Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 18, Verse 57: Krishna to Arjuna — Mokṣa-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Śaṅkara reads 'chetasā' (by the discriminative intellect, viveka-buddhi) not as emotional surrender but as clear-headed renunciation: every action, whether for visible or invisible fruit, is deposited in Īśvara by the logic of 9.27 ('whatever you do, whatever you eat'). The one who is 'mat-paraḥ' (having Me as the highest) has offered the entire sense of selfhood (sarva-ātma-bhāva) to Vāsudeva. 'Buddhi-yoga' here means the stabilised, collected mind (samāhita-buddhi), and 'mat-cittaḥ' (mind fixed in Me alone) is the uninterrupted fruit of that non-dual shelter — not devotion as an end but as the gateway to jñāna.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Rāmānuja reads 'chetasā' as the awareness that the self belongs to Bhagavān and is governed by Him (madīyatva-niyāmyatva-buddhi), echoing 3.30 ('renouncing all actions in Me with the adhyātma-mind'). All actions — including the agent himself — are surrendered as belonging to and meant to worship the Lord; 'mat-paraḥ' means holding Bhagavān alone as the fruit to be attained (phala-tāyā prāpyaḥ). 'Buddhi-yoga' is the same integrated practice described throughout, sustaining the conviction that the self is Kṛṣṇa's mode (viśeṣaṇa), and 'mat-cittaḥ satatam' is the unbroken kainkarya (service-consciousness) that fills every moment of action.

• Madhvadvaita

  *Cetasā* — with the *jīva*'s cognition, itself *paratantra* (eternally dependent), never self-originating — Kṛṣṇa commands: deposit all *sarvakarmāṇi* (every act, without remainder) into *mayi*, into the *svatantra* (independently real, self-sufficient) Lord alone. *Saṃnyasya* here is not dissolution of the agent but a deliberate transfer: the *dāsa* (servant) lays each action at the feet of the *svāmin* (master), the *bheda* (real distinction) between them remaining wholly intact. *Matparaḥ* — having Hari as the supreme — names the permanent ontological subordination that *taratamya* (graded hierarchy) secures: Hari above, the *jīva* always below, never identical. *Buddhiyogam upāśritya* is the practice of *tattva-jñāna* (knowledge of the real distinctions), specifically the *pañca-bheda* (the five-fold real distinction: Lord–*jīva*, Lord–matter, *jīva*–*jīva*, *jīva*–matter, matter–matter) that constitutes correct cognition; no *buddhi-yoga* is possible that elides the Lord's independence from the *jīva*'s dependence. *Maccittaḥ satataṃ bhava* — be perpetually minded toward Me — is not a counsel of absorption but the continuous orientation of *paratantra* consciousness toward its *svatantra* ground: the mind fixed on Viṣṇu because it knows, without wavering, that it belongs to Him. Liberation arrives as Viṣṇu's *prasāda* (grace), a real arrival of the *jīva* into His proximity, not a return of identity.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha reads 'chetasā' as the mind saturated with yoga and bhakti (yoga-bhakti-vāsita), disposed to recognise Kṛṣṇa as the direct agent (sākṣāt-kartā). The renunciation here is not of the action itself but of the sense of independent authorship — as in the example 'abandon the staff-bearer, not the staff': only the claim of kartṛtva (doership) is relinquished, not the act. 'Mat-paraḥ' then means 'I am not the doer; the inner ruler (antaryāmī) is the real agent; I move as He impels me (yathā prerayati tathā karomi).' 'Buddhi-yoga' designates the Sāṅkhya-Yoga integration Kṛṣṇa has already taught, and 'mat-cittaḥ satatam' is the rapturous steady-gaze of one who has surrendered kartṛtva and now acts inside Kṛṣṇa's own līlā.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara Svāmī anchors 'chetasā' in the logic of the preceding verse ('since it is so, therefore'): one who has understood dedicates every action to Bhagavān by the mind alone, making Me the exclusive puruṣārtha (mat-paraḥ — I alone am the goal worth attaining). He takes refuge in vyavasāyātmikā buddhi (the resolute, single-pointed will of 2.41) and practises karma in such a way that even during the act the mind rests in Brahman — 'brahma-arpaṇam brahma-haviḥ' (4.24, offering is Brahman, oblation is Brahman). The instruction 'mat-cittaḥ satatam bhava' is thus a complete devotional programme: surrender of action, single-pointed goal, and unbroken recollective mind.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana insists that the verse's purpose is to demonstrate that sole-refuge in Bhagavān (mad-eka-śaraṇatā) — not karma-performance nor karma-renunciation — is the sādhana for mokṣa, and that this is exactly why Kṛṣṇa addresses Arjuna as a kṣatriya who must act. 'Chetasā' is viveka-buddhi used to deposit all visible and invisible-fruit actions in Īśvara by the principle of 9.27. 'Mat-paraḥ' is precise: Vāsudeva the Bhagavān alone is priyatama (most beloved), not any king or object of desire. 'Buddhi-yoga' is the equanimity-marked yoga (samattva-buddhi-lakṣaṇa) that transforms even binding action into a means of liberation, and 'mat-cittaḥ satatam' excludes every other anchor — rajanī, kāminī, and the rest — so that the synthesised advaita-bhakta is one whose intellect and heart have a single address.