Every mark named here is a bond falling away, not a virtue being added on.
Pride, delusion, attachment, unstilled desire, the swing of pleasure and pain: Krishna names the person who reaches the imperishable abode by what has left them, not by what they have collected. The commentators part over whether that emptying is your own discriminating labor or the shape grace takes once you have turned in refuge.
Free of pride and delusion, having conquered the fault of attachment, fixed always in the inner Self, their desires wholly turned back, released from the pairs called pleasure and pain: such undeluded ones reach that imperishable state.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just described the great tree of samsara and told Arjuna to cut it with the sharpened axe of non-attachment, then seek the root beyond which none return. Now he names the person who has actually made that cut. This verse is that portrait, drawn in five careful strokes.
The teaching
The ones who reach that imperishable place carry certain marks, and every one of them, on close reading, names something that has left rather than something that has been added. They are free of pride, the demand to be honored, and free of delusion, the failure to tell the real from the unreal. They have conquered the fault of attachment itself, not merely managed its objects. They stay ever fixed in contemplation of the inner Self, the way a compass needle rests on north without strain. Their desires have turned back so completely that the senses and their objects can no longer take a stand before them; desire is named apart from attachment because attachment holds what is already gained while desire reaches for what is not yet had, and both have to turn back before the picture is complete. They are released from the pairs of opposites, named pleasure and pain, and this release is steadiness through changing fortune, not a loss of feeling: the pairs are called by that name because they cause pleasure and pain, and to be free of them is to remain unmoved whether the favorable or the unfavorable arrives. Being undeluded gathers up everything that came before it. It names secured self-knowledge, and only the one so freed of delusion goes to that imperishable station and does not return.
The doubt that rises
Is this a checklist of virtues to be perfected by careful, solitary effort, or a description of what simply falls away once the heart has genuinely turned, whether toward the Self in knowledge or toward the Lord in refuge? And if it is refuge that does the emptying, what is left for effort to do at all?
Where the paths divide
Read as the equipment of the renouncer who has let the world go.
Shankara treats this as a terse, complete list: the one described has ceased desiring with nothing left over, and is fixed always on the true nature of the supreme Self. Freedom from the pairs of opposites is freedom from a mind that is moved, not from sensation itself. Madhusudana adds precision: being undeluded means the self-knowledge has been made secure by the very knowledge the Vedanta means of proof establishes, so every term in the list resolves, on this reading, into that one secured knowledge seen from different angles.
Read as the shape grace takes in one who has come to the Lord for refuge.
Ramanuja reads each term through surrender: delusion is the specific conceit of taking a self in the non-self, and the attachment conquered is attachment to the enjoyments the material qualities offer. The imperishable abode is the self attained in its own true form, of unbounded knowledge. His decisive line is that for those who have taken refuge, these engagements become easy to do and to carry through only by the Lord's grace, so the list describes what surrender looks like from the inside, not a ladder climbed alone.
Read honestly as thin material, not filled in beyond what survives.
What is attributed to Madhva at this verse is compact: a restatement of the terms and a brief closing note, that this is the description of the qualified knower. The more developed structural point, that the verse supplies a further means toward the same end already given through considering the universe and taking refuge, belongs to Jayatirtha's sub-commentary. The honest reading holds these apart rather than blending a sub-commentator's elaboration into Madhva's own voice.
Read as a labeled extension from one surviving remark, not a stated position on this verse.
No developed comment from Abhinavagupta survives specifically at 15.5; his treatment spans 15.3 through 15.5 as one passage, and the substantive remark is anchored at 15.3, that the axe of non-attachment severs the tree's seeming and reveals a ground already non-different from consciousness. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading, one might extend this forward, so pride and delusion loosening is the contracted self being seen through rather than defeated; but this extension is conditional, built from one sentence, and should not be mistaken for his stated words on this verse.
Read as the inner outfit of one already walking toward the root.
Sridhara names this a further means, nirmana, and is careful about the pairs of opposites: cold and heat and the rest are called pleasure-and-pain because they cause those feelings, not because they are those feelings. His sharpest image comes at the close: this list is not a side note but the very inner equipment of the seeker who has already cut the fig tree of the earlier verses and now walks the last stretch toward its root.
Read as a practical test rather than a description to admire from a distance.
Madhusudana's precision translates, for a general reader, into something testable: freedom from attachment and aversion is proven exactly when the dear and the undear stand directly in front of you, not in their absence. And desire's turning-back means giving up action through clear discrimination, not through simply staying away from what tempts you. Read this way, the verse asks for engagement, not withdrawal.
All six readings agree on what the marks are and largely agree that each names an emptying rather than an acquisition. They part on how the emptying happens, through disciplined self-knowledge, through the Lord's grace once refuge is taken, or through a further means added to a road already described, and two of the readings, Dvaita and Kashmir Shaiva, must be held honestly as thin at the source rather than filled in to match the others. This page leaves both questions open: what completes the emptying, and how much of the received tradition here survives in full versus in fragment.
