Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 2, Verse 54: Krishna to Arjuna — Sāṅkhya-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Arjuna opens the sthitaprajña inquiry with surgical precision: he asks not merely what such a one says or does, but what his bhāṣā (language-mark, defining character) is — recognising that a person whose prajñā (wisdom) is sthitā (steadily established) in the non-dual identity 'aham asmi paraṃ brahma' (I am the supreme Brahman) inhabits a mode of being that ordinary conduct-categories cannot capture. Śaṅkara reads the three sub-questions — 'How does he speak? How does he sit? How does he move?' — as a single request for sādhana-lakṣaṇa: the marks of the liberated man are identical with the disciplines the aspirant must practise, because in adhyātma-śāstra the kṛtārtha and the sādhaka converge. The question therefore pivots the entire second chapter: whatever answer Kṛṣṇa gives about the sthitaprajña will double as the map of the jñāna-yoga path.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Arjuna asks for the vācaka-śabda — the right word, the identifying term — for one who abides in samādhi with steady prajñā, because Rāmānuja understands bhāṣā here as both the outer name and the inner svarūpa (essential nature): to know what such a person is called is to know what they are. The question has a devotional undertow: Arjuna addresses Kṛṣṇa as Keśava (the sovereign of Brahmā and Rudra) precisely because only the indwelling Lord can authoritatively declare the marks of a mind perfected in kainkarya (loving service). By asking how the sthitaprajña speaks and moves, Arjuna is really asking what bhakti-yoga — action surrendered as service — looks like when it has matured into unbroken realisation.

• Madhvadvaita

  Madhva parses bhāṣā strictly: it means 'that by which one is described,' i.e., the defining lakṣaṇa (mark) — and he deliberately notes that Arjuna is not asking out of ignorance but to elicit a formal re-statement of what ancient kings and divine seers already knew, yet whose meaning remains concealed from those of contracted understanding (alpabuddhi). The address 'Keśava' receives Madhva's characteristic etymological force: Ka-Ī-śa-va — the one who sustains Brahmā (Ka), Lakṣmī-pati (Ī), and Śaṅkara (Śa) — establishing that only Hari, who is utterly distinct from every jīva (individual soul), possesses the authority to define the mark of a jīva who is fully dependent on Him. The question thus frames the entire lakṣaṇa discourse as a declaration about Hari's supremacy, not merely a portrait of a quiet sage.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha reads this verse as a beautifully structured moment of śiṣya-inquiry: Arjuna, having received Kṛṣṇa's words about the steadfast (sthira-prajña) in the prior verse, now asks for two things simultaneously — the svarūpa (the intrinsic nature of such a person) and the anuṣṭhāna-prakāra (the mode of their conduct). The phrase samādhisthasya is not a redundant gloss but a precision: Vallabha reads samādhi as one's natural immersion in Kṛṣṇa's līlā (divine play), the state where Bhagavān's prasāda (grace) has fully saturated the being. To ask 'what is his bhāṣā' in the Puṣṭi-mārga reading is therefore to ask: how does the recipient of Kṛṣṇa's grace move through the world — and the question opens space for Kṛṣṇa to describe not an ascetic ideal but the radiance of a soul filled with His own reality.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara opens his comment by identifying the questioner's motivation precisely: Arjuna desires to know the lakṣaṇa (defining marks) of the ātma-tattva-jña (knower of Self-truth) described in the preceding verse, and he asks as a jijñāsu (sincere seeker). Śrīdhara glosses sthitaprajña as the one whose prajñā — his discriminating wisdom — is sthitā (unwavering, niścalā) because he abides in the natural (svābhāvika) samādhi that does not require effort to maintain. The three-fold question — ka bhāṣā (what marks him?), kiṃ prabhāṣeta (how does he speak?), kim āsīta vrajeta kiṃ (how does he sit and move?) — maps onto the full span of inner and outer life, and Śrīdhara's bhakti-philological reading implies that the answer will reveal not merely a philosophical type but a living person whom bhaktas can recognise and emulate.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana sees Arjuna seizing an opening — labhdhāvasara, 'having found the occasion' — to ask about the jīvanmukta, the one liberated while still alive, because he correctly grasps that the marks of the already-free are identical to the means (upāya) for those still seeking freedom. He distinguishes two states within the sthitaprajña: samādhistha (the one whose mind is absorbed in 'ahaṃ brahmāsmi') and vyutthita (the same person when the mind has temporarily emerged), and he maps the four sub-questions accordingly — one question for the absorbed state, three for the emerged. The address 'Keśava' is read by Madhusūdana as a signal that only the sarvāntaryāmin (universal indweller) can reveal such a secret — and this synthesis of jñāna with devotion to Kṛṣṇa as the ultimate revealer is precisely the advaita-bhakti signature: liberation-knowledge flows through the grace of the personal Lord.