Advaita Vedānta

These commentators read the verse as the hinge that proves knowledge alone, not any combination of knowledge and action, is the means to liberation. The reasoning is exact: if Krishna had taught that knowledge and action together (a combination, jnana-karma-samuccaya) form one single means to the highest good, then calling knowledge 'better than action' would make no sense, because two things working as one means could not be ranked against each other for their fruit. Because Krishna did rank knowledge as more good-bearing and yet still bids Arjuna act, the very complaint 'why set me to this terrible action' only holds together if knowledge and action are separate paths. For liberation, which is simply the ending of ignorance, knowledge alone is the means, supported by the scripture that one passes beyond death only by knowing Him, with no other path; action and its fruit are included within the fruit of knowledge. One of these voices develops this at length into a direct refutation of an earlier expositor who held the Gita to teach the combination, showing that view to contradict itself. One reads Arjuna as drawn to the quietist Sankhya path as suited to his temperament; another notes Arjuna knows his own fitness still lies through the purification of the mind.

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

Viśiṣṭādvaita

Here the contrast is between two standings: jnana-nishtha (standing firm in knowledge) and karma-nishtha (standing firm in action). The standing in knowledge, accomplished by withdrawing all the senses and the mind from sound and the other objects, is the direct means to atma-darshana, the beholding of the self; the standing in action is what brings that about. So Arjuna's logic is: if what you want is the beholding of the self, which requires withdrawal of the senses, then I should be set in the standing in knowledge preceded by the cessation of all action, not in terrible work that is the very working of all the senses and so opposed to seeing the self. One voice frames the whole point of the chapter as the necessity of performing action without attachment, for the protection of the world, assigning agency to nature's qualities or consigning it to the Lord. The most developed of these works out, through many scriptural citations, that the self-vision taught earlier has no separate fruit of its own and is therefore an accessory (itikartavyata, a subordinate limb) of the higher knowledge of the supreme Lord, so the first six chapters teach a joined practice of knowledge-and-action anchored in yoga, aimed at the self, which then opens into devotion; on this reading Arjuna's 'kim' is a gentle rebuke, since forcing the senses into fearful action would obstruct the very self-vision he seeks.

Yāmunācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Dvaita

These commentators set the verse against the frame that the previous chapter taught the nature of the self (called Sankhya) and the means to knowledge (called yoga), and that Krishna declared knowledge far better than action, citing 'mere action stands far below.' The decisive distinction they draw is between action done from desire and the desireless duties of the renunciant order. Sacrifices and battle are done from desire, because a fruit is heard for them in scripture (one wins heaven if slain); the inner and outer restraints enjoined for the renunciant are desireless, because no fruit is heard for them and their stated purpose is knowledge. Since desireless knowledge has been called far higher than desire-driven action, it is unfitting to command Arjuna to such action when the pure, distraction-free duties of withdrawal stand available as an option; one of these voices even separates the verse into two distinct complaints, why enjoin me to this action, and why to this dreadful one, and adds that desire and anger, declared to have hell as their fruit, are unavoidable in battle, so commanding it there is doubly unfitting.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Śuddhādvaita

For these commentators the chapter exists to settle dharma, and the verse sets up a resolution in which action itself becomes the path of grace. Where renunciation and non-renunciation stand side by side, non-renunciation, meaning the continued doing of action under the Lord's command, is the higher; for as long as the body lasts a thorough renunciation of action cannot be carried out, so the exertion performed by the Lord's command and for his sake is supreme. Arjuna's question is read not as a mere logical knot but as the doorway to this Pushtimarga (path of grace) conclusion. One voice hears in the name 'Keshava' a quiet suggestion that the Lord, who bestows liberation even on those overrun by faults, could grant it by way of making Arjuna act, so the works are obligatory; the address gently proposes that grace can come either way, even through action.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Kashmir Shaivism

This commentator compresses the question to its sharpest edge. Both action and knowledge have been spoken of, and the chief place belongs not to the two together but to knowledge alone. If, by the strength of that knowledge, actions are to be made to perish from the very root, following the reasoning that one joined with the buddhi gives up here both the well-done and the ill-done, then what is the purpose of actions at all. That is the whole intent of Arjuna's question: if knowledge dissolves action at its root, action seems pointless.

Ācārya Abhinavagupta

Bhakti

These commentators agree the chapter elaborates selfless, offered-up action and the conquest of desire and anger, but they read the superior 'buddhi' in differing depths. One takes it plainly as the discriminating understanding (viveka) grounded in the discrimination of body and self, the inner means to liberation, and hears in Arjuna's question honest bewilderment, not revolt, as he tries to draw the teaching's consequence. Another reads the superior thing as devotion that transcends the three modes (gunas), placed above both the path of knowledge and the path of desireless action, so Arjuna, eager for that very path, gently reproaches his friend for urging him to war. A third explains that because the understanding of the individual soul is accomplished by means of the disposition toward desireless action, that understanding stands as the higher of the two, and it is reached by withdrawing all sense-activity, for which tranquillity and the like are fitting and the contrary sense-activity is not. The Marathi voice keeps the plain emotional charge: you yourself condemn all action, so why drive me into this murderous carnage.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Modern

These commentators read the verse through different lenses. One reconstructs the Sankhya logic behind Arjuna's unspoken premise: the intelligence of one engaged in nature's activity is entangled in egoism, ignorance and desire, so if the intelligence draws back, action must cease, which makes the giving up of life and works seem a necessary last means of liberation, an objection Arjuna carries in his mind and that the Teacher will at once anticipate and reject. Another renders buddhi as the 'Equable Reason' and states the plain conditional: if equable reason is superior to action, why engage me in terrible action. A third simply locates the cause of Arjuna's perplexity in Krishna having spoken very highly of buddhi-yoga and then again telling him to fight. The most psychological of these reads the verse as exposing a weakness in the human inner instrument: a person frames a question but really wants the answer to confirm his own view; here an evil, the giving up of his duty, has dressed itself as a good, the giving up of violence, which is why Arjuna reckons knowledge higher than his rightful action and frames the question to win agreement.

Sri Aurobindo · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas