Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 13, Verse 30: Krishna to Arjuna — Kṣetra-Kṣetrajña-Vibhāga-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  When, following the instruction of śāstra (scripture) and ācārya (teacher), one sees for oneself that the separateness of beings rests in the one ātman (Self), as the śruti says 'the Self alone is all this', and sees their unfolding as arising from that Self alone, from the Self breath, from the Self space, from the Self food, then at that moment one becomes brahman (the Absolute). The separateness is not denied as appearance; it is located in, and issued from, the one Self, and to see it so is already to be brahman.

  divergence: Śaṅkara (source 13.31) reads ekastha as 'standing in the one ātman' and anu-paśyati as direct seeing that follows (anu) scriptural-teacher instruction; vistāra is glossed utpatti/vikāsa (origination, unfolding) from the Self, proved by Chāndogya 7.25.2 and 7.26.1. He closes by raising the objection the next verse answers: if one Self is the self of all bodies, does it share their defects?

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  When one sees that the distinctions among beings, god, human, short, tall, though these beings are compounds of the two principles prakṛti (matter) and puruṣa (self), stand in one principle, in prakṛti, and not in the ātman (self), and sees that their spreading out into sons, grandsons and the rest proceeds from prakṛti alone, then one attains brahman, that is, the ātman whose single form is unlimited knowledge. The variety belongs wholly to the material side; the self, freed from being confused with it, is reached in its own boundless knowing.

  divergence: Rāmānuja (source 13.30) inverts Śaṅkara's locus: ekastha = 'in one tattva (principle), namely prakṛti', with an explicit 'na ātmastham' (not in the self). 'Brahman' here is not the Supreme but the individual ātman reached in its pure form of unlimited knowledge; vistāra is generational spreading from matter, not emanation from the Self.

• Madhvadvaita

  When one sees the separateness of beings as standing in the One, in Viṣṇu, and their expansion as coming from Viṣṇu alone, then one attains brahman. The many remain many; what one sees is their dependence on, and issuance from, Viṣṇu.

  divergence: Madhva's comment (source 13.31) is two glosses only: ekastham = ekasmin viṣṇau sthitam (standing in the one Viṣṇu) and vistāra = viṣṇor vistāram (Viṣṇu's expansion). He does not gloss brahma saṃpadyate, so the rendering of the last clause stays at the mūla; the 'many remain many' line is the plain consequence of locating beings in Viṣṇu rather than identifying them with him, and is not a quoted gloss.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Here the third fruit is shown: when one sees that the distinctions among beings, god-hood, human-hood, tall and short, fat and lean, are seated both in prakṛti (matter) and in the samaṣṭi-puruṣa (collective self), and directly realizes their going forth, as the śruti says, 'as tiny sparks from a fire, so from this Self all beings issue', then one attains the akṣara brahman (the Imperishable), a oneness with the unbounded akṣara. Know it thus: the individual is a small stream, the collective is the water of the Gaṅgā, the akṣara is like its śakti (power), and Hari is the deity beyond; oneness with the akṣara is what the śruti teaches, but entry into the Puruṣottama (Supreme Person) happens only by his own will.

  divergence: Vallabha (source 13.31) splits 'brahman' into two tiers: what is attained here is unity with akṣara brahman, while union with Puruṣottama is a separate entry granted by Hari's will (citing his Vidvanmaṇḍana/Siddhānta-muktāvalī verse). He rejects the 'mithyāvādin' (Advaitin) teaching of an avidyā-made difference: for followers of śruti, usage must be śruti-based, not argument-based.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Now he says that one who sees no difference in the self caused by the difference of beings, since beings are nothing but prakṛti (matter), attains brahman: when one contemplates the separateness of moving and unmoving beings as resting, at pralaya (dissolution), in the one prakṛti that is the Lord's own śakti (power), and sees their spreading forth from that same prakṛti at the time of creation, then, seeing even the beings as undivided because they are only prakṛti, one attains the full brahman, that is, becomes brahman itself.

  divergence: Śrīdhara (source 13.31) reads ekastha as 'in the one prakṛti which is the Lord's śakti' (with Rāmānuja on prakṛti as locus, against Śaṅkara's ātman), but places the seeing on the cosmic cycle: withdrawal at pralaya, spreading at creation. Unlike Rāmānuja, his result is 'brahmaiva bhavati', becoming the full brahman.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Having earlier allowed, for the moment, the seeing of difference among fields while ruling out difference among knowers, he now removes even the difference of fields as māyā-made: when one, following śāstra (scripture) and ācārya (teacher), reflects that the separateness of all inert things stands in the one ātman (Self) whose nature is being, imagined upon it and not other than its substratum, and sees their expansion from that one Self as a dream or a conjuror's show, then, with no difference of same kind or other kind left to see, one becomes brahman, empty of every evil. As the śruti says, 'when all beings have become the Self for the knower, what delusion, what sorrow, for one who sees oneness?'

  divergence: Madhusūdana (source 13.31) goes past Śaṅkara: Śaṅkara has vistāra as real origination from the Self, Madhusūdana has it as kalpita (superimposed) on the Self as adhiṣṭhāna (substratum), 'like dream and magic'. He marks a sequence: 13.29 removed difference among selves, this verse removes difference of non-self from self. No bhakti inflection appears in this comment; it is pure Advaita.