A question to carry
Which single mark named in this verse, pride, delusion, attachment, unstilled desire, or the pull of pleasure and pain, do you notice most often standing between you and the ground this verse describes, and what would it mean to let that one thing simply fall away rather than fight it?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
May what needs to leave you leave quietly, without a struggle, and may you find, once it is gone, that you were standing on unmoving ground all along.
Each school is voiced from the commentators named above. Their full words, every translation, and where the schools agree and differ wait in the reading desk just below. Open the commentary desk.
Krishna has just told Arjuna to cut the world-tree of samsara with the axe of non-attachment and seek the root beyond return; here he describes the one who has actually made that cut and reached the far side.
Where they agreethe convergence
Across schools and centuries the commentators come to the same ground. These are the points they share, and the voices that hold each one.
The verse portrays, term by term, the person who actually arrives: free of pride and delusion, attachment conquered, fixed in the Self, desire stilled, the pairs of opposites released.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 3 others’ words
The verse is a portrait, term by term, of the person who actually reaches the imperishable abode: free of pride and delusion, having conquered the fault of attachment, ever fixed in the inner Self, desires wholly turned back, and released from the pairs of opposites named pleasure and pain. It reads less as an abstract ideal than as a specific description meant to be checked against a life.
Every quality named is the removal of a defect, not a merit added on: pride, non-discrimination, attachment, and unstilled desire are bonds falling away, not trophies collected.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
Each quality named is consistently read as the removal of a specific inner defect rather than a virtue bolted on from outside. Pride is the demand to be honored or the grip of ego; delusion is the failure to tell the real from the unreal; attachment is a fault to be conquered, not simply a habit to be managed. The thrust across the readings is that these are the very bonds, and the one who arrives is the one in whom they have fallen away.
Desire is named apart from attachment because attachment holds what is already gained while desire reaches for what is not yet had; both must turn back before the picture is complete.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
Desire is treated as distinct from attachment even though the two overlap: attachment can hold to what is already in hand, while desire reaches for what is not yet gained, so both must turn back before the picture is complete. When that turning back is total, the readings agree, the senses and their objects can no longer take a stand before the person described.
Freedom from the pairs of opposites is steadiness through changing fortune, not the loss of feeling; the favorable and the unfavorable both arrive, and neither moves the footing.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
Freedom from the pairs of opposites is read as steadiness through changing circumstance rather than as an absence of feeling. The pairs are called pleasure and pain because they are the causes of pleasure and pain, and to be freed of them is to remain unmoved whether the favorable or the unfavorable arrives, not to stop registering either one.
Being undeluded gathers up the rest: it is secured self-knowledge, and only the one so freed of delusion reaches the imperishable, non-returning station named at the verse's close.
Across Advaita, ViśiṣṭādvaitaŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
Being undeluded, amudha, is treated as the crowning mark that gathers up all the others: it names secured self-knowledge, and only the one so freed of delusion reaches the imperishable, non-returning station named at the verse's end. On this the readings converge even where they part on how that freedom from delusion is finally won.
This is the shared ground; it can be carried as it is. Below is where they differ.
Where they differthe divergence
Viśiṣṭādvaita, in their fuller words
Ramanuja frames every term through refuge in the Lord: delusion is specifically the conceit of self in the non-self, attachment conquered is attachment to material enjoyments, and the imperishable abode is the self attained as it truly is, of unbounded knowledge. His decisive turn is that for those who have taken refuge, it is by the Lord's grace alone that these engagements become easy to do and to complete, so the marks read as what grace looks like from inside a surrendered life.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
The surviving comment attributed to Madhva restates the verse's own terms and adds only that this is the description of the qualified knower; the fuller structural point, that the verse supplies a further means toward a goal already stated through considering the universe and taking refuge, belongs to Jayatirtha's sub-commentary rather than to Madhva's own words. The material here is genuinely compact and should be read as such, not filled in with invented elaboration.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara reads the verse as a further means, nirmana, and is careful to specify that the pairs of opposites, cold and heat and the rest, are named pleasure-and-pain because they cause pleasure and pain, not because they are identical with those feelings. His closing image is the sharpest: this list is not a side note but the very inner outfit of the seeker who has already cut the fig tree and now walks toward its root.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read for a general audience, Madhusudana's precision translates into a practical distinction worth keeping: freedom from attachment and aversion is tested exactly when the dear and the undear stand directly in front of you, not in their absence. His insistence that desire's turning-back means giving up action through discrimination, not through mere avoidance, keeps the teaching from being mistaken for passive withdrawal.
A few questions to carry
These ask for understanding, not recall; each answer is settled by the commentary itself.
For a second sitting
Carry this with youwhat stays
Take one pair of opposites you meet today, honor and dishonor, comfort and its lack, and notice the moment your mind reaches to prefer one over the other. You are not asked to feel nothing. You are asked to notice the reaching, and let your footing stay where it already is, on the deed and the person in front of you, rather than on which outcome arrives.
May pride loosen its grip today, may one desire turn back before it is finished turning you, and may whatever pair of opposites the day brings find you standing, quietly, on ground it cannot move.
Read deeper
Everything a full study holds, folded below.
