Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 18, Verse 34: Krishna to Arjuna — Mokṣa-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  That dhrti (resolve) is rajasic by which one holds dharma, kama, and artha — the triad of worldly pursuits — as perpetual obligatory ends to be maintained in the mind. The holder of such dhrti becomes a phalakankshin (fruit-desirer) with each and every engagement: whenever dharma is pursued, fruit is craved; whenever artha is grasped, fruit follows. Shankara is precise: this is not an incidental coloring but a constitutive feature — the rajasic will is structurally oriented toward worldly ends and cannot release the chain of engagement-craving.

  divergence: Shankara glosses 'prasangena' as 'yasyayasya dharmaadeh dharanaprasangah tena tena prasangena phalakankshi': for each and every act of holding dharma etc., craving for fruit arises correspondingly — a tight one-to-one coupling.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Ramanuja reads 'dharma-kama-artha' not as the objects themselves but as the activities of manas (mind), prana (vital breath), and indriya (senses) that serve as the instruments for obtaining those ends. The rajasic person holds these mental-vital-sensory activities in sustained engagement through a 'prakrshta-sanga' — an intense, possessive attachment. Because the goal is dharma, kama, and artha conceived through their rajasic valence, this dhrti never ascends toward Bhagavan's kainkarya (service) and remains bound in samsara.

  divergence: Ramanuja explicitly: 'dharma-kama-artha-sabdena tat-sadhana-bhuta manah-prana-indriya-kriya laksyante' — the three terms point to the instrumental activities, not just the three ends.

• Madhvadvaita

  *Dhṛti* (resolute will) that steadies the *jīva* in the threefold pursuit of *dharma*, *kāma*, and *artha* — yet does so with *prasaṅga* (attachment) and *phalākāṅkṣā* (craving for fruit) — is *rājasī*, rajasic. The *jīva*, being *paratantra* (eternally dependent), holds no sovereign claim over any of these three ends; they belong in their entirety to *svatantra* Hari, who alone is their ground and their lord. When *dhṛti* arrests itself at the level of *dharma-kāma-artha* and treats their fruits as the *jīva*'s own telos, it enacts the *jīva*'s constitutive error: mistaking dependent agency for self-sufficiency. *Phalākāṅkṣā* is not merely a moral failing but an ontological misreading of *bheda* (real distinction) — the *jīva* forgetting its position within *taratamya* (graded ontological hierarchy) and arrogating to itself the enjoyment that belongs to Hari. Such *dhṛti* binds rather than liberates, because the will that does not refer its objects upward to Hari as their supreme enjoyer perpetuates the *jīva*'s servant-nature going unrecognized by the servant himself.

  divergence: No bhāṣya from Madhva or Jayatīrtha is extant on this verse. Reading voiced directly from Dvaita *siddhānta*: *paratantra* ontology, *pañca-bheda*, and *taratamya* applied to the mūla's *prasaṅga-phalākāṅkṣā* dyad.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha is terse and surgical: rajasic dhrti holds the trivarga (dharma, kama, artha — the three worldly aims together) through 'prasanga' read as kartrtva-abhinivesha — the stubborn insistence on being the doer. The phalakankshin is not merely someone who wants results; he is someone whose very steadiness is constituted by the ego-investment in authorship. In Pushti-marga terms, such a will has not been dissolved into Krsna's prasada; it grips the trivarga as its own project rather than receiving all as the Lord's lila.

  divergence: Vallabha: 'yaya dhrtyya trivargam dharayate prasangena kartrtva-abhinivesena phalakankshin san' — kartrtva-abhinivesha (insistence on doership) is the specific mechanism named.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Sridhara frames this as the primary mark (pradhanye) of rajasic dhrti: it does not merely touch dharma, artha, and kama — it holds them with primacy, refuses to release them ('na vimuincati'). The prasanga that generates phalakanksna is not incidental but structural — the rajasic mind clings to these three as its primary concerns and, in that very clinging, generates desire for fruits as a natural consequence. Sridhara's phrasing 'pradhanye' — with primacy — distinguishes this from the sattvic person who may work within the trivarga but without that possessive holding.

  divergence: Sridhara: 'yaya tu dhrtyya dharma-artha-kaman pradhanye dharayate na vimuincati tat-prasangena phalakankshin ca bhavati sa rajasi dhrtih' — 'pradhanye' and 'na vimuincati' are the diagnostic markers.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusudana opens with 'tu' — the particle that separates this rajasic dhrti from the sattvic described earlier. His distinctive gloss of 'prasanga' is 'kartrtva-adi-abhinivesha' — the insistence on doership and related ego-investments (the 'adi' is significant: it opens out to bhoktrtva, ahamkara, and identification with the body-mind complex). The rajasic will holds dharma, kama, and artha as 'nitya kartavyata' — perpetual obligatory duties — but never even once turns toward moksha ('na tu moksham kadacid api'). This is Madhusudana's synthesis point: the rajasic person is not vicious but structurally oriented away from liberation, locked in the trivarga with no aperture toward the Absolute.

  divergence: Madhusudana: 'kartrtva-adi-abhinivesena phalakankshin san yaya dhrtyya dharmam kamam artham ca dharayate nityam kartavyataya-avadharyati na tu moksham kadacid api' — the 'na moksham kadacid api' is his unique diagnostic sharpness.