Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 17, Verse 7: Krishna to Arjuna — Śraddhātraya-Vibhāga-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Even food (ahara) is threefold for every being according to what is dear (priya) to each. Shankaracharya's terse bhashya simply marks this as an introductory verse: the fourfold set — ahara (food), yajna (sacrifice), tapas (austerity), dana (gift) — each divides into three by guna. The instruction is purely epistemic: 'hear this distinction' (imam bhedam shrinu), as right discrimination (viveka) between sattva, rajas, and tamas in daily practice prepares the ground from which jnana can arise.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Food is beloved (priya) to every creature (pranijata) through the three gunas that pervade all prakrti, and so it naturally falls into three kinds. Ramanuja's bhashya explicitly extends the triplication to yajna, tapas, and dana in the same breath — these are not separate domains but a single prakrti-ordered spectrum. For Ramanuja, hearing this classification teaches kainkarya-dharma: the devotee chooses sattvic modes in every act as an expression of loving service (bhakti-yoga-upaya) to Bhagavan, whose body is all qualified existence.

• Madhvadvaita

  *Āhāra* (food) for every being is of three kinds according to what is dear to each; so too *yajña* (sacrifice), *tapas* (austerity), and *dāna* (gift). Krishna commands Arjuna: *teṣāṃ bhedam imaṃ śṛṇu* — hear now the *bheda* (real distinction) among them. In the dvaita reading, *bheda* here is not merely categorical but ontological: the threefold division of each practice reflects the *taratamya* (graded ontological hierarchy) of *jīvas* (individual selves) in their degree of fitness for *bhakti* (devotion) toward *Hari*, the sole *svatantra* (independently real, self-sufficient) Lord. Every *jīva* is *paratantra* (eternally dependent), and the character of one's *āhāra* — sāttvic, rājasic, or tāmasic — shapes the inner instrument through which that dependence is either acknowledged or obscured. Sāttvic *āhāra* purifies the *jīva* and opens it to *Hari*'s *anugraha* (grace); rājasic and tāmasic *āhāra* reinforce *saṃsāra* and deepen bondage. The same tripartite logic extends without remainder to *yajña*, *tapas*, and *dāna*: each can either orient the *paratantra* *jīva* toward its proper subordination to *Hari* or draw it further into the lower grades of *taratamya*. The *pañca-bheda* (the five-fold real distinction: Lord–jīva, Lord–matter, jīva–jīva, jīva–matter, matter–matter) is preserved throughout: the food one consumes is real matter, the *jīva* who consumes it is really distinct from it, and both are really distinct from and governed by *Hari*.

  divergence: Both Madhva and Jayatīrtha are silent on this verse; the reading is reconstructed from dvaita *siddhānta* applied directly to the *mūla*.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha's bhashya marks a methodological transition: Scripture (shastra) elaborates the threefold division of yajna and the rest for vedic rites (shrautashastriya — relating to shruti-based ritual), but the verse opens by grounding everything in ahara, because it is food that nourishes the increase of sattva and the other gunas in worldly life (laukika). The triad — yajna, tapas, dana — is shruti-sanctioned and the three are named together because they form a single prasada-economy: what one eats conditions what one can offer, and every sattvic offering is received as Krsna's lila.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Sridhara Svami flags that this verse opens a thirteen-verse unit (aditriyodashabhih) dedicated to showing the sattvika-adi distinction through the lens of ahara and the rest. Food — rice and other grains (annaadi) — is threefold and beloved to each person according to their guna-constitution. The same triplication runs through yajna, tapas, and dana. Critically, Sridhara states the purpose plainly: one should hear this in order to abandon rajasic and tamasic food, sacrifice, and so on, and cultivate sattvic forms, so that sattva increases (sattva-vrddhi) — an explicitly purposive, practical pedagogy of inner purification.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusudana places 17.7 in a larger doctrinal frame: the sattvic are gods (deva), the rajasic and tamasic are asuras by inversion (viparyas) — and this verse begins unpacking the empirical criterion of that division through ahara, yajna, tapas, and dana. He adds a significant logical remark: a fourth mode is impossible (chaturthasya vidhaya asambhavat) because all beings are constituted by the three gunas. Then, in characteristic synthesizing fashion, he gives a precise Mimamsa-derived definition of yajna (the Kalpakaras' formula: dravya-devata-tyaga — material, deity, relinquishment), distinguishing yaga (standing sacrifice, ending in vashatKara) from homa (seated oblation, ending in svaha). For Madhusudana, exact ritual taxonomy is not pedantry — it protects the sattvic from collapsing yajna into mere performance, keeping it available as bhakti's vehicle.