Advaita Vedānta

These commentators read 'niyata-karma' as the scripture-enjoined obligatory action for which one is eligible and which is not heard to carry a personal fruit. One notes that it is 'fixed' precisely because the injunction frees it from connection with a reward and ties it to a fixed occasion, which distinguishes it from the optional fruit-seeking rites like the new-moon and full-moon sacrifices done for heaven. 'Akarma' here is the plain non-doing of action, the restraint of the organs. The deeper purpose is purification of the inner organ (antahkarana): action accomplishes this purity, which inaction cannot, and the bodily upkeep would itself fail without action. One adds a station-specific point: for a kshatriya, the body's life could not run by renouncing all action, since the kshatriya is not qualified for the mendicant's life that scripture reserves for the brahmin.

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

Viśiṣṭādvaita

These commentators give a distinctive reading on two points. First, 'niyata' is taken to mean 'pervaded' (vyapta): action is pervaded by, or bound up with, the embodied condition that comes of beginningless habit, so it is the natural and easy course for one joined with matter. Second, and most striking, 'akarman' (inaction) is read not as mere physical stillness but as 'the standing in knowledge' (jnana-nishtha), the discipline of knowledge itself. The argument is that even one qualified for the discipline of knowledge finds the discipline of action better, because the discipline of knowledge is unpractised, hard, and prone to lapse, while action is easy and includes within it the awareness of the self's non-agency. The body-maintenance point is turned to the same end: if one gave up all action for the standing in knowledge alone, even the bodily course that supports that knowledge would fail, since the body must be kept up by eating what remains after the great sacrifices, on lawfully gained food, until the goal is reached. One adds that the body's term is fixed by past action (prarabdha) and cannot be carried by will alone, so the worldly activities that sustain it must themselves be done as karma.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Dvaita

These commentators read 'niyata-karma' simply as the appointed action suited to one's class and stage of life (varna and ashrama). The reading is terse and practical: do the work assigned to your station. One clarifies the verse's logic, noting that the word 'therefore' looks back to the established point that action is better, which the following words about superiority then make explicit.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Śuddhādvaita

These commentators read the verse through the lens of belonging to the Lord. For one, qualification is everything: Arjuna is a fit candidate for the discipline of action, so he should do the appointed work, but done in the manner of one who belongs to God, without attachment; the very same act becomes loving service in the hand of the Lord's own, while it becomes self-deception in the hand of the merely renouncing. The other reads 'niyata-karma' as constant work that takes the form of service to the Lord, done for His sake, which brings a higher fruit than worldly work or than the bare casting off of action by the knower. This commentator adds a bold note: the body itself has been taken on for the Lord's sake, for His play (krida), so carrying through the work of the senses and body offered up to Him is where the excellence lies.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Bhakti

These commentators read 'niyata' as the regular daily-obligatory duty, such as the worship at the junctures of the day, and 'akarma' as the renunciation of action. One lets the argument rest at its lowest practical floor: even a person with no spiritual ambition must act simply to stay alive. Another deepens it: action is more commended than the renunciation undertaken out of mere eagerness, because by the principle of the gradual staircase action produces knowledge, whereas knowledge cannot shine forth in an impure heart that has dropped action prematurely; and for Arjuna, a kshatriya, the mendicant's life of going about for alms would be unfitting, so he should earn his due through his own prescribed work, war and the protection of subjects, sustain the body by it, and so devote himself to the Self. One in the devotional Marathi tradition adds that since being action-free is impossible in this world, one should perform whatever duty falls to one without modification, and that duty done in this way, following the scriptural procedure with no object in view, brings emancipation of itself.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Modern

These commentators keep the plain ethical and practical force of the verse. One defines 'niyata-karma' as an obligatory duty one is bound to perform: its non-performance brings demerit, while its performance is not a means to a specific reward, and he adds that to claim one can live doing nothing is simply ignorance, since living itself involves many unavoidable actions. Another reads 'niyata' as the action prescribed by one's dharma and treats the body-maintenance clause as showing that mere bodily upkeep is a very secondary aim; he then opens the larger subject of sacrificial ritual (yajna), arguing that 'karma' in the Gita's day meant such rites, and broadening 'yajna' to embrace all action enjoined for universal welfare (lokasamgraha). A third distinguishes the generally enjoined action (vihita) from the action fixed for one's own station, prakriti, and circumstance (niyata, one's sva-dharma), notes that giving up the forbidden is easier than fully performing the enjoined, and concludes that since even the body cannot be sustained without action, karma stands established, and all the more so for one's true welfare; he stresses that Arjuna should do this fixed action without attachment, with the eye on the duty rather than its fruit.

Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas