Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 3, Verse 43: Krishna to Arjuna — Karma-Yoga
Know that the self stands beyond even the intellect, steady yourself by that knowledge, and then strike down desire, O mighty-armed, that hard-to-reach enemy.
Bhāṣyakāra purports
- Śaṅkaraadvaita
Having known the ātman as supreme beyond the intellect — that which is the witness of all modifications and free from all vikāra (transformation) — one must steady the mind through discerning buddhi. By this rightly assembled inner instrument, O Mahābāho, slay this enemy in the form of kāma, difficult of access because its ramifications are many and hard to trace. Śaṅkara reads durāsada as durgney-aneka-viśeṣa — kāma's specifics are many and hard to know, hence the effort required is commensurate with the teaching of the entire chapter.
divergence: Śaṅkara: 'saṃstabhya samyak stambhanaṃ kṛtvā ātmānaṃ svenaiva ātmanā saṃskṛtena manasā samyak samādhāya' — the stabilizing is done by a mind already cultured through discrimination, not by force of will alone.
- Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita
Understanding kāma as the supreme enemy of jñāna — opposed to the steady devotional intelligence that leads one to Bhagavān — fix the mind (ātmānam) through buddhi devoted to karma-yoga, and destroy this enemy. Rāmānuja reads 'buddheḥ param kāmam' — kāma is what is supreme over the intellect in the sense of what most powerfully overrides it, and thus the supreme obstacle to kainkarya (service) to the Lord. Steady action in Bhagavān's service is both the weapon and the battlefield.
divergence: Rāmānuja: 'kāmaṃ jñānavirodhiṃ vairiṇaṃ buddhvā ātmānaṃ manaḥ ātmanā buddhyā karmayoge avasthāpya' — the stabilizing is explicitly placement into karma-yoga as the discipline.
- Madhvadvaita
*Buddhi* (intellect) is *paratantra* (eternally dependent), yet it stands above the senses and their objects in the *taratamya* (graded ontological hierarchy): to know what is higher than *buddhi* is to know *Hari* himself, the *svatantra* (the independently real, self-sufficient) Lord who alone is *paraṃ* in the absolute sense. *Saṃstabhya ātmānam ātmanā* — the *jīva* steadies itself by means of itself, yet this steadying is not autonomous; it is Hari's *śakti* (power) operating through the *jīva* as instrument, for the *jīva* possesses no independent capacity to restrain *kāma* (desire) by its own force. The address *mahābāho* (O mighty-armed) names Arjuna's martial excellence as itself a gift of the Lord's *anugraha* (grace). *Jahi śatruṃ kāma-rūpaṃ durāsadam* — slay this enemy whose form is desire, difficult to assail: the imperative is Hari's direct command, not an invitation to self-reliant heroism. *Kāma* obstructs *bhakti* as ontological subordination and distorts the *jīva*'s proper station within *pañca-bheda* (the five-fold real distinction: Lord–jīva, Lord–matter, jīva–jīva, jīva–matter, matter–matter); its defeat is therefore not merely ethical but a restoration of right *bheda* (real distinction). The slaying belongs formally to Arjuna, really to Hari — *jīva-kartṛtva* (jīva-agency) is real but always derivative, never *svatantra*.
divergence: No Madhva or Jayatīrtha bhāṣya is extant for this verse; the reading is voiced directly from dvaita siddhānta primitives applied to the mūla.
- Vallabhaśuddhādvaita
Vallabha reads the verse through the lens of puṣṭi-prasāda: 'buddheḥ param ātmānam' — the supreme puruṣa beyond intellect is Śrī Kṛṣṇa himself, and knowing him means recognizing that even kāma and the mind belong to his līlā-field. The injunction to slay is simultaneously an injunction to surrender the initiative of slaying to Kṛṣṇa. Where Bhagavān himself causes the karma, bondage cannot arise; where the devotee acts in full awareness of Kṛṣṇa's primacy, the act is already liberated. Chapter 3 closes by pointing beyond its own ethical structure to Kṛṣṇa's sovereign will.
divergence: Vallabha: 'svayaṃ hi bhagavān yatra karma kārayati svataḥ / kva punas tatra bandhaḥ syād' — where Bhagavān himself causes action, bondage cannot arise; slaying kāma is itself Kṛṣṇa's action through Arjuna.
- Śrīdharabhakti
Śrīdhara offers a clean upasaṃhāra (summation): modifications like kāma arise from the buddhi-sphere touching the domain of the senses and objects — the ātman itself remains nirviṣaya (without modification), the witness. Knowing the ātman in this way as utterly beyond the perturbations of mind and intellect, one stabilizes the mind through a niścayātmikā buddhi (resolute, settled intelligence) and then slays kāma. Durāsada is glossed as both 'hard to reach' and 'of hard-to-know movement' — kāma conceals itself as desire for legitimate goods, making identification the first act of the battle.
divergence: Śrīdhara: 'ātmā tu nirvikāras tat-sākṣī evaṃ buddheḥ param ātmānaṃ buddhvā ātmanā evaṃbhūta-niścayātmikayā buddhyā ātmānaṃ manaḥ saṃstabhya niścalaṃ kṛtvā' — witness-consciousness is the epistemological anchor from which kāma is seen and slain.
- Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti
Madhusūdana closes his reading of chapter 3 with a double verse that names the upāya (means) and the upeya (goal): karma-niṣṭhā is the primary upāya taught here, jñāna-niṣṭhā is the tad-guṇa (attendant excellence) toward which karma-niṣṭhā moves. The pūrṇa ātman — 'full ātman' glimpsed via the word 'param' in 2.59 — is now directly invoked: know it by sākṣātkāra (direct realization), stabilize the mind in that knowledge, and from that stability slay the enemy who 'cuts across all puruṣārthas' (sarvapuruṣārtha-śātana). Mahābāho is a fitting address because for the strong-armed, enemy-slaying is natural — the address validates the capability already present.
divergence: Madhusūdana: 'pūrṇam ātmānaṃ buddheḥ paraṃ buddhvā sākṣātkṛtya saṃstabhya sthirīkṛtvā ātmānaṃ manaḥ ātmanā etādṛśa-niścayātmikayā buddhyā jahi śatruṃ sarva-puruṣārtha-śātanam' — and then his colophon verse: 'upāyaḥ karma-niṣṭhā-tra prādhānyenopasamhṛtā / upeyā jñāna-niṣṭhā tu tad-guṇatvena kīrtitā.'