Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 18, Verse 43: Krishna to Arjuna — Mokṣa-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  The svabhava-born (own-nature-born) duties of the kshatriya — saura (heroism), tejas (bold ardor that cannot be overborne), dhrti (steadiness sustaining one through every condition), daksya (swift competence in sudden affairs without confusion), non-retreat in battle, dana (open-handedness), and isvarabhava (the making-manifest of lordly power toward those to be governed) — are here enumerated not as ends but as the purifying field of niskama-karma. Sankara reads each term precisely: dhrti is that by which one does not collapse in any state; daksya is un-bewildered action when circumstances press suddenly. These are the karma assigned by svabhava to the kshatriya-birth, and performed without fruit-desire they thin the veil before jnana.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Ramanuja opens each term toward Bhagavan: saura is the capacity to enter battle without fear, teja is the quality of being un-overpowered by adversaries, and dhrti is the power to complete what has been undertaken even when obstacles interrupt it. Dana is not mere generosity but the transfer of what one regards as one's own into the ownership of another, a rehearsal of the deeper surrender of the self to Isvara. Isvarabhava — the power to govern and regulate all beings other than oneself — is assigned to the kshatriya as a delegated shadow of Bhagavan's own sovereignity. All eight qualities together form the kshatriya's kainkarya (service-mode) by which this varna moves toward bhakti-yoga.

• Madhvadvaita

  Reconstructed from the dvaita school's doctrine, not translated from Madhva's commentary at this verse.

  Śaurya (heroism), tejas (vital force), dhṛti (steadiness), dākṣya (skilled competence), non-flight in battle (apalāyanam), dāna (giving), and īśvarabhāva (lordly bearing) — these constitute the kṣātra-karma (duty of the warrior caste) born of one's own svabhāva (innate nature). In the dvaita reading, none of these qualities originates in the kṣatriya as svatantra (independently real, self-sufficient); each flows through him as a delegated expression of Hari's sarvottamatva (absolute supremacy). The jīva (individual self) is paratantra (eternally dependent) even in its most vigorous outer form: the warrior's heroism is Hari's power lent, not the warrior's own. Apalāyana on the battlefield and dāna as offering both belong to the paratantra jīva‘s proper mode — enacting what Hari ordains, never mistaking delegated capacity for self-originating force. The pañca-bheda (five-fold real distinction) holds even here: the distinction between Hari and the jīva is not dissolved by the warrior's excellence but confirmed in it, since excellence that arises from svabhāva is itself Hari-willed. Kṣātra-karma performed in this recognition is bhakti (devotion) as ontological subordination — the soldier who neither flees nor appropriates his own valor to himself.

  divergence: Both Madhva and Jayatīrtha are silent on this verse. The reading is voiced directly from dvaita siddhānta: paratantra jīva, pañca-bheda, and Hari's sarvottamatva applied to the svabhāvaja qualities listed in the mūla.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha's terse commentary names the essentials — dhrti as dairya (fortitude, not mere endurance), daksya as battle-competence, isvarabhava as aisvarya (lordliness) — and reads them as svabhava flowing from Krsna's own lila-prasada into the kshatriya's nature. In Pustimarga the kshatriya's martial gifts are not earned or cultivated but gifted by Krsna's grace as the shape of this particular jiva's participation in divine play. Even dana, the open hand, is Krsna's own generosity moving through a human channel; the kshatriya who recognizes this performs his svadharma as an act of surrender rather than self-assertion.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Sridhara Svami reads all eight qualities as svabhavikas (natural, arising from innate constitution) for the kshatriya: saura is parakrama (valor), teja is pragalbhya (boldness), dhrti is dairya, daksya is kausala (skill), apalayana is paranmukha-ta (not turning the face away from the enemy), dana is audarya (magnanimity), and isvarabhava is niyamana-sakti (the power of governance). He offers a clean philological survey without collapsing toward any single darshana, treating the verse as straightforward varna-dharma instruction. The bhakta performing these duties with devotion to Isvara fulfills both svadharma and the path of surrender.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusudan Sarasvati supplies the richest analytical glosses: saura is vikrama — the disposition to strike even those stronger than oneself; teja is pragalbhya, the quality of being un-dominated by adversaries (parairadharsaniyatva); dhrti is the non-collapse of the body-sense-aggregate even in great calamity; daksya is prompt, unconfused action when urgent affairs arise. He adds that kshatriya-karma is sattvopasarjana-rajoguna-svabhavajam — born of rajoguna with sattva as support — locating it within guna-theory. For Madhusudan, performing these with Krsna as the inner sovereign (antaryamin) transforms martial svadharma into both jnana-purification and bhakti-offering, honoring both his Advaita inheritance and his Vaisnava devotion.