Advaita Vedānta

Here 'Brahman' means the supreme Lord, and to lay actions in Brahman is to deposit them with Him, acting with the thought 'I do this for His sake,' as a servant acts for his master. Crucially, this verse is read as describing not the realized knower but the seeker who is not yet a knower. The wise man who already knows the Self is unstained simply by his unattached-ness; the question this verse answers is how the not-yet-knower, still feeling himself the doer, can also act without being smeared. The answer is: by dedicating every action to the Lord, the inner-controller, with the attitude 'He alone is the doer, not I.' So done, action purifies the mind and prepares it for knowledge. One commentator in this school expressly rejects the readings that take the verse to describe the knower himself, on the ground that the following verse fits only the seeker.

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

Viśiṣṭādvaita

Strikingly, 'Brahman' here does not mean the Lord at all but matter, prakriti, the material principle. The warrant is a later verse where Krishna says 'My womb is the great Brahman,' naming prakriti as Brahman. The senses and the body are particular transformations of matter, so to lay actions in Brahman is to place agency back where it truly belongs, in matter abiding as the senses, and to act as a mere instrument with the thought 'I do nothing at all.' This is not a place to deny agency to the self, nor to invoke the supreme Lord, but the place to relocate agency onto prakriti. The sin that does not cling is specifically the bondage-causing error that the body or matter is the self. Though the doer goes about joined with matter, he is not dragged into that body-as-self delusion, just as the lotus leaf, though resting on water, stays unwet.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Bhakti

One reading within the devotional tradition follows the matter-interpretation closely: 'Brahman' means primal nature in its state of the three qualities, supported by scripture that calls name, form, and food 'Brahman' and by the coming verse on 'the great Brahman is my womb.' The body and senses are transformations of primal nature, so the acts of seeing and the rest belong to nature alone, not to the pure Self distinct from it. Abandoning attachment means giving up both the longing for fruit and the insistence on being the doer. The embodied living soul is not soiled, because the agency of seeing and such belongs only to the soul in contact with the body born of nature, not to the Self beyond it. This reading expressly refuses to take 'in Brahman' as 'in the Supreme Self.'

Śrīla Baladeva

Bhakti

The mainstream devotional reading takes 'Brahman' as the Supreme Lord and the act as worship. To lay actions in Brahman is to offer them up to the Lord, even to offer up one's very attachment in Him. One voice notes that even a person who still has a sense of self, who still feels himself the actor, is untainted so long as he acts while surrendering attachment; the word 'sin' is illustrative, for he is untainted by mere action as well. For another, 'Brahman' is the field of the brahma-yajna, worship-in-act: every deed is done in that field and referred back to the Lord by inward contemplation, so act and offering become one. The lotus leaf is the very picture of this devotee, standing in the world's stream with every act done as worship, so that the moisture of merit and demerit simply slides off because he never made himself the catcher of the fruit.

Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Sant Jñāneśvar

Śuddhādvaita

This is the path of the yoga-man and knower-of-truth, not the Sankhya renouncer, for he does not give up action; he stays unstained by his very doing of it. 'Brahman' is taken as Purushottama, and one may read the verse two ways: placing one's clinging in Purushottama, settling in a state of conjunction with Him, or else letting go of clinging entirely, settling in a state of separation. Either way, forsaking attachment, the eye on fruit, and mine-ness in actions, the yogi who acts is untouched. The lotus leaf seated in water yet unsmeared is the image of this devotee of the grace-path who lives in the world's stream with every act turned into worship.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Dvaita

This school reads the verse less as introducing a new idea than as fixing a rule. The freedom from being stained by action belongs only to one joined with the yoga of renunciation, and 'having placed in Brahman' restates the fruit already stated earlier for one united in renunciation and yoga. So why state it again? Because a fresh statement, when the matter is already established, serves the purpose of regulation: it lays down firmly that renunciation and yoga conjoined are the means to the fruit, and rules out taking that rule about the means in a merely figurative or loose sense. The fruit is told over and over precisely to block any soft, figurative reading and to nail down the means.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Modern

Here 'Brahman' is bhagavan, the Lord, and the offering is worked out with unusual concreteness. Body, senses, mind, intellect, life-breath and all the rest belong to bhagavan, not to oneself at all, so how could the devotee claim the actions done through them as his own? His attitude becomes: the actions are happening through bhagavan and for bhagavan; I am only a nimitta, an instrument. These instruments came into his hands and are slipping out; he cannot keep them, change them, or take them at death, so calling them and their actions 'his own' is simply not honest. To honestly hand each act's sense of doership over to bhagavan is the meaning. This commentator adds a comparison: the karma-yogi offers actions to the world, the jnana-yogi to prakriti, and the bhakti-yogi to bhagavan, and since bhagavan is master of both prakriti and the world, the offering to bhagavan is the highest.

Swami Ramsukhdas