Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 2, Verse 72: Krishna to Arjuna — Sāṅkhya-Yoga
This is the *brāhmī sthiti*, Arjuna, the grounded abiding in Brahman. Whoever reaches it is never deluded again, and even one who settles into it at the very moment of death attains the peace of Brahman.
Bhāṣyakāra purports
- Śaṅkaraadvaita
This is the brāhmī-sthiti (state of abidance in Brahman) — not a condition attained from outside, but the recognition that one has never been other than Brahman; Śaṅkara reads 'brahma-rūpeṇaiva avasthānam' (standing as Brahman alone) as the irreversible collapse of all karma through renunciation. Once this is seen, there is no moha (delusion) because there is no longer a separate seer to be deluded — the substrate of confusion has been destroyed, not suppressed. Even one who reaches this at the very moment of death attains brahma-nirvāṇa (extinction into Brahman), for anta-kāla (the final moment) is the last threshold at which the unreality of the body-bound self can become fully transparent.
- Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita
Rāmānuja reads brāhmī-sthiti as brahma-prāpikā (the state that conducts to Brahman), grounded in nitya-ātma-jñāna (knowledge of the eternal self) as the foundation for asaṅga-karma (detached action offered to Bhagavān); unlike Śaṅkara's dissolution, the jīva here retains individuality and arrives at brahma-nirvāṇa as sakhaikatānam ātmānam āpnoti — the ātman reaching its state of single-pointed bliss within Bhagavān's body-soul complex. The verse closes Chapter 2 by confirming that karma-yoga, performed with this understanding even late in life, is a sufficient vehicle: the structural unity of sāṃkhya-buddhi (discrimination) and yoga-buddhi (detached action) is the sthitadhī's lived posture.
- Madhvadvaita
For Madhva, brāhmī-sthiti is brahma-viṣayā sthitiḥ — orientation toward Brahman as an eternally distinct, supremely qualified being (Viṣṇu, whose ananta-guṇa and ananta-vigraha are insisted upon from śruti); the jīva who abides in this at death goes to Brahman, while those who do not are returned to rebirth per 'yaṃ yaṃ vāpi smaran' (BG 8.6). Critically, Madhva argues that even a jñānī with prārabdha-karma may traverse multiple bodies before final liberation — the sthitaprajña, having ascended to Rudra-pada, attains mukti only through Viṣṇu's prasāda (grace), not through the mere cognitive act of knowing. Brahma-nirvāṇa means the jīva's bodiless bliss (nirvaṇam aśarīram) in Viṣṇu's presence, never merger.
- Vallabhaśuddhādvaita
Vallabha reads brāhmī-sthiti as brahma-sambandhinī — the state that belongs to Brahman and is characterized by brahma-sthiti-lakṣaṇā sthitadhī; 'brahma hi nirdoṣaṃ samam' (Brahman is flawless and equal) is the doctrinal ground from which Vallabha insists the verse praises a yoga-like abidance that yields brahma-sukham (the bliss of Brahman), not mere cessation. In Puṣṭi-mārga this is not an achievement of sādhanā but a gift: one who has received Kṛṣṇa's grace (puṣṭi-prasāda) rests already in this brāhmī ground, and the 'even at the moment of death' clause signals that Kṛṣṇa's grace can descend at any instant, making the closing verse an implicit invocation of Kṛṣṇa's sovereign freedom to liberate.
- Śrīdharabhakti
Śrīdhara reads brāhmī-sthitiḥ as brahma-jñāna-niṣṭhā (firm establishment in knowledge of Brahman), and the crucial qualifier he adds is that the one who attains it is 'śuddhānta-karaṇaḥ pumān' — a person whose inner instrument has been purified through parameśvarārādhana (worship of the supreme Lord). This is Śrīdhara's characteristically bhakti-inflected move: jñāna-niṣṭhā is not available through intellect alone but is the fruit of devotional purification. The phrase 'kṣaṇam api sthitvā' (even standing for a single moment in this state at the time of death) signals that the final immersion into brahma-nirvāṇa is a mercy available to the sincere devotee even at the last breath.
- Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti
Madhusūdana concludes his Chapter 2 commentary by holding the tension his entire bhāṣya has sustained: this brāhmī-sthiti is at once sārva-karma-saṃnyāsa-pūrvaka-paramātma-jñāna-lakṣaṇā (the highest self-knowledge preceded by renunciation of all karma) in the Advaita register, and simultaneously the 'karma-yoga-phala-bhūtā sāṃkhya-niṣṭhā' — the fruit that karma-yoga itself conducts to. Once avidyā (ignorance) is destroyed by jñāna, there is no re-arising, 'anāditvenā utpatti-asambhavāt' (because what has no beginning cannot re-originate); Madhusūdana's synthesis point is that bhakti and jñāna are not competing paths but a single śreyas (highest good) whose surface distinction dissolves in the akhanda-brahma-nirvāṇa that this verse names.