Modern

Reads arthakaman (desirous of wealth) as qualifying the pleasures, not the elders, and argues the point directly. Taking it to mean greedy-for-wealth gurus is unfitting on two grounds: first, Bhishma, Drona and the rest were not actually craving wealth; they were beneficiaries of Duryodhana's living, eaters of his salt, who simply did not think it their duty to desert him at war's hour, and so stood on the Kaurava side out of loyalty rather than greed. Second, Arjuna has just called them mahanubhavan, great-souled, and the great-minded cannot be wealth-hungry while the wealth-hungry cannot be great-minded; the two descriptions cannot both fit. So the word can only describe the bhoga, the pleasures in which lust for wealth is foremost. This voice also frames the whole speech psychologically: Krishna's words in the prior verses are beginning to work on Arjuna, who now speaks not with heat but with some slackening, sensing the mistake may lie in his own understanding.

Swami Ramsukhdas

Modern

Reads the plural gurun as elders and not as preceptors, on a precise historical ground: there was no teacher of the martial arts in the army other than Dronacharya, so the plural cannot mean instructors. It points to the scene where Yudhishthira, before the war, laid down his shield and went humbly to place his head at the feet of these elders, Bhishma, Drona and Shalya, to ask their blessing; their reply explained why they fought for Duryodhana. This voice takes arthakaman as describing those elders, abashed and bound by monetary considerations, quoting their own words to Yudhishthira: man is the slave of wealth, wealth is the slave of nobody, so the Kauravas have tied me by the bonds of wealth (Mahabharata Bhishma-parva).

Lokmanya Tilak

Advaita Vedānta

Within this school the phrase about wealth-craving is read in more than one way. One voice offers both senses at once: even slaying gurus, Arjuna would gain only enjoyments and not liberation, where arthakama may describe those very enjoyments made of wealth and desire, or may grant that the gurus, though greedy for wealth, are still gurus in relation to him, which is why the word guru is repeated. Another voice takes the wealth-desire as belonging to the elders themselves, reasoning that gurus who crave wealth will certainly help Duryodhana, so their killing too becomes implicated, with the particle tu marking this opposing side. This school also notes a second, ornamental sense of mahanubhavan: besides great-souled, it can be heard as sun-like or fire-like, whose blaze destroys cold dullness; and one voice presses the defense further with the maxim that for the fiery, like an all-consuming fire, a transgression counts as no fault, so no blemish can attach to such men.

Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri

Bhakti

This stream tends to take arthakaman as describing the elders, the wealth-coveting teachers, while insisting that even so they remain Arjuna's gurus. One voice phrases it as having slain those who covet wealth, then immediately adds that the repeated mention of teachers shows their standing is untouched: greedy or not, they are still his teachers, so to kill them and enjoy is to feast as one who has betrayed his elders, the pleasure mingled with sin. Another offers the wealth-reading of the elders as an explicit alternative, since they will not withdraw from war, being bound to the Kauravas by wealth, yet concludes that either way the deed is unbearable. The Marathi voice in this stream dwells lovingly on Drona in particular as a fathomless ocean of equanimity, learning and motherly tenderness, so that Arjuna recoils from enjoyments dipped in blood drawn from such noble hearts and would rather forsake the country or live in mountain caves than raise a weapon against him.

Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Śrīdhara Svāmī