BG 5.29 — Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhagavad Gītā 5.29Chapter 5 · Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga · Krishna → Arjuna · anuṣṭubh

भोक्तारं यज्ञतपसां सर्वलोकमहेश्वरम् ।

सुहृदं सर्वभूतानां ज्ञात्वा मां शान्तिमृच्छति ॥

bhoktāraṃ yajña-tapasāṃ sarva-loka-maheśvaram

suhṛdaṃ sarva-bhūtānāṃ jñātvā māṃ śāntim ṛcchati

spokensingle-voice recital; rendered via IndicF5 conditioned on a Sanskrit reference clip

meaning

Knowing Krishna as the one who receives every sacrifice and austerity, as the sovereign lord of all worlds, and as the unconditional friend of every living being, you reach peace.

ekras · bhāṣya

Three predicates of Krishna in tight succession; the closing verb is shantim richchhati, the seeker reaches peace. Three knowings; one peace.

Madhusudana synthesizes both streams of the panel here. He preserves Shankara's definition of shanti as sarva-samsara-uparati — total cessation of transmigration — yet describes the Lord as purna-sachchidananda-eka-rasa, undivided Being-Consciousness-Bliss, and as sarvatma, the Self of all. He parses bhokta with the dual root bhuj — enjoyment and protection — so the term means both the receiver of the offering and the protector of the one who offers.

Shankara holds the three predicates with characteristic precision. Bhokta: the Lord receives every yajna and tapas in the dual role of kartri and devata — as the doer behind the doing, as the deity to whom the offering is addressed. Maheshvara: the supreme Ishvara over all worlds, including Hiranyagarbha. Suhrid: the unconditional benefactor — pratyupakara-nirapeksha — the friend who expects nothing in return — dwelling in the heart of all beings. The yogin whose mind has been thoroughly stilled, samahita-chitta, attains shanti by knowing Me thus.

Vallabha and Shridhara both answer the same standing objection: can mere indriya-samyama alone bring liberation? No. Only through jnana of Bhagavan's mahatmya does shanti come.

Vallabha reads the three predicates as the three kandas of the Veda: bhokta as the intent of karma-kanda, maheshvara as the intent of upasana-kanda, suhrid as the intent of jnana-kanda. The verse closes the chapter and quietly opens the next.

Context

where

Chapter 5 · Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga · meter anuṣṭubh

who speaks

Krishna → Arjuna

preceded by — BG 5.28

The sage who has reined in senses, mind, and intellect, who aims only at liberation and has shed desire, fear, and anger, is always already free.

What's going on

Knowing Krishna as the one who receives every sacrifice and austerity, as the sovereign lord of all worlds, and as the unconditional friend of every living being, you reach peace.

Vyavahāra · try it in your life

Advaita

Before beginning any daily work — a meeting, a project, a meal prepared for others — pause and recognise that you are not the ultimate kartā (doer): the same Nārāyaṇa who is the inner witness (sarvapratyaya-sākṣin) of every thought is also the bhoktā of the work's fruit. This shifts the act from ego-performance to Vedāntic offering without requiring formal ritual. The accumulating effect over weeks is what Śaṅkara calls samāhita-citta — a mind that has stopped agitating over outcomes because it has ceded ownership to the Witness.

Advaita-Bhakti

Madhusūdana's synthesis resolves the tension many practitioners feel between intellectual study (jñāna-mārga) and devotional feeling (bhakti-mārga). In practice: begin your study session by invoking Kṛṣṇa as pūrṇa-saccidānanda — full, complete, of one flavour — then proceed analytically. The emotional warmth of bhakti and the precision of Advaita analysis are not competing modes; they are two lenses on the same knowing. When the analysis feels dry, remember the Friend (suhṛt); when the devotion feels unanchored, remember the Witness (sākṣin). The verse authorises both moves simultaneously.

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Viśiṣṭādvaita

Treat every relationship in your professional or domestic life as kainkarya (service to the Lord present in that person). Rāmānuja's gloss 'suhṛdām ārādhanāya sarve pravartante' — all beings act for the worship of the Friend — means that your colleague, your parent, your student each carries the Lord's suhṛt (friendship) inside them. Act toward them accordingly: not from duty-as-burden but from the ease (sukha) that comes from knowing you are serving the Maheśvara (supreme Sovereign) within the relation.

Dvaita

In daily pūjā (worship) or any conscious act of dedication, hold firmly the distinction: I am the worshipper (upāsaka), Hari is the worshipped (upāsya) — the two never merge. When you feel spiritually uncertain or discouraged, return to this clarity: the peace promised in 5.29 is not self-realisation but right-relational knowing (dhyāna on the Enjoyer who is eternally other). Use the verse as a dhyāna-sūtra — three qualities, one object — to steady the mind in correct orientation.

Śuddhādvaita

Vallabha's three-register reading suggests a daily inventory: in your karma (external acts), do you offer them as yajña to Kṛṣṇa the Enjoyer? In your upāsanā (inner worship), do you hold Him as Maheśvara of every circumstance — including the difficult ones? In your jñāna (understanding), do you recognise Him as the ātmā (self) of every being you encounter? Running this three-part check — even briefly at day's end — is the puṣṭi-mārga version of the verse's integrative knowing.

Bhakti

When you feel that your efforts (tapas, sustained difficult work) go unrecognised or unreciprocated, Śrīdhara's reading offers a reframe: Bhagavān as bhoktā is the one who truly receives and as pālaka is the one who truly protects the fruit. The pratupakāra-nirapekṣa (return-gift-independent) quality of the Lord's suhṛt means friendship without ledger-keeping. Bring this to any relationship where you are expending effort for someone who cannot fully reciprocate: parent caring for an ageing child, teacher serving an indifferent student — mat-prasādena, grace flows regardless.

Adhiṣṭhāna · substrate signature

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mūlaGRETIL e-text of the Bhagavadgītā with Śaṅkara's commentary (data entry: Gaudiya Grantha Mandira) for chapters 1-17; sanskritdocuments.org sd_bgnew.itx for chapter 18; ingested via a local Ambuda TEI build; per-verse repairs logged in post_generation_repairs

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weightsa=1 · b=0.01 · e_v=0.005 · z=0.2 · h=0 · th=0.01

anchorfit on Ramsukhdas's Sādhak Sañjīvanī (1980), frozen across the eight-commentator panel; cross-validated R@4 = 71.6% on Śaṅkara

extracted2026-04-21

methodPaper 1, Section II.B

↓ view raw per-verse object (JSON)↗ per-verse-object schema ↗ substrate code (MIT) + data (CC-BY 4.0)

The schema generalizes to any bounded-polysemy corpus with discrete primary text units, attested witness traditions, identifiable schools, and formal substrate. Port the per-verse object; refit weights on a domain-appropriate Layer-3 anchor; ship.

Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 5, Verse 29: Krishna to Arjuna — Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga