Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 9, Verse 10: Krishna to Arjuna — Rāja-Vidyā-Rāja-Guhya-Yoga
Under my watch, nature brings forth everything that moves and everything that stands still, and by that cause alone, Arjuna, the world keeps turning.
Bhāṣyakāra purports
- Śaṅkaraadvaita
Brahman, pure witness-consciousness (cit-mātra) — the immutable adhyakṣa that is nothing but unbroken seeing — does not act; māyā, Brahman's own avidyā-śakti threaded with the three guṇas, is what generates the entire moving and unmoving world. The world's every impulse — 'I will enjoy this,' 'I see this,' 'I suffer this' — is ultimately the impulse of dṛśi (witnessing) in search of itself; without that single devaḥ as universal adhyakṣa there would be no experiencer and therefore no creation. Because the ultimate question 'ko addhā veda — who truly knows wherefrom this creation?' has no answerable locus within the creation, liberation is the recognition that Brahman alone ever was, is, and will be. (Śaṅkara bhāṣya present.)
- Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita
The Lord as inner ruler of both cit and acit oversees (adhyakṣaṇa) prakṛti with satya-saṅkalpa — will that cannot fail — and that glance (īkṣaṇa), perfectly calibrated to each jīva's accumulated karma (kṣetrajña-karmānuguṇa), causes the world of moving and unmoving beings to be born and to revolve. Bhagavān's sovereignty here is triple: He is svāmin who owns prakṛti, satya-saṅkalpin whose intention cannot be thwarted, and entirely free from the faults of partiality or cruelty because creation follows the jīva's own prior karma, not arbitrary divine will. This aiśvara-yoga — Vāsudeva's majestic union of power and justice — is what Arjuna is being asked to behold. (Rāmānuja bhāṣya present.)
- Madhvadvaita
Kṛṣṇa is not a detached bystander; He is the direct kartṛ — agent — who witnesses and thereby drives prakṛti's production of all moving and unmoving creation, and the śruti itself declares 'yataḥ prasūtā jagataḥ prasūtiḥ' to establish His causal primacy. The jīva is wholly dependent (paratantra), prakṛti is inert without His supervision, and the world's revolution (viparivartate) is His alone to ordain. Calling Him 'detached-seeming' (udāsīnavat) is therefore not a denial of His agency but a statement that He acts without being bound — unlike the bound jīva who acts and suffers the fruit. (Madhva bhāṣya present.)
- Vallabhaśuddhādvaita
Prakṛti, being inert (acetana), cannot produce anything on its own; the Lord as adhyakṣa-adhiṣṭhātṛ (the presiding ground) enters her as the puruṣa enters a wife — the two together conceive the world as His own līlā-prasāda, not as mechanical causation. The exchange (vinimaya) within creation is twofold — cit (conscious beings) and acit (inert matter) — and both categories are nothing other than Bhagavān's icchā-māyā expressing itself as phenomenal variety. The Śvetāśvatara upaniṣad line 'māyāṃ tu prakṛtiṃ vidyān māyinaṃ tu maheśvaram' and the Taittirīya declaration 'sac ca tyac cābhavat' together point to this single truth: all of the world is the Lord's own kārya (effect), real as His own being, not superimposed illusion. (Vallabha bhāṣya present.)
- Śrīdharabhakti
The Lord as adhiṣṭhātṛ — presiding ground — and as nimittabhūta — the efficient cause — does not stir, yet prakṛti produces the entire world of moving and unmoving beings by His mere sannidhimātra (proximate presence), the way fire heats without intending to heat. Because the world revolves again and again (punaḥ punar jāyate) solely through this divine superintendence as cause, the Lord's kartṛtva (agency) and His udāsīnatva (non-involvement) are not contradictory — presence-as-ground is itself sufficient causation. This non-contradictory simultaneity of action and non-action is the very insight Śrīdhara marks as the intended upshot (iti bhāvaḥ). (Śrīdhara bhāṣya present.)
- Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti
The apparent contradiction between 'I send forth' and 'I abide detached' dissolves when one sees that Brahman, as pure illuminator (bhāsaka), does nothing more than cause māyā — the three-guṇa śakti that is neither sat nor asat — to become visible, and māyā then projects the entire moving-unmoving world the way a magician's power over an elephant-illusion does not require the magician to become an elephant. The analogy of the sun is exact: the sun does not intend crops to grow yet its presence is the sufficient cause; similarly the Lord's adhyakṣatva is causal by illumination alone, not by exertion. Kṛṣṇa as Bhakti-object and Brahman as Jñāna-ground are not two realities but one: it is precisely this sarvato-dṛśimātra Brahman who is the beloved Kṛṣṇa, and the bhakta who loves Him is already in the light that sustains the world. (Madhusūdana bhāṣya present.)