Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 2, Verse 63: Krishna to Arjuna — Sāṅkhya-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  From anger arises saṃmoha (complete non-discrimination between what ought and ought not to be done) — the enraged man, bewildered, even reviles his own guru. From that saṃmoha comes smṛti-vibhrama (the non-arising of memory at the very moment its occasion presents itself) — the impressions deposited by śāstra and ācārya go unactivated. From smṛti-bhraṃśa the antaḥkaraṇa loses its capacity for viveka (discriminative fitness) — and this incapacity is precisely what buddhi-nāśa means. Once the inner instrument is rendered unfit for discerning kārya from akārya, the puruṣa simply ceases — he becomes praṇaṣṭa, unfit for any puruṣārtha whatsoever, as though annihilated.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Anger produces saṃmoha — a total emptiness of kṛtya-akṛtya-viveka — and in that emptied state the jīva acts without restraint. The already-undertaken effort toward indriya-jaya and self-discipline then suffers smṛti-bhraṃśa: the remembrance of Bhagavān's sovereignty over all action dissolves. With that dissolution comes buddhi-nāśa — the destruction of the vyavasāya (firm resolve) directed toward ātma-jñāna and bhakti. Once that resolve is gone, the jīva sinks once more into saṃsāra, utterly lost — naṣṭa — as though never having set out.

• Madhvadvaita

  Kṛṣṇa here names the cause of rāgādi-doṣa so it can be excised: saṃmoha is adharma-icchā — the very desire for what is against Hari's law, as the Upagītā explicitly states. Smṛti-vibhrama is the erasure of pratiṣedha-smṛti — the memory of injunctions and prohibitions that hold the jīva within dharma. Buddhi-nāśa is the total collapse of the capacity to see a fault as a fault — doṣa-buddhi-nāśa. From that ruin the jīva falls into naraka: the Hari-dependent jīva who forgets Hari's order does not merely suffer — he inverts, making narakatva his destination.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Having shown the outer fault — failure to restrain the external senses — Kṛṣṇa now shows the inner fault: where mano-nirodha (restraint of the mind) is absent even the senses are held futilely. The mind that meditates on viṣaya produces āsakti, āsakti produces kāma, frustrated kāma ignites krodha, krodha destroys viveka, and then the smṛti of śāstra and ācārya's teaching dissolves. The vyavasāyātmikā buddhi — the resolving intelligence that is Kṛṣṇa's own gift in this very chapter — collapses. Without it the sādhaka becomes prākṛta eva, mere ordinary nature again, unrefined, as though Kṛṣṇa's prasāda had never touched him.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  From krodha comes saṃmoha — the absence of kārya-akārya-viveka, the inability to tell right action from wrong. From that saṃmoha comes vibhrama of smṛti — a wavering and dislodging of the memory of what śāstra and ācārya have taught. From that smṛti-vibhrama follows nāśa of buddhi — cetanā itself is overwhelmed, as life is overcome in a tree by disease. From that buddhi-nāśa the person praṇaśyati — becomes mṛta-tulya (equivalent to the dead), no longer fit to walk the path of bhakti or dharma.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Even the sādhaka who has restrained the outer senses is not safe: if the mind still meditates on viṣaya, āsakti arises, āsakti produces kāma, and obstructed kāma becomes krodha. From krodha arises saṃmoha — the absence of kārya-akārya-viveka. From saṃmoha comes smṛti-vibhrama — the displacement of smṛti that continually tracks śāstra and ācārya-upadeśa. From smṛti-bhraṃśa comes the nāśa of aikātmyākāra-mano-vṛtti (the mental mode that cognizes non-duality) — either it cannot arise at all, or having arisen it cannot bear fruit. And from that buddhi-nāśa the puruṣa praṇaśyati — becomes unfit for every puruṣārtha — which is why the Lord's earlier injunction, 'tāni sarvāṇi saṃyamya yukta āsīta,' was entirely warranted.