Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 4, Verse 23: Krishna to Arjuna — Jñāna-Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  For the one whose attachment (saṅga) has wholly departed, who is released from the binding force of dharma and adharma alike, and whose mind rests in knowledge (jñāna) alone — the action performed for the sake of sacrifice dissolves entirely, along with its fruit (phala). Śaṅkara insists on the compound: 'samagram' means 'together with its result-tip (agra),' leaving nothing capable of seeding a future birth. The mechanism is not suppression but the extinction of ignorance, which is the only soil in which karma germinates.

  divergence: Directly anchored in Śaṅkara's gloss: 'samagram saha agreṇa phalena vartate iti samagraṃ karma tat samagraṃ pravilīyate vinaśyati.'

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The aspirant whose mind is fixed on the true nature of the ātman, who has relinquished all possessiveness (parigraha) born of treating anything other than Bhagavān as its object, and who acts only to fulfil the prescribed yajna — that person's accumulated past karma (prācīna karma) dissolves without remainder (niḥśeṣam kṣīyate). Rāmānuja reads the verse structurally: the qualifying adjectives are not ornamental but causal — the absence of attachment in the other (tad-itara-saṅga) issues directly from the mind's saturation in ātma-jñāna, which converts every act into a form of knowledge.

  divergence: Anchored in Rāmānuja: 'prākṛtiviyuktātmasvarūpānusandhānayuktatayā karmaṇo jñānākāratvam uktam' and 'baddhahetubhūtaṃ prācīnaṃ karma samagraṃ pravilīyate niḥśeṣaṃ kṣīyate.'

• Madhvadvaita

  Madhva is crisp and hierarchical: 'gata-saṅga' means free of affection for fruit (phala-sneha-rahita); 'mukta' means having no self-identification with the body (śarīra-abhimāna-rahita); 'jñānāvasthita-cetas' means one who knows the Paramātman (Parameśvara-jñānin) — not merely the ātman in an impersonal sense, but Hari as the supreme independent reality. Action offered to that Hari dissolves because a dependent jīva who correctly knows its own dependence (pāratantrya) cannot produce binding karma; the will that would bind is already surrendered.

  divergence: Anchored in Madhva's bhāṣya: 'gata-saṅgasya phala-sneha-rahitasya muktasya śarīrādy-anabhimāninaḥ jñānāvasthita-cetasaḥ parameśvara-jñāninaḥ.'

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha reads the qualified actor as already an akarmā (non-doer) yogin, established in unbroken knowledge of Brahman's reality (akhaṇḍa-brahma-yāthātmya-jñāna). For Puṣṭi-mārga, 'yajñāya' is glossed as 'for Brahman' — the act is Brahman acting in Brahman; the worshipper and the offering are both Kṛṣṇa's own vibhūti. The dissolution (pravilīyate) is not destruction but return to the source, the act becoming Brahman again, which is why Vallabha names it 'akarmabhāvam āpadyate' — attaining the state of non-action.

  divergence: Anchored in Vallabha: 'yajñāya brahmaṇe brahma-karma-ācaran bhavati tat sarvaṃ karma pravilīyate akarmabhāvam āpadyate.'

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara reads through a dual lens: at the level of the renunciate, 'yajñāya' means 'for the Parameśvara alone,' and every act thus performed is sa-vāsanā — dissolving even the latent impressions (vāsanā) that are the seed of future desire. At the level of the established yogin acting in the world (loka-saṃgraha), 'yajñāya' means performing sacrifice for the preservation of the yajna-order itself, acting purely to sustain the dharmic fabric. The dual reading preserves both the inner and outer dimensions without collapsing either.

  divergence: Anchored in Śrīdhara: 'yajñāya parameśvarārthaṃ karmācarataḥ sataḥ samagraṃ sa-vāsanaṃ karma pravilīyate akarmabhāvam āpadyate'; the second limb: 'yajña-saṃrakṣaṇārthaṃ loka-saṃgrahārtham eva karma kurvata ity arthaḥ.'

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana addresses an anticipated objection: if even the renunciate's alms-gathering does not bind, why would the householder Janaka's yajnas bind? The answer moves through three nested qualifications — absence of fruit-attachment (phala-āsakti-śūnya), absence of the superimposition of doer-ship and enjoyer-ship (kartṛtva-bhoktṛtva-adhyāsa-śūnya), and the mind fixed in nirvikalpa-brahma-ātma-aikya-bodha (knowledge of the non-differentiated unity of Brahman and ātman). Each qualifier causally grounds the one before it: detachment proceeds from the absence of superimposition, which proceeds from direct gnosis. 'Samagraṃ pravilīyate' is then 'destroyed at the root by tattvdarśana,' not by discipline alone.

  divergence: Anchored in Madhusūdana: 'jñānāvasthita-cetasaḥ nirvikalpa-brahma-ātma-aikya-bodha eva sthitaṃ cittaṃ yasya tasya sthitaprajñasya'; dissolution: 'tattvadraśanād vilīyate.'