Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 8, Verse 15: Krishna to Arjuna — Akṣara-Brahma-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Reaching Me — the Lord — and attaining My very nature (mad-bhāva), the great ones no longer return to rebirth, which is a receptacle (ālaya) for all three types of suffering (ādhyātmika and the rest) and whose own form is never stable. They have arrived at that highest accomplishment called liberation (mokṣa-ākhyā saṃsiddhi). Those who do not reach Me, Śaṅkara clarifies, rotate back into saṃsāra.

  divergence: Śaṅkara identifies the goal as mad-bhāva — oneness with the Lord's nature — not personal service or residence in Vaikuṇṭha.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Those great-souled ones whose minds are fastened on Me, who know My real nature (yathāvasthita-mat-svarūpa-jñāna), who cannot sustain their own being without Me (mayā vinā ātma-dhāraṇam alabhamānāḥ) — after worshipping Me they attain Me as the highest accomplishment (parama-saṃsiddhi-rūpam mām). Having reached Me they do not return to the unstable dwelling of birth.

  divergence: Unlike Śaṅkara's mad-bhāva (merger), Rāmānuja's mahātmānas remain distinct persons who have attained the highest form (parama-saṃsiddhi-rūpam mām), preserving the devotee's individuality in the Lord.

• Madhvadvaita

  Those who have attained the highest accomplishment (paramāṃ siddhiṃ gatāḥ) — that attainment of Hari is itself the cause for non-return. The verse, terse in Madhva's reading, praises the fruit of such attainment: reaching the Supreme, the eternally distinct jīva does not re-enter the cycle.

  divergence: Madhva's commentary is intentionally minimal (sūtra-style); the divergence from Advaita is structural — liberation is proximity to Hari, never identity with Him.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Attaining Me — the indwelling controller (antaryāmin), the imperishable (akṣara), the supreme Person (puruṣottama) — the great-souled ones do not return to rebirth; they have attained liberation (mukti), which is beyond the guṇas (nirguṇā). Vallabha sees proper conduct (sadācāra) as the vehicle that demonstrates this non-return.

  divergence: Vallabha's sadācāra framing distinguishes Puṣṭi-mārga from Rāmānuja's yathāvasthita-jñāna path and Śaṅkara's jñāna-mārga: graceful conduct itself manifests the non-return.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Although You are easily attained — what then follows from that? The great-souled bhaktas, of the character already described (ukta-lakṣaṇāḥ), having reached Me, do not return to birth, which is a support (āśraya) for suffering and is impermanent. Why? Because they have attained liberation (mokṣa) as the proper full accomplishment (samyak-siddhi). Śrīdhara offers the verse as both declaration and synthesis: birth is the home of suffering; reaching Kṛṣṇa closes that home.

  divergence: Śrīdhara's commentary is clean of HTML artifacts; the bhāṣya is fully usable. His voice bridges jñāna and bhakti without resolving the tension, characteristic of his balanced philological style.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Having attained Me, the Lord (māmīśvaraṃ prāpya), the great-souled ones — whose inner instrument (antaḥkaraṇa) is freed from the impurities of rajas and tamas (rajastamomala-rahita), who are of pure sattva, in whom right vision (samyag-darśana) has arisen — do not return to rebirth, which is a dwelling of suffering from womb-residence and birth-passage onward, and which is unstable and almost-already-perished (dṛṣṭa-naṣṭa-prāyam). Madhusūdana reads the verse as pointing to krama-mukti: the upāsaka attains the Lord's world, enjoys it, and at the end attains final liberation.

  divergence: The synthesis is explicit: pure sattva and samyag-darśana are Advaita prerequisites; yet the upāsaka's path through the Lord's world before final liberation preserves the devotional arc absent in strict Śaṅkara.