Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 2, Verse 37: Krishna to Arjuna — Sāṅkhya-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Slain in battle you will attain svarga (heaven); victorious, you will enjoy the mahī (earth) — in either case the result is lābha (gain) for you, and there is nothing to mourn in either direction. Kṛṣṇa's argument here is not a theological promise but a practical elimination of the very grief-structure that paralyzed Arjuna: once both branches of the alternative yield gain, the distinction between winning and dying that grounds the fear collapses. Therefore, O Kauṇteya (son of Kuntī), arise for yuddha (battle) having formed the kṛta-niścaya (fixed resolve) — 'I will conquer the enemies or I will die' — for the instruction that follows is addressed to one who recognizes war as svadharma (his own duty) and fights it accordingly.

  divergence: Śaṅkara reads this verse as a transitional closure to the worldly argument — eliminating practical grounds for hesitation before the deeper upadeśa (teaching) on niṣkāma-karma (action without fruit-attachment) that follows. The lābha (gain) here is worldly gain; Śaṅkara is not claiming svarga is the spiritual goal but that even on purely pragmatic grounds there is no loss.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Slain by enemies in dharma-yuddha (righteous battle), you will attain paramaniḥśreyasa (the supreme good, which is mokṣa itself) — the very act of dying in righteous war without fruit-attachment is an upāya (means) to liberation. Victorious, you will enjoy the kingdom uncontested; but Rāmānuja's stress falls on the first half, because niṣkāma-karma (action whose fruit is not mentally grasped) performed as kainkarya (selfless service to Bhagavān's order) does not merely yield worldly reward — it is itself the path of bhakti-yoga purified by svadharma-niṣṭhā (steadfastness in one's own duty). Therefore arise, O Kauṇteya: this rising — this utthāna (standing up) — is paramapuruṣārtha-lakṣaṇa-mokṣa-sādhana (means to the liberation that constitutes the supreme human aim), for as Kuntī's son this is precisely what befits you.

  divergence: Rāmānuja inserts paramaniḥśreyasa (mokṣa) where Śaṅkara reads only svarga — the phrase 'tata eva paramaniḥśreyasaṃ prāpsyasi' (from that very act you will obtain the supreme good) is unique to his bhāṣya and elevates the verse from practical consolation to explicit mokṣa-teaching.

• Madhvadvaita

  The jīva's (individual soul's) svadharma (own duty) as a kṣatriya is an expression of the nitya-sevā (eternal service) owed to Hari, and in Dvaita this service is never an autonomous calculation but a dependent act performed in surrender to the will of the sarvottama (supreme, Viṣṇu above all others). Whether the jīva is slain and attains svarga (the realm that Hari awards to the faithful warrior) or conquers and rules the earth, both outcomes flow from Hari's sva-tantra-icchā (independent will) — the jīva neither earns svarga by its own power nor secures the kingdom by its own power; it receives one or the other as Hari's niṣphalā-karma-phal (fruit given in response to duty performed without personal claiming). Therefore arise with kṛta-niścaya (fixed resolve): the certainty lies not in predicting the outcome but in the fact that svadharma-pālana (upholding one's own duty) is always the correct act under Viṣṇu's order.

  divergence: Madhva left no direct commentary on this śloka. This rendering is derived from Dvaita's core principles — the jīva's complete dependence on Hari's sva-tantra-icchā, the reality and distinctness of the jīva, and svadharma as sevā — applied to the verse's explicit structure of two alternatives both resolving to gain.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Slain, you gain svarga; victorious, you enjoy the earth — in both pakṣas (alternatives) the outcome is tava lābha (your gain), and this is Kṛṣṇa's answer to the confusion Arjuna expressed in 2.6: 'we do not know which is better.' The answer is that the question of 'which is better' is dissolved, because Kṛṣṇa's own prasāda (grace-dispensation) operates through both outcomes — the warrior who acts without personal calculation places himself in the current of Kṛṣṇa's līlā (divine play), in which dying and conquering are both forms of the same grace reaching different expressions. In Puṣṭi-mārga (the path of nourishment by grace), the rising called for in 'uttiṣṭha' is not an act of personal will-assertion but a surrender to Kṛṣṇa's command as the immediate form of His prasāda, so that the action that follows is the Lord's own through the instrument of the devotee.

  divergence: Vallabha's bhāṣya here is unusually brief — he confirms the two-outcome structure and the lābha conclusion, then moves on. The Puṣṭi-mārga inflection of prasāda and the dissolution of the 'which is better' anxiety via Kṛṣṇa's līlā-dynamic is the school's distinctive contribution over and above Śaṅkara's or Śrīdhara's parallel readings.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara reads the verse as directly answering Arjuna's stated confusion from BG 2.6 — 'na ca etad vidmaḥ kataran no garīyaḥ' (we do not know which of the two courses is more weighty for us) — by demonstrating that in pakṣa-dvaya (both alternatives) the result is tava lābha eva (only your gain): death yields svarga, victory yields kingship, and since both paths end in gain there is no ground for the weighing Arjuna wanted to perform. The bhakti-philological reading adds that this 'gain' is not merely material — svarga here points toward the divinizing effect of dying in righteous battle with a purified mind, while earthly rulership pursued without personal attachment sustains the dharma-order (dharma-vyavasthā) that is itself a form of service. Arise, therefore, as one who has understood that the Lord's instruction dissolves the either-or.

  divergence: Śrīdhara shares with Vallabha the explicit cross-reference to BG 2.6 and the pakṣa-dvaya-lābha structure, but inflects the earthly kingdom toward dharma-vyavasthā (maintenance of the dharmic order) as service, while Vallabha inflects both outcomes as expressions of Kṛṣṇa's prasāda-dispensed līlā.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana supplies what the other commentators omit: the aporetic structure behind Arjuna's paralysis. If Arjuna fights, the madhyastha (neutrals) will condemn him for killing teachers and elders; if he retreats, the enemies will condemn him as a coward — this is ubhayataḥ-pāśā rajjuḥ (a rope with nooses at both ends), censure is inescapable either way. Kṛṣṇa's response is not to escape the censure but to show that lābha-dhrauvya (the certainty of gain) is secured regardless of which outcome obtains: slain, you gain svarga; victorious, you enjoy the earth — and since yuddha-kartavyatā (the duty to fight) is niścita (certain) even when the individual outcome is uncertain, the indecision Arjuna confessed in 2.6 is dissolved. Therefore arise with kṛta-niścaya: not the resolve that one outcome is better than the other, but the resolve that the action itself is certain, whatever its fruit.

  divergence: Madhusūdana alone introduces the ubhayataḥ-pāśā (double-noose) framing — the censure dilemma, not just the outcome dilemma — and resolves it by shifting the certainty from the outcome to the duty itself: lābha-dhrauvya establishes that the duty holds even under outcome-uncertainty. This is philosophically the most rigorous resolution in the panel and explicitly closes BG 2.6.