Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 2, Verse 51: Krishna to Arjuna — Sāṅkhya-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Those equipped with samatvā-buddhi (equanimity-intellect) abandon the karma-phala (fruit born of action) — specifically, the accrual of desirable and undesirable bodies that constitutes rebirth — because that abandonment is itself the mechanism by which jñāna is disclosed. Becoming thereby maniṣiṇaḥ (men of discernment), they are liberated from janma-bandha (the bondage that IS birth) even while living; birth is not a corridor through which liberation passes but the very fetter that is severed. They attain the parama-pada (supreme station) of Viṣṇu — mokṣa named as anāmaya, utterly free of all upadrava (affliction), which is not a place arrived at but the recognition of what was never bound.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Those yoked to buddhi-yoga perform their prescribed karma while relinquishing its phala (fruit), and this relinquishment is not a private psychological act but a liturgical surrender — action becomes kainkarya (service offered to Bhagavān) stripped of self-referential demand. Rāmānuja grounds this in upaniṣadic consensus: 'hi prasiddham etat sarvāsu upaniṣatsu' — this truth is well-attested across all the Upaniṣads, making niṣkāma-karma no mere ethical recommendation but the architecturally established path. From janma-bandha-vinimuktāḥ (those fully freed from the bondage of birth) the padam anāmayam (the station without affliction, the Lord's own abode) is not achieved by merit but disclosed as the natural telos of a self that has ceased generating future births through desire-driven action.

• Madhvadvaita

  Madhva specifies the operative mechanism precisely: karma-jam phalam tyaktvā is not merely non-attachment but an active 'akāmanayā Īśvarāya samarpya' — surrendering to Īśvara by desire-free dedication, which converts karma into upāsanā (worship). The jīva (individual soul), eternally distinct from Hari, has no independent claim on liberation; karma functions as a jñāna-sādhana (instrument for genuine knowledge of Hari), and that jñāna is in turn the mokṣa-sādhana (instrument for liberation). The verse thus presents a two-link causal chain: desireless action dedicated to Hari → right knowledge of Hari → liberation — each link presupposing the jīva's irreducible dependence on Bhagavān at every stage.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha reads this verse as describing the siddhi (accomplishment) of those who follow sādācāra (right conduct) in yogic life — they relinquish karma-ja phala (fruit born of action) and, freed from janma-bandha (birth-as-bondage), reach the anāmaya pada which Vallabha specifically identifies as the akṣara-ākhya dhāma (the abode named Akṣara, the imperishable realm) and svarūpa (one's own essential form). This destination is not an external mokṣa through renunciation but the recognition and return to one's own constitutional nature as a spark of Kṛṣṇa's ānanda (bliss) — fruit-abandonment is the condition that removes the obscuring veil of svārtha (self-interest) to allow Kṛṣṇa's prasāda (grace) to operate unimpeded.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara frames this verse as explaining the precise mode by which karma functions as a mokṣa-sādhana (instrument of liberation): actions performed kevalam Īśvarārādhana-artham eva (solely for the purpose of worship of Īśvara) — with all phala relinquished — purify the practitioner into maniṣiṇaḥ (persons of genuine wisdom) who, freed from the janma-rūpa-bandha (the bondage that consists in birth itself), reach the anāmaya pada of Viṣṇu, which is sarvopadrava-rahita (free from every affliction). The path is neither cold renunciation nor mere ethical neutrality but the transformation of daily obligatory action into an unbroken offering — the very structure of karma re-consecrated as devotion.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana resolves a prior objection — that abandoning even puṇya-phala (meritorious fruit) risks losing the very purāṣārtha (human aim) — by showing that the sacrifice of tuccha-phala (trivial fruit) opens the way to parama-purāṣārtha (the supreme human aim). Those equipped with samatva-buddhi perform karma kevalam Īśvarārādhana-artham (solely as worship of Īśvara), and through this sattva-śuddhi (purification of the inner organ), become maniṣiṇaḥ endowed with the ātma-maniṣā born from mahāvākya-s such as 'tat tvam asi.' Such persons attain the anāmaya pada — Brahman as ānanda-rūpa ātma-tattva, free from avidyā (nescience) and its entire karya (effects) — and approach it not as an external destination but through abheda (non-difference), the advaitin's mokṣa fulfilled within bhakti's vocabulary of surrender.