Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 8, Verse 10: Krishna to Arjuna — Akṣara-Brahma-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  At the moment of departure, one who is joined to unwavering mind (acalena manasā) — its steadiness forged by the accumulated saṃskāras of samādhi, which is yogabala — draws the prāṇa up through the suṣumnā, station by station through the planes (bhūmijaya-krama), and fixes it in the space between the eyebrows. Awakened and heedless of nothing, such a knower attains that supreme, luminous (divya) Puruṣa — the Kavi (seer), the Ancient, described in the preceding verse. The Śaṅkara bhāṣya is explicit: the practice requires prior conquest of the heart-lotus, then the upward path; bhakti is preparatory orientation, not the operative cause — yogabala, the gravity of accumulated meditative force, is what actually carries the prāṇa.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The one who meditates daily — in an unbroken current of bhakti that has grown into deep saṃskāra — arrives at death with a mind made immovable by that very devotional force. He installs prāṇa between the eyebrows and there, in that station, remembers the divine Person: omniscient (sarvajña), ancient, ruler of all worlds, subtler than the subtle, of the colour of the sun beyond darkness. Rāmānuja's bhāṣya specifies the result: 'tad-bhāvaṃ yāti, tat-samāna-aiśvaryo bhavati' — he enters the mode of that Lord and comes to share His sovereignty. The bhakti here is not merely affective; it is the daily practice (ahar-ahaḥ) that has crystallised into the settled saṃskāra that makes the mind immovable at the critical moment.

• Madhvadvaita

  Madhva addresses a tiered community: those who have mastered prāṇa-conquest (vāyu-jaya) and related yogic disciplines — for them this verse states what must be done specifically at death-time; but liberation is equally available to those fully endowed with jñāna, bhakti, and vairāgya even without vāyu-jaya, and can even come to those slightly incomplete in these if sufficiently skilled. The mind's controllability (manaḥ-vaśyatva) obtained by yogabala is the operative factor. Madhva's bhāṣya cites Bhāgavata 3.5.45-46 and Mokṣa-dharma to confirm: ātma-samādhi-yoga-bala is the bridge across the powerful prakṛti (baliṣṭhām prakṛtim jitvā). Hari, eternally distinct from the jīva, is the supreme Puruṣa attained — never dissolved into.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha's bhāṣya is terse and pointed: the verse declares the manner of meditation (dhyāna-prakāra) and the time (kāla). The upshot is saṃākaratā — identity of form — and sāmīpya, proximity. By fixing prāṇa between the eyebrows at departure, the devotee does not merely 'reach' the supreme Puruṣa but takes on His likeness ('tat-samākāraḥ sāmīpya-rūpam āpnoti'). Note: Vallabha's commentary here is brief; the fuller Puṣṭi-mārga doctrine of grace-only liberation (puṣṭi) is not elaborated in this passage, but the language of 'likeness' (samākāra) points unmistakably toward his svarūpa-prasāda theology.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara frames the verse as a portrait of the Puruṣa who stands beyond the whole manifest proliferation — he who remains when prakṛti and all its display (saprapañca-prakṛti) is pierced through. At the final moment, the bhakta who remembers this Puruṣa with bhakti and with a mind made still by the removal of viṣepa (vikṣepa-rahita) draws prāṇa correctly (samyak) through the suṣumnā path to the space between the brows. The result: he attains the supreme Puruṣa, the luminous self of the ātman (parātma-svarūpaṃ divyam). Śrīdhara links yogabala directly to mano-naiścalya: the stillness is not an act of will at the deathbed but the fruit of sustained yogic practice now made available at the critical moment.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana opens by noting that this verse specifies when maximum effort in recollection (anusmaraṇe prayatna-atirekaḥ) is required — at death. The upāsaka who is joined to bhakti (paramā prema toward the Parameśvara) and to yogabala — understood as the mass of samādhi-saṃskāras that actively oppose the saṃskāras of ordinary outward life (vyutthāna-saṃskāra-virodhin) — first gathers the mind in the heart-lotus, then lifts it along the suṣumnā by the path the guru has taught (guru-upadiṣṭa-mārgena), conquering the planes in sequence, and places prāṇa at the ājñā-cakra between the brows. Rising then through brahmarandhra, he, the upāsaka, attains the supreme divine Puruṣa — the Kavi, the Ancient, the Ruler. Madhusūdana holds both poles: the technical yogic anatomy is real and operative; and the object is fully personal, fully devotional.