Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 3, Verse 13: Krishna to Arjuna — Karma-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Those who eat the remainder of yajña (sacrifice) — called amṛta (nectar) — are purified of all kilbiṣa (sins) arising from the pañca-sūnā (five household violences: grinding, pounding, hearth, water-pot, broom) and from negligent harm. But those āṭambhara (self-feeders) who cook solely for ātman (self) without performing vaiśvadeva and similar rites accumulate agha (sin) upon agha — they are already pāpa (sinful) and eat only that sin. Śaṅkara presses this point as a bridge to the cosmic wheel: action must be performed because it sustains jagat-cakra (the wheel of the world), not to fatten the self.

  divergence: Śaṅkara's bhāṣya explicitly names the pañca-sūnā as the source of unavoidable domestic sin and calls yajña-śiṣṭa 'amṛtākhyam' (named nectar), grounding purification in ritual completion rather than devotional sentiment.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The Supreme Person (parama-puruṣa) stands present within Indra and all devas; one who gathers materials, cooks, offers to that indwelling Lord, and then eats only the śiṣṭa (remainder) is performing kainkarya (devoted service) and is thereby freed from all anādi (beginningless) kilbiṣas — those very sins that obstruct ātma-yāthātmya (true self-knowledge). Those who invert this order — treating as their own what the Lord gave for His own worship — eat only agha; Rāmānuja adds that such persons, turned away from ātma-avalokana (self-vision), are 'ripening for hell' (narakāya eva pacyante). Every act of cooking is either an offering to the indwelling Bhagavān or a compounding of bondage.

  divergence: Rāmānuja's bhāṣya uniquely identifies the sin as obstructing ātma-yāthātmya-avalokana (vision of the self's true nature) and explicitly names the Lord as present in the form of Indra and the devas — a theological move absent in Śaṅkara.

• Madhvadvaita

  *Yajña-śiṣṭāśinaḥ* (those who eat the remnant of sacrifice) — *santo mucyante sarva-kilbiṣaiḥ*: the *santo* (the virtuous) are freed from all *kilbiṣa* (sin-accumulation). Those who cook solely *ātma-kāraṇāt* (for their own sake) *bhuñjate agham* — they eat transgression itself. The distinction is ontological, not merely ritual. The *jīva* is irreducibly *paratantra* (eternally dependent) on *svatantra* Hari; every act of eating, cooking, and offering either enacts or violates that dependence. To offer to Viṣṇu first and receive back *prasāda* is to perform *bheda* (real distinction) correctly: the Lord gives, the *jīva* receives, the hierarchy of *taratamya* (graded hierarchy) is affirmed in the very act of swallowing. To eat without offering is to behave as though the *jīva* were self-originating — the precise inversion of *pañca-bheda* (the five-fold real distinction). *Agha* here is not merely impurity but the enacted assertion of false *svatantratā* in a being constitutionally incapable of it. The freed *santa* does not dissolve into Hari; he arrives, purified, at right relation — subordinate, real, distinct.

  divergence: No Madhva or Jayatīrtha bhāṣya is extant for BG 3.13. Reading voiced directly from Dvaita siddhānta off the mūla.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  *Pañca-vidha-yajño bhagavat-svarūpas* (the fivefold sacrifice is the Lord's own form): those who eat of its *śiṣṭa* (remainder) — *tac-chiṣṭāśinaḥ* — are freed, *sarve 'pi mucyante gṛhiṇaḥ*, all householders without exception. The *śiṣṭa* is not an offering returned from outside but the Lord's own form received back as *prasāda*; *kilbiṣa* dissolves by that direct contact, not by the eater's exertion. Those who cook only for themselves, *ātma-kāraṇāt*, take on *agha* (sin) — they have bypassed the Lord's form entirely and so receive only bondage. In *puṣṭi-mārga*, the whole logic turns on identity: *yajña* is *bhagavat-svarūpa*, eating its remainder is *sevā*, and liberation is the fruit of that contact.

  divergence: The phrase *pañca-vidha-yajño bhagavat-svarūpaḥ* is the central move; it collapses the distance between ritual act and *darśana* (vision of the Lord) that Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja maintain. For Vallabha there is no *māyā* interposing between the rite and Brahman — the sacrifice *is* Kṛṣṇa's body, making *śiṣṭa-bhojana* a direct reception of the divine, not a symbolic or mediated one.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara grounds the verse in smārta (traditional) householder discipline: those who eat what remains after vaiśvadeva and similar rites are freed from the pañca-sūnā sins — the five inevitable violences of the household listed in smṛti (Kāṇḍanī, Peṣaṇī, Cullī, Udakumbhī, Mārjanī). He draws the evaluative line clearly: those who cook only for ātmano-bhojana (self-eating) without performing vaiśvadeva are dura-ācāra (of corrupt conduct) and eat only agha. Śrīdhara's voice is the most legally precise of the panel — he cites smṛti directly and defines the boundary of pāpa (sin) through enacted ritual failure rather than metaphysical category.

  divergence: Śrīdhara explicitly lists the pañca-sūnā by name from smṛti and ties agha directly to the omission of vaiśvadeva — a more smārta-legal register than either Rāmānuja's theological framing or Madhusūdana's synthetic reading. Payload was clean Devanāgarī; no HTML artifacts.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana reads the verse in two movements — anvaya (positive) and vyatireka (contrastive) — and expands both further than any other commentator. In the positive movement: those who eat yajña-śiṣṭa called amṛta are śiṣṭa (well-conducted persons) who have discharged their ṛṇa (debt) to the devas, making them free of both past kilbiṣas (pañca-sūnā-born) and future ones. In the contrastive: those who omit vaiśvadeva carry a double load — they still bear pañca-sūnā sins and add the new sin of nityakarma-akaraṇa (omission of obligatory rites). He then invokes śruti, smṛti, and mantra together — the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad on 'mixed food,' the smṛti verse on the five violences, and the Ṛgvedic 'kevala-āghо' stanza — making this the most textually layered rendering in the panel.

  divergence: Madhusūdana's bhāṣya is the longest supplied and uniquely marshals śruti (BĀU), smṛti, and mantra simultaneously; his double-sin logic (existing pañca-sūnā sin plus new nityakarma omission) is the sharpest doctrinal precision in the panel.