavan esa kim atad-vastu rupyatam.’ Action performed for that purpose echoes the teaching of the Bhagavata: ‘mam vidhatte abhidhatte mam' — all past karma and right conduct ultimately point back toward Krsna. The three sacred names are not mere ritual formula but the signature of the Lord pervading every act.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Sridhara reads ‘sat' as covering two things: the steadiness (tatparyena-avasthana, purposive abiding) in yajna, tapas, and dana, and the action done for the sake of that same Paramatman who is the artha (goal, fruit) denoted by the three sacred names. Even action greatly removed from direct worship — cultivating gardens, earning resources, maintaining the household precincts — is still called ‘sat' when it is tad-arthiya (for His sake). The verse thus functions as a vidhi (injunction) inferred through arthavada (laudatory reasoning): because the three names are supremely praiseworthy, one is to invoke them over all action to purify it.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Steadiness (nistha) in yajna, tapas, and dana is called ‘sat' by the wise. Madhusudana offers two readings of ‘tad-arthiyam': action whose content is yajna, dana, and tapas themselves; or action whose artha (object, purpose) is that very Brahman whose name has been introduced — suddha-brahma-jnana and its conducive karma. A third: action done with Bhagavad-arpana-buddhi (the intention of offering to Bhagavan). All three converge: the name ‘sat' is powerful enough to remove the deficiency of imperfect action (karma-vaigunyapanode-samartham), and the full syllable Om-tat-sat magnifies this effect immeasurably.