Advaita Vedānta

These commentators take 'sacrifice is Vishnu' as the key and read yajna-artha as action done for the sake of the Lord. The remembered line 'a creature is bound by action' is restricted: it concerns only action done with intent on the fruit. Action whose very thought is to offer it to the Lord, performed without desire for the fruit, simply does not bind. The qualified or eligible person should therefore not omit action; to do so would be improper. One source notes that even the objection that 'action cannot be for the sake of action' is dissolved once yajna is read as the Lord himself, so that 'for the sake of sacrifice' means 'for the sake of the Lord.'

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

Viśiṣṭādvaita

Here the verse is read as a rule distinguishing enjoined action from prohibited action, and the worry it answers is the doubt that for one seeking liberation the gathering of wealth and goods, the five great sacrifices, the tools of life, and the sense of I-and-mine all continue as obstructions. The reply: do the gathering of wealth and the rest as subordinate to sacrifice, giving up the attachment that takes them as means to one's own private purpose. Bondage here is bondage by the latent impression (vasana), not bondage by sin, since this action is not the prohibited kind. When action is done with attachment surrendered and aimed at the Lord, the supreme Person, worshipped by it, cuts off the beginningless impression of action and grants the unagitated beholding of the self; by the unseen merit of pleasing the deity the very same action becomes the means of liberation, whereas the self-aimed version makes it the means of bondage. One source adds the subtle point that since no one acts without aiming at some purpose, the orientation to please the Lord can stand as a friendly courtesy done as an end in itself, so the performance becomes worship even where no instrumental purpose is held.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Dvaita

These commentators read yajna as Vishnu, and stress that even a non-Vaishnava sacrifice binds; what frees is specifically action whose attachment is gone and which is directed to the Lord. Their distinctive move is logical: the line 'a creature is bound by action' and the Gita's teaching that action does not bind are both particular statements, but the Gita's carries the further qualification 'for the sake of sacrifice, free of attachment,' so the other counts as merely general beside it, and the particular qualification is what remains in force. The conclusion drawn is that the very nature of action is not to be abandoned; what is to be abandoned is only the quality of desire-prompted, non-Vaishnava action, and abandoning a mere quality is better than abandoning the substance that bears it. One source argues at length that mere bodily stirring cannot be given up anyway, and that since the mind alone is what truly brings things about, withdrawing only outward acts secures no real freedom; acts such as fighting, being fitting to one's class and order, are to be kept up.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Bhedabheda

This reading identifies yajna first with the enduring righteousness that the Mimamsakas call the apurva, the unseen potency that carries the effect of an act across an interval of time, and then notes that its presiding deity is Vishnu, the two being spoken of as non-different on the strength of 'sacrifice is indeed Vishnu.' Because action exists for the purpose of worshipping the Lord, the human activity enjoined by scripture and tradition is what 'action' denotes here. Whatever is done for the sake of a result binds the creature; action done solely to accomplish righteousness, free of clinging to results, is to be held to firmly for the sake of liberation. Scripture alone is the authority for what is righteousness and what is not, and by the word of Prajapati such action is conducive to good.

Śrī Bhāskara

Śuddhādvaita

For this school the verse is the chapter's hinge. The Sankhyas hold that whatever is other than the self has power to bind, so no action should be done; the Lord grants this within their own sphere but not against scripture. Yajna means the Lord himself as the one with limbs (the partite one) who is worshipped, and indeed in the Veda the chief sacrifice is the karma-yajna precisely because it has the very form of the Lord. Action done for his sake is itself devotion in the dress of work, and the so-called bondage of action simply does not arise for one whose every act is offered to the supreme Person. In loving devotion the Lord is the very self of the worshipper, so the unwelcome consequence of bondage cannot even be argued there. One source reframes 'other action' as action other than service to the Lord: such action, since it does not bear its fruit in him, is binding because it is his very device for binding, and that is why its renunciation was spoken of earlier; action that is itself his sacrifice undoes any thought of bondage.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Kashmir Shaivism

This is the terse reading. Actions other than the one that must necessarily be done for the sake of sacrifice are binders; but the necessary action, when it is done with freedom from attachment to its fruit, gives no fruit. The accent falls on the obligatory action done without fruit-attachment producing no binding result.

Ācārya Abhinavagupta

Bhakti

These devotional commentators refute the Sankhya claim that all action whatever binds and so should be dropped. Yajna is Vishnu by the scripture 'sacrifice is indeed Vishnu'; desireless duty offered to Vishnu alone is what is called sacrifice. Action done otherwise than for his worship binds this world; action done for his worship (aradhana), with attachment let go and free of personal desire, does not. The bondage-power lies wholly in the agent's reference, not in the deed. Two sources add the careful caution that even a duty offered to Vishnu still binds if it is done aiming at some desire, which is exactly why 'free of attachment' is added; one supports this with the Lord's words to Uddhava that one established in his own duty, sacrificing without desire, goes to neither heaven nor hell and attains purified knowledge or devotion (Bhagavata Purana 11.20.10-11), and another describes worshiping Vishnu with means righteously earned and carrying on the body's journey with what remains. The Marathi reading recasts the whole as doing one's own religious duty as a daily propitiatory sacrifice: this involves no sin, while abandoning one's duty and giving oneself to evil for its own pleasure is what fetters the soul into birth and death through the infatuation of Maya.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Modern

The modern voices widen yajna far beyond ritual. It means sacrifice or any unselfish action done with a pure motive, and also the Lord; it means acts of selfless service dedicated to God; it means duty itself, covering bodily, worldly, and spiritual activities alike, including trade, employment, study, and teaching when done as duty for the good and happiness of others. The shared teaching is that bondage comes from the attitude, not the deed: action done for one's own pleasure, gain, honor, or comfort binds, while action done for the welfare of others, with self-interest and craving absent, happens of itself and wears away even one's prior store of karma. One source insists the seeker should keep watch in every act, large or small, lest some selfish motive creep in, and should set aside not only desire but even bare survival-motive, acting only with the attitude of spiritual practice; the highest seeker does no action even for his own liberation but only for others' good, since one's own welfare is accomplished by serving others. Notably, one of these voices dissents on the word itself: reading yajna as 'Vishnu' so as to make yajna-artha mean 'for the sake of Vishnu' is called a stretched and secondary interpretation; on this view the first line of the verse states the Mimamsa doctrine that action for the sake of sacrifice does not bind, while the second line is the Gita's own amendment, that even the prescribed ritual must be done without the hope of fruit, since otherwise its fruit (heaven) is itself an obstacle to release, and yajna is taken to include all work prescribed for the four castes, not ritual narrowly.

Swami Sivananda · Mahatma Gandhi · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas