Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 17, Verse 6: Krishna to Arjuna — Śraddhātraya-Vibhāga-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Those devoid of viveka (discernment) torture the aggregate of the five great elements constituting the body, and by refusing the Lord's governance they afflict the inner witness-consciousness — the Narayana dwelling within — not through physical assault but through the very act of ignoring His anuśāsana (injunction). Such persons, driven by ignorance of the non-dual ground, are to be known as āsura-niścayāḥ (those of demonic resolve) and shunned. Śaṅkara's import: the harm to the Lord is exactly the harm of disobedience — no separation between witness-self and divine presence is admitted.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Those who perform aśāstra-vihita (scripture-unauthorized) austerities, impelled by dambha (ostentation) and ahaṅkāra (ego-inflation), afflict the body — which is Bhagavān's own mode (prakāra) constituted by pṛthivī-ādi-bhūtas — and simultaneously afflict the jīva who is an aṃśa (fragment-mode) of the Lord dwelling within. Because the jīva is Bhagavān's body, any harm to it is direct harm to Īśvara; to act against His ājñā is to cut oneself off from the only source of welfare. Rāmānuja thus identifies their resolve as āsura because it produces only anarthas (ruin) — they fall into the impure narakas (hells) foretold in 16.16.

• Madhvadvaita

  To afflict Bhagavān within the body is itself the mark of alpa-dṛṣṭi (contracted vision) — the failure to perceive Hari as the mahān paramaḥ pumān (great supreme Person) who sustains all. Madhva cites the śruti: 'One who does not thus behold that great supreme Person, that one is most sinful.' The division is absolute: devas are sāttvika, daityas are rājasa-tāmasa — there is no middle ground, and the āsura-niścaya of these torturers places them firmly among the daityas who oppose Hari's sovereignty.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha reads karśayantaḥ (causing to wane) as vidurayantaḥ (distancing, repelling) — those who torment body and inner antaryāmin (the Lord as inner-controller) are driving Kṛṣṇa's living presence away from themselves. This is the gravest impoverishment: to violate His ājñā is to sever oneself from the stream of puṣṭi-prasāda (nourishing grace) that alone sustains life. The parenthetical note 'paranipāta aicchikaḥ' (word-order optional) reflects Vallabha's light, precise touch — the substance is that such persons have chosen the āsuric path with full determination.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara is notably direct: these acetas (non-discerning ones) waste the body through vṛthā-upavāsa-ādi (meaningless fasting and like practices) — harming the prārabdha-deha (the body that is the vehicle of their present karma) — and by transgressing the Lord's command they afflict the antaryāmin who dwells within as inner-controller. Śrīdhara glosses āsura as 'ati-krūra-niścaya' (resolve that is extremely cruel), underlining that the violence is both outward (against the body) and inward (against the divine presence). His tone is balanced but unambiguous: there is no devotion in such tapas.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana holds two lines of harm in parallel: the bhūta-grāma (aggregate of body-elements) is afflicted as bhogyam (object of experience), and by that very affliction the bhoktā (experiencer-self) within — the sākṣī-bhūta Īśvara as witness-consciousness — is also diminished, since the instrument of experience is being destroyed without discrimination. Their āsura-niścaya is a 'viparyāsa-rūpa veda-artha-virodhin niścaya' (inverted resolve that opposes Vedic meaning) — not a mere moral failing but a metaphysical inversion. Even if outwardly human, their karma-phala is āsuric, because action that contradicts both śāstra and the inner Lord produces only the lowest conditions here and hereafter.