Advaita Vedānta

These commentators read the three paths as a hierarchy keyed to the seeker's fitness: meditation for the highest, sankhya-discrimination for the middling, and action for the dull, with the lower disciplines purifying the seeker until the higher seeing dawns. Sankhya here is the Vedantic discrimination of the eternal from the non-eternal, born of inquiry into the Upanishadic sentences: the conviction 'these changes of the three qualities are not the Self and are false; I am their eternal, all-pervading, unchanging witness.' The Self that is seen is the inner consciousness realized within one's own purified intellect. One voice arranges the same three as a single, non-optional sequence: by desireless action one becomes fit to listen to Vedanta, then to reflect (sankhya), then to practice sustained meditation (nididhyasana) until the contrary notion 'I am the body' is removed and the Self is seen.

Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha

Dvaita

Here the goal seen is explicitly the Lord, and 'sankhya' must not be taken as Kapila's discrimination of nature and spirit, because that system is non-Vedic and so cannot be the chief means to the vision of the Lord; sankhya means rather knowledge of the Lord's own form as taught in the Veda, that is, mediate knowledge. These commentators stress a fixed sequence drawn from scripture: the doer of action sees through hearing, then knowing, then meditating; the hearer through knowing and meditating; the knower through meditating; without this ripening the seeing does not arise at all. The word 'others' is read as showing the means even for those not capable of the direct vision, so that a path is provided at every level of stage.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Viśiṣṭādvaita

These commentators take the verse to fasten the plurality of valid paths, naming the meditators, the sankhya-yogins, and the karma-yogins, each reaching the seeing of the self by its own discipline. They give special weight to a further class: those unqualified for these disciplines who, devoted to mere hearing, having heard the truth from the seers of knowledge, worship accordingly. Such hearers too, their sin purified, taking up the disciplines by stages, cross beyond death; the word 'too' is read as marking this very gradation of stages.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Bhakti

These commentators present the catalogue of means but lean on the path of faith and hearing. They highlight those who, not themselves knowing such methods, are devoted to hearing the accounts of the Lord from others and worship Him accordingly; growing attached to Him and in due course taking up the means, they too surely cross beyond death, which displays the surpassing glory of hearing about Him. One vividly describes such a seeker banishing all conceit, placing complete faith in the words of a discerning, tender-hearted guide, reverencing that advice as the highest good, and so getting safely across the ocean of births and deaths.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Śuddhādvaita

These commentators read the object seen by each path as the Lord himself in the form of the Self: the meditator, composing the mind in the heart, sees Bhagavan in the form of the Self; the discriminator of the eternal and non-eternal sees the same; and the doer of action, by the yoga in which his own being stands forth in his deeds, sees His form. The means are catalogued, with meditation, eightfold yoga, and desireless action each leading to the vision of the divine Self. The question that prompts the verse is noted: if liberation comes by knowledge alone, the other disciplines would be purposeless, so the Lord names them to show they are not.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Kashmir Shaivism

This commentator holds that knowledge of this kind is the principal thing, and that the Self is worshipped variously: by some as the Self directly, by others through the sankhya method, by others through action, and by still others who, not themselves possessing this knowledge, simply worship as they have heard. All of these cross over death, which is transmigration, because the truth of the Lord, worshipped by any means whatever, carries one across; hence the teaching that one should in every way abide thus.

Ācārya Abhinavagupta

Modern

These commentators map the paths to known systems: meditation is the Raja Yoga of Patanjali, sankhya is the path of knowledge (jnana yoga) in which one separates oneself from the qualities, bodies, and sheaths and rests as the witness, and karma-yoga offers all actions and their fruits to the Lord. One ranks them by class of aspirant (sankhya highest, meditation middling, karma lowest, the lower soon rising to the highest through rigorous practice). Another insists that whichever path one follows one finally gains knowledge of the Lord and is released, so the earlier claim that karma-yoga is best for universal welfare stands unaffected, and notes a unanimity established between Sankhya and Vedanta. A third stresses the verse's generosity: the Lord presses no single road but lets the one reality be reached by whichever discipline suits the seeker's nature.

Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas