Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 9, Verse 33: Krishna to Arjuna — Rāja-Vidyā-Rāja-Guhya-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Even those of meritorious birth — the twice-born (dvija) who are fit vessels, and the royal sages (rājarṣi) who wield both rule and renunciation — attain liberation through devotion; how much more certain, then, is that path for the qualified. Śaṅkara's gloss presses the urgency: human birth (manuṣyatva) is rare (durlabha) and momentary (kṣaṇabhaṅgura), a fleeting occasion for pursuing the supreme end (puruṣārtha), utterly devoid of inherent enjoyment (sukhavajita). The imperative ‘bhajasva' is therefore not an invitation but an insistence: seize this impermanent vehicle for the only work it is good for — the discipline that culminates in self-knowledge.

  divergence: Śaṅkara: ‘puruṣārthasādhanaṃ durlabhaṃ manuṣyatvaṃ labdhvā bhajasva' — rare human birth obtained, therefore worship Me.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Rāmānuja reads the verse as a crescendo of eligibility: pious brāhmaṇas and royal sages who have taken refuge in Bhagavān's bhakti have already crossed the obstacle of triple affliction (tāpatraya). Arjuna himself is a rājarṣi — a royal sage — and stands already on the near shore; the world he inhabits is unstable (asthira) and pain-suffused (asukha) precisely because it is the domain of tāpatraya, not because matter is ultimately unreal. Service (kainkarya) performed in that unstable world is not wasted — it is the form bhakti takes inside time; hence ‘bhajasva' means: offer your present embodied life as continuous service.

  divergence: Rāmānuja: ‘tāpatrayābhihatatayā asukhaṃ ca imaṃ lokaṃ prāpya vartamāno māṃ bhajasva' — abiding in a world struck by three afflictions, worship Me.

• Madhvadvaita

  Reconstructed from the dvaita school's doctrine, not translated from Madhva's commentary at this verse.

  Kiṃ punar brāhmaṇāḥ puṇyāḥ — how much more, then, for brāhmaṇas of meritorious birth and bhaktā rājarṣayaḥ, royal sages consecrated by tapas? The rhetorical ascent is complete: if women, vaiśyas, and śūdras, beings of restricted adhikāra (eligibility), attain the supreme goal through bhajasva mām, those of higher natural qualification have even less reason to seek any other refuge. Yet the Dvaita reading does not let high birth be mistaken for self-sufficiency. Every jīva is paratantra (eternally dependent), its adhikāra itself a gift of Hari's anugraha (grace); the pañca-bheda (the five-fold real distinction) between Lord and jīva stands unbreached regardless of the jīva‘s birth-order in taratamya (the graded ontological hierarchy). Anityam asukhaṃ lokam imaṃ prāpya — having attained this world, impermanent and devoid of real happiness — the imperative bhajasva mām is not a hurried counsel born of world-weariness alone but the metaphysical claim that bhakti (devotion) as ontological subordination to svatantra (the independently real, self-sufficient) Hari is the only pursuit commensurate with what the jīva actually is. The anitya quality of saṃsāra discloses the positive priority of Hari-bhakti, not merely the negative defect of the world.

  divergence: Neither Madhva nor Jayatīrtha left a direct bhāṣya on this verse; the reading is voiced from core Dvaita siddhānta — paratantra jīva, pañca-bheda, taratamya, and bhakti as ontological subordination — applied directly to the mūla.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha's commentary is the most elaborate in the panel and reveals its hidden (nigūḍha) logic: even those of the highest natural and scriptural qualification — brāhmaṇas armed with all Vedic sādhanā, kṣatriya royal sages — are paradoxically the most susceptible to the obstacle of ahaṃbhāva (the pride that attainment is one's own doing). The Puṣṭi path is not earned but bestowed; the verse's imperative ‘māṃ bhajasva' is therefore Puruṣottama himself prescribing single-pointed bhajana as svadharma — not one option among many but the unique duty of every jīva who is Kṛṣṇa's own fragment. Vallabha seals it with the ācārya-vākya: ‘yo yadaṃśaḥ sa taṃ bhajet... svasyāyameva dharmo hi nānyaḥ kvāpi kadācana' — whoever is whose fragment, that fragment must worship its source; no other dharma exists, ever.

  divergence: Vallabha: ‘māṃ bhajasva iti puruṣottamaikabhajanaṃ vihitaṃ svadharmatvāt' — single-pointed worship of Puruṣottama enjoined as one's own dharma.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara Svāmī reads the verse in a straightforwardly devotional register: the brāhmaṇas here are pious (sukṛtina) and the rājarṣis are kṣatriyas refined by ascetic practice — both already on the path and already going to the supreme state (parā gati). The two reasons given for urgency — anitya (impermanence) and asukha (absence of real enjoyment) — function as a double argument: because this world will not last, do not delay; because it yields no genuine happiness, do not redirect effort toward worldly pleasure. The instruction ‘bhajasva' therefore means: you, Arjuna, already a rājarṣi, have landed in exactly the rare birth these others aspire to — do not squander it.

  divergence: Śrīdhara: ‘anityadvilambaṃ akurvann asukhatvāc ca sukhārthodyamaṃ hitvā māmeva bhajasva' — not delaying on account of impermanence, abandoning effort for pleasure on account of its painfulness, worship Me alone.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana Sarasvatī synthesizes both registers with characteristic precision: the brāhmaṇas here are sādācāra (of virtuous conduct) and uttamayoni (high birth), the rājarṣis are sūkṣmavastu-vivekina (discerning of subtle realities) — they go to the supreme precisely because bhakti's glory (mahimā) is what it is. From that premiss Madhusūdana draws the sharpest possible imperative: the human body (manuṣyadeha) is atīdurlabha (exceedingly rare), āśuvinaśin (swiftly perishing), and garbhavāsādi-anekaduhkhabahula (laden with the many sufferings beginning with womb-dwelling) — therefore, while it lasts, take refuge in Me without delay. The phrase ‘anyathā hi etādṛśaṃ janma niṣphalam eva te syāt' (otherwise such a birth would be fruitless for you) makes explicit what the other commentators leave implicit: the price of deferral is the birth itself becoming void.

  divergence: Madhusūdana: ‘atīdurlabhaṃ ca manuṣyadeham anitya āśuvinaśinam asukhaṃ... labdhvā yāvadayaṃ na naśyati tāvad atiśīghrameva bhajasva māṃ śaraṇam āśrayasva' — having obtained the exceedingly rare human body, as long as it has not yet perished, take refuge in Me immediately.