Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 7, Verse 16: Krishna to Arjuna — Jñāna-Vijñāna-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Four kinds of meritorious ones (sukṛtinaḥ) approach Me — the distressed (ārta), the inquisitive (jijñāsu), the wealth-seeker (arthārthī), and the knower (jñānī). Śaṅkara specifies the ārta as one overwhelmed by thieves, tigers, disease and such calamities, and the arthārthī as one desiring wealth (dhana-kāma) — both still entangled in conditional aims. The jñānī alone knows the true nature (tattva) of Viṣṇu and therefore stands apart; the other three are preparatory grades on the path toward jñāna, which alone dissolves the illusion of the individual self.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Rāmānuja reads the four as a hierarchy of accumulated merit (sukṛta-tāratamya): the ārta has lost his established prosperity and craves restoration; the arthārthī seeks prosperity not yet attained — these two differ only in the face they present, for both aim at aiśvarya (lordly welfare) and constitute a single category of adhikāra (eligibility). The jijñāsu seeks the self's own nature liberated from prakṛti; the jñānī, knowing the ātman's sole substance as śeṣatva (servant-nature to Bhagavān), does not stop at the liberated self but presses onward to Bhagavān as the supreme attainment. Each grade presupposes the prior and is surpassed only by greater grace-readiness.

• Madhvadvaita

  Madhva's bhāṣya for 7.16 is embedded in a joint commentary spanning 7.15–7.16, where the contrast is primarily between the duskṛtinaḥ (evil-doers) who do not approach and the sukṛtinaḥ who do — bhāṣya prose for the fourfold taxonomy itself is not separately elaborated. What Madhva stresses is that those of corrupt nature are blocked from approach by māyā's suppression of their innate jñāna (svabhāva), while the sukṛtī approaches Hari precisely because constitutional knowledge (jīva-svabhāva) has not been overwhelmed; the fourfold classification thus measures degrees to which Hari's grace has reversed that suppression in each dependent jīva.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha distinguishes two orders of bhajana: the fourfold hierarchy rests entirely on prior sukṛti — the ārta (Gajendra), jijñāsu (Śaunaka), arthārthī (Dhruva), and jñānī (Śuka) all arrive through accumulated merit. But the gopīs and the Puṣṭi-mārga devotees stand outside this taxonomy entirely — their love (sneha) is alaukika (supramundane), born solely from Bhagavān's own svarūpa-anugraha (grace intrinsic to His essential nature), requiring no prior sādhana across births. The 'ca' (and) at the verse's close signals that these utterly grace-dependent lovers cannot be folded into the fourfold scheme at all.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara reads the verse as a simple ranking by prior-birth merit: only those who accumulated puṇya in past lives actually approach Bhagavān, for the same distress that sends the impure to petty deities (kṣudra-devatā-bhajana) and perpetuates saṃsāra sends the meritorious directly to the Lord. The ārta is one overwhelmed by disease and such; the jijñāsu desires ātma-jñāna; the arthārthī craves the means of enjoyment here or hereafter; the jñānī is the ātma-knower (ātmavit). Each category is distinguished by the nature of its craving, not by the absence of craving — the jñānī's craving is for truth itself.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana organizes the four into three sākāma (desiring) and one niṣkāma (desireless): the ārta flees calamity (he cites Draupadī, Gajendra, the kings in Jarāsandha's prison), the jijñāsu is the mumukṣu (liberation-seeker, as Mucukunda or Janaka), the arthārthī seeks the instruments of enjoyment here or beyond (Sugrīva, Vibhīṣaṇa, Dhruva). Even these three cross māyā through bhajana — the jijñāsu directly through arising jñāna, the other two by progressing to jijñāsutva. The jñānī, perpetually absorbed in bhagavat-tattva-sākṣātkāra (direct vision of Bhagavān's essence), has crossed māyā entirely; and the 'ca' includes the niṣkāma-prema-bhakta (the gopīs, Akrūra) within the jñānī's station, completing the synthesis of jñāna and bhakti.