Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 9, Verse 8: Krishna to Arjuna — Rāja-Vidyā-Rāja-Guhya-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Seizing My own prakṛti (primal nature) — rendering it utterly subservient — I project this entire multitude of beings again and again. They are avasha (without independent will), driven by the force of prakṛti's guṇas, bound by avidyā (ignorance) and its derivatives. The Lord here pre-empts the charge of partiality: the asymmetry in creation arises from beings' own prior karma, not from any bias in the witness-consciousness that merely oversees the projection.

  divergence: Śaṅkara: 'avashim asvantantram, avidyādidoṣaiḥ paravashīkṛtam' — the host is unfree, made other-dependent by the fault-cluster of ignorance.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Grasping My own prakṛti — which undergoes eight-fold transformation — I emit again and again, in each cosmic age, this fourfold host of beings (gods, animals, humans, plants), all rendered avasha (helpless) through the influence of My mohinī (bewildering) material nature. The inequality of creation is not cruelty: beings arrive already shaped by accumulated karma; Bhagavān merely facilitates the field their past actions have earned.

  divergence: Rāmānuja: 'madīyāyā mohinīyāḥ guṇamayyāḥ prakṛteḥ vashāt avashim' — 'avasha' here is the direct consequence of falling under the sway of Bhagavān's own mohinī-prakṛti.

• Madhvadvaita

  Though possessed of infinite, inexhaustible power, the Supreme Hari grasps prakṛti as a man of great ability might lean on a staff — lightly, playfully — to walk. He creates not because He lacks or requires, but in pure sovereignty. Beings are avasha (subject to prakṛti's sway) through His māyā; He Himself is never so. The śruti declares it: 'Parā asya śaktiḥ vividhaiva śrūyate' — His supreme power is manifold and undiminished anywhere.

  divergence: Madhva: 'prākṛtyavaṣṭambhas tu yathā kaścit samartho'pi pādena gantuṃ līlayā daṇḍam avaṣṭabhya gacchati' — the analogy of the able man using a staff as sport, not crutch.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  This prakṛti is of the very essence of Bhagavān — His own yoga-śakti (power of divine union), called māyā because it deludes through guṇas. Taking this nature as His own, like a husband taking his beloved, Kṛṣṇa joyfully emits again and again the entire fourfold multitude — through each Prajāpati — that had been absorbed at dissolution. The division into individual selves through prakṛti is Kṛṣṇa's own free act of will; no other agent creates this world-play.

  divergence: Vallabha: 'bhāryām ivopādāya prekṣayābhyupetya' — prakṛti embraced as spouse, emission as the intimate act of a sovereign-beloved.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Though unattached and immutable, Kṛṣṇa is asked: how then do You create? He answers with two verses. Taking command of His own independent prakṛti, He emits again and again this entire fourfold multitude — which at dissolution had merged back — in varied forms, each being 'avasha' (unfree), driven not by Bhagavān's caprice but by the force of prior karma and the nature it has produced in each creature.

  divergence: Śrīdhara: 'karmādiparavashim punaḥ punar vividham sṛjāmi — viśeṣeṇa sṛjāmīti vā' — special-creative force, detailed emission, karma as the proximate driver.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Creation is not for Brahman's own enjoyment — the witness-consciousness has no enjoyership — nor for any other enjoyer, since there is no separate sentient being other than Īśvara Himself dwelling as all jīvas. Creation is māyāmaya (māyā-constituted): taking hold of His own māyā-prakṛti — that anirvachanīya (indescribable) power superimposed on Himself — and vivified by His own being and light, the Lord projects this phenomenal host again and again, as a dreamer projects a dream-world, by mere thought-construction (kalpanā-mātrena).

  divergence: Madhusūdana: 'kalpanāmātreṇa svapnadṛg iva ca svapnaprapañcam' — creation equated with a dreamer's projection; māyā's two powers (āvaraṇa and vikṣepa) explicitly named.