Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 4, Verse 30: Krishna to Arjuna — Jñāna-Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Those whose eating is regulated (niyata-āhāra) pour the vital currents (prāṇa) into the very prāṇa-streams — whichever vital force is mastered, the others are offered into it, as if dissolved within. All these knowers of sacrifice (yajña-vid) have had their impurity (kalmaṣa) consumed by the sacrificial act itself.

  divergence: Śaṅkara reads niyata-āhāra as 'measured/limited food,' and the prāṇa-offering as mastery: whichever prāṇa-current is controlled, the remaining ones are 'poured into' it — they become as if merged (praviṣṭā iva). The verse closes the twelve-fold yajña catalogue: all are yajña-vid because all destroy kalmaṣa (obstruction to jñāna).

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Other *karma-yogins* (*karmayoginaḥ*) maintain *niṣṭhā* (steadfast absorption) in *prāṇāyāma*. These are of three kinds by the division of *pūraka*, *recaka*, and *kumbhaka*: *apāne juhvati prāṇam* — offering *prāṇa* into *apāna* is *pūraka*; *prāṇe apānam* — offering *apāna* into *prāṇa* is *recaka*; *prāṇāpānagatī ruddhvā prāṇān prāṇeṣu juhvati* — having restrained both movements, offering all *prāṇas* into *prāṇas*, is *kumbhaka*. To all three engaged in *prāṇāyāma* the qualification *niyatāhārāḥ* (regulated eating) applies equally. Among the distinctions of *karmayoga* extending from *dravyayajña* through *prāṇāyāma*, each practitioner is established in his own chosen form (*svasamīhiteṣu pravṛttāḥ*). All of them are knowers of *yajña* of the form *nityanaimittikakarma* preceded by the *mahāyajña* declared in *sahayajñaiḥ prajāḥ sṛṣṭvā* (Gītā 3.10) — *tannniṣṭhāḥ tata eva kṣapitakalmaṣāḥ*: established in that very practice, their impurity dissolved by it alone. Vedānta Deśika adds that since the fruit is undifferentiated across these forms (*aviśiṣṭaphalatayā vikalpe nyāyye*), it is one's own capacity and inclination (*svasvāmarthyādyanusāriṇī svecchā*) that determines the particular discipline. Those grounded even in *prāṇāyāma* must still perform *yajña* as *nityakarma*; and the body is sustained by *yajñaśiṣṭāmṛtena śarīradhāraṇaṃ kurvanta eva* — consuming the remnant of *yajña* as *amṛta*, a sustenance that, far from obstructing *ātmāvalokana* (vision of the self), is its proper support.

  divergence: The contaminated cell projected 'Gītā 3.10 mahā-yajña' loosely; Rāmānuja's bhāṣya specifies *sahayajñaiḥ prajāḥ sṛṣṭvā* as the precise anchor and names the karma-yoga distinctions as *nityanaimittikakarma* preceded by that injunction. Vedānta Deśika's addition — that *prāṇāyāma-niṣṭhā* practitioners are not exempt from *yajña* as *nityakarma*, and that *yajñaśiṣṭāmṛta*-based body-maintenance is compatible with, not opposed to, *ātmāvalokana* — was absent from the contaminated cell.

• Madhvadvaita

  Through regulated food alone, by drying out the prāṇa-currents, these yogins pour prāṇas into prāṇas. Alternatively, as the Kaṭha-śruti (3.13) prescribes — restraining speech in mind, mind in the intelligent self — this inner offering proceeds. Scripture independently confirms: 'Through sparse eating, the prāṇas are truly offered into the prāṇas.'

  divergence: Madhva's bhāṣya is terse and śruti-centred: niyata-āhāra dries out (śoṣa) the prāṇa-currents, producing the offering. He immediately cross-links to Kaṭha 3.13 and to a secondary scriptural statement (yad asyālpāśanaṃ tena prāṇāḥ prāṇeṣu vai hutāḥ), establishing the Dvaita principle that action's validity rests on śruti-authority.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Still others dissolve the food-nourished vital functions (prāṇa as appetite-functions) back into the prāṇas themselves — hence 'regulated eaters.' Without such regulation, the obstruction (rodha) and the yoga cannot arise. For those who desire to begin this path, food must be restrained. All these are yajña-knowers, freed of impurity, and they eat the yajña-śiṣṭa (sacrifice-remainder, the immortal), reaching Brahman — both immediately and by gradual approach.

  divergence: Vallabha reads the verse as completing a sequence: the prāṇa-offering here is the dissolution of appetite-functions (āhāra-tarpaṇa-prāṇa) back into the prāṇa-substrate. He then extends the verse forward to Gītā 3.10 and 3.5, showing that even jñānins performing sarva-sannyāsa still perform brahma-yajña — action is never truly suspended.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Yet others, practicing contraction of food, contemplate as an inner offering the dissolution of each sense-function as it naturally wanes — that is the prāṇa-in-prāṇa offering. Or: through the cycling of pūraka and recaka, the haṃsa ('so-ham') mantra arises naturally, and they contemplate the identity of tat and tvam through this alternating ajapā-japa. Through kumbhaka, restraining prāṇa and apāna together, all prāṇas become one — and the absorption of the sense-faculties in that unity is the offering. All twelve types of yajña-knowers thus destroy impurity through their respective sacrifices.

  divergence: Śrīdhara's bhāṣya is the most elaborate: he gives three readings — (1) fasting-induced natural dissolution of sense-functions as the offering; (2) the ajapā-mantra (so-ham / haṃsa) arising from prāṇāyāma as the offering of tat-tvam identity; (3) kumbhaka-prāṇāyāma with the four-quarter food rule. He cites yoga-śāstra twice and counts the twelve yajña-types from 4.25–4.30.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  The fruit of all twelve types of yajña-knowers is now stated: they are 'knowers of yajña' (yajña-vid) in that they both know and perform yajña; by these previously-described sacrifices their impurity (pāpa/kalmaṣa) is destroyed. Eating the yajña-śiṣṭa-amṛta (the immortal remainder left by sacrifice) at the appropriate time, they all — through purification of sattva and thereby attainment of jñāna — go to the eternal Brahman; that is, they are freed from saṃsāra.

  divergence: Madhusūdana focuses the verse on its summative function: yajña-vid means both jñātṛ (knower) and kartṛ (performer) of all twelve yajñas listed in 4.25–4.30. The phrase 'eating the yajña-remainder-amṛta' is temporal ('at the proper time'), not merely ritual. Liberation arrives through sattva-śuddhi → jñāna-prāpti, the Advaita causal chain.