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

  *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.