Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 6, Verse 13: Krishna to Arjuna — Dhyāna-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Hold trunk, head, and neck (kāya-śiras-grīvā) in a single straight line — not as aesthetic posture but as the external condition for withdrawing the gaze inward. Śaṅkara is precise: the instruction 'look at the tip of one's nose' conceals an implied particle 'iva' (as if); what is actually commanded is the convergence of the eyes' line of sight (dṛṣṭi-saṃnipāta), not fixation on the nose-tip itself, because if the mind were fixed on the nose-tip it would not be settled in the Self (ātman). Not looking at the directions (dig-anavalokanam) completes the seal: sensory attention, already gathered by the unmoving body, is pointed inward toward ātman where manas must ultimately be fixed (ātma-saṃstham manaḥ, 6.25).

  divergence: Śaṅkara on 'iva-śabda-lopa': the implied particle shows the instruction is about inward gaze-convergence, not nose-fixation; mind fixed on nose would not be fixed on Self.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Rāmānuja reads this verse as a single sustained compound action: holding the body-head-neck straight, stable, and supported (sāpāśrayatayā sthiram), while not looking outward at the directions, the sādhaka directs gaze to the tip of his own nose — and in this posture he is to become 'mat-citta' (mind fixed on Me) and 'mat-para' (supremely oriented toward Me), sitting with a serene self (praśānta-ātmā) and utterly quiescent mind. The physical alignment is not merely mechanical: it is the bodily form of the turning-toward-Bhagavān, so that every element of posture is already a mode of kainkarya (service-offering) to the Lord who indwells the form.

  divergence: Rāmānuja folds 6.13–14 into a single compound construction culminating in 'mac-citto yukta āsīta mat-paraḥ' — the posture is inseparable from the Lord-oriented mind.

• Madhvadvaita

  Trunk, head, and neck held erect and still — *samaṃ kāya-śiro-grīvaṃ dhārayann acalaṃ sthiraḥ* — the gaze turned inward toward the tip of one's own nose, the eyes not ranging outward across the directions: this bodily composure is the outer face of *samādhi-yoga* (the yoga of total absorption). The *paratantra* *jīva* (the eternally dependent individual self) does not self-posit this stillness as its own achievement; the fixity of body mirrors the fixity of mind upon *svatantra* (the independently real, self-sufficient) Hari. Looking neither left nor right — *diśaś cānavalokayan* — the *jīva* withdraws the senses from all that is not Bhagavān, for *bheda* (real distinction) between self and Lord is never dissolved: the one who sits in stillness remains irreducibly other than the One upon whom attention is fixed. The *pañca-bheda* (the five-fold real distinction: Lord–jīva, Lord–matter, jīva–jīva, jīva–matter, matter–matter) perdures through and within the posture; posture is not philosophy, but it is the body enacting *paratantra* subordination — every steadied limb an acknowledgment that the *jīva* moves only as Hari permits.

  divergence: Madhva's gloss covers 6.12–6.14 in a single phrase — *yogaṃ samādhiyogaṃ yuñjyāt* — subsuming all posture detail under the injunction to engage in samādhi-yoga. Jayatīrtha adds that *yuñjyāt* (let him engage) means *kuryāt* (let him do), with *sthāna-viveka* (discernment of place) as the operative concern, not limb-by-limb elaboration. The dvaita siddhānta reading above is extrapolated from these school-wide doctrinal commitments.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha's bhāṣya groups 6.10–6.13 together and moves quickly to the fruit — the yogī who practices in this way 'attains mat-saṃsthā' (the state established in Me, 6.15). For Puṣṭi-mārga the physical disciplines are occasions of Kṛṣṇa's own prasāda flowing into the sādhaka: trunk-head-neck alignment is a body made receptive, an asana offered back as an instrument of līlā. The instruction is less a personal technique than a revelation that the body itself, when stilled and straightened, mirrors the vertical axis of Kṛṣṇa's own vyūha-form descending into the devotee. Practice is not self-willed austerity; it is surrender of the body as a vessel into whose upward-pointed stillness Kṛṣṇa pours Himself.

  divergence: Vallabha 6.10–6.13 block gloss ending in 'mat-saṃsthām adhigacchati' — physical yoga folded into Kṛṣṇa-attainment arc.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara opens with the pedagogical frame: this verse (and the following one) shows the mode of holding body and so on that conduces to one-pointedness of mind (citta-ekāgryopayoginī deha-ādi-dhāraṇā). 'Kāya' means the middle portion of the trunk (deha-madhya-bhāga); combined with head and neck the instruction covers from the base support (mūlādhāra) to the crown (mūrdhāgra) — held straight (sama), uncurved (avakra), unmoving (niścala). 'Looking at the tip of one's nose' means half-closed eyes (ardha-nimīlita-netra); not gazing outward at the directions. The verse connects syntactically to the next: 'sitting thus' — every physical clause is preparation for the inner state described in 6.14.

  divergence: Śrīdhara: 'kāya = deha-madhya-bhāga'; 'ardha-nimīlita-netra ity arthaḥ'; syntactic link to 6.14 via 'āsīta'.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana distinguishes outer seat (already given) from body-posture now under instruction. 'Kāya' is the middle of the body; trunk-head-neck together span from mūlādhāra to crown (mūrdhānta), held straight (sama-avakra), motionless (acala-akampa) — the purpose being to achieve freedom from the bodily trembling (aṅga-ejayatva) that accompanies distraction. On the gaze: 'looking at the nose-tip' means eyes neither closed (which invites laya, dissolution into sleep) nor fully open (which invites vikṣepa, scatteredness) — the mean is an open-but-inward-directed gaze, 'animīlita-netra.' Not looking at directions closes off vikṣepa from outside. The compound discipline — motionless trunk, gathered gaze, sealed periphery — constitutes the bodily form of the non-distraction (laya-vikṣepa-rāhitya) that prepares the citta for Kṛṣṇa-bhakti.

  divergence: Madhusūdana: 'animīlita-netra ity arthaḥ'; 'laya-vikṣepa-rāhityāya'; span 'mūlādhārād ārabhya mūrdhānta-paryantam'.