Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 4, Verse 2: Krishna to Arjuna — Jñāna-Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  This yoga (union with ātman through renunciation of fruit) descended through kṣatriya lineage and was known by the rājarṣis (royal seers) — those who held both sovereignty and sūkṣma-darśana (subtle discernment). Śaṅkara is precise: the loss was not metaphysical but sampradāya-vicheda (severance of transmission) — dull and sense-enslaved successors broke the chain. The irony is sharp: the paraṃparā (lineage) that should have preserved niṣkāma-karma as the vestibule to jñāna collapsed precisely among those constitutionally positioned to practice it.

  divergence: Śaṅkara's term vicchinasampradāyaḥ saṃvṛttaḥ (the tradition became severed) drives this rendering; the epithet parantapa (scorcher of foes) is glossed as the one whose viveka (discrimination) burns inner enemies — kāma and krodha.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Kṛṣṇa insists this yoga was not improvised for battlefield utility — it was proclaimed by Bhagavān himself at the dawn of each manu-interval (manvantara-ādi) as mokṣa-sādhana for the rescue of all worlds (nikhila-jagad-uddharaṇa). The solar lineage — Vivasvān to Manu to Ikṣvāku — carried it intact until the intelligence of successive receivers (śrotr-buddhi-māndya) dimmed and the tradition nearly perished. For Rāmānuja the loss is salvific urgency, not philosophical failure.

  divergence: Rāmānuja explicitly states mokṣa-sādhana and nikhila-jagad-uddharaṇa; the decay is attributed to śrotr-buddhi-māndya (dullness in the listener's intellect), not structural flaw in the yoga.

• Madhvadvaita

  Madhva frames the verse within the chapter's double thesis: the greatness of buddhi surpassing Brahman, and the greatness of jñāna over mere karma. The transmission statement is read as proof of pūrvānuṣṭhita-dharma — this is not novel instruction but the perpetually dependent-worship (kainkarya) of Hari, previously practiced and now restored. Jīva and Īśvara remain ontologically separate; the yoga's authority rests on Hari's prior declaration, not on any self-luminous realization.

  divergence: Madhva's commentary spans 4.1–4.3 as a unit; the relevant gloss is pūrvānuṣṭhitaś cāyaṃ dharmaḥ — this dharma was previously practised. Commentary is terse; fine-grained word-by-word bhāṣya for this verse is not individually isolated.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha celebrates the eternity of the yoga through its connection to Viṣṇu as speaker and Rāmacandra's lineage (ikṣvāku-kulam) as vessel. The paraṃparā is not merely historical but avyaya (imperishable) — its fruit does not decay because Kṛṣṇa himself is the fruit. The yoga reaches through lineage not as pedagogy alone but as prasāda-pravāha (flow of grace): Viṣṇu spoke, the sun received, Manu transmitted, Ikṣvāku inherited — all as divine dispensation, not human achievement.

  divergence: Vallabha's śloka commentary: 'yogasya rūpyate viṣṇur vaktā yasmād abhūd raviḥ' — Viṣṇu is embodied as the yoga's speaker; the sun is merely the receptive vessel. The term avyaya-phalatvāt (because its fruit is imperishable) frames why the tradition's near-loss does not invalidate the yoga.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara reads the transmission concretely: the rājarṣis knew this yoga through direct instruction — Ikṣvāku and his sons told it to Nimi and other royal seers. The address parantapa (scorcher of enemies) signals that Arjuna, as enemy-subduer, belongs precisely to the qualified lineage of recipients. The yoga's loss to kāla (time) is stated matter-of-factly — not with Madhusūdana's grief or Rāmānuja's soteriological urgency — as the occasion (prayojana) for Kṛṣṇa's re-disclosure.

  divergence: Śrīdhara names Nimi (nimilpramukhāḥ) as exemplary rājarṣi recipient and reads svaputa-ādibhiḥ ikṣvāku-pramukhaiḥ as the specific transmission channel; kāla-vaśāt (by force of time) gives the loss its cause.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana layers three grounds for the yoga's mahā-prabhāva (great power): it is anādi-veda-mūla (rooted in the beginningless Veda), ananta-phala (of infinite fruit), and anādi-guru-śiṣya-paraṃparā-prāpta (received through a beginningless teacher-student chain) — all three refuting any suspicion of kṛtrimatva (artificial construction). The loss at dvāpara-anta is mourned: Bhagavān grieves (śocati) that the yoga, despite its infinite purpose, was overcome by kāma and krodha in unqualified hands. Parantapa becomes a double epithet — the outer enemy-scorcher and the inner one who burns kāma-krodha with viveka and tapas.

  divergence: Madhusūdana explicitly records 'aho daubhāgyaṃ lokasya iti śocati bhagavān' — thus Bhagavān grieves the world's misfortune. The triple anādi formulation (veda-mūla, phala, paraṃparā) and the inner reading of parantapa as jita-indriya (sense-conquered) are both bhāṣya-anchored.