Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 3, Verse 35: Krishna to Arjuna — Karma-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Even a svadharma (one's own duty) performed imperfectly exceeds a paradharma (another's duty) performed with full competence, because the criterion is not outward quality but ontological fitness — what is prescribed for the person. Death while standing in svadharma is preferable to a life spent in paradharma, since paradharma produces bhaya (fear) in the form of naraka (hell) and allied downward births. Śaṅkara closes with Arjuna's implicit question — understanding the root of bondage is the first step to cutting it; rāga-dveṣa (attraction-aversion) are the twin obstructors, and this verse offers the compressed, settled answer to what was diffusely stated earlier.

  divergence: Śaṅkara: 'śreyān praśasyataraḥ svadharmaḥ vigatagunah api… paradharmaḥ bhayāvahaḥ narakādilakṣaṇaṃ bhayam āvahati'

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  For a being entangled in prakṛti (material nature), karma-yoga (the path of dedicated action) is svadharma — it is what he can actually take up — while jñāna-yoga is paradharma, constitutionally inaccessible to him and therefore riddled with pramāda (inadvertence). A flawed karma-yoga performed without pramāda surpasses even a meritorious jñāna-yoga attempted beyond one's capacity; dying in karma-yoga is better because the momentum carries intact into the next birth, where practice resumes without obstacle. Paradharma's danger is not merely ethical but structural: the risk of collapse and accumulated interruption across lives.

  divergence: Rāmānuja: 'prakṛtisaṃsṛṣṭasya duḥśakatayā paradharma-bhūtāt jñānayogāt sagūṇādapi… anantarajamni avyākulakarmayogārambhasaṃbhavāt'

• Madhvadvaita

  *Śreyān sva-dharmo viguṇaḥ para-dharmāt svanuṣṭhitāt* — even an imperfectly executed *sva-dharma* (one's own duty) excels another's duty well performed; *sva-dharme nidhanaṃ śreyaḥ, para-dharmo bhayāvahaḥ*. Madhva's transitional sentence — *tathāpy ugraṃ yuddhakarma ity ata āha śreyān iti* — locates the verse within the running dialogue: Arjuna's second objection, lodged when he asked *jyāyasī cet* (3.1), was deferred; now, after *yudhyasva vigatajvaraḥ* (3.30) and *tayor na vaśam āgacchet* (3.34) have recalled it, Kṛṣṇa resolves it here. Jayatīrtha's gloss makes the internal logic explicit: *yady api karma kartavyaṃ, tathāpi ugram avarjanīya-rāga-dveṣaṃ na kuryām iti śeṣaḥ* — the unstated completion of the objection is 'yet I should not perform action that carries unavoidable *rāga-dveṣa* (attraction-aversion).' The verse closes that gap: the *jīva* (individual self) is assigned *sva-dharma* by Hari, and *sva-dharma* for the *kṣatriya* is battle, however *ugraṃ* (fierce). To exchange it for *para-dharma* — another's apparently calmer duty — is *bhayāvahaḥ*: it generates the very dread it sought to escape, because it departs from *Hari*'s ordination of each *jīva*'s station.

  divergence: Madhva's own bhāṣya is a single connector: *tathāpy ugraṃ yuddhakarma ity ata āha śreyān iti*. The doctrinal elaboration is Jayatīrtha's, whose *Nyāya-sudhā* supplies both the two-objection structure (*dvāv ākṣepāv arjunena kṛtau*) and the unexpressed completion of Arjuna's fear (*ugram avarjanīya-rāga-dveṣaṃ na kuryām*). Both levels are needed for the full dvaita reading.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  After establishing that rāga-dveṣa (attachment-aversion) prevent even natural prāṇis (beings) from following ordained dharma, Vallabha draws the practical rule: svadharma must not be abandoned even when imperfect, and paradharma must not be adopted even when it appears attractive. The qualifier svanuṣṭhitāt carries the force of saṅga (attachment to outcome) — even a fully completed paradharma done with ego-attachment is inferior to one's own path performed with internal surrender to Kṛṣṇa's līlā (divine play). The verse is Kṛṣṇa's protective instruction against the seduction of paths that look easier or holier.

  divergence: Vallabha: 'viguno'ṅgahīno'pi svanuṣṭhitāt saṅgāt… paradharmo'pi nopādeyaḥ'

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara addresses the specific temptation Arjuna faces: war is difficult and painful (duḥkharūpa) while ahiṃsā (non-injury) and begging seem easy and righteous — why not switch? The answer is that svadharma even with some limbs missing (aṅgahīna) is superior to a fully completed paradharma, because the kṣatriya's svadharma leads to svarga (heaven) in death whereas paradharma, being prohibited for him, leads to naraka. Bhaya here is concrete eschatological consequence, not merely psychological anxiety.

  divergence: Śrīdhara: 'kiñcidaṅgahīno'pi svadharmaḥ śreyān… svadharme yudhādau pravartamānasya nidhanaṃ… svargādiprapākatvāt. Paradharmas tu svasya bhayāvahaḥ niṣiddhatvena narakaprapākatvāt'

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana confronts the objection directly: if śāstrīya karma (scriptural action) must be done, why not take the easiest form — bhikṣāśana (living on alms), which is painless — rather than the agony of war? The reply is that svadharma is varna-āśrama-specific (relative to one's caste-stage position) and is knowable only through Vedic injunction, not by inference; a paradharma performed even perfectly has no Vedic mandate for this person and thus no dharma-status whatsoever. Death in svadharma brings kīrti (glory) here and svarga hereafter; paradharma brings infamy and naraka — hence the comprehensive bhaya on both worlds.

  divergence: Madhusūdana: 'na hi vedātiriktamānagamyo dharmaḥ… svadharmasthasyeha loke kīrtyāvahaṃ… paradharmas tv ihākīrtikaratvena paratra narakapradatvena ca bhayāvahaḥ'