Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 9, Verse 12: Krishna to Arjuna — Rāja-Vidyā-Rāja-Guhya-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Those who disregard the Lord — who is none other than their own ātman — find that every aspiration (āśā) they harbour becomes mogha (fruitless), for the very ground of fruition has been denied. Their agnihotra and other karmas are equally mogha, since ritual action performed without recognition of the inner Brahman cannot yield liberation or even stable worldly fruit. Stripped of viveka (discrimination), they shelter in the rākṣasī and āsurī prakṛti — the nature of "cut, strike, consume, seize" — and confirm what śruti declares: 'Those worlds are asurya' (Īśa Upaniṣad 3).

  divergence: Śaṅkara's bhāṣya explicitly: 'mithyā āśiṣaḥ yeṣāṃ te moghāśāḥ... bhagavat-paribhavāt svātmabhūtasya avajñānāt moghāny eva niṣphalāni karmāṇi.' Rākṣasī prakṛti glossed as deha-ātma-vādins who chant 'chindhi, bhindhi, piba, khāda.'

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Bhagavān's descent in a human form is an act of supreme karuṇā (compassion), yet those who embrace rākṣasī and āsurī prakṛti let that very compassion be veiled: they cannot see the Lord as sarveśvara, treating him instead as equal to an ordinary being. Their hopes, undertakings, and even their knowledge of the Lord's all-pervading reality in all cit and acit are therefore mogha — not because Bhagavān withholds, but because their inverted cognition (viparīta-jñāna) makes every approach miss its mark. The verse indicts not wickedness alone but the cognitive collapse that makes Bhagavān inaccessible even when present.

  divergence: Rāmānuja: 'mama manuṣyatve parama-kāruṇyādi-paratva-tirodhāna-karīm... śrītāḥ... sarvatra vigata-yāthātmya-jñānāḥ māṃ sarveśvaram itarasamaṃ matvā.'

• Madhvadvaita

  Every goal a bhagavad-dveṣin (hater of the Lord) pursues — heavenly reward through yajña, liberation through brahma- or rudra-bhakti, any puruṣārtha whatsoever — falls utterly void, for Nārāyaṇa is the sole dispenser of all fruit and he declares: 'Those who revile me, the cruel and wicked, I hurl repeatedly into saṃsāra' (BG 16.19). Even the extreme case of Śiśupāla is not a counter-example: those kings attained liberation because they were former devotees fulfilling a curse-cycle, not because enmity itself is salvific — their bhāva was always Viṣṇu-oriented beneath the apparent dveṣa. The rākṣasī prakṛti is the efficient cause of such enmity, making the dveṣin structurally incapable of the surrender that alone opens any gate.

  divergence: Madhva cites MBh Mokṣadharma, Bhāgavata 7.1.30, 11.5.48, and Sāmaveda Śāṇḍilya-śākhā to establish that no upāya except Viṣṇu-bhakti yields any amushmic (post-mortem) good for a bhagavad-dveṣin.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  The error of these souls is not simple ignorance — it is a structural allegiance to āsurī māyā, the nature whose sole preoccupation is śabda-ādi viṣaya (sense-objects), and to rākṣasī tamas, whose horizon ends at bodily appetite. By clinging to these, they block the very bhāvanā of Bhagavān's parama-kāruṇya that His mānuṣī-līlā is designed to evoke. Their rites are mogha not because Kṛṣṇa withdraws prasāda but because āsurī prakṛti has made them constitutionally unable to receive the prasāda that descends freely — like a sealed vessel placed under rain.

  divergence: Vallabha distinguishes rākṣasī (tāmasī, śiśnodara-bharaṇa-svabhāva) from āsurī (rājasī, śabdādi-viṣaya-ekaparā) and identifies both as blocking parama-kāruṇyādi-paratva-bhāva of Bhagavān's human manifestation.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara focuses the verse on one precise cognitive error: believing that a deity other than Bhagavān can swiftly grant fruit, which makes the āśā (expectation) mogha at its root. From this root error flow mogha-karma (action oriented away from the Lord) and mogha-jñāna (scholarship built on nānā-kutarka, various false arguments), leaving the mind viḵṣipta (scattered). The rākṣasī prakṛti is tāmasī — dense with hiṃsā; the āsurī is rājasī — thick with kāma and darpa; together they constitute mohnī prakṛti that causes buddhi-bhraṃśa (collapse of discernment), linking back to the prior verse's avajānanti.

  divergence: Śrīdhara: 'mat-to anyad devatāntaraṃ kṣipraṃ phalaṃ dāsyatīty evaṃ-bhūtā moghā niṣphalā āśā yeṣāṃ... rākṣasīṃ tāmasīṃ hiṃsādi-pracurām āsurīṃ ca rājasīṃ kāma-darpādi-bahulām mohinnīṃ buddhi-bhraṃśa-karīm.' Note: bhāṣya is clean Sanskrit prose with no artifacts.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana layers a karma-theory onto the bhakti reading: the very act of contemning and reviling Bhagavān generates mahā-durita (great sin) that obstructs buddhi, and it is this obstructed buddhi — not mere ignorance — that makes āśā, karma, and jñāna all mogha. They are not simply wrong; they are actively poisoned. Sheltering in rākṣasī prakṛti (tāmasī, marked by adharmic hiṃsā-driven dveṣa) and āsurī prakṛti (rājasī, marked by śāstrānabhyanujñāta-viṣaya-bhoga) turns the triple gateway of kāma, krodha, and lobha into their permanent address — and naraka (hell) becomes their inevitable habitation, exactly as BG 16.21 predicts.

  divergence: Madhusūdana: 'bhagavad-avajñāna-nindana-janita-mahā-durita-pratibaddha-buddhayo... tri-vidhaṃ narakasyedaṃ dvāraṃ nāśanam ātmanaḥ kāmaḥ krodhas tathā lobhaḥ' — explicitly cross-referencing BG 16.21.