Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 2, Verse 44: Krishna to Arjuna — Sāṅkhya-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Those whose hearts are seized by that flower-decked speech — absorbed in enjoyment (bhoga) and lordship (aiśvarya) as ends in themselves — find that the one-pointed conviction (vyavasāyātmikā buddhi) required for Sāṅkhya or Yoga never settles in their inner instrument (antaḥkaraṇa). Śaṅkara reads samādhi here not as meditative trance but as the antaḥkaraṇa itself: the organ of discernment in which viveka-prajñā must be seated. Where that organ is veiled (āccchādita-viveka-prajñā) by the clamor of Vedic injunctions promising perishable rewards, it cannot receive the non-dual recognition that alone terminates saṃsāra.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Rāmānuja reads samādhi as manas, the mind that must be steadied on Bhagavān; for the mumukṣu, the decisive buddhi here is specifically ātma-yāthātmya-niścaya — the settled conviction of the self's real nature as the mode (prakāra) of Īśvara. Those whose minds are drawn away (apahṛta) toward kāmya-karma lose precisely this conviction, and without it karma cannot function as bhakti-yoga preparation. Therefore, Rāmānuja concludes with a direct practical injunction: the seeker of liberation must not form any attachment to desire-motivated rites, however Veda-sanctioned they appear.

• Madhvadvaita

  Madhva identifies the buddhi at stake as samyak-yukti-nirṇayātmikā — the understanding constituted by correct logical determination — and the samādhi as manaḥ-samādhāna directed toward Īśvara, which is the sole instrument of liberation. His gloss is pointed and polemical: proper determination of meaning (samyag-nirṇīta-artha) enables genuine fixing of the mind on Hari, and nothing else qualifies as mokṣa-sādhana. He seals the argument with BhP 5.11.3: even the finest speech (varīyasī vācaḥ) cannot convey tattva to one who, like a householder dreaming of pleasures, has never allowed the inferential recognition that those pleasures are fit to be abandoned.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha's commentary is deliberately compressed: for those whose cetas is carried off (apahṛta) by that speech and who are devoted to kāmya-karma, the one (ekā) vyavasāyātmikā buddhi whose object is samādhi is not established — or more precisely, it is not specially established (viśeṣeṇa na sthāpyate). The locative hṛdi signals that the heart (hṛdaya) is the site where Kṛṣṇa's prasāda alone can implant this buddhi; when the heart is occupied by desire for bhoga and aiśvarya, there is no vacancy for Kṛṣṇa's sovereign gift. The failure is not a moral failing but a topological one: the space is simply taken.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara glosses samādhi as cittaikāgrya parameśvara-aikāgrya-abhimukhatva — one-pointedness of mind directed toward the Supreme Lord — and this precise gloss transforms the verse from an epistemological observation into a devotional diagnosis. The puspitā vāk (flowery speech) has not merely confused the intellect; it has actively seduced the citta away from its natural orientation toward Parameśvara. Śrīdhara preserves the karmakartari prayoga noted in the grammar: na vidhīyate means na utpadyate — this buddhi simply does not arise, cannot be called forth, in minds whose devotional vector has been hijacked by the scent of ritual reward.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana reads 2.42–2.44 as a single pratibandhaka (obstacle) argument: the question is why even those exposed to the same Vedic pramāṇa fail to develop vyavasāyātmikā buddhi, and his answer is phala-abhisandhi-doṣa — the defect of fruit-expectation that makes ritual karma generate a bhoga-anugata śuddhi (a purification fitted to enjoyment) rather than the jñāna-upayoginī śuddhi (purification serviceable to knowledge). He is unambiguous: niṣkāma-karma produces the second; sakāma-karma, however Veda-sanctioned, produces only the first. The Advaita register then clinches the point: the samādhi here is ahaṃ brahmeti avasthānam — the settled stance of 'I am Brahman' — and such a stance cannot take root in a mind colonized by the tripartite promise of birth, rite, and perishable reward.