Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 18, Verse 44: Krishna to Arjuna — Mokṣa-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Cultivation of soil (krishti), cattle-tending (gaurakshya), and trade (vanijya) are the svabhava-born (svabhavajam) duties of the vaishya — functions arising from the natural ordering of gunas, not from personal agency. Service (paricharya) as one's essential mode is likewise the svabhava-born dharma of the shudra. Shankara is clear: these caste-ordained karmas, properly performed, yield svarga (heaven) as their natural fruit — but this is precisely why they are ultimately provisional, useful rungs toward the higher fruit Bhagavan is about to disclose.

  divergence: Shankara glosses: krishti = bhumeh vilikhanam (plowing the earth); gaurakshya = pashupalya (cattle-keeping); vanijya = krayavikraya-lakshanam (characterized by buying and selling). The heavenly reward is confirmed by smriti citation (A. Smr. 2.2.2.3). The ‘karanantarat tu idam vaksyamanam phalam' close signals Shankara pivoting immediately to the superior, unstated fruit he is about to reveal.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Kṛṣi (tillage, sasyotpādana-karṣaṇam — the ploughing that produces grain) and gorakṣya (paśupālanam — tending of cattle) and vāṇijya (dhana-saṃcaya-hetubhūtaṃ krayavikrayātmakaṃ karma — buying-and-selling activity whose purpose is the accumulation of wealth) together constitute the svabhāvajam karma of the vaiśya. Pūrvavaṛṇatraya-paricaryārūpaṃ karma — service taking the form of attending on the three prior varṇas — is the svabhāvajam karma of the śūdra. Rāmānuja immediately presses past enumeration: tad etat caturṇāṃ varṇānāṃ vṛttibhiḥ saha kartavyānāṃ śāstravihitānāṃ yajñādīkarmaṇāṃ pradarśanārtham uktam — the verse is stated in order to show forth the śāstra-enjoined yajña-and-related acts that the four varṇas are to perform alongside their respective livelihoods. The vṛtti-list is therefore not exhaustive but representative: yajñādayo hi trayāṇāṃ varṇānāṃ sādhāraṇāḥ — yajña and the rest are common to the three upper varṇas. Śamadamādayo ‘pi trayāṇāṃ varṇānāṃ mumukṣūṇāṃ sādhāraṇāḥ — śama, dama, and the like are similarly shared by the mumukṣu-s of all three. The reason śama-dama appear specifically as the brāhmaṇa‘s svabhāvajam karma is that sattvodreka (the preponderance of sattva) is natural to him, making śamadamādayaḥ sukhopādānāḥ — easy of adoption; for kṣatriya and vaiśya, whose natures are predominantly rajas and tamas, those same qualities are duḥkhopādānāḥ and are therefore not named their svabhāvaja work. The śūdra‘s kartavya and vṛtti are one and the same: pūrvavaṛṇatraya-paricaryā eva.

  divergence: The contaminated cell reduced Rāmānuja's sustained argument — that the varna-duty list is pradarśanārtha (illustrative, not exhaustive), that yajña is common to three varṇas, and that sattvodreka‘s naturalness to the brāhmaṇa alone explains why śama-dama are his svabhāvaja — to a single subordinate clause and a vague rubric about ‘shastra-vihita yajna'. The restored cell quotes the bhāṣya's key Sanskrit phrases verbatim and tracks Rāmānuja's sequential reasoning through all four varṇas.

• Madhvadvaita

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

  Kṛṣi-gaurakṣya-vāṇijyam (agriculture, cattle-tending, and trade) constitute vaiśya-karma (the duty of the vaiśya), born of svabhāva (one's own inherent nature as shaped by Hari); paricaryātmakam karma (service-natured work) is likewise svabhāva-jam (born of inherent nature) for the śūdra. Each jīva carries a station fitted to it by the sovereign will of svatantra Hari — the particularity of these duties is not accidental but expressive of pañca-bheda: distinct souls, distinct natures, distinct ordained functions. The vaiśya‘s field-work and the śūdra‘s paricaryā (service) are not degradations but each jīva's proper mode of subordination to Hari. Taratamya (graded ontological hierarchy) runs through the four orders: each paratantra jīva fulfills its svabhāva-jam karma as a form of bhakti, an acknowledgment of total dependence on the Lord who is the inner giver of every nature.

  divergence: No bhāṣya by Madhva or Jayatīrtha on this verse is extant. The reading voices Dvaita siddhānta — svabhāva as Hari's shaping of each paratantra jīva, taratamya across varṇas, and duty-discharge as bhakti — applied directly to the mūla.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha's commentary is brief and pointed: for the vaishya, money-lending (kusida) is subsumed within vanijya and therefore not separately named; for the shudra, paricharya is specifically service of the twice-born (dvija-paricharya). The decisive Pushti-marga turn: paricharya performed toward Bhagavan — any of these varna-duties offered to Hari — yields the highest fruit for all. The inner rule is stated from the Bhagavata: ‘vrittya tushyate harih' — Hari is pleased precisely by a person's own mode of livelihood.

  divergence: Vallabha: ‘kusida-sya vanijye nivashanat na prithag uktih' (money-lending folded into trade, hence not named separately); ‘dvija-paricharya-atmakam shudrasya iti maryada' (shudra's limit is service of the twice-born); ‘paricharyam bhagavati krita chet sarvesham uttama-phala-da bhavet' — the bhashya invokes ‘vrittya tushyate harih' as the governing principle.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Sridhara offers a clean, philologically precise reading without doctrinal overlay: krishti = karshana (plowing), gaurakshya = pashupalya (the state of tending cattle), vanijya = krayavikraya (buying and selling) — these three together constitute the vaishya's svabhava-born karma. For the shudra, service of the three upper varnas (traivarnika-paricharya) is likewise svabhava-born. The commentary is deliberately spare, establishing exact lexical meanings as the foundation on which devotional application rests.

  divergence: Sridhara: ‘krishih karshanam; gah rakshati-iti gorakshas-tasya bhavo gaurakshyam pashupalya-m ity-arthah; vanijyam krayavikraya-adi; etad vaishyasya svabhavajam karma; traivarnika-paricharya-atmakam shudrasya api svabhavajam karma.’ No speculative additions — strictly definitional.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusudana provides the most granular guna-analysis in the panel: the vaishya's karma arises from tamas-subordinated-rajas (tama-upasarjana-rajas), and the shudra's karma from rajas-subordinated-tamas (raja-upasarjana-tamas) — a precise two-axis gunic positioning that distinguishes the two lower varnas from each other while preserving the Advaita metaphysical frame. Kusida (money-lending) is explicitly included within vanijya. For Madhusudana, these gunic signatures are not defects but natural stations on the single path that ultimately resolves into non-dual awareness lit by Bhakti.

  divergence: Madhusudana: ‘vaishya-karma... svabhavajam tama-upasarjana-rajoguna-svabhavajam; paricharya-atmakam dvijati-shushrusha-atmakam karma shudrasya-api svabhavajam raja-upasarjana-tamoguna-svabhavajam.’ The kusida inclusion (‘kusida-m apy atra antargamaniyam') and the paired guna-qualifications are uniquely his in this panel.