Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 4, Verse 10: Krishna to Arjuna — Jñāna-Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Those from whom rāga (attachment), bhaya (fear), and krodha (anger) have entirely departed — not suppressed but dissolved through viveka (discernment) — are called man-mayāḥ (of-My-very-substance), meaning they perceive no distinction between the ātman (self) and Īśvara (the Lord). Śaṅkara specifies that upāśritāḥ (having taken refuge) here means kevala-jñāna-niṣṭhā (exclusive abidance in knowledge alone), making devotional refuge subordinate to gnosis. Purified by jñāna-tapas (the austerity that is knowledge itself), not by ritual or bodily mortification, they attained mad-bhāvam — the state of Īśvara, liberation itself — proving this path is ancient, not Kṛṣṇa's invention.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Rāmānuja reads man-mayāḥ not as identity but as being thoroughly saturated with Bhagavān as the inner controller — the soul as śeṣa (dependent) to Kṛṣṇa as śeṣin (sovereign). The jñāna-tapas here is specifically the knowledge of Bhagavān's divine birth and action (janma-karma-tattva-jñāna), which the Śruti confirms: 'only the dhīrāḥ (wise) truly know His mode of birth.' Purified by this understanding and sheltered under Bhagavān's universal protection — extended through every avatāra to all who seek — they attained mad-bhāvam as the culminating state of bhakti-yoga's ripening.

• Madhvadvaita

  For Madhva, man-mayāḥ carries a precise non-identity meaning: mat-pracurāḥ — suffused with Me, seeing nothing anywhere without Me present, yet never becoming Me. The liberated ones named here (muktāḥ) attained liberation while remaining eternally distinct jīvas (souls), their freedom consisting in unobstructed perception of Hari pervading all. Rāga (desire), bhaya (fear), and krodha (anger) are the cardinal obstructions to this perception; their removal is not self-achievement but Hari's grace enabling dependent worship.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha's bhāṣya radically expands who counts: even the gopīs, Kaṃsa, and Śiśupāla — those apparently overpowered by rāga (desire), bhaya (fear), and krodha (anger) — are included among those who attained mad-bhāvam, because in Puṣṭi-mārga the very intensity of the emotional state becomes the channel for Kṛṣṇa's prasāda (grace). Jñāna-tapas functions here via the kīṭa-bhṛṅga-nyāya (the wasp-and-caterpillar principle): total absorption in Kṛṣṇa's svarūpa (essential form) through any bhāva (disposition), however apparently negative, transforms the bhakta into Kṛṣṇa's own form. Mad-bhāvam is arrival at the divine body (bhāgavatī tanu), not merely release.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara frames the verse as answering how birth-and-action knowledge yields attainment: knowing Bhagavān's supreme compassion (parama-kāruṇikatva) expressed through śuddha-sattva avatāras (incarnations of pure existence) dissolves the three obstacles — rāga (the pull toward objects), bhaya (fear of abandoning all objects for jñāna-mārga), and krodha (resentment that the jñāna path seems hostile to life). Man-mayāḥ means mad-eka-cittāḥ — those whose mind is exclusively single-pointed on Me. The jñāna-tapas is a dvandva-ekavat (a compound in which two items function as one), meaning both the self-knowledge and the prescribed svadharma (one's own duty) as its ripening condition together constitute the purifying austerity.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana's synthesis is the most psychologically precise: bhaya here is not general fear but specifically the anxiety of the renunciant — 'how can I survive if I abandon all objects for jñāna-mārga?' — and krodha is the resentment that the path of knowledge seems hostile to human flourishing. These are the three interior obstructions that viveka (discernment) dissolves. Man-mayāḥ then has a dual resolution: either direct realization of identity with Paramātman (the tat-tvam-asi move), or ekānta-prema-bhakti (exclusive-love devotion) to Kṛṣṇa as Īśvara — both paths converging at mad-bhāvam. He notes a further possibility: 'jñāna-tapasā pūtāḥ jīvan-muktāḥ' — those liberated while living may attain mad-bhāvam as a rasa (the affective state of love for Kṛṣṇa), not merely as videha-mukti (bodiless liberation).