Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 2, Verse 65: Krishna to Arjuna — Sāṅkhya-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  When prasāda (prasāda: serene lucidity of the inner organ) arises in the yati (renunciant), the three orders of duḥkha — ādhyātmika, ādhibhautika, ādhidaivika — are annihilated at their root, for they are nothing but the exfoliation of avidyā (nescience). Because the antaḥkaraṇa (inner faculty) stands unobstructed, buddhi settles everywhere like ākāśa (space), becoming immovable in the very form of ātman. This is the fruit of rāga-dveṣa-muktais indriyais (senses freed from attraction and aversion): the sthita-prajña's kṛtakṛtyatā (completeness-of-action) is simply that the jñāna which was always present now admits no contrary movement.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Prasāda here is the mind's clearance of all defects that obstruct ātmāvalokana (self-vision directed toward Bhagavān as inner Self); when that clearance obtains, all duḥkha born of prakṛti-saṃsarga (entanglement with matter) is severed entirely. The buddhi then, freed of every virodhi-doṣa (obstructing fault), settles steadily in the vivikta-ātman-viṣaya (field of the disclosed, distinct ātman) — and crucially, Rāmānuja adds, that settledness is a settledness 'in Me,' Bhagavān being both the ground of the ātman and its final resting-place. Where Śaṅkara reads ākāśa-like diffusion, Rāmānuja reads kainkarya-oriented stability: buddhi rests not in undifferentiated brahman but in personal Bhagavān experienced as the self's own inmost support.

• Madhvadvaita

  Prasāda alone is not a mental state the jīva manufactures; it is the withdrawal of viṣaya-gati (the mind's habitual outward flow toward sense-objects), a movement that is svataḥ, spontaneously granted by Hari's anugraha (grace). When that withdrawal is real, buddhi achieves brahma-aparokṣya (non-mediated, direct apprehension of Brahman) — a sthiti (stable state) distinct from mere inference or reflection. The jīva remains eternally paratantra (dependent), and its prasāda is never self-generated; the verse therefore silently establishes that duḥkha-hāni is Hari's gift, not the jīva's achievement, a point Madhva reads as decisive against the Advaita claim that the jīva's own buddhi can reach liberation by its own clarification.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha reads 2.64–2.65 as a single unit: even the sādhaka who moves among viṣayas (sense-objects) with indriyais rāga-dveṣa-viyuktais (senses detached from craving and aversion) can arrive at prasāda — here understood as praśānti (supreme peace), not merely mental calm. The verse is therefore not an injunction to suppress the senses but a revelation of Kṛṣṇa's own līlā-prasāda: wherever vaiśamya (the pull of worldly objects) no longer governs, Kṛṣṇa's grace fills the vacated space instantly. Prājña-pratiṣṭhā (the stable wisdom of the sthita-prajña) is thus not the practitioner's construction — it is recognized as Kṛṣṇa's own svarūpa-śakti (essential power) resting undisturbed in a vessel that no longer obstructs it.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara states the logic plainly: prasāde sati (when prasāda obtains), sarva-duḥkha-nāśa (annihilation of all suffering) follows; and from that annihilation, buddhi becomes pratiṣṭhitā (firmly established) in the prasanna-cetas (the serene-minded one). The sequence is exegetically tight — prasāda → duḥkha-kṣaya → buddhi-sthairya — and Śrīdhara's voice makes it devotionally available: prasāda is not the remote fruit of adept yoga alone but the natural result of bhagavat-smaraṇa (remembrance of Bhagavān) dissolving the cakravāla (churning wheel) of kleśa. The bhakta thus finds in this single verse the full arc: surrender yields serenity, serenity dissolves sorrow, dissolved sorrow lets wisdom sit still.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana lays out an explicit causal cascade: citta-prasāda (lucidity of consciousness) → buddhi-paryavasthāna (stable settling of intelligence in brahma-ātma-aikyākāra, the form of brahman-ātman unity) → nivṛtti of the viparīta-bhāvanā (contrary mental movements) → nivṛtti of avidyā-vilasita (the play of nescience) → hāni of sarva-duḥkha. The logic works in forward sequence even though the verse states duḥkha-hāni first, and Madhusūdana resolves this by noting that the verse foregrounds the fruit to motivate the yati toward prasāda-sādhanā (discipline aimed at serenity). Unlike Śaṅkara who locates prasāda entirely within the ātman's own ākāśa-like nature, Madhusūdana's synthesis insists that the bhakti-rasa animating this prasāda is precisely the flavoring that makes the ākāśa-like buddhi luminous rather than inert.