Śuddhādvaita

These commentators read the verse through a specific term of art of their school. Arjuna is classed as a 'pusti-misra-maryada-bhakta,' a devotee of a mixed key, one in whom grace-given devotion is blended with the path of rule and discipline. To such a devotee the universal form, because it is of the nature of 'kala' (time, the destroyer), is fear-inducing even though it is the very same Lord. The loving Lord Himself therefore sets the cosmic form aside in favor of the intimate Krishna-form in which the friend has known Him. On this reading the verse becomes the doctrinal warrant that the grace-key devotee may rightly prefer the personal, intimate form of the Lord over the cosmic figure even after the cosmic figure has been fully shown.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Dvaita

This source draws out a particular reason the reassurance is needed. Within the destroyer-character that the cosmic form displayed, the slaying of Bhishma and the others, who stood silent while Draupadi was molested, is in truth the Lord's own act; angered by that wrong, He alone is the slayer, and the burden of killing them does not rest on Arjuna. So 'let there be no distress for you' carries the added sense: do not be weighed down, the deed is Mine. The four-armed form then shown is the very form Arjuna had prayed for.

Śrīla Baladeva

Bhakti

This commentator voices Arjuna's inner plea that the verse answers. Arjuna, distraught and fainting again and again before the sovereign majesty, begs from a distance: I offer my obeisance, I will never again ask to see this; forgive me; show me instead that human-shaped body, the moon-face raining nectar in its smile, foremost in sweetness. It is to Arjuna in exactly this state, longing for the sweet personal form, that Krishna speaks His reassuring 'do not.' The accent falls on the surpassing sweetness of the intimate form that the devotee truly wants.

Śrīla Viśvanātha

Bhakti

This commentator dwells at length on how foolish it is to recoil in fear from such a gift, piling up images: one would not flee a sea of nectar for fear of drowning, throw away a mountain of gold as too heavy to carry, discard the wish-granting Chintamani jewel as a mere burden, turn away the wish-fulfilling cow, or reproach the moon for scorching. The Omnipresent Deity has stood within easy reach, so why has terror seized you? Strikingly, this source then says the four-armed image is not the Lord's pure true self but a kind of accommodation the frail, frightened mind clings to; it urges Arjuna to fix his deepest devotion on the all-pervading Divinity itself, like a miser on his hoard or a mother-bird on her nestlings, while the outward mind enjoys the four-armed form in meditative union. This is a distinctive accent: where most commentators present the four-armed form simply as the dear and true form restored, this source treats the cosmic, omnipresent Reality as the higher object of faith and the four-armed image as the form the love is allowed to rest on.

Sant Jñāneśvar

Modern

This commentator reframes the verse as a pointed correction of Arjuna. The very form is shown only out of grace ('krpa'), so the right response is not distress but joy, just as Arjuna had rightly delighted earlier when he kept his sight on the Lord's grace. This source identifies three things in Arjuna that count as bewilderment and must be dropped: his fear and delusion at the sight; his repeated pleading 'be pleased, be pleased,' when the Lord is already pleased and shows the form out of that very pleasure; and his earlier claim that his delusion was gone when in truth it had not. The Lord points out that He Himself has undergone no change throughout, driving the chariot, conversing, showing the vision, and so Arjuna too should let no distortion come over him, but keep the dialogue going in calm delight, in the spirit of 'lila,' free of fear and delusion altogether.

Swami Ramsukhdas