Word by word
All the commentary, woven together
The commentary, woven together
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
he verse is a portrait, term by term, of the person who actually reaches the imperishable abode: free of pride and delusion, having conquered the fault of attachment, ever fixed in the inner Self, desires wholly turned back, and released from the pairs of opposites named pleasure and pain. It reads less as an abstract ideal than as a specific description meant to be checked against a life.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Each quality named is consistently read as the removal of a specific inner defect rather than a virtue bolted on from outside. Pride is the demand to be honored or the grip of ego; delusion is the failure to tell the real from the unreal; attachment is a fault to be conquered, not simply a habit to be managed. The thrust across the readings is that these are the very bonds, and the one who arrives is the one in whom they have fallen away.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Desire is treated as distinct from attachment even though the two overlap: attachment can hold to what is already in hand, while desire reaches for what is not yet gained, so both must turn back before the picture is complete. When that turning back is total, the readings agree, the senses and their objects can no longer take a stand before the person described.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Freedom from the pairs of opposites is read as steadiness through changing circumstance rather than as an absence of feeling. The pairs are called pleasure and pain because they are the causes of pleasure and pain, and to be freed of them is to remain unmoved whether the favorable or the unfavorable arrives, not to stop registering either one.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Being undeluded, amudha, is treated as the crowning mark that gathers up all the others: it names secured self-knowledge, and only the one so freed of delusion reaches the imperishable, non-returning station named at the verse's end. On this the readings converge even where they part on how that freedom from delusion is finally won.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads the list as the equipment of the renouncer who has let the world go, terse and complete in itself: freedom from the pairs of opposites is freedom from a mind that is moved, not from sensation. Madhusudana sharpens this into a technical claim, that being undeluded means one's self-knowledge has been made secure by the very knowledge the Vedanta means of proof establishes, so the whole list resolves into that single, secured knowledge viewed from several angles.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja frames every term through refuge in the Lord: delusion is specifically the conceit of self in the non-self, attachment conquered is attachment to material enjoyments, and the imperishable abode is the self attained as it truly is, of unbounded knowledge. His decisive turn is that for those who have taken refuge, it is by the Lord's grace alone that these engagements become easy to do and to complete, so the marks read as what grace looks like from inside a surrendered life.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
The surviving comment attributed to Madhva restates the verse's own terms and adds only that this is the description of the qualified knower; the fuller structural point, that the verse supplies a further means toward a goal already stated through considering the universe and taking refuge, belongs to Jayatirtha's sub-commentary rather than to Madhva's own words. The material here is genuinely compact and should be read as such, not filled in with invented elaboration.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
No developed comment from Abhinavagupta survives specifically at this verse; the one confirmed remark anchored to this passage is at 15.3, on the axe of non-attachment severing the seeming of the tree to reveal a ground non-different from consciousness. Any extension of that image to pride, attachment, desire, and the pairs of opposites named in 15.5 would be a labeled, conditional reading built from his one surviving sentence, not his stated position on this verse.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara reads the verse as a further means, nirmana, and is careful to specify that the pairs of opposites, cold and heat and the rest, are named pleasure-and-pain because they cause pleasure and pain, not because they are identical with those feelings. His closing image is the sharpest: this list is not a side note but the very inner outfit of the seeker who has already cut the fig tree and now walks toward its root.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read for a general audience, Madhusudana's precision translates into a practical distinction worth keeping: freedom from attachment and aversion is tested exactly when the dear and the undear stand directly in front of you, not in their absence. His insistence that desire's turning-back means giving up action through discrimination, not through mere avoidance, keeps the teaching from being mistaken for passive withdrawal.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
Is this verse handing me a checklist of virtues to perfect through my own effort, or describing something that simply falls away once the heart has truly turned?
Read one way, it is a list to be checked against your own life: pride and delusion gone, attachment conquered, desire stilled, the pairs of opposites no longer gripping you. Several of the readings treat the terms with real precision, as though inviting you to test each one against your own reactions rather than admire the description from a distance.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
But every term is consistently glossed as the removal of a defect rather than the addition of a merit. Pride, non-discrimination, attachment, unstilled desire, the swing of pleasure and pain are named as bonds falling away, not trophies collected. The question shifts from what you must add to what is already loosening its grip as you turn toward what matters most.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
And on the reading that takes refuge seriously, the emptying is not finally your own solitary labor. Where the heart has genuinely turned to the Lord, these engagements are said to become easy to carry through by grace, so the checklist and the surrender are not two competing paths. The checklist describes what surrender looks like from inside a life already given over.
Rāmānujācārya
Contemplation
Take one pair of opposites you meet today, honor and dishonor, comfort and its lack, and notice the moment your mind reaches to prefer one over the other. You are not asked to feel nothing. You are asked to notice the reaching, and let your footing stay where it already is, on the deed and the person in front of you, rather than on which outcome arrives.
Sit with this · sonnet-5-authored
All the translations and commentary
Pull up a chair.
You have come to sit with this verse. When you are ready to hear the translators and the commentators in full, open a tradition in the doorways below, or add a voice by name above.
Also hear this verse, tradition by tradition.