Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 18, Verse 60: Krishna to Arjuna — Mokṣa-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  O son of Kunti, you are bound without doubt by your own action born of svabhava (innate nature) — the valor and such qualities proper to a kshatriya as described. What battle you do not wish to fight out of avidya (nescience), that very action you will perform helplessly, as a dependent. The ego-sense that imagines itself a free agent is itself the moha (delusion); the body-mind complex driven by svabhava will act regardless, for the jiva who has not realized the Self is never the true author of action.

  divergence: Advaita reads moha as avidya-rooted ego-illusion of authorship; liberation lies in jnana that transcends svabhava entirely.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Arjuna, you are bound by your svabhava-born kshatriya action — valor being the very nature of a kshatriya. Being so bound, you will yourself, unable to bear the dishonor from others, perform that very battle which now, out of ajnana (ignorance), you are unwilling to undertake. For Ishvara, the inner controller, has regulated all beings to act in accordance with their prior karma and prakriti; hear now how that regulation operates. The jiva acts not independently but as the body of Bhagavan, whose will is sovereign.

  divergence: Vishishtadvaita stresses Ishvara as inner regulator acting through the jiva's prakriti; the jiva is a real dependent agent, not an illusion.

• Madhvadvaita

  Madhvacharya's commentary on this verse is not extant in the transmitted corpus; no bhashya prose is available for direct anchoring. On Dvaitacharya principles: the jiva is eternally, absolutely distinct from Hari; its svabhava-born action is a mode of dependent worship. Arjuna's helplessness (avasha) demonstrates that the independent will the jiva imagines is a superimposition; only surrender to Hari's will constitutes real agency. Even the warrior's compelled battle becomes seva (service) when the illusion of independence is relinquished.

  divergence: Dvaita: jiva-paramatma bheda is eternal and real; 'helplessness' is not ignorance but the jiva's constitutive ontology — it can never be self-sufficient.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha establishes the point directly: this verse elaborates what was expounded in the second, third, and subsequent chapters — svabhava is prakritic (born of prakriti), and by that svabhava-born kshatriya action you are bound, helpless; you will indeed act. In the Pushtimarga reading, this helplessness is not degrading but the very site of prasada (grace): when the jiva recognizes it cannot act of its own power, Krishna's lila-flow carries it. Arjuna's reluctance is moha precisely because it forgets that the Lord's ananda (bliss) is the ground of all svabhava.

  divergence: Shuddhadvaita emphasizes svabhava as prakritic, and helplessness as the opening for divine prasada, not a problem requiring jnana to transcend.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Sridhara explains: svabhava is the purva-karma samskara (deep conditioning from prior action) that is the cause of kshatriyahood; from that is born one's own action — valor and the like, as previously described — by which you are bound, controlled like an instrument (yantrita). The battle which, in your delusion, you do not wish to perform — even that action you will helplessly perform. Sridhara's devotional inflection: the bhakta who acts within svadharma while inwardly surrendering to Krishna fulfills exactly what the Lord here describes as inevitable, but transforms it into devotion.

  divergence: Bhakti-philological voice: svabhava is purva-karma samskara specifically; the yantrita (instrumented) metaphor is foregrounded, softened by devotional surrender.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusudana synthesizes: your svabhava-born action — the kshatriya nature described previously, valor and so forth — is svena (your own, not adventitious); by this you are nibaddha (thoroughly bound, made subservient). O Kaunteya, the battle which you do not wish to undertake because of the moha — the bhrama (false impression) that 'I am independent, I will accomplish as I desire' — that battle you will perform helplessly, unable even to choose not to. You are at once subservient to your own natural-born action and to Parameshvara; the fantasy of independent lordship is precisely what moha names. Jnana dissolves this bhrama; bhakti aligns the will with Krishna's will so that what is inevitable becomes joy.

  divergence: Advaita-bhakti uniquely names the moha as svAtantrya-bhrama (the specific delusion of self-sovereignty); liberation requires both jnana (to see the bhrama) and bhakti (to realign will with Parameshvara).