Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 18, Verse 49: Krishna to Arjuna — Mokṣa-Sannyāsa-Yoga
One whose mind is detached everywhere, whose self is mastered, and whose cravings have gone still reaches, through renunciation, the highest perfection of actionlessness.
Bhāṣyakāra purports
- Śaṅkaraadvaita
One whose intellect is unattached (asakta-buddhi) everywhere — to sons, wives, and all occasions of clinging — whose inner organ is fully mastered (jita-atma), and from whom all craving for bodily life and its enjoyments has departed (vigata-sprha): such a self-knower attains the supreme accomplishment of actionlessness (naishkarmya-siddhi), which is the very state of abiding as the inactive (nishkriya) Brahman-Self. This naishkarmya is not merely the cessation of physical motion but the recognition that the Self has never acted; Shankara is explicit: 'nishkarma' means karmas have departed because of the Brahman-Self-awakening (nishkriya-brahmatma-sambodha). The path is samyag-darshana — right vision — or renunciation of all karma that follows from it, as confirmed by Gita 5.13: 'mentally renouncing all actions he sits at ease, the self-controlled one.'
divergence: Shankara: 'nishkarmya is the condition of abiding as the inactive Self (nishkriya-atma-rupa-avasthana); naishkarmya-siddhi is the completion of that, identical with immediate liberation (sadyo-mukty-avasthana-rupa).' Sanyasa here = samyag-darshana or total karma-renunciation following from it.
- Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita
One who has unattached intelligence (asakta-buddhi) toward all fruits, whose mind is conquered (jita-manas), and who has shed the craving for being the ultimate agent because the Paramapurusha (supreme Person) is recognized as the real doer — such a person, joined to renunciation (sanyasa) understood as inseparable from tyaga, and continuing to perform karma, reaches the supreme naishkarmya-siddhi. For Ramanuja this supreme accomplishment is not mere cessation of action but entry into the highest dhyana-nishtha (steadfastness in meditation), which is itself the fruit of jnana-yoga; it means the complete withdrawal of all sense-organs from their operations, a state preparatory to direct bhakti-yoga experience of Bhagavan.
divergence: Ramanuja: 'paramam dhyana-nishtha jnana-yogasya api phala-bhutam adhigacchati — he reaches the supreme steadfastness-in-meditation, which is even the fruit of jnana-yoga.' Sanyasa is not abandonment of karma but its reconstitution as kainkarya with the agency-craving removed.
- Madhvadvaita
The verse points to the yoga-siddhi (accomplishment of yoga) whose fruit is naishkarmya — liberation-as-freedom-from-compelled-action. For Madhva the jiva is eternally distinct from Brahman-Hari; naishkarmya is therefore not identity with the inactive Absolute but rather the jiva's attainment of a liberated state (mukti-phala) in which compelled karmic bondage ceases while the jiva continues as dependent worshiper of Hari. The conciseness of Madhva's gloss ('naishkarmya-phalam yoga-siddhim') is deliberate: it resists Advaita's equation of naishkarmya with Brahman-identity.
divergence: Madhva's bhashya is sparse for this verse: 'naishkarmya-siddhim — naishkarmya-phala yoga-siddhim.' The brevity is itself doctrinally marked: liberation is a real separate state of the jiva, not absorption. Absence of extended gloss noted honestly.
- Vallabhaśuddhādvaita
Vallabha reads this verse as a re-summoning (anusmarana) of the path already described: the mind free of attachment to the fruits of all actions (sarva-karma-phala-sakti-rahita) is what Sankhya-marga offers; the conquest of self (jita-atma) and the absence of craving for anything other than Bhagavan (Bhagavad-vyatirekte sprha-rahita) is the essence of yoga, and this is bhakti's proper basis. So sanyasa here points to the integrated relinquishment whose fruit is the supreme naishkarmya-siddhi 'previously threaded' (purva-sutrita) — Vallabha acknowledges it was already indicated earlier. The Pushti reading insists the deepest release is Krsna's grace-gift (prasada), not the practitioner's technical achievement.
divergence: Vallabha: 'Bhagavad-vyatirikte sprha-rahita iti va bhaktir upadeyatayokta' — bhakti is named as the true upadeya (that which is to be taken up) precisely here. The verse re-states prior teaching (purva-sutritat) pointing toward the prasada-locus.
- Śrīdharabhakti
Sridhara reads the verse as answering the implied question: how, while performing karma, can one shed its defect-aspect (dosha-amsha) and retain only the merit-aspect (guna-amsha)? The answer is the three-limbed internal disposition: unattached intelligence (asanga-shunya buddhi), egolessness (nir-ahankara = jita-atma), and the departure of desire for fruits (vigata-sprha). Through the sanyasa defined in 18.9 — relinquishment of attachment and fruit — karma becomes naishkarmya in fact, because the sense of personal authorship (kartrtva-abhinivesha-abhava) is absent. The supreme naishkarmya-siddhi is characterized as sarva-karma-nivrtti-lakshana sattva-shuddhi (the sattvic purity marked by cessation of all karma), and then, by the same sanyasa, the paramahamsa state described in Gita 5.13.
divergence: Sridhara: 'yady api sangaphalayor tyagena karmanushthhanam api naishkarmyam eva, kartrtvabhiniveshabhavatintuitively' — even acting, if attachment and fruit-desire are dropped, that action IS naishkarmya because the sense of agenthood is gone. He then explicitly cites the paramahamsa state (parivraja).
- Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti
Madhusudana identifies this verse as the portrait of the adhikarin (qualified candidate) for whom Brahma-sutra inquiry begins — the one whom Badarayana had in view when he wrote 'athato brahma-jijnasa.' The candidate is someone who, through karma-yoga practiced under the prior teaching, has earned a purified inner organ, has reached the stage of jnana-sadhana-adhikara (fitness for Vedanta-vakyavicara), and now takes up the full sanyasa (shikha, yajnopavita, and all karma abandoned). For Madhusudana, naishkarmya-siddhi is double: first, the fitness for Vedanta-vicara itself (jnana-nishtha-yogyata); second, after vicara ripens, brahma-sakshatkara-yogyata (fitness for direct Brahman-realization), which is the paramam — the ultimate — beyond even sattvic karma-fruit. The Brahman-identity here is Krsna-Brahman, not a blank Absolute.
divergence: Madhusudana explicitly: 'naishkarmyam — nishkarma brahma tad-vishayam vicara-parinishpannam jnanam naikshkarmyam; tam rupam siddhim paramam karmajayah apara-siddhe phala-bhutam adhigacchati' — naishkarmya means Brahman-directed knowledge perfected through vicara, and it is the fruit of the prior impure (apara) karma-born accomplishment.