Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 2, Verse 70: Krishna to Arjuna — Sāṅkhya-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  When all desires (kāmāḥ) flow into a person as rivers flow into the ocean that is ever being filled yet stands unmoved — they dissolve back into the ātman (ātmani eva pralīyante) without making it their servant. The kāma-kāmī (one with the habit of craving objects) mistakes the inflow for a summons and is swept away; the jñānin recognises it as the ocean recognising rain — it changes nothing. Peace here is not relief from objects but mokṣa: the permanent extinguishing of the very structure that could be disturbed.

  divergence: Śaṅkara: 'kāmāḥ sarvata icchāviśeṣāḥ yaṃ puruṣam samudram iva āpaḥ avidurvantaḥ praviśanti sarvae ātmany eva pralīyante na svātmavaśaṃ kurvanti' — they do not make the knower their subject; śānti = mokṣa explicitly.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The saṃyamī (the one who has gathered the senses) is filled from within by svātmāvalokanatṛpti (the satisfaction that is self-seeing); when śabda and the other viṣayas arrive at indriyagocaratā (the field of the senses) it is like tributaries entering the ocean — their arrival or absence changes nothing because the ocean's fullness is not borrowed from the rivers. This is not the aloofness of the renunciant who has fled experience: it is the secure rest of one whose joy draws on Bhagavān as the inner regulator, not on what the senses report. The kāma-kāmī, by contrast, is constituted by what enters him.

  divergence: Rāmānuja: 'svātmāvalokanatṛptyā eva yo na vikāram āpnoti sa eva śāntim āpnoti' — fullness precedes the inflow; it is self-vision-fullness, not sense-withdrawal.

• Madhvadvaita

  The liberated jīva — and only the jīva who is eternally distinct from and dependent upon Hari — neither swells when viṣayas pour in nor withers when they are absent, because the jīva's ground is Hari's will, not the flux of prakṛti. Madhva presses the ocean simile precisely: the ocean does not exert effort (prayatna) to accept rivers, nor does it reach for them; it simply abides in its own depth. The kāma-kāmī makes effort, hopes, fears, cycles — the mukta simply is what it is in Hari's hands. Mukti accrues to the one who is established in that dependence.

  divergence: Madhva: 'na ca prayatnaṃ karoti na cābhāve śuṣyati... sa muktiṃ prāpnotītyarthaḥ' — no effort toward inflow, no drought from outflow; mukti is the result.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  In the Puṣṭi reading the directionality of the simile reverses into a marvel: it is not merely that the sādhaka receives objects unmoved — it is that kāmas themselves flow toward the āptakāma (the one already full of Kṛṣṇa's prasāda), because fullness draws fullness. Even when the ocean is kṣubdha (churned by waves), it remains acala-pratiṣṭha (unmoved in its foundation) — the surface turbulence of upādhi-born desires cannot disorder the svarūpa that is saturated with Kṛṣṇa-ānanda. Śānti here tastes like fullness meeting fullness, not like restraint.

  divergence: Vallabha: 'yathā samudro na kaṃ pratiyāti kintu taṃ pratyevāpaḥ sarvā yānti tathā kāmāḥ sarve tam eva viśanti' — the ocean does not go toward the rivers; they come to it. āptakāmaḥ attracts.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  The muni whose antarḍṛṣṭi (inner sight) is undisturbed receives viṣayas that are swept toward him by prārabdha-karma as rivers enter an ocean whose boundaries are never exceeded — nānānānadībhir āpūryamāṇam api acala-pratiṣṭham anatitrānta-maryādam. The crucial phrase is bhogair avikrīyamāṇam eva: objects arrive, but they cannot produce vikāra in one who is already bhogair avikrīyamāṇa. The kāma-kāmī is identified as bhogakāmanāśīla — one whose very disposition is wishing for the objects; that orientation, not the arrival of objects itself, is what bars śānti (= kaivalya).

  divergence: Śrīdhara: 'tathā kāmā viṣayā yaṃ munim antarḍṛṣṭiṃ bhogair avikrīyamāṇam eva prārabdhakarmabhir ākṣiptāḥ santaḥ praviśanti sa śāntiṃ kaivalyaṃ prāpnoti' — Sanskrit content only, excluding JS artifacts.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana holds two fires together: the sthitaprajña is a mahāsamudra (great ocean) and it is jñānabala — the strength of direct knowledge — that preserves nirvikaratva (unchangeability) even when prārabdha-karma forces viṣayas into the range of experience. This is not mere detachment: it is the complete quenching of both laukika and alaukika vikṣepa (worldly and trans-worldly agitation), and simultaneously the bādhitānuvṛttāvidyākāryanivṛtti (the cessation of the residual traces of avidyā already sublated). The synthesis crowns the verse: the jñānin who also loves Kṛṣṇa exemplifies this because their bhakti produces the same mahāsamudra-depth from below while jñāna withdraws the shore.

  divergence: Madhusūdana: 'sa mahāsamudrasthānīyaḥ sthitaprajñaḥ śāntiṃ sarvalauki-kālaukikakarmavikṣeṇanivṛttiṃ bādhitānuvṛttāvidyākāryanivṛttiṃ cāpnoti jñānabaleha' — dual-front cessation, mahāsamudra = sthitaprajña.