Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 2, Verse 36: Krishna to Arjuna — Sāṅkhya-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Your enemies — those who are your ahitāḥ (ill-wishers) — will pour out avācya-vādān (unspeakable words) of many kinds, mocking the sāmarthya (prowess) you displayed against the Nivātakavaca demons and other such foes. They will revile what all the worlds acknowledge as your sovereign capacity for battle. Śaṅkara's point is axiomatic: from the standpoint of lokavyavahāra (worldly conduct), no pain exceeds the pain of undeserved apayaśa (infamy), and a warrior who has not yet risen to jñāna must act so that no such occasion arises.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The Dhārtarāṣṭra warriors — your enemies — will stand before an assembly of śūrāṇām (heroes) and declare: 'How could this Pārtha remain even for a kṣaṇa (moment) in our presence? His sāmarthya (strength) exists only when he is far from us.' Such avācya-vādāḥ (words that ought never to be spoken) will multiply in every direction. Rāmānuja draws the conclusion himself in his bhāṣya: you yourself would then think that death is better than hearing such avācya (unspeakable insults) — and therefore, whether a śūra (hero) slays others or is slain by them, both outcomes are śreyase (for the good).

• Madhvadvaita

  Madhva left no direct commentary on this verse, yet Dvaita doctrine supplies the frame: the jīva (individual soul) is eternally and absolutely distinct from Hari — it holds svarūpa (its own nature) as a dependent reality. A kṣatriya jīva whose svarūpa is dharma-yuddha (righteous combat) who retreats without cause invites two compounding losses: the external avācya-vādāḥ (unspeakable words) of enemies, and the internal adharma of contradicting one's own God-given svarūpa. To be mocked for sāmarthya (prowess) is not merely social pain — it is testimony that one has failed one's ordained rank in Hari's hierarchy.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha marks this verse 'spaṣṭam' — it is transparent, requiring no elaboration — yet the Puṣṭi-mārga cannot hear avācya-vādān (unspeakable words) as mere social humiliation. Every moment of Arjuna's existence is Kṛṣṇa's līlā (divine play); to flee the battlefield is to refuse one's assigned role in that play, and the enemies' mockery is Kṛṣṇa's own drama exposing the absurdity of that refusal. The śuddhādvaita ear hears the taunts of the Dhārtarāṣṭras as instruments of prasāda (grace) — the disgrace that forces Arjuna back into the arms of the play.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Your ahitāḥ (enemies) will speak avācyān vādān — words that are vacanānarhaḥ (unfit to be uttered), sounds that shame the one who speaks them even as they wound the one who hears. Śrīdhara stays with the plain grammatical surface: the enemy's speech is not merely hurtful but constitutively improper, a sign of their own adharma. The deeper bhakti reading is that a bhakta who refuses the dharma Bhagavān has placed before him becomes a spectacle whose disgrace is, as the verse declares, the very worst among all pains.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana addresses the objection directly: even if the Mahārathāḥ (great warriors) like Bhīṣma do not think less of Arjuna for withdrawing, the enemy Duryodhana and his circle will — because his withdrawal makes him appear to be their benefactor. So those enemies will unleash avācya-vādāḥ of every variety, using terms like śaṇḍha-tila (eunuch-sesame, a term of utter contempt) and other degrading epithets against his loka-prasiddha (world-renowned) sāmarthya (prowess). Madhusūdana then drives the synthesis home: the duḥkha (pain) from this infamy exceeds even the duḥkha of having to kill Bhīṣma and Droṇa — so the argument that Arjuna flees to avoid the harder pain is precisely inverted.