Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 18, Verse 30: Krishna to Arjuna — Mokṣa-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  The intellect that discerns pravṛtti (engagement, the karma-mārga) from nivṛtti (withdrawal, the sannyāsa-mārga) — understanding each as the śāstra has delimited it — is the sattvika buddhi. Śaṅkara presses the point structurally: pravṛtti and nivṛtti are paired with bandha and mokṣa in a single sentence precisely because the two paths are the causes of bondage and liberation respectively. Kārya (what must be done) and akārya (what must not be done), bhaya (the fear that correct praxis averts) and abhaya (the fearlessness that follows right understanding) — the sattvika buddhi knows all six pairs as a coherent, cause-traced whole, not as disconnected rules.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Rāmānuja distinguishes two dharmas by telos: pravṛtti-dharma conduces to abhyudaya (worldly flourishing within the divine order), and nivṛtti-dharma conduces to mokṣa (the jīva's final bhagavat-sāmīpya). The sattvika buddhi grasps both dharmas 'as they actually stand' (yathāvasthitau) — not abstractly, but concretely: for each varṇa, in each deśa-kāla-avasthā, it knows 'this is kārya, this is akārya.' Bhaya here is the śāstra-prohibited transgression; abhaya is the security of living within Bhagavān's ordained structure. Bandha and mokṣa are the samsāra-reality and its cessation — and the sattvika buddhi knows both as they truly are, in service of the Lord.

• Madhvadvaita

  *Sāttvikī* (of the quality of *sattva*) *buddhi* (discriminative intellect) is that which correctly knows *pravṛtti* (engagement in ordained action) and *nivṛtti* (withdrawal from prohibited action), *kārya* and *akārya* (what must and must not be done), *bhaya* and *abhaya* (the dread proper to a *paratantra* (eternally dependent) *jīva* who violates Hari's decree, and the steadiness of one who abides within it), and *bandha* (bondage) and *mokṣa* (liberation). In the Dvaita reading, each paired term is not a merely cognitive category but an objective order set by *svatantra* (the independently real, self-sufficient) Hari for *paratantra* *jīvas*. *Pravṛtti* and *nivṛtti* are Bhagavān's own decree — what He authorizes and what He forbids — so the *sāttvikī buddhi* is precisely the intellect that tracks Hari's will without distortion. *Bhaya* is not anxiety born of error but the ontologically correct posture of the *jīva* before the Lord's command; *abhaya* is the confidence that belongs to *āśrita-bhāva* (the stance of taking refuge), not to any claimed self-sufficiency. *Bandha* is the *jīva*'s condition when its *paratantra* nature is obscured and it operates as though *svatantra*; *mokṣa* is arrival at Hari's eternal presence, preserving *bheda* (real distinction) across the *pañca-bheda* (the five-fold real distinction: Lord–jīva, Lord–matter, jīva–jīva, jīva–matter, matter–matter) — never dissolution into identity. The *sāttvikī buddhi* thus discerns all six terms as they truly obtain within Hari's sovereign order.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha reads pravṛtti and nivṛtti as the two dharmas that together scaffold the soul's ascent toward Kṛṣṇa's prasāda: abhyudaya-dharma and mokṣa-dharma. He adds a distinctive gloss on 'vetti' (knows): the Gītā says elsewhere that buddhi is above manas (3.42), yet here buddhi is called the knower. Vallabha resolves this by the usage 'the chariot goes' — the instrument is attributed the action of its wielder. So it is the puṣṭi-jīva who truly knows, and the sattvika buddhi is the instrument through which Kṛṣṇa's own knowledge flows down into the adhikārin. Kārya and akārya are not legalistic categories but the shape of Kṛṣṇa's līlā as it falls upon the devotee's life.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara opens the triad of buddhi-verses (18.30-32) with a pairing: pravṛtti in dharma versus nivṛtti in its opposite (adharma). The sattvika buddhi knows, for the relevant deśa-kāla, what is kārya and what is akārya, what is fear (the consequence of wrong action) and what is fearlessness (the fruit of right action). Most subtly, it knows how bondage arises and how liberation is won. Śrīdhara notes the grammatical figure: properly one should say 'by which a person knows,' but scripture attributes knowing to the buddhi itself — as one says 'the firewood cooks,' attributing the cook's action to the instrument.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana maps all six terms along a single axis: pravṛtti = the karma-mārga; nivṛtti = the sannyāsa-mārga. Kārya in the pravṛtti-mārga is the performance of action; akārya in the nivṛtti-mārga is its deliberate non-performance. Bhaya in the pravṛtti-mārga is the suffering of repeated birth (garbhavāsādi-duḥkha); abhaya in the nivṛtti-mārga is its absence. Bandha is the false identification with doership (kartṛtva-abhimāna) produced by avidyā; mokṣa is its dissolution through tattva-jñāna. The buddhi that holds all six in their correct causal sequence — the pramāṇa-janita-niścayavatī buddhi — is sattvika. Madhusūdana adds: that mokṣa is named last in the verse is itself a structuring signal, and pravṛtti and the rest must all be read back through that terminal lens.