Chapter 15 · Verse 9·Spoken by Arjuna
श्रोत्रं चक्षुः स्पर्शनं च रसनं घ्राणमेव च।अधिष्ठाय मनश्चायं विषयानुपसेवते
śhrotraṁ chakṣhuḥ sparśhanaṁ cha rasanaṁ ghrāṇam eva cha adhiṣhṭhāya manaśh chāyaṁ viṣhayān upasevate
Presiding over the ears, the eyes, touch, taste, and smell, and over the mind, it enjoys the objects of the senses.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
he verse lists the instruments through which the embodied self meets the world: the ear (hearing), the eye (sight), the touch-sense in the skin, the taste-sense in the tongue, the smell-sense in the nose, and the mind (manas, the inner organ) named as the sixth. These five outer senses plus the mind are the equipment the self uses; the verse simply names them and then says what the self does with them. Several commentators note that the small word 'and' (ca) in the line is doing extra work, quietly folding in more than the five named senses: it adds the action-organs and the vital airs (prana), so that the full kit of the subtle body is meant, not only the five doors of perception.
Braided from 10 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
The self does not merge into these senses or get reduced to them; it 'presides over' them. The Sanskrit verb (adhishthaya) is read as governing, supervising, or resorting to the senses: the self takes its seat as the one in charge while the senses do their separate jobs. Having taken up this controlling position, the self then 'serves' or 'enjoys' (upasevate) the objects proper to each sense, namely sound, touch, form, taste, and smell. So the picture is of one presiding center using many distinct instruments, each tuned to its own kind of object, to make contact with and partake of the sense-world.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya · Dhanapati Sūri · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Ramsukhdas
This verse continues the moving-soul picture begun just before: when the self departs from one body it carries the senses along like fragrance carried by the wind, and here we are shown what it does with them once settled, namely it experiences the world. Read in context, the verse explains how the subtle body, lodged inside the gross body, undergoes experience: the self enters a body, enjoys the sense-objects through these instruments, and later leaves. Several commentators in the Samkhya-informed and modern lines specify that this traveling, abiding, and enjoying belongs to the subtle (linga) body made up of mind and the senses, and that the enjoying self is rightly called the bhokta, the enjoyer, only as joined with senses and mind.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
On this reading the verse, rightly understood, shows the self to be the true illuminator that only seems to depend on its instruments. The illustration is a lamp: a lamp needs oil, wick, and fire for its own functioning, yet in the act of lighting up an object it is its own master and does the lighting itself, not by the oil and wick. In the same way the self, to gain knowledge of a thing, needs the mind, the five senses, and outer aids like the sun; yet the actual illumining of the object is done by the self alone, because the senses and sun are themselves things lit up by the self, not independent lighters. So the senses are conditions, but the conscious light is the self's own.
Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Dvaita
These commentators read the verse as also speaking of the Lord, not the bound soul alone. The Lord too enjoys through the senses, but only what is joined with the good qualities (gunas): the scripture cited says that those who sing here on the lute are really singing of Him, so His enjoyment of song comes through hearing. A safeguard is built in: if the Lord simply enjoyed all sense-objects, He would seem to enjoy even the impure, but scripture says 'sin does not go to the gods,' so what He enjoys is the quality alone, the pure aspect. The qualifying word in the next sentence is taken to mean this, and the reading that makes the qualifier describe the bound enjoyer is rejected.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Śuddhādvaita
This reading frames the self's use of the senses as serving an extraordinary, more-than-worldly experience. The outer senses, gross in the gross body, and the mind, the inner organ, are presided over by the self standing in its own form as the foremost, in front; and the sense-objects are brought near the self's portion-soul (amsha-jiva) for the sake of a non-worldly (alaukika) experiencing of the Lord. So the enjoying is not read merely as ordinary worldly consumption but as oriented toward that higher experience.
