Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 18, Verse 27: Krishna to Arjuna — Mokṣa-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  The rajasika agent is one whose mind is colonized by raga (attachment) — he desires the fruits of action and is greedy for another's wealth or unable to relinquish his own even for sacred purpose. He is of a nature to cause pain to others (himsatmaka), devoid of inner and outer purity (shuchi), and swings between elation at what is desired and grief at its loss or absence. Shankara names joy and sorrow as twin products of the same karmic success-and-failure cycle — the rajasika agent is bound precisely because he cannot exit that oscillation.

  divergence: Shankara: 'ragah asya asti iti ragi... harmshokabhyam anvitah samyuktah; tasya karma sampatti-vipattibyam harshashokou syatam' — the commentator traces each compound back to its operative root and locates elation and grief as structurally entailed by investment in outcome.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The rajasika agent is specifically a seeker of fame (yashoarthi) — Ramanuja's gloss on ragi is more precise than generic attachment; the agent craves recognition, not merely results. He lacks the disposition to spend what an action requires (not parting with resources the task demands), causes harm by making others work under coercion, and is destitute of the purity the action calls for. In the field of action such as battle, he swings between elation at victory and despair at defeat.

  divergence: Ramanuja: 'ragi yashoarthi... karmapekshita-dravyavyaya-svabhava-rahitah... yuddhadau karmani jayadisiddha-siddhi-asiddhi-yoh harshashokaanvitah' — the yashoarthi identification and the specific failure of resource-expenditure are Ramanuja's distinct contributions absent in other commentators.

• Madhvadvaita

  *Rāgī* (one consumed by attachment), *karmaphalaprepsuḥ* (hungering after the fruits of action), *lubdhaḥ* (greedy), *hiṃsātmakaḥ* (whose very nature is violence), *aśuciḥ* (impure), *harṣaśokānvitaḥ* (swung between elation and grief) — this is the *rājasa* *kartā* (agent of passion-born action). In Dvaita's reading, each quality named in the mūla is a mark of the *jīva* (the individual self) acting under the delusion of *svatantra* (the independently real, self-sufficient) agency, a status that belongs to Hari alone. *Rāga* (passionate attachment) and *lubdhatā* (greed) disclose the *jīva*'s refusal to rest in *paratantra* (eternally dependent) subordination; the grasping after *karmaphala* (fruits of action) compounds this, since fruit-appropriation is the prerogative of the Lord, not the dependent agent. *Hiṃsā* (violence) and *aśauca* (impurity) follow necessarily: when the *jīva* mistakes its conditional agency for unconditional selfhood, its acts tear at the *pañca-bheda* (the five-fold real distinction — Lord from *jīva*, Lord from matter, *jīva* from *jīva*, *jīva* from matter, matter from matter) that structures all existence. The oscillation between *harṣa* and *śoka* is not incidental; it is the experiential signature of action severed from *bhakti* (devotion as ontological subordination to Hari). The *rājasa kartā* is thus not merely morally deficient but ontologically disordered, locked in bondage proportional to the intensity of the self-arrogating will.

  divergence: Madhva and Jayatīrtha are both silent on this verse. The reading is reconstructed from Dvaita *siddhānta* as applied to the *triguṇa-kartṛ* typology: the *rājasa* agent's defects are re-read through the *paratantra*-*svatantra* asymmetry and the *pañca-bheda* scheme that govern all Dvaita anthropology.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha reads the verse economically: a kartri who is ragi and karmaphalaprepshu — attached and fruit-desiring — also greedy and violent by nature — does not in fact obtain the fruit he craves (kingdom, heaven). What he obtains instead is the oscillation of joy and sorrow. The rajasika agent is thus defined by his failure to arrive at the very thing he ran toward; his doing is self-defeating.

  divergence: Vallabha: 'karmaphalaprepshu tadrishah kopi lubdho himsatmakah karta na tatphalam rajyasvargadi labhate kintu harshashokou tabhyamanvita iti rajasah' — the fruit-withholding logic is Vallabha's distinctive emphasis: rajasika activity is not merely impure but structurally unrewarding.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Sridhara glosses each qualifier with clear devotional precision: ragi means one who holds affection for children and other objects of attachment (putradipritimanah); lubdha means one who covets another's wealth; himsatmaka means one whose natural disposition is to kill or harm (marakasvabhava); ashuchi means one who is empty of the purity that scripture enjoins. The rajasika agent is thus catalogued as a person whose every quality is oriented outward — toward acquiring, possessing, and reacting — rather than toward surrender.

  divergence: Sridhara: 'ragi putradipritimanah... lubdhah parasvabhilashi... himsatmako marakasvabhavah... ashuchir-vihita-shaucha-shunyah... labhalaabhayoh harshashokabyam anvitah' — the homely gloss of ragi as parental attachment grounds the verse in lived experience.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusudana opens with a psycho-spiritual diagnosis: the rajasika agent is one whose mind is agitated by desire and similar disturbances (kamadyakulachittah) — from this root-condition everything else follows necessarily. His definition of himsatmaka is uniquely interior: himsa is the cutting of another's proceeding by making one's own intention manifest; by contrast, the subtle deceiver who conceals his intention is a different species of wrongdoer. Lubdha receives a two-register definition — coveting another's possessions and being incapable of releasing his own for dharma's sake.

  divergence: Madhusudana: 'ragi kamadyakulachittah... svabhipraaya-prakatanena para-vritti-cchedanam himsa tad-atmakah... lubdhah paradravyabhilashi dharmartham svadravyatyagasamarthashcha' — the himsatmaka gloss as intentional occlusion of another's will is found nowhere else in the panel and marks Madhusudana's synthesizing philosophical register.