Chapter 18 · Verse 29·Spoken by Krishna
बुद्धेर्भेदं धृतेश्चैव गुणतस्त्रिविधं श्रृणु।प्रोच्यमानमशेषेण पृथक्त्वेन धनञ्जय
buddher bhedaṁ dhṛiteśh chaiva guṇatas tri-vidhaṁ śhṛiṇu prochyamānam aśheṣheṇa pṛithaktvena dhanañjaya
Now hear the threefold division of discernment and firmness by the modes, Arjuna, set out fully and one by one.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
Audio from the Gītā Supersite, IIT Kanpur
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machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
his verse is an announcement, not yet an analysis. Krishna tells Arjuna to listen because he is about to lay out two new threefold classifications: the division of buddhi (the intellect, the faculty that discerns and decides) and of dhriti (steadiness or firmness, the power that holds the mind to its course). Both will be sorted according to the three gunas, the three basic strands of nature: sattva (clarity and goodness), rajas (passion and drive), and tamas (dullness and inertia). The actual analysis of each type comes in the verses that follow, which is why several commentators treat this verse briefly and note that the detail is about to be carried out.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas · Sant Jñāneśvar
The two key words are defined with care. Buddhi is the determinative intellect, the faculty by which a person discerns what is to be done from what is not to be done, arriving at certainty after weighing things. Dhriti is the holding-firm: the power that keeps one steady on the discerned course even when an obstacle arises in the middle of an act. So the pair works together. The intellect first sees clearly and decides; steadfastness then sustains that decision under pressure. Each of these inner powers can be colored by any of the three gunas, which is why each comes in three kinds.
Braided from 6 commentators
Rāmānujācārya · Swami Ramsukhdas · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Sant Jñāneśvar
Krishna emphasizes that the teaching will be complete and clearly sorted. The verse says it will be told asheshena, without remainder or omission, and prithaktvena, separately, each type set out on its own. Several commentators read this separateness as a sorting by what is to be rejected and what is to be taken up, so that the listener can recognize which kind of intellect and which kind of steadiness to cultivate and which to drop. The promise is thoroughness: nothing left out, and each variety distinguished so it can be told apart from the others.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Ramsukhdas · Sant Jñāneśvar · Lokmanya Tilak
This new pair continues a larger pattern that has been unfolding in the chapter. Knowledge, action, and the doer were each already shown to be threefold by the gunas. Now the analysis turns inward, to the doer's own inner instruments. Several commentators see this as deliberate: the shape of one's intellect and steadiness is a deeper-lying matter than the shape of any single act, so these are taken up on their own rather than lumped in with the earlier typology of action.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators are careful to distinguish the buddhi named here from the doer named earlier in the chapter, so the two classifications do not overlap. Here buddhi means the mere intellect itself, the instrument or inner-organ modification, not the conscious agent who uses it. One commentator works this out closely: if buddhi meant the agent, it would duplicate the doer already classified; so buddhi is settled to mean the bare instrument, and dhriti its steadying movement. The same commentator adds a deeper point, that intellect and steadiness are singled out separately from the other inner-organ activities not just to count them but to bring forward the power of knowing and the power of acting, and reads Krishna's address to Arjuna as that of a supreme well-wisher teaching with full care.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Bhakti
Here the verse is taken up devotionally and with vivid imagery. One commentator pictures the intellect as a mirror into which the individual soul, dwelling in ignorance, dressed in infatuation and ornamented with doubt, gazes and sees itself revealed; and he insists that just as no firewood lacks latent fire, nothing in the visible world escapes being threefold by the gunas, so intellect and steadiness must be threefold too. He then sketches three roads open to a person entering worldly life, the best, the middle, and the worst, corresponding to daily and occasional duties, fruit-seeking acts, and forbidden acts. Another commentator in this stream simply notes the meaning is plain and passes on quickly, since the detailed analysis is coming.
Sant Jñāneśvar · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Kashmir Shaivism
This voice reads dhriti not as steadfastness in action but as contentment, the settled sense of completion. He observes that everyone, after any deed good or bad, finally arrives at the thought, what was to be done has been done, what more is needed; and he argues this is the only thing that lets a person stop acting at all. On this reading firmness in some form belongs to everyone alike. He notes that the plain word-meaning is less obvious and says it will be taken up in due course, so this is offered as the inner sense rather than the surface gloss.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
A Seeker Asks
If this verse only promises a classification and says the meaning is plain, what is there for me to actually take from it before the detailed types arrive?
First, the verse is teaching you where to look. It moves the whole analysis inward, from the outer act to the doer's own inner instruments: the intellect that discerns what should be done, and the steadiness that holds you to it when difficulty comes. Recognizing that these are the deeper-lying things, more telling than any single deed, is itself a real takeaway.
Swami Ramsukhdas · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Second, it gives you the two terms clearly so you are ready to use them. Buddhi is the faculty that arrives at certainty about what is to be done; dhriti is the power that keeps you on that decided course even when an obstacle befalls a begun act. Holding these definitions, you can already begin to watch the two at work in yourself.
Rāmānujācārya · Swami Ramsukhdas
Third, the verse promises a complete and sorted teaching, told without remainder and each type set apart, so that you will be able to tell which kind of intellect and steadiness to take up and which to reject. So the right posture now is exactly what Krishna asks, to listen with attention, because what follows is meant to be applied, not merely catalogued.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Ramsukhdas
Contemplation
Notice what Krishna is doing by taking up buddhi and dhriti on their own, apart from the earlier sorting of actions. He is pointing the seeker inward. The quality of any single act matters, but the deeper-lying matter is the shape of the faculty by which you discern what should be done, and the shape of the power by which you hold to it under pressure. So as you wait for the detailed types to come, the invitation is already here: look at your own intellect and your own steadiness honestly. How clearly do you actually tell what is to be done from what is not? And how well do you hold that course when an obstacle falls across your path? These two inner instruments are where the work of a sincere seeker really happens.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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