Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 3, Verse 9: Krishna to Arjuna — Karma-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Śaṅkara anchors yajña-artha in the Taittirīya Śruti 'yajño vai viṣṇuḥ' (yajña is indeed Viṣṇu): action done for that Lord is yajñārtha-karma (sacrificial action), and only such action does not bind. Any other action — performed by one who is karmādhikṛta (qualified for ritual) for personal fruit — makes this world karmabandhanā (bound by action). The instruction to Arjuna is surgical: act, but as mukta-saṅga (free of attachment to fruits), discharging karma as a pure offering to Īśvara, so that it functions as an antecedent purification (citta-śuddhi) and not a new link in the causal chain of rebirth.

  divergence: yajño vā viṣṇuḥ (Tai. Saṃ. 1.7.4) cited; tad-arthaṃ karmādhikṛtena kartavyam

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Rāmānuja reads a two-tier structure: the subsidiary acts (earning, procuring materials) that support yajña-ādi (sacrifice and prescribed rites) are themselves yajñārtha-karma when performed as śeṣa (subordinate service) to Bhagavān; but those same acts, when performed for ātmīya-prayojana (one's own ends), become karmabandhanā. The escape from bondage is not renunciation of the acts but reorientation of motive — performing them as kainkarya (loving service), free from saṅga toward the self as the beneficiary. Bhagavān, thus worshipped through karma, cuts through the anādi-karma-vāsanā (beginningless impressions of past action) and grants unobstructed ātma-darśana (vision of the self).

  divergence: ātmīya-prayojana-śeṣabhūte karmaṇi karmabandhanā; yajñādibhiḥ paramapuruṣaḥ ārādhitaḥ karmavāsanāṃ samucchidya ātmāvalokanam dadāti

• Madhvadvaita

  Madhva cites the Mahābhārata maxim 'karmaṇā badhyate jantuḥ' (the creature is bound by action) and immediately resolves it: yajña is Viṣṇu, and action offered to Viṣṇu with saṅga-rahitatā (complete freedom from attachment) is not a binding agent. The qualifier mukta-saṅga is glossed with the Muṇḍaka Śruti 'kāmān yaḥ kāmayate' — liberation goes to one who craves nothing — and cross-referenced with later Gītā verses (18.12 on undesired/desired fruits; 18.6 on even prescribed acts as surrendered). The jīva (individual soul) is eternally distinct from Viṣṇu/Hari; worship is not merger but dependent service — acts done outside that dependent relationship, even good ones, remain binding.

  divergence: yajño viṣṇuḥ; mukta-saṅgena saṅga-viśeṣaṇāt kāmān yaḥ kāmayate (Muṇḍ. 3.2.2) śrutiḥ; etānyapi tu karmāṇi 18.6

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha opens by naming the Sāṃkhya interlocutor explicitly — those who argue that since karma binds the ātman it should be abandoned — and rejects this for even the adhikṛta (qualified ritualist). His key move: veda's primary karmayajña is itself Bhagavān-rūpa (Bhagavān's own form), so the boundary between yajña and the Worshipped is dissolved. Bondage arises only in kāmya-karma (desire-driven acts) or para-dharma (another's prescribed duty). The deciding criterion is buddhi: if the performer grasps that the act is Bhagavān's own līlā (divine play), it does not bind at all; if performed without that understanding, all forms of bondage remain possible. In prema-bhakti (loving devotion), Hari himself acts — there is no separate 'instrument'.

  divergence: yajñarūpo hariḥ karmopāstikāṇḍe; buddhvā cet kurute karma tad-bandhakaṃ na hi; premabhaktau tu svayaṃ hīty ānārthakyaṃ na yujyate

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara is the most economical voice: the verse refutes the Sāṃkhya position that all karma binds and must be dropped. Yajña = Viṣṇu (the Taittirīya Śruti again), so 'yajñārtha-karma' means precisely Viṣṇu-ārādhana (worship of Viṣṇu). This world is karmabandhanā in all other action, not in Īśvara-ārādhana-karma (action meant for worship of the Lord). The prescription is terse and devotional: perform karma for Viṣṇu's pleasure (viṣṇu-prīty-artham), as niṣkāma (desire-free), and it liberates rather than binds. No elaborate metaphysical scaffolding — the emphasis is on Viṣṇu-prīti as both the means and the immediate transformative end.

  divergence: yajño'tra viṣṇuḥ — yajño vā viṣṇuḥ śruteḥ; īśvarārādhanārthaṃ karmaṇā na badhyate; viṣṇuprītyarthaṃ niṣkāmaḥ samyag-ācarā

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana addresses the mumukṣu (liberation-seeker) who has internalized 'karmaṇā badhyate jantuḥ' and concludes karma should be abandoned. He confirms the logic — karma does bind — but qualifies the domain: yajña is paramēśvara (the Supreme Lord, as Śruti establishes), and action done as tad-ārādhana (His worship) is structurally different from action done for the karmādhikārī's own ends. He adds a devotional texture absent in Śaṅkara: perform with śraddhā-ādi (śraddhā and related qualities foremost), not merely with detachment. The synthesis is precise — Advaita's cosmological identification of yajña with Brahman, layered with Bhakti's insistence that śraddhā and love are what actualise the liberation embedded in the act.

  divergence: yajñaḥ parameśvaraḥ — yajño vā viṣṇuḥ śruteḥ; karmādhikārī karmabandhanā; śraddhā-ādi-puraḥsaram ācarā