Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 5, Verse 16: Krishna to Arjuna — Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga
For those whose ignorance of the self has been destroyed by knowledge, that knowledge illumines the supreme like the sun lighting up the world.
Bhāṣyakāra purports
- Śaṅkaraadvaita
The ajñāna (ignorance) that deludes all beings is a covering over the ātman — not a substance but an obscuration. When viveka-jñāna (discriminative knowledge) destroys this covering in a particular being, that same jñāna illumines the paramartha-tattva (supreme reality) like the sun that reveals all forms at once. Śaṅkara specifies that the knowledge does not create the ātman — it removes what blocked the ātman's self-luminosity, just as the sun does not create objects but removes the darkness that hid them.
- Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita
Each jīva (individual self) possesses a svābhāvika (natural, essential) jñāna that is intrinsically unlimited — but karma accumulated over anādi-kāla (beginningless time) contracts it in saṃsāra. When the ātma-yāthātmya-upadeśa (teaching about the true nature of ātman) is applied daily and purified by repeated abhyāsa (practice), the anādi-karma-āvaraṇa (beginningless karmic veil) dissolves and jñāna expands to its natural aparimiṭa (infinite) scope. Rāmānuja further reads the plural 'teṣām' as positively asserting the ontological plurality of ātmans — the many selves each shine distinctly, like so many suns freed from cloud-cover.
- Madhvadvaita
Jñāna alone destroys ajñāna — and Madhva distinguishes sharply: the first arising of knowledge is parokṣa (indirect, testimonial), not sākṣātkāra (direct). The jīva's ignorance is a positive bhāva-rūpa obstruction distinct from the jīva itself and distinct from Hari. Its removal by knowledge confirms the jīva's eternal dependence: the illumination is gifted, not self-generated.
- Vallabhaśuddhādvaita
Those who possess ātma-vidyā (knowledge of the self) given by Bhagavān himself are not deluded. Vallabha reads the illuminating jñāna not as an impersonal process but as Bhagavad-rūpa (the very form of Bhagavān) — since it is bhagavat-pradatta (Bhagavān-bestowed), its kartṛtva (agenthood) is Bhagavān's own. The taittirīya-śruti 'brahmavid āpnoti param' is explicitly invoked: the paramam being illumined is para-brahma, not merely a neutral pure-being.
- Śrīdharabhakti
For those who know Bhagavān as ātman, that knowledge destroys the vaiṣamya-upalambhaka-jñāna (the cognition that perceives the world's inequalities and misidentifies them as ultimate). Once that distorting lens is gone, jñāna illumines the paripūrṇa-īśvara-svarūpa (the fully complete nature of the Lord) — the analogy being the sun dispersing darkness to reveal all objects as they actually are.
- Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti
Madhusūdana gives the most technically elaborate reading: ajñāna is not mere absence of knowledge (jñāna-abhāva) but a positive bhāva-rūpa entity with two distinct āvaraṇa-śaktis — one that makes the existent appear non-existent (sato asattvāpadaka) and one that makes what shines appear not to shine (bhāsato abhānāpadaka). The first is removed by even parokṣa-jñāna (indirect verbal knowledge); the second requires nirvikalpaka-sākṣātkāra (direct non-conceptual cognition) generated by the Vedānta mahāvākya via śravaṇa-manana-nididhyāsana (hearing-reflection-meditation). Like the sun by its mere rising removes all darkness without any auxiliary cause, brahma-jñāna by its sole arising — needing no co-operator — eliminates ajñāna with all its effects and reveals the one non-dual sat-cit-ānanda-tattva.