Advaita Vedānta

These commentators read the two paths as belonging, in the end, to different stages of a single seeker and as not combinable. 'Sannyasa' here means the renunciation of the scripturally enjoined actions, the giving-up of works, while 'karma-yoga' is the very performance of those works. One source frames the deeper logic: the knower, in whom right knowledge has destroyed the false sense of agency, can no longer truly act, since right knowledge and the false notion 'I do' are opposed like light and darkness and cannot coexist; whereas the seeker who is still ignorant must perform works to purify the inner organ and so make knowledge arise. Others add that the two cannot be done together (being opposed) nor merged into a single option (since renunciation works by giving room for inquiry through the absence of distraction, while action works by the unseen door of destroying sin), so they must be taken up in turn: first desireless action offered to the Lord, then, once dispassion is firm, the renunciation of all action for inquiry into the Vedanta. On this reading Arjuna's question, framed as if the two conflict for one person at one time, is well-posed.

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

Viśiṣṭādvaita

These commentators take the two as the 'discipline of knowledge' (jnana-yoga) and the 'discipline of action' (karma-yoga), both genuinely means to the same goal, the attaining of the self. Crucially, they hold that the question, though Arjuna frames it as if the two were contrary paths of distinct grades, does not require Krishna to posit two opposed disciplines: the same goal is reached by both. The answer to come will say that for a candidate not yet steady, karma-yoga is easier and quicker than bare jnana-yoga, which demands a purified mind from the very start. So the decisive word Arjuna seeks turns on ease and swiftness, not on one path being simply true and the other false. One of these commentators supplies a summary of the chapter's burden: it dwells on the ease of karma-yoga, its quickness, the kinds it admits, and the form of knowledge of Brahman that fulfils it.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Bhedabheda

This commentator reads the verse plainly through the texts it echoes: by 'all actions in Me' Krishna teaches renunciation, and by 'an offering to Brahman' and 'those who have renounced action through yoga, take your stand in yoga' he teaches the yoga of action. The reply is then stated directly and without hesitation: both renunciation and the yoga of action lead to the highest good, but of the two the yoga of action is superior to the renunciation of action.

Śrī Bhāskara

Dvaita

These commentators reject the reading that 'sannyasa' means the abandonment of all action. They argue that the karma-yoga taught here is solely the performance of the actions enjoined for one's class and stage of life, done with the renunciation of desire for results and with the intention of offering them to the Lord. Within this single karma-yoga there are two parts: the abandoning of desire and the like (which the word 'sannyasa' denotes) and the performance of action as an offering to the Lord (which the word 'karma-yoga' denotes by transference). Their textual ground is that Krishna himself later defines the renouncer otherwise, at 5.3 ('he is to be known as a perpetual renouncer'), so reading 'sannyasa' as the giving-up of all works would contradict the Lord's own usage. On their reading the real point of Arjuna's question is practical and tied to the war: if renunciation were the higher good, then fighting would somewhat conflict with renunciation, so why is fighting enjoined even while its defect is admitted?

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Śuddhādvaita

These commentators read into the question a reaching toward a third thing beyond the familiar pair. One holds that Sankhya and yoga were already shown to converge on a single aim, with one's own work as the outer face of the path; Arjuna, not having fully grasped this, asks the fitting question, and the chapter will resolve the seeming opposition by showing that karma-yoga done in the Lord's name is the sannyasa that counts, while outward retreat without inward offering is hollow. The question is the devotee-seeker's request that the Lord himself draw the line so the soul knows in which posture to stand when grace descends. The other goes further: the disciple has heard both notes, renunciative and active, and senses that neither, on its own ground, names the highest fruit; what he is reaching toward, though he cannot yet name it, is the relation with Bhagavan that is bhakti, and only the Lord's settled answer, opening at length into the path of his own service, can quiet the doubt.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Kashmir Shaivism

This commentator states the question in its barest form: is renunciation the chief thing, or again is it yoga? Such is the question of one who is in doubt. No further system is built on the verse here.

Ācārya Abhinavagupta

Bhakti

These commentators ground the question firmly in the apparent inconsistency between the close of Chapter 4 and earlier statements. One frames the chapter's whole burden in an opening verse: having dispelled Arjuna's doubt about karma-sannyasa and karma-yoga, Krishna declares the liberation of the sense-subdued sage. Two of them read 'renunciation of action' as the discipline of knowledge, the cessation of the activity of all the senses, set against karma-yoga, the activity of all the senses, and stress that Arjuna's real puzzle is whether the knower (one in whom knowledge has arisen through karma-yoga) should now renounce action or keep practising it. One emphasizes that Arjuna's confusion is honest bewilderment at counsel that first told him to renounce all actions and then in one breath extolled the path of action, and he simply wants a way that is clear, comfortable, and easy to follow.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Modern

These commentators read the verse straightforwardly as Arjuna's confusion between the path of renunciation and the path of continuing to perform action, with 'yoga' explicitly meaning karma-yoga, and Arjuna asking decisively which is more praiseworthy. One adds a psychological observation distinctive to him: Arjuna's underlying reluctance to fight, born of family attachment, colors how he hears Krishna; a hearer tends to read the speaker's words in the light of his own bent of mind, so Arjuna leans toward hearing a recommendation to give up the work of war. One treats the verse mainly as the doorway into the chapter's larger theme, arguing across Chapters 5 and 6 that the Nirvana the Gita points to is not inactive cessation but a peace compatible with works in the world, and that true sannyasa is inward, the renunciation of the desire-will, not the outward abandonment of action.

Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Sri Aurobindo · Swami Ramsukhdas