Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 7, Verse 21: Krishna to Arjuna — Jñāna-Vijñāna-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Whoever desires to worship whatever form of deity with faith — that very faith I, the inner controller (antaryāmin), make firm and unwavering in him. Śaṅkara reads this as the Lord stabilizing the natural inclination (svabhāva-pravṛtti) of the desire-driven worshiper toward his chosen form. The verse does not praise such worship; it explains the mechanism by which Īśvara upholds even secondary devotion, since all forms are ultimately non-different from the one Brahman.

  divergence: Advaita does not celebrate the worshiper of limited forms; it explains why the Absolute sustains even limited worship without contradiction.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Even those who unknowingly (ajānat) worship Indra or Āditya are worshiping the Lord's own body-forms (madīyāḥ tanavas), for the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad declares 'He who dwells in the sun, whom the sun does not know — his body is the sun.' Knowing this, I Myself trace (anusandhāya) that faith as directed to My own bodily manifestation and make it firm, free from obstruction (nirvighna). The devotee's ignorance of the identity does not diminish the efficacy of the śraddhā, because the Lord Himself rectifies the address.

  divergence: Unlike Advaita, Rāmānuja insists the individual devotee and the form worshiped are real; Bhagavān does not dissolve them but inhabits them as body-soul (śarīra-ātma-bhāva).

• Madhvadvaita

  Whatever form — from Brahmā downward (brahmādirūpa) — the devotee wishes to worship, that form is ultimately dependent upon Hari; and it is Hari who makes the śraddhā stable. The Nāradīya scripture confirms that devotees of Brahmā are counted among Bhagavān's own devotees (mad-bhaktānām anantatā), establishing a hierarchy: secondary deities are real but wholly subordinate. Worship of them is efficacious only insofar as Viṣṇu sustains it from within.

  divergence: Madhva's realism is uncompromising: the jīva, the deity, and Hari are three genuinely distinct reals; Hari's sustaining role does not collapse them.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  All deity-forms are Kṛṣṇa's own body-forms (mac-charīrabhūta); the worshiper who does not know this nevertheless worships Me. From within (antaḥ), recognizing that this faith is directed at My own bodily manifestation, I alone (aham eka) trace it and make it firm. In Vallabha's reading, even the unconscious convergence of śraddhā toward any form is an event within Kṛṣṇa's own līlā — the devotee's not-knowing does not place him outside the Lord's prasāda.

  divergence: Śuddhādvaita reads no ontological gap between Kṛṣṇa and the world of forms; all forms are real and all are His body, so no worship truly misses Him.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Among all devotees, whoever wishes to worship whatever deity-form — which is actually My own mūrti (madīyaṃ eva mūrtim) — I, as the indwelling controller (antaryāmin), make that very faith toward that form firm and steady. Śrīdhara reads 'tām eva' (that very faith, not a substitute) as the key: the Lord does not redirect the worshiper but deepens the faith already present, because every deity-form is already His.

  divergence: Śrīdhara's philological balance avoids both the impersonalism of Advaita and the exclusive hierarchism of Dvaita; all forms are real mūrtis of the one Lord.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  There is no danger that devotees of secondary deities will remain distant from Bhagavān Vāsudeva, because I Myself, as the inner controller, stabilize the faith that arises from the force of prior-life tendencies (janmāntara-vāsanā-bala-prādurbhūtā). Madhusūdana emphasizes that this stabilizing faith is directed toward the chosen deity-form — not yet toward Me directly — and acknowledges that limitation honestly: 'I make that very faith firm, not faith directed at Me.' Yet precisely this honesty about the worshiper's current level is the ground of compassion that will eventually draw him higher.

  divergence: Madhusūdana alone among the six explicitly names the limitation: the faith stabilized here is not yet bhakti toward Kṛṣṇa; it is a preparatory grace that the synthesis-path will eventually complete.