Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 4, Verse 7: Krishna to Arjuna — Jñāna-Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Whenever there is decline — glāni (diminution, not mere moral slippage) — of dharma, meaning the varnāśrama-defined path that is the instrument of abhyudaya (worldly flourishing) and niḥśreyasa (final liberation), and whenever adharma rises, I project Myself through māyā. The verb sṛjāmi signals manifest appearance, not genuine origination: Brahman, being birthless and unchanging, does not actually become embodied — it only appears so through the power of māyā (illusion). The purpose of this apparent manifestation is therefore pedagogical: to re-establish the jñāna-conducive social and ritual structure without which liberation-seekers have no stable footing.

  divergence: Śaṅkara: ‘āmānang sṛjāmi... mājyā' — the māyā-qualifier is explicit in the bhāṣya; avatāra is appearance, not real birth.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  There is no fixed calendar governing My appearance: whenever dharma — established by the Veda and instantiated through the fourfold varṇa and āśrama order as obligatory kartavya (duty) — declines, and its opposite, adharma, rises, I Myself, by My own sankalpa (sovereign resolve), create My body in the manner already described. The word svāsaṅkalpena distinguishes this from māyā-based appearance: the Lord's body is real, fashioned by His own will, because the jīva-jagat-Brahman relation is one of genuine organic unity (viśiṣṭa), not illusion. Avatāra is therefore Bhagavān's free, purposive self-entry into the world He never leaves.

  divergence: Rāmānuja: ‘svāsaṅkalpena... āmānaṁ sṛjāmi' — sankalpa replaces māyā; body is real, birth is volitional.

• Madhvadvaita

  Reconstructed from the dvaita school's doctrine, not translated from Madhva's commentary at this verse.

  yadā yadā hi dharmasya glānir bhavati bhārata | abhyutthānam adharmasya tadātmānaṃ sṛjāmy aham — Kṛṣṇa, the svatantra (independently real, self-sufficient) Lord, declares that whenever dharma (right order, the law sustaining creation) declines and adharma rises, He freely projects (sṛjāmy) His own self into manifestation. The verb sṛjāmi in its first-person singular is read in Dvaita as the decisive mark of svātantrya: no external law, no cosmic compulsion, no accumulated karma of jīvas (individual selves) constrains this descent — the Lord's icchā (sovereign will) is the sole sufficient cause. The avatāra is a real, non-illusory divine body, wholly distinct in kind from the bound jīva‘s birth; it is the Lord's free self-manifestation, not a concession to māyā. The pañca-bheda (five-fold real distinction — Lord from jīva, Lord from matter, jīva from jīva, jīva from matter, matter from matter) remains fully intact throughout: the descended form is svatantra Hari, and the jīvas for whose protection He descends remain paratantra (eternally dependent), incapable of dharma-restoration on their own. Dharmasya glāniḥ (the waning of dharma) is thus not the cause of descent in any compulsory sense; it is the occasion that the self-willed Lord freely takes up, out of His own kāruṇya (compassion) and in conformity with His own saṅkalpa (resolve). Real arrival, real protection, real bheda (distinction) — these are what the verse affirms.

  divergence: No direct Madhva or Jayatīrtha bhāṣya is extant on this verse; the reading voices Dvaita siddhānta directly from the mūla.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha treats 4.7 and 4.8 as one continuous statement of the avatāra-occasion: the decline of dharma and rise of adharma are the temporal triggers, but the deeper motivation is līlā-prasāda — Kṛṣṇa's gracious delight in appearing. He appears age after age (yuge yuge) not because a mechanical law requires it but because His will is playfully free, like a mother who can both nurture and correct without contradiction or cruelty — as the verse Vallabha quotes makes clear: ‘just as a mother shows neither cruelty in chastisement nor attachment in affection.’ The avatāra is pure gift, not juridical intervention.

  divergence: Vallabha on 4.7-8: ‘lālane tāḍane mātur nākāruṇyam' — the avatāra's dual action (protection of sādhus, destruction of duṣkṛtas) is non-punitive grace.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara is concise and lexically precise: when asked ‘when do You appear?’ the Lord answers by naming two co-present conditions — glāni of dharma (meaning its hāni, diminution) and abhyutthāna of adharma (meaning its ādhikya, increase). The pair functions as a diagnostic dyad: dharma does not merely decline passively; adharma actively rises to displace it. Śrīdhara's bhāṣya is sparse here (the payload is brief), yet his gloss preserves the verse's structural balance — two symmetric cola, two symmetric glosses — modeling the same restraint the verse itself demands of a commentator.

  divergence: Śrīdhara: ‘glāniḥ = hāniḥ; abhyutthānam = ādhikyam' — two-word glosses that refuse to over-determine the doctrinal reading.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana holds both poles in tension: Kṛṣṇa is saccidānanda-ghana (pure Being-Consciousness-Bliss condensed), yet He behaves dehi-vat (like an embodied being) — and the two facts are not contradictory. Dharma is glossed in full Śaṅkara-style as the Veda-ordained pravṛtti-nivṛtti system marked by varṇa-āśrama; adharma is veda-niṣiddha conduct that produces nānāvidha-duḥkha (manifold suffering). But the address ‘Bhārata' is given a double gloss: either by lineage (born of Bharata's line) or by nature (bhā = knowledge, rata = delighting in it) — so Arjuna is called ‘one who cannot endure the loss of dharma.’ The verb sṛjāmi is then carefully rendered as ‘I show My eternally-perfected body through māyā' — a formulation that honors both the Advaita māyā-position and the devotional insistence on a real, lovable form.

  divergence: Madhusūdana: ‘nityasiddham eva sṛṣṭam eva darśayāmi māyayā' — ‘eternally accomplished body, already created, I merely reveal through māyā.’