Chapter 17 · Verse 16·Spoken by Krishna
मनःप्रसादः सौम्यत्वं मौनमात्मविनिग्रहः।भावसंशुद्धिरित्येतत्तपो मानसमुच्यते
manaḥ-prasādaḥ saumyatvaṁ maunam ātma-vinigrahaḥ bhāva-sanśhuddhir ity etat tapo mānasam uchyate
Calmness of mind, gentleness, silence, self-control, and purity of heart: these are called the austerity of the mind.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
his verse lists the austerity of the mind (manasa tapas), the third and inmost of the three kinds of tapas (disciplined self-effort) that Krishna lays out in this chapter, after the austerities of body and speech. It names five marks. The verse closes by gathering all five under one heading: 'this is called the austerity of the mind.' The whole point is that real tapas is not only what you do with the body or say with the tongue. The hardest and highest work is done inside, in the mind itself.
Braided from 14 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrī Puruṣottama · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
The first mark, manah-prasada (serenity or clearness of mind), is the mind made calm and untroubled, free of agitation. Several commentators picture it as a still lake without a ripple, the mind no longer churned by worry over objects or by wandering thoughts of the senses. It is the mind standing settled in itself rather than being thrown about by what it craves or fears.
Braided from 11 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
The second mark, saumyatva (gentleness), is a kindly inner disposition: the wish for the welfare and flourishing of all beings, with cruelty and ill-will absent. Some commentators add that this inner state is read off from its visible signs, such as a calm, bright face, since gentleness of mind shows itself outwardly even though it is itself a state of the inner organ (the antahkarana, the inner instrument of thought and feeling).
Braided from 11 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
The fourth and fifth marks are atma-vinigraha (self-restraint) and bhava-samshuddhi (purity of disposition). Self-restraint is the holding back of the mind in general, withdrawing it from sense-objects and setting it on what is to be meditated on; several voices identify this with pratyahara, the drawing-in of the mind. Purity of disposition is honesty and the absence of guile or duplicity in one's dealings with others, the same heart turned outward as inward, with the inner taints of desire, anger, and greed removed. Together the five describe a mind grown clear, kind, inwardly quiet, self-mastered, and sincere.
Braided from 11 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators take maunam (silence) primarily as restraint of speech. But they face an objection: surely restraint of speech belongs to the austerity of speech listed earlier, so why is it placed under mental austerity? Their answer is that here the cause is named by its effect. Outer silence rests on inner restraint of the mind, so naming 'silence' here points to the mental control that produces it. To avoid making this redundant with self-restraint (atma-vinigraha), they distinguish the two: silence is restraint of the mind specifically in regard to speech, while self-restraint is the holding back of the mind quite generally, in all directions. One voice further pushes back against reading mauna as 'standing in muni-hood' or deep meditation, calling that a forced reading inconsistent with the threefold scheme; another voice notes an alternate gloss of mauna as the state of being a sage. Some in this group also fold an additional layer into the list, reading silence as one-pointed contemplation of the self and adding the idea of absorption (samadhi without cognition) where the mind's modifications are stilled.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri
Dvaita
These commentators reject reading mauna as restraint of speech. They argue mauna means the state of the muni, the disposition to reflect and investigate. They ground this in scripture: the Upanishad describes the muni as one who, having attained childlikeness and learning, then becomes the muni, and another text derives 'muni' from one by whom all this is thought. On this reading, childlikeness is being endowed with the force of reasoning and learning is mastery of scripture, so a muni is one given to reflection, namely the investigation by reasoning of the meaning of scripture; mauna is the state of that muni. They press two points against taking mauna as speech-restraint. First, how could mere restraint of speech be an austerity of the mind at all? Second, taking mauna as speech-restraint and then rescuing it by saying it implies mind-restraint makes it redundant with self-restraint (atma-vinigraha); and since a primary, direct meaning (reflection) is available, resorting to an implied meaning is itself a fault.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Bhakti
These devotional commentators read mauna not as speech-restraint but as manana, deep reflection or contemplation; the state of a sage is the state of one who reflects on what has been heard. One voice frames the whole list inwardly toward God: mental austerity is precisely the field in which the Lord's antaryami-being (his indwelling presence within the heart) is most nearly addressed, so a mind grown clear, gentle, reflective, drawn back from objects, and singly-loving is a mind in which devotion to the Lord can settle; on this reading bhava-samshuddhi is not generic sincerity but the absence of inward duplicity in the very loves of the heart. Another voice in this group reads bhava-samshuddhi as the absence of doublings in transaction, the same heart turned outward as inward. The Marathi commentator paints the fruit at length: the mind, freed from the webs of fancies the way waves leave a lake or a cloud leaves the sky, comes to rest steady in the Supreme Self, so beautiful and unspotted as the full moon, until the toil of asceticism is no longer felt and the mind merges in the Self as salt dissolves in water; only a mind that has reached this stage truly earns the name 'austerity of the mind.'
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrī Puruṣottama · Sant Jñāneśvar
Viśiṣṭādvaita
These commentators read mauna straightforwardly as the restraining, with the mind, of the working of speech, without the elaborate cause-and-effect defense others mount. They read the list as a tightly bound set of five mental disciplines that complete the triad of bodily, verbal, and mental austerity, and read self-restraint as the setting of the mind's working specifically on the object to be meditated on, with purity of disposition as the absence of any thought of objects other than the self.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
A Seeker Asks
Why is 'silence' counted as a discipline of the mind rather than of speech, and does it mean shutting the mouth or something deeper?
The placement is deliberate. Outer silence of the tongue can only stand on inner control of the mind, so several commentators say the verse names the cause (mental restraint) by its visible effect (silence of speech); the real work is in the mind, which is why it sits here under mental austerity and not under the austerity of speech listed earlier.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Swami Sivananda
Many commentators go further and say mauna is not about the mouth at all but about manana, deep reflection: it is the state of the muni, one given to investigating and pondering, especially the meaning of scripture and the nature of the Self. On this reading silence is a positive inner activity, a mind turned inward in contemplation, not merely a stopped tongue.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrī Puruṣottama · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Either way, the deepest sense the commentators point to is the stillness of the mind itself under all the pairs of opposites, when it no longer runs out after objects but rests settled and reflective. So 'silence' here asks less for a quiet mouth than for a quiet, steady, contemplating mind.
Swami Ramsukhdas · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda
Contemplation
Take the five marks as one practice you can begin where you stand. Real silence is not closing the mouth but the stillness of the mind under every pair of opposites: praise and insult, gain and loss, pleasure and pain. Whatever sharp word comes, whatever blame falls on you without cause, let your gentleness stay undisturbed. The serenity you borrow from a thing, a person, a place, or a circumstance cannot last, because what arises must pass; but the serenity that rises on its own when the mind stops leaning on passing things, and rests instead on what is ever-present, stays of itself. So loosen the grip of likes and dislikes about objects and people, keep mercy, patience, and generosity in the heart, wish the good of every being, and let the welfare of others, not self-interest and pride, set the tone of your inner life. The true mastery of the mind is when the mind is in your hands and not you in its hands: it goes where you send it and rests as long as you wish. That is the inner work this verse calls austerity.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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