Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 5, Verse 20: Krishna to Arjuna — Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  The one who sees only the non-dual ātman (self) encounters no real ‘pleasant' or ‘unpleasant' — for these dualities arise only when one mistakes the body-complex for the self; the brahma-vid (knower of Brahman) abides in Brahman alone. Śaṅkara insists that exhilaration at gain and dejection at loss belong exclusively to the deha-mātram-ātma-darśin (one whose vision of self extends no further than the body); the sthira-buddhi (one of steady intellect) is free of vikāra (modification) because no second thing exists to generate it. He who has renounced all action inwardly — the sarva-karma-saṃnyāsin — simply rests as that undivided awareness: there is nowhere else to move.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Rāmānuja reads this verse as prescribing the inner discipline that readies the aspirant for Bhagavān's grace: the priya (pleasant) and apriya (unpleasant) that the body-dwelling jīva (individual self) encounters through its own prācīna-karma-vāsanā (residual traces of prior action) must be received without harṣa (elation) or udvega (agitation). The means is sthira-buddhi directed at the sthira ātman (the immutable self), distinguishing it from the ever-changing body — this discrimination dissolves the sammoha (confusion) that fuses the two. Such a person, grounded in brahmābhyāsa (continuous practice of Brahman-knowledge through the teacher's transmission), progressively abandons deha-abhimāna (body-identification) and settles in the serene awareness that no prakṛta (natural/material) event can truly touch.

• Madhvadvaita

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

  Na prahṛṣyet priyaṃ prāpya nodvijet prāpya cāpriyam — the one established in brahman neither swells at the pleasant nor shudders at the unpleasant. In Dvaita's scheme, brahman here is svatantra Hari, and brahmaṇi sthitaḥ names the jīva‘s condition of resting, through bhakti, in real ontological subordination to that Lord — not an absorption that dissolves bheda (real distinction), but a steadied dependency. The brahmavid (the knower of brahman) cognizes Hari as sthira-buddhiḥ (firm in understanding): pleasant and unpleasant are Hari's dispensations within the paratantra (eternally dependent) jīva‘s life; to claim them as personal victories or personal wounds is the confusion the asaṃmūḍha (the undeluded) has shed. Vairāgya (dispassion) is real here, but it is grounded in recognition of pañca-bheda — the five-fold real distinction — not in any notion that distinctions are ultimately unreal. The jīva does not become Hari; it rests in Hari, and from that rest comes the equanimity the verse names. The chapter's remaining verses will elaborate sannyāsa, yoga, and jñāna together, as Madhva notes — sannnyāsayogajñānāni militvā pracyate — with this verse's sannyāsa-register opening that elaboration.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha spans verses 5.20–5.21 together as a diptych describing the lakṣaṇa (mark) of one who has attained paramānanda (supreme bliss): such a one is sthira-buddhi and free from sammoha (which Vallabha identifies with āsuratva, the demonic impulse), with the ātman entirely unattached to bāhya-viṣaya (external sense-objects). The real movement here is inward: the yogī who finds sāttvika sukha (pure delight) within the ātman alone and is united with Brahman through yoga tastes akṣaya brahma-sukha (the imperishable bliss of Brahman) — not as a discipline imposed from outside but as the natural overflow of Kṛṣṇa's līlā-prasāda (gift-grace of divine play) received without grasping. Neither elation at pleasure nor flinching at pain disrupts one whose ānanda (bliss) has its root in that indestructible source.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara frames the verse as the lakṣaṇa (distinguishing mark) of the brahma-prāpta (one who has obtained Brahman): having become a brahma-vid and abiding in Brahman itself, such a person encounters the priya without becoming prahṛṣṭa (elated, lit. bristling with joy) and encounters the apriya without udvega (agitation) or viṣāda (dejection). The root cause is sthira-buddhi — a niścalā (unwavering, not oscillating) buddhi — and its source is the freedom from moha (delusion): asaṃmūḍha (un-deluded), the practitioner has already seen through the mirage that makes pleasant and unpleasant seem categorically different. The verse thus functions as a check-list: if elation or dejection still arise sharply, Brahman-knowledge has not yet rooted.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana reads the verse across three progressive stages of the sādhaka (aspirant): śravaṇa-manana-phala (the fruit of hearing and reflection), which produces sthira-buddhi; nididhyāsana (sustained meditation), which produces asaṃmūḍha — freedom from the viparīta-bhāvanā (contrary mental impressions) that block sākṣātkāra (direct realization) even after intellectual conviction; and the jivanmukta (living-liberated) who is brahma-vid in the fullest sense, abiding as Brahman with no residual dvaitadarśana (dualistic vision) left to generate harṣa or udvega. The liṅ-pratyaya (optative grammatical mood) in the verse is explained as appropriate to sādhakas who must adopt through effort the naturally effortless comportment of jivanmuktas. Kṛṣṇa-bhakti is the affective current that stabilizes nididhyāsana and accelerates the dissolution of viparīta-bhāvanā.