Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 8, Verse 3: Krishna to Arjuna — Akṣara-Brahma-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  The imperishable (akṣara) is the supreme Brahman — that which neither dissolves nor diminishes, the sole substratum of the world upheld by its governance alone, as the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad declares: 'at the command of this akṣara, O Gārgī, the sun and moon stand held.' The svabhāva of that very Brahman appearing in each body as the inner witness (pratyagātman) is called adhyātman — not a second entity, but Brahman's own mode as immanent self-in-the-body, ultimately non-different from the absolute. Karma here means the sacrificial relinquishment (visarga — the offering of oblation, caru, or puroḍāśa dedicated to the deity) through which beings — from trees to animals — arise in sequence via rain and grain, the entire causal chain tracing back to this renunciatory act.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The supreme akṣara is the collective self of all liberated jīvas (kṣetrajña-samaṣṭi), that mode of consciousness purified of prakṛti-contamination, as attested by Śruti: 'the avyakta dissolves into the akṣara, the akṣara dissolves into darkness.' Svabhāva here is prakṛti itself — the subtle elements and their vāsanā-residues that bind the self to embodied existence — which along with akṣara must be known by the mumukṣu as both what is to be attained and what is to be abandoned. Karma is the act of procreation sanctioned by Śruti's pañcāgni-vidyā ('at the fifth offering the waters become a person'), the mechanism by which human embodiment continuously arises — and this entire karmic web, with all its consequences, is precisely what the liberation-seeker must learn to renounce.

• Madhvadvaita

  The supreme, imperishable Brahman is Parabrahman Hari himself — the qualifier 'supreme' (parama) excludes the Vedas and all other candidates for the title akṣara. Adhyātman is the jīva's own svabhāva: by etymology, svabhāva means 'the mode that belongs to the self' (svākhyo bhāvaḥ), and the jīva's mode is its perpetually existing, unchanging essence — unlike antaḥkaraṇa and other instruments which are subject to transformation. Karma-named visarga is Īśvara's own creative act (viśeṣa-sargaḥ) — the special creation that brings forth both the jīvas and the inert world of matter; the agency belongs exclusively to Hari, and all action is participation in his creative governance.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Following the Bhāgavata's threefold identification — 'what the knowers of truth call Brahman, Paramātmā, and Bhagavān is one non-dual knowledge' — the supreme akṣara here is the first of Viṣṇu's three puruṣa-forms: the immeasurable-bliss (agaṇitānanda) aspect, the avyakta source that is yet non-separate from Bhagavān's own luminous form. Adhyātman is the subtle sixteen-part inner self with senses and mind (ṣoḍaśakala-sūkṣma-sendriya-mano-rūpa) — what is to be discovered within the ātman. Karma as visarga is the procreative offering sanctified by the Chāndogya's pañcāgni sequence ('the oblation cast into fire rises to meet the sun; at the fifth offering, waters become a person') — through this the five elements produce the gross body, and the entire mechanism is Kṛṣṇa's own līlā-prasāda pouring forth as creation.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Akṣara means 'that which does not move or dissolve' — and since the jīva too is technically imperishable, Kṛṣṇa specifies 'supreme' (parama): this is the root-cause of the worlds, Brahman as declared by Śruti: 'this indeed is the akṣara, O Gārgī, which the Brāhmaṇas proclaim.' Svabhāva is Brahman's own partial manifestation in jīva-form (svasyaiva brahmaṇaḥ aṃśato jīvarūpeṇa bhavanaṃ), and when this Brahman-fragment operates as experiencer within the body, it is called adhyātman. Karma is the sacrifice-form of release (devatā-uddeśena dravya-tyāga-rūpo yajñaḥ) — the relinquishing of material goods toward the deity — which, as rain begets grain and grain begets beings (ādityāj jāyate vṛṣṭiḥ), generates the arising and growth of all creatures; this sacrifice stands as representative of all ritual action.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Brahman here is nirguṇa — without superimposition — as the Bṛhadāraṇyaka establishes in its akṣara-brāhmaṇa: 'not gross, not subtle, not short, not long...in this akṣara, O Gārgī, space is woven warp and weft.' The qualifier parama confirms self-luminous supreme bliss, and the word akṣara cannot here be reduced merely to its phonemic usage (the syllable Oṃ would be addressed separately at 8.13), since the Mīmāṃsā principle 'rūḍhi displaces yoga' yields to the prior Śruti-liṅga in cases where the derivational sense is independently established. Svabhāva is Brahman's own nature (svabhāva = svarūpa, not a genitive compound of Brahman's property but a karmadhāraya — Brahman itself as its own mode), appearing as the inner witness of the body, while karma is Vedic yajna-dāna-homa — the offering, the gift, the libation — whose causal chain ('the oblation meets the sun; rain; grain; creatures') sustains all moving and unmoving beings.