Advaita Vedānta

These commentators read karpanya at the deepest level as a name for spiritual ignorance itself, not merely Arjuna's battlefield nerves. They cite the Upanishadic line, 'He who departs from this world without knowing the Imperishable, O Gargi, is a wretch (kripana).' On this reading, everyone who does not know the Self is a kripana, because they have missed the supreme human goal; the real 'wretchedness' is the false superimposition of the not-self onto the Self, taking the body, kin, and possessions as 'I' and 'mine.' Arjuna's grief is thus a particular case of the universal human condition that only Self-knowledge cures. One source also unpacks dharma in the phrase 'confused about dharma' as Brahman itself, 'that which upholds,' and reads the 'highest good' Arjuna seeks as the unconditioned, absolute good, not anything relative or contingent. The whole verse is read as setting out the standard qualification of the seeker of liberation who has grown disgusted with worldly existence and properly approached a teacher.

Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī

Advaita Vedānta

These Advaita commentators stay closer to the plain narrative meaning. They take karpanya as pity, timidity, or helplessness that has overborne Arjuna's warrior nature, with one explicitly identifying 'nature' as the kshatriya temper later described as heroism, vigour, firmness, and skill, and otherwise saying simply that 'the rest is plain.' The 'highest good' Arjuna asks after is read broadly as what the authoritative scriptures (shruti, smriti, the epics and Puranas) establish as bringing unfading bliss, with the same insistence that he wants the final good and not a mere interim relief. One still echoes the Gargi verse to gloss timidity as the mark of dying without knowing the Imperishable, but the overall handling is narrative rather than a full Self-knowledge reading.

Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha

Bhakti

These commentators stage the verse as Arjuna heading off objections in a back-and-forth with Krishna, which underscores why surrender is the only way forward. They imagine Krishna possibly saying, in effect, 'You yourself reason like a learned man and have concluded a warrior should wander for alms, so what need of my advice?' Arjuna's reply is that the very abandoning of his natural valour is itself his wretchedness, and the path of dharma is so subtle that he cannot determine it himself. Then a second objection: 'If you will only refute me out of pride in your own learning, why should I bother to instruct you?' Arjuna answers, 'I am your disciple,' meaning he will not argue back idly anymore; he submits. One of these commentators also grounds the verse firmly in scripture, reading karpanya as the state of not knowing Brahman (again via the Gargi verse) and citing the rule that one must approach a Veda-learned, Brahman-devoted teacher 'fuel in hand,' and that 'the man who has a teacher knows.'

Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva

Bhakti

This devotional commentary expands the verse into an intimate cry of helpless love and total dependence. It compares Arjuna's clouded discernment to eyesight that cannot make out a thing right in front of it because darkness has dimmed the eye; his inner vision has gone blurred, so he cannot see his own best course. It then pours out Arjuna's relationship to Krishna: 'you are our sole kith and kin, our preceptor, brother, father, our propitious deity, our protector in difficulties at all times.' As a teacher never forsakes his disciple, as the ocean does not abandon the rivers, as a mother cannot forsake her child, so Krishna alone is Arjuna's whole support. Notably, it ends with a condition that keeps the surrender honest: tell me what is better for me 'and that which also is not repugnant to the path of duty,' so that the higher good asked for must still square with dharma.

Sant Jñāneśvar

Śuddhādvaita

This commentator frames the request around the Lord's will and pleasure rather than around abstract good. He reads karpanya as the specific misjudgment that holds the killing of kinsmen to be improper, a fault that has overwhelmed Arjuna's native warrior valour. The decisive thing Arjuna wants told is not just 'what is good' in general but where the Lord's own pleasure lies: whether Krishna would be pleased by killing these men, or by not killing them, or by some third course. So the highest good and the Lord's favour are bound together, and Arjuna's surrender is submission to the Lord's command.

Śrī Puruṣottama

Kashmir Shaivism

This commentator reads the verse for Arjuna's exact inner position rather than his social qualification. The hint that he stands 'between the two armies' is taken to mirror an inner standing 'midway between knowledge and ignorance': beset by doubt, Arjuna has not finally come down on either side. The proof that he has not simply withdrawn is his own plea, 'instruct me, who have taken refuge with you.' Because he is poised exactly between not-knowing and knowing, and has turned for help rather than fled, he is precisely the one ready to be taught by the Lord.

Ācārya Abhinavagupta

Modern

This commentator carefully reconstructs the psychology of why Arjuna's doubt survives even after Krishna's clear command in verse 2.3 to stand and fight. In his own mind Arjuna had not really regarded withdrawal from war as the highest course; he chose it only to escape sin, seeing no other way, and so dressed up his retreat as a virtue rather than the cowardice it was. When Krishna bluntly named it cowardice and meanness of heart, Arjuna accepted that verdict, recognising that abjectness and turning his back are alien to his warrior nature. Two admissions follow: first, cowardice has in a manner suppressed his kshatra-nature; second, his own intellect can decide nothing about dharma, so blunted is it. The doubt persists because he is genuinely caught: from his kinsmen's side he ought not to fight, from his warrior-duty's side he ought to, a real dharma-sankata (a deadlock between two duties). So his question is urgent and concrete: at this very moment, what exactly is my duty?

Swami Ramsukhdas