Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 18, Verse 47: Krishna to Arjuna — Mokṣa-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  One's own dharma (sva-dharma), even if deficient (vi-guna, 'lacking qualities'), is more to be preferred than another's dharma well-executed (su-anushthitat para-dharmat). Shankara grounds this in the analogy of a poisonous worm: the same venom that harms others is the worm's natural element and causes it no sin. Svabhava-niyatam karma — action determined by one's own nature — incurs no demerit (kilbisham), because acting contrary to one's svabhava (constitutive nature) generates the real bondage, not the action itself. The verse restates the principle of BG 3.35: para-dharma is always fraught with danger (bhayavahah), and since no one remains even a moment without acting (BG 3.5), niskriya-ness is not an option — only disciplined alignment with one's own constitutive nature prepares the ground for jnana.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The sva-dharma praised here is karma-yoga recast as mad-aradhana — service offered as worship of Bhagavan, with kartritva (agency) relinquished. For a soul embedded in prakriti (prakriti-samsrishta purusha), karma-yoga is the connatural path: indriya-vyapara (sense-engagement) is structurally easy, hence svabhavata eva niyata — fixed by nature itself. Jnana-yoga, by contrast, demands sakala-indriya-niyamana (total sense-restraint), is liable to pramada (lapse), and so even when perfectly performed is fraught with the danger of slipping. Thus karma-yoga, though 'deficient' in renunciatory austerity, is superior precisely because it is lapse-resistant — the practitioner does not incur samsara (kilbisham = samsara) because the path itself is structurally suited to the embodied jiva's nature. Ramanuja re-anchors the argument of the third chapter: karma-nishtha is indeed greater for the generality of bound souls.

• Madhvadvaita

  *Svadharma* (one's own duty, station-specific obligation) imperfectly performed excels *paradharma* (another's duty) well performed — *śreyān svadharmo viguṇaḥ paradharmātsvanuṣṭhitāt*. Performing *svabhāvaniyataṃ karma* (action fixed by one's own nature), one does not incur *kilbiṣam* (sin, ontological stain). In the dvaita reading, *svabhāva* is not an autonomous self-determination but the specific nature Hari has apportioned to each *paratantra* *jīva* (the eternally dependent individual self) within the *taratamya* (graded ontological hierarchy) of *pañca-bheda* (the five-fold real distinction). Every *jīva* occupies a fixed rank in Hari's sovereign order; the *karma* that belongs to that rank is Hari's assignment, not the *jīva*'s own invention. To perform it — even deficiently — is *bhakti* (devotion) as ontological subordination: the *jīva* acting within the station *svatantra* (the independently real, self-sufficient) Hari has ordained. To cross into *paradharma* is not mere ritual error but a presumption against that dispensation, a violation of *bheda* (real distinction) between one's own assigned function and another's. *Kilbiṣam* is therefore the stain of misalignment with one's Hari-given *svarūpa*, not a merely procedural failing. The *viguṇa* qualification — imperfect execution — is tolerated; usurpation of another's station is not.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha reads the verse as direct instruction to Arjuna that svabhava — the specific mode of each varna (brahmin, kshatriya, etc.) — is Bhagavan's own lila-prasada distributed as constitutive function. The kshatriya's sva-dharma is yuddha (battle); executing it, even imperfectly (vi-guna), is preferable to the brahmin's bhiksha-atana (begging) however well-performed, because the former is the form in which Krishna's grace (pushti) flows through that jiva's nature. Vallabha's comment is terse and imperative: 'thus karma-nishtha alone is greater' — he explicitly links this back to the third chapter's teaching, framing both as consistent guidance that pure devotion expressed through one's God-given station is liberation, not obstacle.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Sridhara reads the verse as the payoff (phalam) of the 'sva-karman' qualifier that preceded it. His key move is an explicit counter-argument: one must not conclude that bhiksha-atana (begging alms, the brahmin's para-dharma) is superior to yuddha (battle, Arjuna's sva-dharma) merely because battle involves the sin of slaying kinsmen. Against this, Sridhara applies svabhava-niyatam: Arjuna's fighting is regulated by the very nature previously described — his warrior constitution — and so incurs no kilbisham (sin). The argument is structural and devotionally grounded: adhering to the svabhava Bhagavan has constituted in you is itself an act of trust in the ordering intelligence behind creation, not mere ritualism.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusudana introduces a decisive framing absent in Shankara: sva-dharma is 'bhagavat-prasada-hetu' — the very cause of Bhagavan's grace. This is the synthesis: karma performed as sva-dharma is simultaneously Advaita preparation (niskriya-bhava) and bhakti (prasada-reception). Even deficiently performed, it surpasses para-dharma perfectly done, because the grace-channel is intact. Madhusudana then directly answers the kilbisham objection: svabhava-niyatam yuddha-karma for a kshatriya is analogous to the ritual-mandated animal sacrifice in the Jyotishtoma — mandated action, even if it involves apparent harm (bandhu-vadha, slaying of kin), incurs no sin-residue (pratya-vaya) because the injunction is Bhagavan-sourced. The binding is dissolved at the point of svabhava-alignment with divine prescription.