Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 3, Verse 14: Krishna to Arjuna — Karma-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Living beings arise from food digested into blood and seed; food itself arises from rain (parjanya); rain arises from yajna — for, as Śaṅkara cites Manu, the oblation cast into fire duly reaches the sun, from the sun comes rain, from rain food, and from food progeny. That yajna is not the outward rite alone but the apurva (unseen potency) generated by the combined action (karma) of priest and sacrificer. The verse thus establishes a cosmological chain whose final link is human action — showing karma as the world-wheel's axle, not its goal, so that the wise man performs it without grasping and prepares thereby for jnana.

  divergence: Śaṅkara explicitly: 'yajnah apurvam ... karmsamudbhavah' — the yajna intended here is the apurva born of the purposive action of rtvij and yajamana, not the visible fire alone.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  That beings live by food, food by rain, and rain by yajna is, Rāmānuja notes, self-evident to every observer — a publicly verifiable fact (sarvalokasaksikam). What scripture adds is the mechanism: the oblation duly reaches the sun, rain follows, then food, then progeny (Manu 3.76). The yajna that moves this chain is constituted by the purposive human activity of acquiring materials and performing worship — karma in the full sense of body, speech, and will directed toward Bhagavan. For Rāmānuja, this kainkarya-chain is not a cosmic abstraction but the concrete structure of devotional life: every act of nourishment, every rainfall, is Bhagavan's body responding to loving service.

  divergence: Rāmānuja: 'yajnas ca dravyarjanadi-kartrpurusa-vyapararupakarmsamudbhavah' — yajna arises from the purposive activity of the person who acquires materials and performs the rite.

• Madhvadvaita

  Madhva drives a precise ontological wedge: parjanya here is not mere meteorological rain but the presiding deity Parjanya, the regent of clouds, who is a dependent, eternally distinct jiva-deity. This deity arises by virtue of yajna — meaning that the yajna properly directed to Hari, mediated through the devata Parjanya, produces rain through a real causal chain overseen by Vishnu. Madhva warns that invoking this verse to establish mere cycle-sameness (samyamatra) without recognising the hierarchy of devatas would be a category error; each link in the chain is a distinct real entity under Hari's superintendence, not a monistic flow. Yajna is defined precisely as the relinquishment of a material object in honour of a deity (devatam uddiśya dravyaparityagah), distinct from other action (karma = itara-kriya).

  divergence: Madhva: 'megha-cakrabhimani parjanyah ... yajnad bhavati' — Parjanya is the presiding intelligence of the cloud-cycle; his arising from yajna is real, not metaphorical.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha's gloss is terse — 'utpatti-sistatena tatrapitadavasyakatam darsayati dvabhyam annaditi' — pointing that the verse demonstrates necessity (avasyakata) within created existence. For Puṣṭi-mārga, creation is Krishna's spontaneous delight (lila); the food-rain-yajna cycle is the visible face of prasada, the grace by which Krishna sustains his world. Action is not merely cosmological duty but participation in the Lord's own playful self-giving; to perform yajna is to enter the current of lila rather than resist it. The brevity of Vallabha's commentary itself signals that the metaphysical chain is a given — the deeper teaching is the devotional stance one brings to it.

  divergence: Vallabha: 'utpattiśiṣṭatena tatrāpi tadāvaśyakatāṃ darśayati' — the verse shows the necessity of action even within the domain of generated existence.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara frames the verse as establishing why karma is obligatory through the world-wheel argument (jagac-cakra-pravrtti-hetutvad api karma kartavyam). He traces the chain plainly: beings arise from food transformed into shukra and sonita (seed and blood); food arises from rainfall; rainfall from yajna; and yajna is accomplished through the proper purposive activity (yajamana-adi-vyapara) of sacrificer and priest. The Manu citation clinches the rain-from-oblation link. Śrīdhara's voice is balanced and encyclopedic — the devotional inflection enters through the implicit claim that sustaining the world-wheel is itself a form of worship, since the Lord is the wheel's inner mover.

  divergence: Śrīdhara: 'jagaccakrapravrttihetu tvadapi karma kartavyam ... karmanā yajamanadivyaparanā samyannispadyate ityarthah' — yajna is properly accomplished through the complete purposive action of the sacrificer.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana explicitly states that the verse adds a second reason for performing karma beyond Prajapati's command: the world-wheel itself (jagac-cakra-pravrtti-hetu). He glosses food becoming retah and lohita (seed and blood) as perceptually verifiable; the rain-from-yajna link requires scripture, specifically the agnihotra chain from the Mahabharata's Janakayanajnavalkya dialogue (the six questions, shatprasna) as well as Manu. The yajna is the sukshma (subtle) dharma called apurva, produced by the combined activity of rtvij and yajamana. Madhusūdana then fuses: this very cosmological necessity is held in place by Krishna's loving sovereignty, so performing karma in awareness of that sovereignty is simultaneously jnana-preparation and bhakti-expression — the two marga converge at the act itself.

  divergence: Madhusūdana: 'yajnasya hi apurvasya vihitam karma karanam' and citation of the Janaka-Yajnavalkya shatprasna as the scriptural basis for the agnihotra-to-rain causal link.