Advaita Vedānta

These commentators read 'param brahma' as the supreme, attributeless Absolute. The word 'param' (supreme) is taken to mark off this highest Brahman from any lower, worship-able form. Some draw the contrast sharply: the supreme Brahman is not the lesser Brahman that is meditated on with qualities, but the pure reality free of all limiting conditions, which scripture itself points beyond. One states this directly: 'param' indicates the pure, attributeless Absolute, Satchidananda Brahman, while the inferior Brahman is Brahman with qualities or Ishvara, the chosen object of meditation. The supremeness of this Brahman is its changelessness, its freedom from birth, and its utter purity, and it is known not by ordinary reasoning but from trustworthy scripture.

Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Swami Sivananda

Viśiṣṭādvaita

These commentators read every title here as a title of the Lord in his personal form, Narayana, never of an abstract impersonal Brahman. They marshal a chain of revealed texts to show that scripture itself calls the personal Lord the supreme Brahman, the supreme light, and the supreme purifier, and they cite 'Narayana is the supreme Brahman, Narayana the supreme light, the self is Narayana the supreme.' They read across this verse and the next as one passage: Arjuna's recognition is comprehensive and is authorised by the whole lineage of seers, Narada, Asita, Devala, and Vyasa, together with the Lord's own self-attestation, which is the decisive ground. One notes the verses are the chapter's pivot, and that 'param brahma' is used here as a title of the Lord in his personal form, not as the abstract Brahman of the rival school, a personal reading the following list of named glories will make explicit.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Dvaita

These commentators give a grammatical and scriptural derivation of two key words. 'Brahman' means the wholly full one: from the root 'brh' meaning to grow or swell, the name marks the one who is great, full, and who makes others full. They face the question of why the Lord, who is other than the deity Brahma, is called the supreme Brahman, and answer with 'param' (supreme): he is supreme. 'Vibhu' (all-pervading) they derive from the Lord's having become manifold, of many forms, citing scripture that 'he alone by his power became manifold' and 'he desired, may I be many.' The Lord is 'prabhu' (lord) because he is capable of mighty becoming, and 'vibhu' because he has become manifold.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Śuddhādvaita

These commentators read the verse as the opening of seven verses of praise, structured around 'dharma and dharmin' (the attribute and the bearer of attributes) and addressed to the Lord as Purushottama, the highest Person, full with the six divine qualities. They read the titles as naming the very self of the devotee's Lord: the supreme dhama is his own self-radiance, the very form of his delight-house. One walks through the epithets as Arjuna answering successive doubts: 'purusha' is the Purushottama; 'shashvata' (eternal) rules out the suspicion that others are eternal; 'divya' marks him as of the very form of play; 'adi-deva' is the root-form; 'aja' is freedom from birth; and 'vibhu' is read as 'capable,' that is, capable of bringing about the appearance of birth in the absence of real birth. One adds that knowledge exists in the Lord alone as a quality, and whatever knowledge arises elsewhere is given by him alone; neither gods nor demons know his unique yoga-power.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Bhakti

These commentators read the verse devotionally, as Arjuna deliberately stacking the highest epithets one upon another in praise of his beloved Lord. One hears Arjuna doing this not in a rush of emotion but with deliberate care, since the next verse will give his roll-call of witnesses. One reads 'dhama' (abode) through the dictionary as house, body, radiance, and majesty, and identifies the supreme abode with the dark and beautiful (shyamasundara) form of Krishna itself; he adds the key implication that in the Lord there is no division between body and embodied one, as there is for the individual soul, the form and the one who has the form are one. Another renders the verse as Arjuna's vision: the Lord is the haven of rest to which the great elements return, the supreme deity of the triad of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, the Supreme Soul standing behind the veil of Prakriti, untouched by birth and decay, who pulls the strings of past, present, and future time.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Modern

These commentators present the verse plainly for the contemporary reader. One glosses each epithet directly: param Brahma is the highest Self, the pure attributeless Absolute free from limiting adjuncts; param dhama is the supreme light and the support of all from the Creator down to a blade of grass; adi-deva is the primeval God who existed before all other gods; and the supreme purifier is the one who destroys not only sins but ignorance, their root cause. One renders the verse compactly as a string of titles. One reads the whole verse as Arjuna pointing back to the Lord's own earlier words, showing that the param brahma the Lord himself named, the supreme dhama that holds the whole world, the most purifying purifier, the eternal atma, the divine person, the unborn one present everywhere in unmanifest form, are all none other than Krishna seated before him; he ties each title to a specific earlier verse of the Gita.

Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas