Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 2, Verse 19: Krishna to Arjuna — Sāṅkhya-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Whoever supposes this ātman to be a killer, and whoever supposes it to have been killed, both mistake the body-bound ego-sense (*ahampratyaya*) for the self — they do not know ātman at all. Because ātman is *avikriya* (changeless, incapable of modification), it neither performs the act of killing nor undergoes it as patient; superimposing killing-agency onto it is no different from superimposing agency onto the sky.

  divergence: Advaita locates the error in *avidyā*-driven identification of ātman with the body. Agency and patient-hood are *vivarta* (apparent), not real. No devotional relation to Kṛṣṇa is in view — the teaching is pure *tattva-viveka* (discernment of truth).

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The one who thinks this ātman — whose nature has already been declared as eternal and unchanging — to be a cause of killing (*hananakāraṇa*), and the one who thinks it to have been killed, both fail to understand it truly. Since *hanti* denotes only the bringing about of bodily separation (*śarīraviyogakaraṇa*), and since ātman is eternal by its very nature (*nityatva*), no cause whatsoever can make ātman either the instrument or the recipient of such a separation.

  divergence: Rāmānuja preserves the real ontological existence of jīvātman as a *viśeṣaṇa* (attribute/mode) of Brahman. Unlike Advaita, the jīva genuinely exists and genuinely serves; the error is misidentifying *what* kind of entity it is, not denying its existence. The śāstra citations (*na hiṃsyāt sarvā bhūtāni*) anchor the reading in *dharmaśāstra* as well.

• Madhvadvaita

  The ordinary transaction (*vyavahāra*) of 'killing' and 'being killed' is a confusion (*bhrānti*): jīva is a reflection (*pratibimba*) of Hari the original (*bimba*), and a reflection performs no action of its own — it moves only because the original moves. Therefore this ātman neither kills nor is killed, for, as the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad teaches, it only 'appears to think' (*dhyāyatīva*) — all action belongs to Hari alone.

  divergence: Madhva's *pratibimba-vāda* makes agency a metaphysical impossibility for the jīva as such. This is sharper than Advaita: not merely that ātman is beyond change, but that any appearance of jīva-agency is ontologically dependent on Hari's independent action. Dvaita is the most polemically explicit school here.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  One who ascribes the status of killer or killed to this ātman is censured here, because the root *han* (*hanti*) means causing the separation of a composite, limbed body (*sāvayava-śarīra-viyoga*) — and ātman has no such body to be separated from. The scripture's prohibition 'one must not injure all beings' (*na hiṃsyāt sarvā bhūtāni*) is also intelligible only with reference to the body, not to ātman itself.

  divergence: Vallabha's Puṣṭi-mārga reads this as protecting Kṛṣṇa's sovereignty over all manifestation — ātman belongs wholly to Kṛṣṇa, and Kṛṣṇa's *prasāda* sustains it. Killing and being killed are categories that apply only within the domain of *māyā*-body, which is itself Kṛṣṇa's *līlā*. The tone is imperative: recognize this and act in surrender.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Arjuna's grief had two roots: sorrow at the separation from Bhīṣma and others, and distress at his own role as killer. The first grief has been addressed by showing the soul's deathlessness; this verse addresses the second — ātman has neither *kartṛtva* (agency) nor *karmatva* (patient-hood) in relation to killing, and therefore no guilt attaches to the warrior who fights in righteous battle.

  divergence: Śrīdhara is the most pastorally explicit: his bhāṣya traces both griefs and resolves both. His commentary is pedagogically structured (grief 1 → grief 2), and the devotional register colors his reading — right action in war becomes compatible with bhakti once agency is properly located away from the ātman.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Even if Arjuna's grief at loss has been answered, the objection remains: where there is no grief, there is not necessarily no sin — one may kill a despised brahmin without grief yet still incur *pāpa* (demerit). To forestall this, Bhagavān cites the Kaṭha-śruti (*hantā cen manyate hantuṃ hataś cen manyate hatam*): the *tārkika* (logician) who grants ātman-agency and the *cārvāka* who grants ātman-destructibility are both named as the two mistaken parties (*ubhau tau na vijānītaḥ*), for ātman is neither doer nor done-to.

  divergence: Madhusūdana uniquely names the two philosophical opponents — tārkika (Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika school granting jīva-kartṛtva) and Cārvāka (materialist school admitting ātman-nāśa) — and shows that the Kaṭha citation demolishes both simultaneously. The synthesis of Advaita *jñāna* with Kṛṣṇa-devotion is visible in his framing: Bhagavān is the active teacher deploying śruti as weapon, not merely a theoretical voice.