Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 18, Verse 25: Krishna to Arjuna — Mokṣa-Sannyāsa-Yoga
Action started from sheer delusion, with no thought for its consequences, the harm it does, the resources it wastes, or whether you have the capacity to finish it, is declared tamasic.
Bhāṣyakāra purports
- Śaṅkaraadvaita
Action born of delusion (moha) — undertaken without discerning its consequent bonds (anubandha), the depletion of capacity or wealth it causes, the harm it inflicts on living beings, or whether one even has the competence to complete it — is declared tamasic. For Shankara, this is not merely moral failure but epistemic failure: the agent mistakes himself for the doer, ignores consequent harm, and acts from sheer avidya. Such karma deepens bondage (samsara) rather than purifying the antahkarana for jnana.
divergence: Shankara's emphasis falls on aviveka (absence of discriminative insight) as the root; the four factors are consequences of that single epistemic failure.
- Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita
Action commenced without considering consequent sorrow (anubandha), loss of one's resources, harm to creatures, or one's own capacity to complete it — and above all, undertaken through ignorance of Paramatman's ultimate agency — is tamasic. For Ramanuja, the deepest tamas is not merely thoughtlessness but the failure to recognize that Bhagavan is the true kartri; the jiva who acts as though self-sufficient usurps the Lord's role and so accumulates karma rather than dissolving it through kainkarya.
divergence: Ramanuja alone adds the theological marker: the root tamas is metaphysical — non-recognition of divine kartritva — not just psychological delusion.
- Madhvadvaita
*Mohāt* (from delusion) an act arises — heedless of *anubandha* (consequent bondage), *kṣaya* (diminution of means), *hiṃsā* (injury to beings), and one's own *pauruṣa* (human capacity). That act is *tāmasa*. For the *paratantra* *jīva* (the eternally dependent individual self), delusion is precisely the forgetting of *bheda* (real distinction) — the agent displaces Hari's *svatantra* (independently real, self-sufficient) will with its own counterfeit independence. *Anubandha* and *kṣaya* are disregarded because the *tamasic* agent does not reckon with *taratamya* (graded ontological hierarchy): consequences fall on other *jīvas* who stand in their own ranked relation to Hari. *Hiṃsā* is the sharpest mark of *tāmasa* action — injury inflicted on beings who are themselves *paratantra*, fully owned by Hari as their *antaryāmin*. To wound them without regard is to strike, blindly, at what belongs to the *svatantra* Lord. *Bhakti* (devotion) as ontological subordination admits no such blindness; its absence is the very condition that makes the act *tāmasa*.
divergence: Madhva and Jayatīrtha are silent on this verse; the reading is voiced directly from dvaita siddhānta applied to the mūla.
- Vallabhaśuddhādvaita
*Anubandha* (consequent bondage) is *duḥkha* (sorrow) — *tadavicārya* (without reflecting on that), *mohāt* (from delusion), *yat karma prārabhyate* (whatever action is begun) — *tat tāmasam udāhṛtam* (that is declared *tāmasa*). Vallabha's gloss compresses to this single movement: the agent does not pause to consider that *anubandha* is *duḥkha*, and so *mohāt* the action simply starts. Where *puṣṭi-mārga* (the path of grace) illumines every act as *sevā* (loving service) to Kṛṣṇa, that prior sorrow-laden bondage cannot arise; *tāmasa* action is precisely the inversion — Kṛṣṇa's *prasāda* (grace) forgotten, *pauruṣam* (one's own capacity) also unconsidered, and *kṣaya* (diminution) and *hiṃsā* (harm) left unexamined. The delusion is not incidental but is the root: *mohāt ārabhyate*.
divergence: The bhāṣya's gloss is extremely compressed — *anubandho duḥkhaṃ tadavicārya mohāt* — voicing only the sorrow-not-reflected axis and omitting separate treatment of *kṣaya*, *hiṃsā*, and *pauruṣam*. The expanded reading of *puṣṭi-mārga* and *sevā* is drawn from Vallabha's broader siddhānta rather than from this specific gloss.
- Śrīdharabhakti
Tamasic action is that which is commenced without examining (anavekshya) its consequent results — both auspicious and inauspicious (anubandha), the expenditure of wealth (kshaya), harm to others (para-pida), or one's own capacity (sva-samarthya) — and is driven by delusion alone (kevalam mohat). Sridhara's reading is philologically careful: he glosses anubandha as 'paschad-bhavi shubhashubham' (subsequently arising good or evil), and distinguishes kshaya (wealth-depletion) from himsa (harm to living beings) more precisely than other commentators.
divergence: Sridhara is the most precise philologically, offering distinct glosses for each of the four terms; his bhakti-frame shows in 'para-pida' (harm-to-other) as a devotional concern, not merely ethical.
- Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti
Action undertaken without examining consequent inauspiciousness (anubandha), the destruction of bodily vigor, wealth, and armies (kshaya), harm to living beings (himsa), or one's own competence (pourusha) — driven by sheer undiscriminating delusion (kevala-aviveka) — is tamasic. Madhusudana anchors this with a concrete historical example: Duryodhana's declaration of war is precisely such action. His synthesis of Advaita and Bhakti shows here: the aviveka is not merely cognitive but is a failure to see Krishna as the ultimate referent of all action.
divergence: Madhusudana alone names Duryodhana as the exemplar, grounding abstract tamas-karma in a narrative referent that resonates for any reader of the Mahabharata.