Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 2, Verse 62: Krishna to Arjuna — Sāṅkhya-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  When the mind turns the sense-objects (viṣayāḥ — sound, form, taste, and the rest) over and over in contemplation, the knot of āsakti (attachment, prīti) tightens around them, says Śaṅkara — for dhyāna here means nothing mystical but the ordinary mental replaying of desirable objects. Out of that prīti arises kāma (tṛṣṇā — the thirst that demands possession), and when that thirst is blocked by any circumstance whatsoever, it converts in an instant to krodha (fury). The cascade thus runs entirely within the antaḥkaraṇa (inner instrument); the outer world only supplies the first image — the destruction is self-generated, which is precisely why jñāna, not mere willpower, is the only lasting exit.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Rāmānuja begins with a diagnostically precise observation absent in Śaṅkara: even the sādhaka (spiritual aspirant) who has technically restrained the senses will, if the mind has not been surrendered to Bhagavān, still be pulled into viṣaya-dhyāna (meditation on objects) by the anādi-pāpa-vāsanā (the beginningless saṃskāra of past sins) — restraint of limbs is insufficient. Once that replay begins, the saṅga (adherence) grows atipravṛddha (excessively inflamed), and kāma then reaches the vipakvadaśā (fully ripened state) in which the puruṣa literally cannot remain without consuming the object; when the object is then obstructed by other persons present, krodha erupts against them. The remedy Rāmānuja implies is anivasitatā — placing the mind inward upon Bhagavān so thoroughly that no bandwidth remains for viṣaya replay.

• Madhvadvaita

  Madhva reads 2.62-63 together as a single śāstric proof-text establishing rāgādi-doṣa-kāraṇa (the causal sequence of the passion-defects), which he anchors in two supporting citations: the Upagītā's identification of moha as adharmecchā (desire for unrighteousness), and the further śruti-statement 'adharma-kāminaḥ śāstre vismṛtir jāyate' — the one who desires adharma necessarily develops amnesia for śāstra. The term sammohāḥ in 2.63 is thus not mere confusion but specifically dharma-blindness; smṛti-vibhramaḥ is the erasure of the prohibitory injunctions one has studied; and praṇaśyati means the jīva literally falls into naraka (hell). For Madhva, the stakes are ontological: the eternally dependent jīva who severs its cognitive link to Hari's ordinances thereby severs its only protection.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha situates 2.62 within a paired fourfold analysis: after showing the danger of external-sense (bāhyendriya) non-restraint in the preceding verses, here Kṛṣṇa shows the parallel danger of mano-nirodha-abhāva (failure to restrain the mind), the two forming a complete grid of downfall. The contemplation of objects (dhyāyataḥ) produces āsakti, then kāmābhilāṣa (the desire-wish), then krodha from the mere experience of obstruction — and the cascade terminates, as Vallabha carefully adds, in an utterly mundane collapse: the practitioner becomes 'prākṛta eva' (merely natural/material again), all accumulated śuddhi dissolved, rendered aviśuddha (impure) once more. The implication of Puṣṭi-mārga is clear: the only escape from this mechanical cascade is surrender to Kṛṣṇa's prasāda (grace), not unaided vairāgya, for the cascade operates beneath the level where willpower can intervene.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara Svāmī, noting the structural transition in the argument, marks this verse as the second diagnostic pair: having named the dangers of bāhyendriya non-restraint, the Gītā now names the dangers of manaḥ non-restraint — and the mechanism is guṇabuddhi, cognizing objects through the lens of their guṇas (pleasurable qualities) rather than seeing through them to Brahman. From that guṇa-rooted cognition, āsakti (adhesion) forms; āsakti intensifies into adhika-kāma (inflamed desire); and kāma, struck by any obstacle, ignites krodha. Śrīdhara's voice is measured: he neither dramatizes the cascade nor diminishes it, trusting the verse's own logic to carry its weight, and implicitly pointing toward bhakti as the reorientation of guṇabuddhi — one who sees Kṛṣṇa in the object perceives not a desirable guṇa but a refraction of the Beloved.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana frames this verse with a pūrvapakṣa (opponent's objection) that sharpens its edge: surely one who has already restrained the outer senses is safe, like a serpent whose fangs have been pulled — what harm can come from an unrestrained mind if no outer action follows? The siddhānta: even that person, if the mind replays viṣayāḥ, develops the śobhanādhyāsa (the superimposed brightness — the false radiance that objects take on in the mind's eye), which he calls prīti-viśeṣa (a particular quality of love directed at objects rather than at Brahman). This śobhanādhyāsa generates kāma (defined precisely as tṛṣṇā-viśeṣa — a particular thirst), kāma generates krodha when obstructed, krodha generates sammohana (loss of discriminative capacity, viveka-abhāva), sammohana destroys smṛti (the internalized instructions of śāstra and guru), and from smṛti-bhrāṃśa the bimba-buddhi (the reflective mental mode that mirrors Ātman) never arises — leaving the puruṣa unfit for any of the four puruṣārthas, which Madhusūdana glosses as equivalent to death: 'yo hi puruṣārthasya yogyo jātaḥ sa mṛta eva.'