Advaita Vedānta

These commentators read the binding entirely through superimposition and ignorance (avidya). Happiness and knowledge are transformations of the inner organ, which is an object, while the Self is purely the witnessing subject. The clinging 'I am happy, I am a knower' is false because a quality of the object cannot belong to the subject; this false attribution is itself ignorance, the want of discernment between object and subject. Sattva binds only 'as it were' (the iva, the 'as if'): in reality the Self is never touched or connected, but because there is no other connector and the mind is not independent, the property appears to be the Self's. So the bondage is apparent, a trick of non-discrimination, and removing the ignorance removes the bondage.

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

Viśiṣṭādvaita

These commentators read the binding causally rather than as mere superimposition. Sattva genuinely begets light and happiness in the person, and then begets attachment to them. The chain is concrete: once attachment to knowledge and happiness arises, one engages in their means, both worldly and Vedic, and from that action one is born again in the very wombs that allow one to experience the corresponding fruits. So sattva binds by driving real action and real rebirth, not only by a false idea. One source draws out the subtle point that even the high satisfaction of a well-instructed mind, when clung to, is binding, and the seeker must recognize that sattva, though highest of the three, still binds when clung to.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Śuddhādvaita

These commentators read sattva within a devotional and Bhagavan-centered frame. One holds, like the causal reading, that prakriti-natured sattva generates attachment to worldly pleasure and knowledge, which leads through action to rebirth in fruit-bearing wombs, binding the soul along its own appointed boundary-line (maryada). The other recasts sattva's very nature toward the Lord: its purity makes it fit to manifest every form of the Lord's rejoicing, and its freedom from fault is freedom from what hinders divine service; yet it still binds through clinging to the pleasure and excellence connected with bodily existence and through clinging to knowledge. For this voice the address 'sinless one' carries a specifically devotional assurance: for one joined with the Lord's grace, there is no bondage at all.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Bhakti

These commentators combine the superimposition account with vivid pastoral imagery. Because sattva is calm (shanta) it binds through the attachment its own effect, happiness, excites; because it is luminous it binds through the attachment its own effect, knowledge, excites; and the conceit 'I am happy, I am a knower' is the work of ignorance alone. One adds the causal chain of action and rebirth, concluding there is no liberation from sattva while one is owned by it. The Marathi voice paints the picture fully: sattva is a hunter who lays snares of pleasure and learning, the soul boasts of its luck and erudition, swells with mundane knowledge while forgetting it is itself the essence of knowledge, like a king who dreams he is a beggar and brags of his luck while begging, and is led about like a decorated bull dragged by a cord tied round its ears.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Kashmir Shaivism

This commentator gives a brief and distinctive turn. Sattva is 'spotless,' but it is defined as that from which the very rising-up of thirst and clinging comes about. The treatment then moves at once into a meditation on what wastes the hard-won human state, which is the one cause of attaining release: pramada (heedlessness, spending in vain even a single moment of life that all the jewels in the world could not buy), alasya (sloth, slackness in what should be done for one's good), and nidra (sleep, the despised state of going utterly slack). Here the danger associated with the strands is read less as metaphysical superimposition and more as a warning against squandering the precious human opportunity.

Ācārya Abhinavagupta

Modern

These commentators keep the classical superimposition reading and bring it close to lived experience. One describes the sattvic person who compares himself with others and rejoices in his excellence, is puffed up with knowledge, and feels pride at having more comforts, calling sattva a golden fetter and the attachment an illusion born of ignorance. Another distinguishes shuddha sattva, whose aim is the Supreme, from malina (impure) sattva, whose aim is worldly enjoyment and accumulation; even the scientist's sharp insight rides on rising sattva, yet because the Supreme is not his aim, ego and pride keep him tied to samsara. This voice locates the actual bond in a precise everyday movement: when sattvic happiness and peace arise the seeker wishes 'may this always remain' and feels bad when it goes, and when fresh insight arises he thinks 'may this knowledge always stay' and 'I know more than others'; that liking, disliking, and conceit is itself the clinging that binds, and it is in truth rajas at work.

Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas