Advaita Vedānta

For these commentators the fire is the knowledge of the changeless Brahman-Self, and its whole work is to remove the nescience that hides that Self. Burning karma is really an indirect effect: nescience breeds the conceit of being a doer, that conceit is the seed of action, and once knowledge removes the nescience the seed and so the works collapse. They press the point hard that knowledge is not the direct destroyer of works but of ignorance, and that were ignorance not removed, works could spring up again. To answer the worry that this should dissolve the body at once, they say the trace of nescience that drives the already-begun (prarabdha) karma is not destroyed; that karma perishes only through being experienced. Some add a further refinement: those entrusted with a cosmic office, such as Vasishtha and Apantaratamas, take on even further bodies, since the karma that began their knowledge-body begins other bodies too, for as long as the office lasts. They anchor all this in scripture, the cutting of the heart's knot and the wearing away of actions when the higher and lower are seen, and in the Brahma-sutras on the non-clinging of later sin and destruction of the earlier.

Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri

Viśiṣṭādvaita

Here the fire is specifically the knowledge of the truth of the self, and what it consumes is the heap of countless karmas that, set going from beginningless time, cling to the individual self. The stress falls on the karmas' beginningless accumulation and on the decisive, no-return character of this burning. One source draws out a careful contrast with the earlier image: crossing the ocean leaves open the chance of falling back in, but the fire-and-firewood image blocks any re-entry, since what is burnt to ash cannot return. "Reduced to ashes" is glossed as made wholly ineffectual. This reading also notes that even the kind of merit that obstructs the path of disciplined action is removed, and it preserves the standing of the expiation scriptures by reading the verses about karma "not yet enjoyed" as having a different purpose, so that those texts are not contradicted.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Dvaita

On this reading the fire is the experience of one's own Self together with the supreme Self, and it burns both meritorious and sinful works. The fresh emphasis is that even good, meritorious works are destroyed, not only sins, a point made because the prior verse had spoken of crossing sin in particular. The destruction is described with graded images: the accumulated, not-yet-fruiting works burn up like a bundle of light reed-down; works done now are rendered ineffective like a drop of water on a lotus leaf; and the already-fruiting (prarabdha) works, though greatly worn down by the fire's power, are deliberately kept fixed in the experience of the Self by the very will of Hari, so that the good path may be propagated in the world. It rests on the scripture that the knower crosses beyond both good and evil and becomes immortal, and on the Brahma-sutra concerning the non-clinging and destruction of the later and former halves. (This Self-and-supreme-Self framing is shared by a Bhakti commentator who likewise stresses that both merit and sin are burnt.)

Śrīla Baladeva

Śuddhādvaita

These commentators raise the doubt that, against the great magnitude of one's sin, knowledge might seem too weak and too fleeting to prevail, or that the small raft might be swallowed by the vast ocean. The fire image answers it by showing the sheer strength of knowledge: though far smaller than the wood, a well-fanned fire still reduces it all to ash, to a state henceforth incapable of producing any fruit-experience. One source explains why the prarabdha is spared in terms of how karma is "gathered": all karmas, light and heavy, are gathered at the moment they arise and so can be burnt, but the prarabdha was not gathered in that way at its arising, so it is not burnt; otherwise knowledge itself could not stand. He settles this by the tattva-sutra that only the un-begun work is destroyed beforehand. For the devotional path of grace (Pustimarga) this same fire is the inner sign of grace: once kindled, it consumes every karma whose fruit has not already begun.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Bhakti

These commentators take the verse mainly as a corrective to a possible misreading of the previous boat image. One warns against fancying that, like merely crossing over an ocean, this is only an "overstepping" that leaves the sin itself intact; the fire image dispels that error, for the fire in the form of knowledge of the Self actually renders all karmas other than the prarabdha to ash. Another notes that for one whose inner faculty is purified it destroys the action that has arisen, that is, the action other than the one already bearing fruit. A third heightens the image into cosmic scale: as at the dissolution of the universe the all-consuming conflagration, fanned by stormy winds, can burn even immense waters, so no mass of action could withstand the fire of knowledge, just as dry wood and hay cannot put it out.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Sant Jñāneśvar

Modern

These commentators put the teaching in direct, practical terms. One explains that roasted seeds cannot germinate, and so burnt actions cannot bring a person back into the world to reap their fruits; crucially, he locates the burning in the loss of the doer-sense, for when there is no "I do this" and no desire for the fruit, action is no action at all and has lost its potency. He lays out the three kinds of karma plainly: prarabdha (what gave rise to the present birth), sanchita (the accumulated store fueling future births), and agami or kriyamana (acts being done now); and he notes that some hold even the prarabdha is finally destroyed by knowledge, citing the plural "actions" in the Aparokshanubhuti as a sign. Another renders the fire of knowledge as burning the binding force, prejudicial or not, of all action. A third frames the verse as the answer to a lingering question from the previous verse, whether the ocean of sin still remains, and insists that the fire of knowledge reduces all karmas to ash so completely that not the smallest part is left.

Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas