Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 5, Verse 10: Krishna to Arjuna — Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  He who deposits all actions in Brahman — that is, in Īśvara — as a servant deposits his labor entirely in his master, and then performs them bereft of attachment even to liberation (mokṣa) as fruit, is untouched by sin, as a lotus leaf (padma-patra) is untouched by water. The sole fruit of such action is sattva-śuddhi (purification of the inner organ), which is merely preparatory — it does not itself produce mokṣa. For Śaṅkara the ādāna (deposit) in Brahman is the decisive move: it relocates doership from the jīva to Īśvara, temporarily, until the discriminative recognition that the jīva never was the doer renders even that deposit superfluous.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Here brahman names prakṛti (primordial matter) — as the later verse 'mama yonir mahad brahma' (BG 14.3) confirms — and the senses are modifications (pariṇāma-viśeṣa) of that prakṛti. The yogī who performs actions while resting them in prakṛti and relinquishing fruit-attachment, all the while maintaining the witness-stance described in 'paśyan śṛṇvan' (BG 5.8), is not stained by sin, just as the lotus leaf, though immersed in water, is never wetted. For Rāmānuja the liberation from stain is not metaphysical non-doership but the bhakta's affective non-identification with prakṛti as self — the jīva abides in Bhagavān as his body abides in matter.

• Madhvadvaita

  Madhva's bhāṣya is characteristically terse: only the one yoked to sannyāsa-yoga — renunciation as dependent worship of Hari — is freed from karmic adhesion; the repetition of the fruit-statement (pāpa-alepa, non-staining) across multiple verses serves to counter the view that the prescribed means is merely conventional (aupacārika) rather than real. The jīva acts, Hari sanctions; the jīva who deposits acts in Brahman (=Hari, the supremely independent) is not the autonomous agent and therefore the pāpa does not 'stick' — the stain requires ownership, and ownership has been surrendered to Hari. NOTE: Madhva's bhāṣya on this verse is very brief; the above extends strictly from his text with no interpolation.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha insists this sage is not a Sāṅkhya-mārga renunciant (one who abandons action) but a yoga-mārga tattva-vit — a knower of reality who acts. Brahman here points to brahma-yajña (the sacrifice dedicated to Brahman), and depositing actions in that yajña produces a state of kriyā-advaita-bhāva: the feeling of non-dual action in which the devotee's deed and Kṛṣṇa's deed are one movement. The jīvanmukta (liberated-while-living) who acts thus is untouched by the pāpa of omission (akaraṇa-pratyavāya) as the lotus leaf is untouched by water — Kṛṣṇa's prasāda flows through the action without the jīva being wetted by its residue.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara frames this verse as the resolution of a real crisis: if one still harbors 'I am the doer' (karomi-abhimāna), both sannyāsa and karmic non-staining seem impossible — the impure mind cannot truly renounce. His answer: surrender to Parameśvara (the supreme Lord) dissolves that very abhimāna. The one who surrenders all actions to Parameśvara and abandons attachment to their fruits — that person is not stained by pāpa, whether of merit or demerit (puṇya-pāpātmaka karma). As the lotus leaf rests in water yet is never claimed by it, so the surrendered actor rests in the world without being claimed by its karmic residue.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana poses the objection sharply: would not an ignorant person (avidvān) who still harbors doership-pride (kartṛtva-abhimāna) inevitably be stained? His resolution synthesizes Śaṅkara and devotion: one who performs both laukika (worldly) and vaidika (scriptural) actions as a servant performs for his master — with the inner orientation 'I do this for Īśvara, not for my own fruit' — is not stained by pāpa-puṇya-ātmaka karma. As water cast on a lotus leaf does not adhere, so action performed with bhagavad-arpaṇa-buddhi (the intellect of offering to Bhagavān) yields only buddhi-śuddhi (purification of intellect) and does not bind — bridging Śaṅkara's sattva-śuddhi with the devotional logic of offering.