Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 9, Verse 5: Krishna to Arjuna — Rāja-Vidyā-Rāja-Guhya-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Śaṅkara opens with a brisk marvel: beings — from Brahmā downward — do not truly reside in Me, for residence implies contact, and the Unattached (asaṅga) cannot be touched, as the Bṛhadāraṇyaka declares 'asaṅgo na hi sajjate' (BU 3.9.26). Behold My aiśvara-yoga (divine self-coherence): I bear all beings — bhūta-bhṛt — yet remain unstained because, as established above, My ātmā neither inhabits nor is conditioned by any aggregate. The phrase 'mama ātmā' is spoken by ordinary convention (loka-buddhi-anusāra), not because the Self has another self; the superimposition of ahaṅkāra onto the body-cluster is the world's mistake, not the truth.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Rāmānuja insists that beings do not stand in Me as a pot stands in water — My sustaining is not physical containment but the working-out of My sovereign resolve (mat-saṅkalpa). Behold the yoga that belongs to Īśvara alone and is inconceivable anywhere else: I am bhūta-bhṛt, the sole upholder, yet no creature repays Me the slightest service — My sustaining is pure grace, not transaction. My ātmā — My mano-maya-saṅkalpa itself — is bhūta-bhāvana, the one who makes beings arise, holds them in being, and governs them; their existence, movement, and dissolution all hinge on My will.

• Madhvadvaita

  Madhva draws the key Mahābhārata distinction: though beings abide in Me, they do not touch Me as objects resting on earth touch its surface — the Mokṣadharma says 'na dṛśyaś cakṣuṣā cāsau na spṛśyaḥ sparśanena ca' (MB 12.339.21), and again 'saṃjñā-saṃjñaḥ' (MB 12.338.47). The body-world is sustained by Hari's absolute independent will; the jīva and jagat are eternally real but utterly dependent — their bhāvanā (flourishing) arises entirely from the Lord's mahāvibhūti (supreme glory-body), never from any power inherent in themselves.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha unfolds a double meaning: in the first reading, bhūtāni rest in Me as name-form-consciousness-action resting in their substratum (astibhātipriyatva — 'it is, it shines, it is dear'), the akṣara sarva-antaryāmin; in the second, mат-sthāni simply means their continued existence is My-dependent. My glory is acintya (inconceivable): My mano-maya-saṅkalpa alone is empowered to enact all — this is the yoga-māyā spoken of elsewhere. My ātmā, the akṣara that surpasses both kṣara and akṣara, is bhūta-bhāvana — nurturer and governor — and remains nirlepa (unstained), bearing all contradictory dharmas simultaneously, untouched by anything It sustains.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Śrīdhara first defends consistency: the seeming contradiction — pervasive yet uncontained — dissolves before the aiśvara-yoga, the matchless artistry of making the impossible cohere (aghaṭita-ghaṭana-cāturya). He then draws the life-analogy: a jīva bears and sustains its body yet, through ahaṅkāra, clings to it; I bear and sustain all beings yet remain unstained because I am nirāhaṅkāra (without ego-appropriation). Bhūta-bhṛt is the upholder, bhūta-bhāvana is the nourisher — both functions operate from utter non-attachment, the signature of My own svarūpa.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusūdana begins with a striking parallel: just as motion and reflection are imagined onto the sun standing still in the sky, so beings are imaginatively projected onto Me — they do not truly exist in Me in any ultimate sense. He asks Arjuna to shed ordinary human cognition (prākṛtī manuṣya-buddhi) and behold the māyāvin's incomprehensible power. My ātmā is sac-cid-ānanda-ghana, asaṅga-advaita-svarūpa — the phrase 'mama ātmā' is a figurative genitive like 'rāhoḥ śiraḥ' (Rāhu's head), pointing by convention only; in reality, as one who is both abhinna-nimitta (undivided efficient cause) and upādāna (material cause), My Self is the dream-witness — apparently related to Its own projections, but never truly so.