Advaita Vedānta

These commentators read 'abhitah' as 'on both sides,' meaning both for the living and for the dead. The point answers a specific objection: that liberation belongs only to the one who has died with these qualifications, not to one still living. The reply is that brahma-nirvana exists on both sides, while they live and when they die, so the qualified knower is liberated even now, in the body, and not merely after it falls. (One of these voices also asks why others, who lack the great force of desire, do not equally gain liberation, and answers that what is missing in them is the distinction of right vision.) On this reading the verse insists that liberation, being eternal and not a thing to be accomplished, is present for the living knower.

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

Bhedabheda

This commentator takes 'abhitah' to mean 'near at hand, in the immediate time,' and explicitly rejects the 'on both sides' (living and dead) reading as incorrect. His reasoning is a logical economy: if nirvana is established for the living person, then it is established for the dead by the maxim of the stick and the cake (where settling the harder case settles the easier along with it), so 'for the dead' need not be stated separately. The word therefore points to immediacy of time, not to a pairing of states. He also glosses nirvana as being of the nature of supreme bliss.

Śrī Bhāskara

Viśiṣṭādvaita

These commentators read 'abhitah' spatially and as a matter of nearness: Brahman-nirvana lies all around such a person, in the very hand. One develops this as an assurance of speed: since people engage a practice readily only when the fruit is not long delayed, the verse guarantees that for the qualified striver the goal stands close by from every side, not far off and not in some future stretch but immediately at hand. The striver and the knower of the Self are taken as one group seen from the outer and inner sides. Both treat the verse as Krishna's conclusion of the discipline of action, which has the discipline of meditation for its crown.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Dvaita

These commentators stress that the verse adds a fresh point beyond merely listing the marks of the qualified person: Brahman is easily reached for them. 'Easy attainment' is itself a special property and so a mark of the true knower. One reads 'abhitah' as 'everywhere,' and the other unpacks it as 'in all places and times.' One also uses the verse to set aside a contrary impression, that for such ascetics everything is simply apprehended as Brahman alone, by insisting that what the verse actually teaches here is ease of attainment, which no other word in the line conveys.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Kashmir Shaivism

This commentator reads the verse as a statement about the ever-present reality of Brahman rather than about a future reward. For such people, on every side and in all states, the being of Brahman is the supremely real, and it does not wait for a time of yogic restraint. The accent falls on Brahman's constant, unconditioned presence, which is recognized rather than produced.

Ācārya Abhinavagupta

Śuddhādvaita

These commentators read brahma-nirvana devotionally and as present now. One takes 'on every side' as 'whether at the edge of death or in the middle of life,' and says the Brahman-joy is not the property of a state beyond the body but is present for the living as well; this answers the timid soul who postpones joy to an after-state, since Purushottama gives himself now to the one who is now ready. The other reads the renouncers as paramahamsas settled by total letting-go for Bhagavan's sake, whose mind has the single intent of experiencing Bhagavan's own form, and reads brahma-nirvana as the leela-status that continually attends them. He gives a vivid image: as the Lord plays at Vrindavan on every side of the trees, at their roots and round about, so here the divine play surrounds such a one on every side, in all births and in all quarters.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Bhakti

Within the devotional readings the emphasis is on the immediacy and intimacy of the goal. One reads 'on both sides' as both for the living and the dead, so the dissolution in Brahman is present even while alive. One frames the verse as an answer to the question of how long it takes the one who has known the meaning of 'thou' but not yet the Supreme Self to gain this bliss, and replies that for such a person, whose mind is at rest and whose subtle body is worn away, the bliss of extinction in Brahman is by its very being already present, with no great delay at all. One adds a striking note of reciprocity: the Supreme Self too follows after such persons and abides all around them, citing the image of the fish, the tortoise, and the bird who nourish their young by sight, by meditation, and by touch, so the Lord nourishes the devotee. One renders the line as the peace of extinguishment in Brahman abiding in close proximity to such disciplined ones, who are themselves the Supreme Brahman Absolute and the goal of those who have realized Self-knowledge.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Modern

The modern voices unpack the verse for the practitioner. One distinguishes two paths: the renouncer who practises hearing, reflection, and meditation and is established in Self-knowledge attains liberation instantaneously, while karma yoga leads to liberation step by step, first purifying the mind, then knowledge, then renunciation, then moksha. One glosses 'abhitah' as the release placed all round or in front of such people, wherever they are. The third gives a long psychological account of how desire and anger actually work and fall away: desire arises from a sense of lack, lack belongs only to the unreal and perishable, and when the Self wrongly identifies with the perishable it takes on that lack and so desire arises, and anger when desire is blocked; in the perfected person this false identification is destroyed, so the defects cannot arise; and he describes honestly how, during practice, these defects come less quickly, with less force, and for less time, yet may sometimes seem to surge precisely because the mind is growing pure, and notes that so long as there is anyone left to feel that perfection has come, individuality remains and perfection has not yet come.

Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas