Advaita Vedānta

These commentators read the chapter as serving two ends at once. The Lord's nature was already shown in two forms: with attributes (saguna) and without attributes (nirguna). The glories are useful for both. They support the meditation on the Lord-with-attributes and they help toward the knowledge of the Lord-without-attributes, the formless reality. The repetition is mainly because that highest reality is hard to know and so must be stated again for the sake of knowledge. Some in this group map the earlier chapters onto the great Upanishadic teaching: the seventh chapter set out the meaning of the word 'you' (tvam), the ninth the meaning of the word 'that' (tat); the present chapter supplies the glories so the mind can hold the Lord everywhere, purifying it toward that final identity. The vibhutis, on this view, are a graded help: a support for the soul still too clouded by attraction and aversion to grasp the formless directly.

Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri

Viśiṣṭādvaita

For these commentators the chapter's purpose is single and clear: the arising and the increase of devotion (bhakti) to the Lord. The supreme word has for its very object the unfolding of the Lord's glory, and that glory is shown to be endless, with all things standing under his control. The good that Krishna wishes for Arjuna is precisely this rise and growth of devotion. One in this group ties the verse tightly to the close of the previous chapter: having told the seeker to fix his mind on him, the Lord now supplies the field across which the mind is to be fixed. The glories are the contemplative material handed to a much-loved candidate so that his love can take root and grow.

Yāmunācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Dvaita

These commentators read the chapter as stating the glories for the sake of worship, and they add a distinctive point: the Lord is the special cause of the surpassing excellence in certain things, such as the intellect and the great seers. To be a 'special cause' here means a fashioning endowed with surpassing capacity. They also raise and resolve a difficulty within the verse. Earlier Arjuna's mind was said to be overcome with grief; how then is he now addressed as one 'taking delight'? The answer: the earlier grief came from attachment to kinsmen, while the present contentment comes from hearing the Lord's words. There is no contradiction, and the delight is named precisely to establish Arjuna's fitness to be a hearer.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Śuddhādvaita

These commentators read the verse through the lens of grace (pushti). The very fact that the Lord speaks 'a second time' without being asked is itself the mark of pushti: the Lord, finding his devotee already softened by his greatness, takes up the discourse again of his own accord, to fill the devotee further. One holds that the world is born of being-consciousness-bliss (sat-cit-ananda) and is permanently of the Lord's own being, on an 'amsa-amsi' relation (part and whole) in which fullness is never lost; therefore every excellent thing in it is to be seen as a glory of him alone, and the doctrine is spoken for the sake of that single all-self vision. The other warns that bhakti done without knowledge of the Lord's very form is as good as not done; so the Lord declares the form of his own glory precisely to make that knowledge possible. For them 'paramam' also means the word by which the supreme is reached and known, and 'priyamana' hints that this word is to be kept hidden, not given to all.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Bhakti

These commentators hear the verse in the warm key of grace and affection: this is not new doctrine but the Lord stooping again to a hearer he loves. Several note that the teaching is given 'again' because it is somewhat hard to grasp and deliberately veiled, citing the principle that the wise speak in veiled terms and what is veiled is dear to the Lord. They read the address 'mighty-armed' (mahabaho) pointedly: just as Arjuna's arm-strength surpasses all, so his power of intellect should now rise to match, displaying itself upon this teaching; or the long arms are skilled either in righteous duty like war or in great service of the Lord. The repeated 'listen', spoken to one already listening, is to fix his full attention on what is coming, and to fill him with wonder though he already knows much. One of them, in a tender expansion, has the Lord say he dwells on these great truths over and over for his own joy as much as for the hearer's benefit, the way a field gladly sown again yields ever-larger harvests, or gold heated again and again gains luster; his love for Arjuna is so unbounded that the more lavishly he speaks, the further his own satisfaction recedes, so he keeps speaking.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Kashmir Shaivism

This commentator reads the chapter as unfolding, word by word, the very meaning already indicated by the preceding nine chapters. So the Lord says 'yet again': he speaks once more to make that same meaning plain, and Arjuna will soon echo the request, 'tell it again.' Much of what follows, on this view, is clear from a simple reading and needs no laboring; only what is genuinely doubtful will be settled. This reader also gives a compact gloss elsewhere in the passage that 'freedom from delusion' (asammoha) means eagerness.

Ācārya Abhinavagupta

Modern

These commentators read the verse as the threshold of the Gita's deepest teaching. One calls 'the supreme word' the inmost kernel of the whole Yoga: it declares that the highest knowledge and the highest worship are one, the adoration of the Lord as the divine origin of all that exists and the master of the world, and that unified knowledge-and-devotion is the natural way given to man to reach union with the Eternal; the heart's delight ('te priyamanaya') is itself the very essence of true devotion, and the disciple's joyful acceptance is made the condition for the command to action that follows. Another, a non-sectarian devotional reader, distinguishes the path of knowledge from the path of devotion: on the path of knowledge the seeker hears the word and grasps the truth by reasoning, so the Lord elsewhere calls it 'the supreme knowledge among knowledges'; on the path of devotion faith and trust come first, the seeker simply takes the word to heart, so here the Lord calls it 'the supreme word'. This same reader also turns the Lord's 'wish for your good' into a teaching for everyone: wanting comfort for oneself is craving (kamana), but wishing the good of others is not craving at all; it is itself renunciation, and the foremost means by which one's own craving is wiped away. The plainer modern restatements in this group keep close to the older Advaita reading: the Lord repeats his nature and his manifestations because the divine nature is very hard to understand, and he comes forward unasked to encourage and cheer his pupil.

Sri Aurobindo · Swami Ramsukhdas · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Sivananda