Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 3, Verse 5: Krishna to Arjuna — Karma-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  No being — not even for an instant — ever rests without performing action; every creature is driven helplessly by the three qualities (sattva, rajas, tamas) born of prakriti. Śaṅkara's gloss makes the implied subject explicit: it is the ajñānī, the one who has not yet realized the Self as unmoving, who is thus swept along — for the jñānī, unmoved by the qualities, needs no karma-yoga. This verse therefore sets the lower bound: before knowledge dawns, renunciation of the act's form is impossible; only renunciation of its fruit-desire (niṣkāma-karma) is available as discipline.

  divergence: Śaṅkara: 'ajaḥ' (the ignorant one) is the implied subject — 'guṇair yo na vicālyate' (one whom the qualities do not shake) is the contrasting type; karma-yoga is for the ajñānī alone, not for the jñānī whose spontaneous stillness already obtains.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Every person dwelling in this world is ceaselessly impelled toward action appropriate to their nature by the qualities — sattva, rajas, tamas — that have risen to prominence in them according to the momentum of prior karma (prāktana-karma); even one who resolves 'I do nothing' is in fact being driven. Rāmānuja's reading turns this into a pedagogical lever: precisely because the jīva cannot be still, the intelligent course is to harness that compelled motion as karma-yoga, exhaust the accumulated burden of past sin, bring the qualities under control, and thereby purify the antaḥkaraṇa (inner instrument) as the indispensable foundation for jñāna-yoga. To skip karma-yoga and claim jñāna-yoga is to become a mithyācāra — a pretender.

  divergence: Rāmānuja: 'prāktan-karmānuguṇaṃ pravṛddhaiḥ guṇaiḥ svocitaṃ karma prati avaśaḥ kāryate' — driven toward its own appropriate action by qualities swollen with the momentum of prior deeds.

• Madhvadvaita

  Actions cannot be abandoned entirely — that is the bedrock point. The jīva (individual soul), utterly distinct from and dependent upon Hari, is constitutionally incapable of inaction; the qualities of prakriti execute their compulsion without pause. Madhva's brevity here is polemical: the verse is a refutation of the pseudo-sannyāsa that imagines total action-abandonment as the path — the jīva's dependence on the Lord's will is expressed moment-to-moment through this very compulsion, making surrender through action the only honest posture.

  divergence: Madhva: 'na tu karmāṇi sarvātmanā tyaktuṃ śakyānīti' — actions cannot be abandoned in their totality; the verse is a direct refutation of that claim.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Every soul is helplessly (avaśaḥ) compelled to act by the qualities born of prakriti — and in Vallabha's dispensation this helplessness is not a problem to be overcome but the very texture of the creature's participation in Kṛṣṇa's playful outpouring (līlā). To be driven by prakriti's qualities is to be inside the Lord's own exuberant self-expression; the wise devotee does not fight this compulsion but consecrates it, surrendering each compelled act upward into bhakti, transforming necessity into worship. Grace (prasāda) does not remove the compulsion — it redeems it.

  divergence: Vallabha: 'ataḥ avaśaḥ sarvaḥ prakṛtijair guṇair vā karma kāryata eva' — therefore every being is driven to act by qualities born of prakriti, without exception.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  In no condition whatsoever — whether jñānī or ajñānī — does any person remain for even a moment without performing action; all people, bound and unbound alike, are driven to act by qualities born of their own nature (rāga, dveṣa and the rest), helplessly and without independence. Śrīdhara draws the practical conclusion immediately: renunciation of karma (karma-sannyāsa) means absence of attachment to karma, not absence of the act itself — since the act itself cannot be stopped, the only freedom available is freedom from its pull, which is precisely the bhakta's offering: each act done without the grip of personal desire becomes devotional action.

  divergence: Śrīdhara: 'karmaṇāṃ ca sannyāsas teṣv anāsaktimātram na tu svarūpeṇā śakyatvāditi' — renunciation of actions means non-attachment to them, not their formal cessation, since their cessation is impossible.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  The one whose mind is outward-turned (bahirmukha) and whose intellect is impure — without the chitta-śuddhi that karma-yoga alone produces — cannot rest even for an instant without being driven into worldly or Vedic action by the qualities of prakriti, natural (svābhāvika) or expressed (abhivyakta). Madhusūdana synthesizes Advaita and bhakti by making chitta-śuddhi the pivot: the ajitēndriya (one who has not conquered the senses) is constitutionally incapable of sannyāsa, and therefore the jñāna-niṣṭhā that crowns the Advaita path is simply unavailable until the qualities that propel action have been met, purified, and transcended through Kṛṣṇa-arpita karma — action surrendered to the Lord as devotion.

  divergence: Madhusūdana: 'karmajanyaśuddhyabhāve bahirmukhaḥ... ajitendriyaḥ... svābhāvikā guṇāś cālakāḥ ataḥ paravāśatayā sarvadā karmāṇi kurvatoḥ aśuddhabuddheḥ sarvakarmāsannyāso na saṃbhavatīti' — without karma-born purification, sannyāsa is impossible for the outward-turned, impure-minded being.