Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 4, Verse 21: Krishna to Arjuna — Jñāna-Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  One who has shed all longing (nirāśīh), whose inner instrument (citta) and outer instrument-aggregate (ātmā) are both fully restrained, and who has renounced every form of accumulation (parigraha) — such a knower performs only that bodily action required for the body's bare continuance, utterly free of the conceit 'I act.' Since both merit (dharma) and demerit (adharma) are bondage for the seeker of liberation, performing exclusively such minimal action burns no further karma: the jñānāgni (fire of knowledge) has already consumed everything. This verse is therefore simply a re-statement of the fruit of samyag-darśana described earlier, not a new injunction.

  divergence: Śaṅkara argues at length that 'śārīram karma' must mean 'action whose sole purpose is bodily maintenance,' not merely 'action done by the body' — otherwise the verse would absurdly permit any bodily action. Dharma is explicitly called kilbiṣa because it too produces bondage for the mumukṣu.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The aspirant who has cut the cord of fruit-desire (nirāśīh), who holds mind and self together in check (yata-citta-ātmā), and who remains untouched by possessiveness toward any matter of prakṛti or its products — such a one, performing exclusively bodily action throughout life, does not incur the bondage of saṃsāra. Through this unmediated karma-yoga, conducted without the interposition of jñāna-niṣṭhā as a separate stage, the ātmā is directly perceived in its own nature as Bhagavān's mode (prakāra). Action here is not mere world-maintenance; it is kainkarya (service) stripped of every proprietary claim.

  divergence: Rāmānuja reads 'kevalam śārīram karma' as lifelong karma-yoga itself — not a residual minimal activity after jñāna arises. The freedom from saṃsāra comes through that yoga directly, not through a prior jñāna-niṣṭhā stage as Śaṅkara requires.

• Madhvadvaita

  The method for abandoning desire and the rest is here stated plainly: having restrained mind (yata-citta-ātmā, where ātmā means mind), having relinquished all accumulation — which means having shed the very conceit of ownership — and standing as nirāśīh, one who does not even entertain wishful action in imagination — this yati incurs no stain. The statement 'he does nothing at all' (4.20) is here glossed: what is meant is that he does not acquire kilbiṣa, because Hari, not the jīva, is the true independent agent. The jīva remains the dependent servant (dāsa), and service without ownership-claim is pure.

  divergence: Madhva's gloss is the most compressed on this verse; 'parigraha-tyāga' is specifically glossed as 'non-conceit' (anabhimāna), foregrounding the ontological dependence of the jīva rather than epistemological non-attachment.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  The lower-grade adhikārī who has turned away from desires for heaven and the rest, whose citta and deha (body) are restrained by yoga, who has abandoned every worldly-mode (loka-bhāva) — performing only the body-performed action without the agency-superimposition of 'I am the doer' — incurs no prātyavāya (sin of omission) or other kilbiṣa. The superimposition (adhyāsa) alone falls away; the manifestation of Kṛṣṇa's own form within the world does not cease. Even if to all other minds the body appears to continue acting, the practitioner's own awareness rests in Brahman, dissolved as if in deep absorption — yet this is not dissolution, because Kṛṣṇa-prasāda sustains the presence.

  divergence: Vallabha uniquely foregrounds adhyāsa (superimposition of doer-ship) as the sole mechanism of bondage — what vanishes is not action but the false claim. This reflects Puṣṭi-mārga's insistence that worldly appearance persists inside Kṛṣṇa's līlā; the body never truly leaves the divine play.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  One from whom all desires (āśiṣaḥ) have departed, whose mind and body are restrained (yata-citta-ātmā), who has relinquished every form of acquisition — even while performing the action that the body alone executes, without the insistence of agency (kartṛtva-abhiniveśa-rahita) — does not reach kilbiṣa, the bondage of sin. In the yoga-ārūḍha reading: even when performing natural bodily acts like seeking alms (bhikṣāṭana), just sufficient for bodily maintenance, one does not incur the prātyavāya-doṣa that comes from failure to perform obligatory rites (viditākaraṇa-nimitta-doṣa).

  divergence: Śrīdhara explicitly bifurcates the verse along two tracks: the jñāna-niṣṭhā reading (no agency-sense) and the yoga-ārūḍha reading (mendicant life exempt from obligatory-rite requirements). This bifurcation is absent in the other schools.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  By the argument a fortiori (kaimutya-nyāya): if even the maximally dispersive rite such as jyotiṣṭoma loses its fruit-producing power for the knower of Brahman, then the mendicant's begging-rounds (bhikṣāṭana) — which cause no dispersion at all — cannot possibly constitute a cause of bondage. Nirāśīh means free from thirst (vigata-tṛṣṇa); the citta (inner organ) and deha with its senses are restrained together through pratyāhāra. Even under the compulsion of prārabdha-karma, this one performs only scripture-sanctioned bodily, verbal, and mental actions — yet performs them as utterly agent-less, because agency is superimposed by others only, not claimed by the knower. Since merit (puṇya) too has kilbiṣa-character by virtue of producing undesired continued existence, both dharma and adharma dissolve for this one.

  divergence: Madhusūdana deploys the kaimutya-nyāya argument (inference from the stronger to the weaker case) not found in other commentators. He also uniquely specifies that verbal and mental action performed without agency-claim similarly yield no bondage — extending the scope well beyond 'bodily-only' interpretations.