Śrī Puruṣottama
Kashmir Shaivism
Here the verse marks the difference between the unawakened and the awakened. The self's whole working in its abiding state, sitting, reflecting, grasping objects, happens only together with the senses and mind ('mind' standing for the whole inner organ). When the self stays with the body, departs upward to seize another body, or enjoys objects, the deluded do not see it, because they are unawakened; but the awakened, who everywhere keep awareness itself in view, do see it, so their absorptions are not lost. Effort, though, bears fruit only where the inner stain is ripe: as autumn-sown seed fails however much water is brought, so for those whose self is unmade even the means, including consecration by the supreme Lord, does not reach fullness while the dense knots of anger and delusion remain; as it is said, while anger and the like are still seen, even one consecrated does not partake of release.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
This reading adds a discriminating turn. Outwardly it agrees that the self dwells in ear, eye, touch, taste, smell, and mind and experiences objects, and gives the lamp image: as a lamp removed takes its light away and re-kindled spreads it again, so the soul carries and re-spreads its senses from body to body. But it warns that taking the coming, going, doing, and enjoying as literally the soul's own is the view of those without discrimination. In truth the soul recognizes that all this entering, enjoying, and leaving is the doing of Prakriti (Maya), not of the soul itself.
Sant Jñāneśvar
Modern
These voices read the verse as a warning about how the senses are used. One holds that the sense-objects are the natural objects of the senses and that enjoying them is tainted only when there is the sense of 'I' about it; without that ego it is pure, like a child's innocent enjoyment. The other develops a sustained renunciatory teaching: the conscious self stands utterly apart from body, senses, mind, and intellect as their support and illuminator, and nothing it has ever heard, seen, or tasted has changed it at all; serving the objects with the appetite to enjoy (bhoga-buddhi) only deepens attachment, which causes rebirth and every sorrow, since there is no real happiness in objects, and the conscious self's true hunger is for the conscious Supreme, never satisfiable by dead matter. The human body is given for one's own upliftment, not for consuming pleasure and pain through it.
Mahatma Gandhi · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If it is really my self that uses these senses and enjoys sound, sight, taste, and the rest, then why do the commentators keep saying the self is untouched and that the enjoying belongs to Nature, the subtle body, or the ego?
Notice the exact word the verse uses: the self 'presides over' the senses (adhishthaya). It does not become them; it takes the seat of the one in charge while the senses each do their own separate work on their own kind of object. So the self is the center that governs and is present to the experience, not a thing that gets mixed into sound or taste itself.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Because the self is the presider and not the instrument, it stays the illuminator rather than the thing illumined. One commentator gives the lamp image: a lamp needs oil, wick, and fire to function, yet in lighting up an object it is its own master and does the lighting itself, not the oil and wick. So too the self needs mind, senses, and outer aids to know a thing, but the actual conscious lighting-up is the self's own; the senses are only conditions, themselves lit by the self. That is why it can use them all and remain untouched by them.
Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
The enjoying that looks like yours is really run by Nature and by the ego's claim. One commentator says the soul that has discrimination recognizes that all this entering, enjoying, and leaving is the doing of Prakriti, not of the soul; another says the contact with objects is pure and becomes tainted only when the sense of 'I' is added to it. So the 'enjoyer' you worry about is the self only as falsely identified with the subtle body and ego; drop that identification and what remains is the steady witness the verse seats above the senses.
Sant Jñāneśvar · Mahatma Gandhi · Swami Ramsukhdas
Contemplation
Try this honest accounting that one commentator offers. Look back over your whole life: count the countless pleasant and unpleasant sounds you have heard, the beautiful and dreadful sights you have seen, the touches of cold, heat, and tenderness, the tastes, the smells. Now ask plainly: what change has all of it actually made in you, the one who was aware of every bit of it? You are still here, unaltered, the steady support and light behind every sense. Keep your attention there, on the awareness itself, not on the imagined 'enjoyer' that the mind splices in when it links up with the senses. The same commentator gives a sharp warning and a sharper resolve: serving the senses with the appetite to enjoy only thickens attachment, which is the seed of rebirth and of every grief, and no amount of wealth, beauty, or fine things has ever truly filled anyone, because a conscious being's real hunger is for the conscious Supreme and cannot be fed with dead matter. So resolve firmly today: 'I will not serve the senses with the motive of enjoyment; the whole world together cannot satisfy me.' With that one steady conviction the senses quiet down, the mind stops manufacturing alternatives, the intellect grows even, and the Supreme, who is in any case always present, is experienced of itself. Let the closing prayer carry you: as a craving man loves a woman and a greedy man loves wealth, so, O Rama, may You ever be dear to me.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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