Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 6, Verse 1: Krishna to Arjuna — Dhyāna-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  The one who performs obligatory action (nityakarma) — fire-ritual and the like — without clinging to its fruit is the true saṃnyāsī and yogī; the title belongs to inner renunciation of the desire for fruit (karmaphala-tṛṣṇā-tyāga), not to the bare physical act of abandoning fire or ceasing all activity. Śaṅkara clarifies: saṃnyāsa here means tyāga (relinquishment of result-craving) and yoga means citta-samādhāna (mental steadiness) — both are present in the niṣkāma actor by virtue of the very quality of his action. The 'saṃnyāsī-and-yogī' designations are thus gauṇa (secondary, functional) usages, pointing toward the primary truth that inner non-attachment is the only operative criterion.

  divergence: Śaṅkara: karmaphala-tṛṣṇā-rahita … saṃnyāso hi tyāgaḥ … citta-samādhānaṃ ca yogaḥ … gauṇam ubhayam — both titles are secondary designations (gauṇa), not primary.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Performing action as direct worship of the Parama-Puruṣa — treating even the agnihotra as 'ārādhana (service/worship) of the supremely beloved Lord who is the inner self of all' — constitutes both jñāna-yoga-niṣṭhā and karma-yoga-niṣṭhā simultaneously. Rāmānuja reads 'kāryaṃ karma' as action understood as kaiṅkarya (loving service), so the performer is doubly qualified: he relinquishes svarga (karmaphala-renunciation) and yet is fully active as ārādhana. The karma-yogī thus possesses both niṣṭhās and is superior to the mere niragnī who holds only the jñāna limb without the karma limb.

  divergence: Rāmānuja: sarvātmanā asmad-suhṛd-bhūta-parama-puruṣārādhana-rūpatayā karma eva mama prayojanaṃ — 'action itself is my purpose as worship of the supremely beloved Puruṣa.'

• Madhvadvaita

  Even the caturtha-āśramin (renunciant in the fourth stage) retains agni and kriyā in Madhva's reading — the text daivaṃ evāpare yajñam (4.25) and the smṛti rule 'agniḥ brahma ca tat-pūjā kriyā nyāsāśrame smṛtā' establish that the sannyāsī's fire is Brahman-as-fire and his action is Brahman-worship. Therefore the term 'niragnī-akriya' does NOT describe a true saṃnyāsī or yogī; the real qualifier is dependent surrender to Hari, and any abandonment that falls short of hari-kaiṅkarya is merely external show. The jīva's eternal distinction from Brahman makes the quality of relational surrender — not the quantity of renunciation — the decisive marker.

  divergence: Madhva: agniḥ brahma ca tat-pūjā kriyā nyāsāśrame smṛtā … tasmān niragnir akriyaḥ saṃnyāsī yogī ca na bhavaty eva — 'therefore the fireless and actionless one is never truly a saṃnyāsī or yogī.'

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Kṛṣṇa, speaking again to Pārtha, demonstrates the ekārthatā (single-meaning unity) of sāṃkhya and yoga: the one who performs obligatory action — the agnihotra and its like — as kāryam (what must be done) without appropriating the fruit enacts both renunciation (phala-tyāga = sāṃkhya) and yoga (karma-karaṇa) in a single gesture. In the Puṣṭi vision, this action is the ātma-saṃyama-dharma through which Kṛṣṇa's own līlā-prasāda flows; the practitioner is not reducing himself to bare non-attachment but is opening to the Lord's sustaining grace. Vallabha insists: the one without agnihotra and the one without non-fire-aided pūrta-karma are equally disqualified — completeness of engaged practice is mandatory.

  divergence: Vallabha: phala-tyāgāt sāṃkhyasya karma-karaṇāc ca yogasya ekārtham upadiṣṭam … nahi agnihotrādi-sakala-karma-rahitaḥ saṃnyāsī me mataḥ — 'one who abandons the agnihotra and all obligatory action is not my accepted saṃnyāsī.'

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara opens Chapter 6 by explaining that the previous chapter's compressed treatment of yoga (sarvakarmāṇi manasā) risked a hasty inference toward wholesale renunciation; this verse therefore praises karma-yoga as superior even to bare saṃnyāsa, specifically to block premature renunciation. The one who, without expectation of fruit, performs śāstra-vihita (scripture-ordained) obligatory action is the true saṃnyāsī and yogī — not the niragnī (one who abandons fire-aided iṣṭa-karma) nor the akriya (one who abandons non-fire-aided pūrta-karma). Devotional sensibility enters in the recognition that action becomes purifying precisely when it is offered without the taint of phala-kāṅkṣā (fruit-longing).

  divergence: Śrīdhara: karmaphalam anāśrito 'napekṣamāṇaḥ … yo karoti sa eva saṃnyāsī yogī ca — only such a practitioner deserves both titles; guarding against sahasa-saṃnyāsa (rash abandonment).

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana reads the verse on two levels at once: at the gauṇa (secondary) level, the karma-yogī merits the titles 'saṃnyāsī' and 'yogī' because phala-tyāga enacts renunciation and phala-tṛṣṇā-abhāva (absence of result-craving) enacts citta-samādhāna — both present in the single act of niṣkāma-karma. More precisely, 'niragnī' conceals 'saṃnyāsī' (one who relinquishes all karmas symbolized by fire) and 'akriya' conceals 'yogī' (one whose citta-vṛttis are niruddha / arrested); the double na negation therefore signals by a prasaṃsā (praise-by-negation) that the true saṃnyāsī is sa-agni and the true yogī is sa-kriya — engaged, not withdrawn. Bhakti inflects this synthesis: the niṣkāma karma-yogī's action is implicitly dedicated to Kṛṣṇa, pointing toward the full bhakti-yoga convergence that the chapter will unfold.

  divergence: Madhusūdana: niragnī-śabdena sarvāṇi karmāṇy upalakṣya … akriya-śabdena citta-vṛttīr upalakṣya … yathāsaṃkhyam ubhaya-vyatireko darśanīyaḥ — the two negations map respectively onto saṃnyāsī and yogī by sequential exclusion.