Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 5, Verse 8: Krishna to Arjuna — Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  The one who is absorbed (yukta) and knows the true nature of the Self (ātman) holds steadily: 'I do nothing whatsoever.' Seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, moving, sleeping, breathing — in all these the organs alone operate on their objects; the Self neither acts nor is agent. Śaṅkara is unambiguous: the one who sees non-action within all action (sarvakāryakāraṇaceṣṭāsu akarmāiva paśyataḥ) belongs wholly to renunciation (sarvakarmasannyāsa), for who strains toward water in a mirage once the mirage is seen through?

  divergence: Śaṅkara's phrase 'sarvakāryakāraṇaceṣṭāsu akarmāiva paśyataḥ' — seeing non-action in every bodily and sensory effort — supplies the logical basis: akartṛtva (non-agenthood) is not a practice to cultivate but the paramārtha (ultimate truth) already present; seeing it correctly (samyagdarśana) dissolves the occasion for any further karma-engagement.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The ātma-tattva-vit (one who knows the real nature of the self) keeps the understanding (anusandhāna) that the organs of knowing and acting — ear, skin, eye, tongue, nose, and the vital breaths — move among their respective objects by their own impetus; the ātman, pure sentience (jñānaika-svabhāva), has no intrinsic connection to doership. 'I do not act' means: this agenthood (kartṛtva) born of the association with instrument-bound prāṇas and senses is not of the self's own nature (na svarūpaprayukta). The bhāva (disposition) is not vacant withdrawal but vigilant recognition that each act of service belongs to the mode, not to the knower.

  divergence: Rāmānuja's text is clear — 'jñānaika-svabhāvasya mama karmamūlendriyaprāṇasambandha-kṛtam kartṛtvam na svarūpaprayuktam' — the ātman's doership is instrument-caused, not essence-caused; this preserves devotional engagement while denying ego-ownership of any act.

• Madhvadvaita

  *Sannyāsaṃ spaṣṭayati punaḥ ślokaḍvayena* — Kṛṣṇa clarifies *sannyāsa* (renunciation) again by means of this pair of verses. Jayatīrtha notes the *punaḥ* (again): the teaching has already been made clear by the terms *jñeyaḥ* and *aviśuddhātmā* in earlier passages, so the reiteration is not redundant but signals the explicit statement of what had remained implicit — the renunciation of *saṅkalpa* (volitional appropriation of action), previously unspoken. *Naiva kiñcit karomīti* names the *tattva-vit*'s settled recognition: the *jīva* (individual self), as *paratantra* (eternally dependent), neither initiates nor owns the seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, moving, sleeping, breathing that stream through it. *Hari* alone is *svatantra kartā* (the independently acting agent); the *jīva* acknowledges its instrument-level function within that sovereignty. This is not a Māyāvāda erasure of selfhood but the honest confession of *bheda* (real distinction) — the *tattva-vit* knows the categorical difference between Lord and *jīva* and therefore cannot arrogate doership.

  divergence: Madhva's bhāṣya on 5.8–9 is a single line: *sannyāsaṃ spaṣṭayati punaḥ ślokaḍvayena*. Jayatīrtha supplies the exegetical moves — *jñeyaḥ*, *aviśuddhātmā*, and the *prāg-anukta-saṅkalpa-tyāga* — that justify the *punaḥ*. The doctrinal elaboration on *Hari-kartṛtva* and *paratantra-jīva* is drawn from these sub-commentary moves and established Dvaita *siddhānta*, not from additional bhāṣya prose on this verse.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha resolves the apparent paradox — 'even while acting, one is not bound' — by showing that the apparent activity of the senses (opening and closing of eyes, and all the rest enumerated through unmiṣan nimiṣan) belongs to the mind and organs moving in their own sphere (svāsvaviṣayeṣu), not to the self (na aham). The one who holds this, as the Sāṅkhya-knowing one does, is untouched (na lipyate). The Brahma-sūtra cited (4.1.13 — tadadhigame uttarapūrvāghayoraśleṣavināśau) seals it: on the dawning of higher knowledge, the binding-power of both prior and future karma detaches and dissolves. In the Puṣṭi idiom this is the grace of Kṛṣṇa actively unlodging the root of doership.

  divergence: Vallabha's bhāṣya explicitly cites BS 4.1.13 and the formulation 'karmabhirna sa badhyate' — he is not bound by actions — tying the verse's akartṛtva to the doctrinal mechanism of karma-aśleṣa (non-adhesion) and karma-vināśa (destruction of accrued karma) on tattva-knowledge. This is the strongest BS-citation in the panel for this verse.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara frames 5.8–9 as answering an internal objection: isn't it contradictory to say one 'acts but is not bound'? He resolves it through the absence of the 'I am the doer' identification (kartṛtvābhimānābhāva). The karma-yogin, progressively purified, becomes the tattva-vit and holds by understanding (dhīyā niścitvā): seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating belong to the eye and the other jñānendriyas; walking to the feet; sleeping to buddhi; breathing to prāṇa; speaking to vāk; releasing to pāyu and upastha; grasping to hands; opening and closing the eyes to the kūrma-prāṇa. With each faculty returned to its faculty, the brahma-vit is untouched — as the Brahma-sūtra confirms.

  divergence: Śrīdhara gives the most granular organ-by-organ map in the panel — eye/ear/nose/tongue/skin for jñānendriyas; feet/prāṇa/vāk/pāyu-upastha/hands/kūrma-prāṇa for karme­ndriyas and vital breaths. This enumeration operationalises 'indriyāṇi indriyārtheṣu vartante' at anatomical resolution and is taken directly from his bhāṣya prose. Note: payload is clean Sanskrit Devanāgarī; no HTML/JS artifacts detected.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana elaborates the verse twice — once as a direct reading and once as a sequential path — achieving the signature synthesis. Direct reading: the tattva-vit, with mind composed (samāhitacitta), witnesses the jñānendriyas, karmendriyas, five prāṇa-varieties, and the fourfold antaḥkaraṇa each operating in their proper domain (svasvaviṣayeṣu), and holds firmly (avadharayan): 'I do nothing whatsoever.' Alternatively (athavā), the karma-yogin first proceeds as yukta, then through antaḥkaraṇaśuddhi attains tattva-knowledge and thereafter abides in non-doership. The fourfold inner organ (antaḥkaraṇacatuṣṭaya) is uniquely listed here, absent in Śaṅkara's briefer account — signalling Madhusūdana's attention to the full psychic apparatus as part of what moves, not what 'I' am.

  divergence: Madhusūdana's distinctive contribution is the antaḥkaraṇa-catuṣṭaya (four-fold inner organ) addition and the dual construction: simultaneous-path (yukta already as tattva-vit) and sequential-path (yukta → śuddhi → tattva-vit). Both constructions are directly present in his bhāṣya on 5.8.