Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 4, Verse 26: Krishna to Arjuna — Jñāna-Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Some yogins offer the sense-organs—hearing and the rest—into the fires of restraint (saṃyama-agni), each restraint being its own distinct flame; this is nothing other than the act of sense-withdrawal itself. Others offer sound and the rest, the sense-objects (viṣaya), into the fire of the very senses, treating non-conflicted sense-contact as an oblation. Both paths serve as preparatory purification before the leap into liberating knowledge (jñāna).

  divergence: Śaṅkara: 'saṃyamā eva agnayas teṣu juhvati indriya-saṃyamam eva kurvanti' — plural 'fires' because each organ has its own form of restraint. The two halves of the verse describe two distinct sacrificial modes.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Some aspirants direct all effort toward restraining the faculties of hearing and the rest; others strive to neutralize the tendency of those faculties toward their objects—sound and touch and form. Both movements are acts of kainkarya (dedicated service), turning the practitioner inward so that the senses, purified, become fit vessels for the contemplation of Bhagavān.

  divergence: Rāmānuja: 'śabdādīn viṣayān anye yoginaḥ indriyāṇāṃ śabdādi-viṣaya-pravaṇatā-nivāraṇe prayatante' — the emphasis falls on withdrawing sense-inclination, not just blocking input.

• Madhvadvaita

  *Śrotrādīni indriyāṇi* (the sense faculties beginning with hearing) — some *paratantra* (eternally dependent) *jīvas* offer these into the fires of *saṃyama* (restraint); others offer the sense-objects, *śabdādīn viṣayān* (sound and the rest), into the fires of the *indriyas* themselves. In both cases the offering is real: real faculties, real objects, real discipline. Yet the *jīva*'s capacity to perform either mode of sacrifice is itself *paratantra* — it holds no *svatantra* (self-sufficient, independently real) power. Hari alone sustains the restraining faculty and the offered object alike; the *pañca-bheda* (the five-fold real distinction — Lord from *jīva*, Lord from matter, *jīva* from *jīva*, *jīva* from matter, matter from matter) perdures through the act of offering. The sacrifice does not dissolve the distinctions; it enacts them, placing the *paratantra jīva* in its proper subordinate relation to the *svatantra* Lord. *Bhakti* as ontological subordination is what animates even this austerity of the senses.

  divergence: No bhāṣya from Madhva or Jayatīrtha survives for this verse. Reading voiced directly from Dvaita *siddhānta* primitives applied to the mūla.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Lifelong celibate students (naiṣṭhika) dissolve their senses into fires that are themselves forms of self-restraint; householder practitioners (upakurvāṇa) release sense-objects into the senses as fire. In Puṣṭi-mārga both gestures are Kṛṣṇa's own grace-gift—the practitioner does not renounce so much as surrender the instrument back to the Giver.

  divergence: Vallabha: 'anye naiṣṭhikāḥ saṃyama-rūpeṣv agniṣu pravilāpayanti; anye upakurvāṇāḥ' — the two categories of practitioner (lifelong vs householder) are explicitly named.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Lifelong celibate students offer the sense-organs into fires constituted by sense-restraint, dissolving hearing and the rest; they stand with restraint as their primary discipline. Householders, by contrast, treat the senses themselves as fire and offer sense-objects—sound and so forth—into them; even while enjoying objects they remain unattached, understanding enjoyment as the offering of fuel into the sacred flame.

  divergence: Śrīdhara: 'naiṣṭhika-brahmacāriṇas tat-tad-indriya-saṃyama-rūpeṣv agniṣu juhvati; gṛhasthā śabdādīn juhvati — bhoga-samaye 'py anāsaktāḥ santo indriyeṣu haviṣṭvena bhāvitān śabdādīn prakṣipantīty arthaḥ.' Śrīdhara gives the clearest two-type taxonomy.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Here the verse reveals the sacrificial character of the four-limbed inner yoga: withdrawal (pratyāhāra), fixation (dhāraṇā), sustained meditation (dhyāna), and absorption (samādhi)—each is a distinct fire, hence the plural. In the active state one offers sense-objects into the senses without craving; that non-grasping enjoyment is itself the secondary sacrifice. Both modes—absorbed stillness and engaged purity—are valid oblations completing the inexhaustible Vedic yajna.

  divergence: Madhusūdana quotes Patañjali ('trayam ekatra saṃyamaḥ') and maps dhāraṇā, dhyāna, and samprajñāta/asamprajñāta samādhi onto the plural 'fires'; the second half describes the vyutthāna (non-absorbed) state as a parallel yajna.