Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 8, Verse 5: Krishna to Arjuna — Akṣara-Brahma-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  At the moment of death (anta-kāle), whoever departs remembering Me alone — the paramēśvara (Supreme Lord) Viṣṇu — relinquishing the body, attains mad-bhāva (My state, the Vaiṣṇava reality). Śaṅkara reads this not as a devotional concession but as pointing to the highest tattva: the memory that dissolves into Brahman is no mere mental act but the culmination of steady jñāna-abhyāsa (practice of discernment). The doubt — 'does he attain or not?' — is itself cancelled; where Brahman is the true self, the question of 'reaching' lapses.

  divergence: Śaṅkara pivots immediately to 8.6 to show this rule is not Kṛṣṇa-specific: the broader principle is that the last thought shapes the next state.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  At the anta-kāle (hour of final departure), whoever remembers Me and releases the body assumes My very svarūpa (essential nature) — not mere proximity to Me but genuine assimilation into My form. Rāmānuja reads 'mad-bhāvaṃ yāti' as taking on the ākāra (configuration) of the one remembered: just as Bharata, thinking of a deer at death, was born as a deer, so the devotee who holds Bhagavān's form with wholehearted bhakti (loving devotion) at death becomes śeṣa (eternally belonging) to the Lord in a way that precisely mirrors that final contemplation. The anta-kāla remembrance is therefore not a last-minute trick but the natural overflow of lifelong service.

  divergence: Rāmānuja's ākāra principle is absent in Śaṅkara; for Śaṅkara there is no 'becoming like' — there is only identity-in-Brahman.

• Madhvadvaita

  The mad-bhāva attained here is sattā in Me — an existence defined by nirdukha-niratisayānanda (grieflessness and unsurpassed bliss) that is itself Brahman's nature. Madhva insists the jīva (individual self) reaches this bliss-state while remaining ontologically distinct from Hari; 'muktānāṃ ca gatir brahma' (the destination of the liberated is Brahman) cited from the Mokṣadharma means the liberated soul dwells in Brahman's presence, not that it dissolves into it. Death-time remembrance of the Lord is the final act of āśraya (dependent refuge) that confirms this eternal difference.

  divergence: Madhva's bhāṣya is the briefest of the panel; the polemical weight is carried by the Mahābhārata citation that forecloses any monist reading.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  The 'eva' (alone, without exception) in 'mām eva' cuts away all other supports — mantra-upāsanā (ritual invocation), sādhana-clusters, intermediate deities — and points directly to Kṛṣṇa the līlā-puruṣottama (highest Person of divine play), who is pūrṇānanda (complete bliss) itself. The bhakta-yogī who departs in this undiluted remembrance enters mad-bhāva as prasāda (Kṛṣṇa's own self-gift), not as fruit of effort. Vallabha reads the verse as revealing that at the prāyāṇa-kāla (moment of departure) Kṛṣṇa is recognizable only to the one whose entire life has been His gift, for the dying mind cannot generate a new object — it can only uncover what was always already its secret content.

  divergence: Vallabha's 'anyavyavaccheda' (exclusion of all else) is stronger than any other school's reading of 'eva' and rules out even the devatāntara-mārga (path via other deities) at the moment of death.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  The verse answers what was asked by *prayāṇa-kāle ca kathaṃ jñeyosi* — it shows the *antakāla-jñānopāya* (the means of awareness at the final hour) and its *tat-phala* (fruit). *Mām eva* indicates *uktalaḳṣaṇam antaryāmi-rūpaṃ parameśvaram* — Paramēśvara in the *antaryāmi* form as already described. One who departs *smaran* that Parameśvara, having relinquished the body, goes *prakarṣeṇa arcirādi-mārgena* — by the luminous ascending path — and attains *mad-bhāvaṃ mad-rūpatām*. *Smaraṇaṃ jñānopāyo mad-bhāvāpattiś ca phalam* — remembrance is the means of knowledge, and the attainment of the Lord's own form is the fruit. *Atra saṃśayo nāsti* — here there is no doubt.

  divergence: Śrīdhara's *arcirādi-mārga* reference situates *mad-bhāva* in the devatā-progression of the Upaniṣads rather than in direct dissolution into *nirguṇa*-Brahman; *mad-rūpatā* is real arrival in the Lord's form, consistent with a devotional rather than non-dual terminus.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana holds open a two-tiered reading: the saguṇa-upāsaka (devotee of the qualified Lord) who remembers Vāsudeva at death travels the devayāna-mārga (path of the gods) to Hiraṇyagarbha-loka and attains mad-bhāva after exhausting that enjoyment; the nirguṇa-jñānī who dies in Brahman-smaraṇa (remembrance of the unqualified absolute) does not depart at all — 'na tasya prāṇā utkrāmanti' (his prāṇas do not depart, Upaniṣad) — and attains mad-bhāva immediately, as Brahman-itself. In both branches the saṃśaya (doubt) is cancelled: doubt about whether the self is distinct from the body is dissolved, and doubt about whether an individual can reach Bhagavān is dissolved. The verse thus quietly contains both the bhakti and the Advaita soteriologies without collapsing either.

  divergence: Madhusūdana uniquely makes 'kalevaram muktvā' dual-valenced: literal body-departure for the saguṇa path; cessation of ahaṃ-mamābhimāna (I-mine sense) without physical movement for the nirguṇa path.