Advaita Vedānta

On the non-dual reading the root 'above' is Brahman, the one reality, but Brahman as conditioned by maya, the power that projects appearances. Brahman is called 'above' because it is subtle, prior, the cause, eternal and great; it is the unmanifest source carrying the power of illusion, and the whole tree of transmigration grows out of that. The branches below are the principles of evolved nature: the great principle (mahat or cosmic intellect), the ego-sense (ahankara), the subtle elements, and so on down through gods, beings, and unmoving things. Crucially, the tree is made of maya. It is finally unreal, a beginningless error superimposed on Brahman, and the intellect (buddhi) is pictured as its trunk, the sense-openings as its hollows. These commentators cite a Purana that calls it the 'Brahman-tree' in which Brahman moves like a detached witness, unsmeared by what happens. Liberation is to cut this tree, root and all, with 'the sword of knowledge,' the firm realization 'I am Brahman,' after which one does not return. Knowing the tree as false is itself the knowledge that makes one a knower of the Veda.

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

Viśiṣṭādvaita

On the qualified-non-dual reading the chapter's whole aim is to declare the supreme Person as distinct from and above both the conscious self mixed with matter and the pure liberated self, by reason of his pervading, sustaining, and ruling all. The tree's being 'rooted above' is read concretely: the root is the four-faced creator who is set above the seven worlds, and the branches reaching down are the unbroken descent through humans, beasts, birds, worms, and unmoving things. The tree's undecayingness is its sheer uncuttability so long as it flows on, until right knowledge brings non-attachment. The leaf-like Vedic texts are specifically the desire-prompted rites (one who wants prosperity sacrifices thus, one who wants offspring offers thus), and by these rites the tree grows, exactly as a tree grows by its leaves. The branches are strengthened by the gunas (the qualities sattva and the rest), and the objects of the senses are their tender shoots. The world here is a real cosmic field belonging to the supreme Lord, not an illusion to be negated.

Yāmunācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Dvaita

On the dualist reading 'above' (urdhva) is read by Vedic authority as Vishnu, the highest of all, established on scriptural usage ('through the one on high, through Vishnu, I am purified'). He is 'on high' not by mere subtlety or by sitting in some upper world, but because he genuinely stands above the whole expanse and above all the qualities; one should not reduce his height to a position or to a quality like subtlety. 'Below' are the lowly branches, the beings. The tree is ashvattha because it does not stand even till the morrow in any one constant form, yet, importantly, there is no real perishing of it taken as a stream: as things stood under an earlier creator, so they stand again everywhere, and that ordered constancy of pattern is its 'imperishability.' The chants are its leaves precisely because they are the cause of fruit, for no fruit ever arises while the leaf is unborn; here the fruit intended includes liberation. This school grounds each word in grammar and scripture and reads the world as a real, God-dependent order, not a false appearance.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Bhakti

The devotional commentators broadly read the root above as the Lord, Narayana or the Supreme Person who stands higher than both the perishable and the imperishable, and the branches below as his portions and the ranks of beings; some place the single root concretely as the four-faced creator in the highest world (Satyaloka), the first sprout from the seed of primordial nature, with the worlds of gods, gandharvas, humans, animals, and unmoving things spreading downward as branches. A distinctive devotional move is that the very same tree is ashvattha in two opposite ways at once: for those who possess devotion 'it will not stand till tomorrow,' it is as good as destroyed, while for those without devotion it remains undecaying and imperishable. So the same world is bondage or already-cut depending on the soul's love of the Lord. One commentator in this group develops the figure at great length, locating the root in the soul's non-cognizance of Brahman, deep ignorance as a seed, the inner organs and elements as sprouts and twigs, and calls the one who sees the tree's momentary, unreal nature 'all-knowing.' These commentators insist the root is a personal Lord, not an impersonal absolute, and that he will be named at the chapter's climax.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Śuddhādvaita

On the pure-non-dual reading the chapter opens not with a verdict against the world but with the unveiling of the Lord, the supreme Person who is the very root and ground of Brahman and everything else, beyond both the perishable and the imperishable, the gathered import of all Vedanta. The inverted-tree image is deliberately read against the grain of an illusion-allegory: the root reaching up is the Lord himself, the branches downward are the souls brought into being for his service, and the tree of name-and-form has arisen from the being-consciousness portion of the Lord, so it is of his own form, brought forth for his play (lila). On this view the tree is called undecaying because, being for the sake of his play, it endures, hard to see truly and fit only for the eye of the soul of grace. The leaves are the Vedic injunctions, outwardly pleasing shade for souls bent on desire-action, but inwardly leading home. So the 'cutting' of the tree is not the slaying of an enemy but the recognition of the same Lord as one's own root, to whom the cutting returns the devotee. These commentators mark the path of grace (Pushtimarga) at the very threshold.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Kashmir Shaivism

On the Kashmir-Shaiva reading the verse is taken to redirect a familiar cultic line, 'the ashvattha tree is all, that alone is to be worshipped,' so that its real purport is the worship of the Blessed One who is Brahman. The root is the form that is supremely at peace, and that root is 'above' because the attaining of it belongs to one who has turned away from everything. The Vedic metres are its leaves in the sense that, just as a tree's size, fruitfulness, and sap are read off from its leaves, so the truth of Brahman is recognized by way of the scriptures the Vedas mark out. The branches have grown great by the qualities sattva and the rest, ranging from the gods down to unmoving things, and the roots stretching downward are the actions made of good and ill. This reading folds the tree-image into recognition of the peaceful supreme reality as what is truly to be worshipped.

Ācārya Abhinavagupta

Modern

The modern commentators largely keep the non-dual frame but each adds a distinct emphasis. One stresses that the description is purely metaphorical, that in the indivisible One there are really no directions like up or down, and that the Lord alone, by grace, removes ignorance and dispenses the fruits of both action and knowledge. One reads it tersely as the ever-fluxing world of the senses which is yet imperishable because its root is the Supreme, and equates the protecting leaves with dharma. One devotes a long philological survey to the tree-image across the Vedas, arguing on textual grounds that the ashvattha here is specifically the peepul (not the banyan or other cosmic-tree candidates), and reads 'samsara' as the whole visible cosmos (nature's diffusion), not the narrow domestic sense; he then notes the verse will next be retold in a Sankhya key. One integrationist reading sets the verse inside the chapter's larger argument: the world-tree is eternal and imperishable because it is an infinite movement rooted above in the Eternal, fed by the ancient urge to action (pravritti); the Vedic hymns as leaves give knowledge of the gods whose fruits are enjoyment, so liberation needs the path of cessation (nivritti), cutting desire's roots, but this is held within a non-exclusive vision that finally unites the perishable and imperishable in the supreme Person. One non-sectarian devotional reading takes the words as a panoramic map: the root above is the supreme Self (paramatma), the chief downward branch or trunk is the creator who appears first and stands as representative of all souls, and the tree is samsara; here paramatma is supreme in place, time, quality, and form, the support of all, and to take shelter in him is to be fulfilled forever. This last reading also notes that ashvattha can carry a reverent sense, since the Lord names the peepul among his glories, so that for one who seeks no pleasure from the world, the world itself is of the Lord's nature.

Swami Sivananda · Mahatma Gandhi · Lokmanya Tilak · Sri Aurobindo · Swami Ramsukhdas