Advaita Vedānta

The non-Dualist reading treats the Lord as the one self-luminous Self of all beings, ever-pure, awake, and free, who is the very substrate on which the guna-states are imagined. The delusion is a superimposition, like seeing a snake on a rope: the guna-made modifications are projected onto the changeless witness, and so the world fails to discern its own true Self. The Lord is utterly distinct from the gunas, the dense mass of bliss, the witness of the perishable states while himself imperishable. The pathos is stressed: from mere non-acquaintance with its own nature the world only seems to transmigrate, and the Lord shows compassion at the misfortune of the undiscerning. One source frames the whole verse as the answer to why the world, whose very Self is the changeless Lord, still does not know him: the cause is ignorance, nothing more.

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

Viśiṣṭādvaita

The qualified non-Dualist reading takes the whole world, conscious and unconscious, as the Lord's body and mode, arising from him, abiding in him, dissolved in him; he is its inner Self in both cause and effect states. His being 'higher' is grounded not in being formless but in his being the cause and owner of all and in his countless auspicious qualities, knowledge and the rest, not shared by anything else. The guna-states by contrast are called far meaner, perishing in a moment, the bodies, senses, and objects that conform to one's past karma. The delusion has a particular shape: the troop of enjoyers comes to take these utterly mean, unsteady guna-states as things worth enjoying, and so misses the supremely enjoyable Lord. This school keeps the Lord's positive perfection, not bare attributelessness, as the reason he is 'param avyayam'.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Dvaita

The dualist reading turns on the grammar of the suffix 'maya' in 'gunamaya'. It is taken in the sense of identity, not of modification or mere abundance: the guna-states simply are the guna-made things, the body, senses, and the rest. The point this secures is precise. Because of seeing bodies that are made of the gunas, even the bodies of high beings like Brahma, the deluded person wrongly concludes that Vishnu too must have a body of that kind, made of the gunas. The verse corrects this: the Lord is 'beyond these', beyond what is gunamade, and from scripture such as 'alone, and without gunas' he is free of the three gunas. The word 'this' in the verse is read as setting the man of knowledge apart from the deluded mass. By reading 'maya' as identity, the superiority claimed is over both the qualities and their effects, not the effects alone.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Bhedabheda

This reading states the matter plainly and directly couples it to the rescue. The three guna-made states delude the whole world so that it does not recognize the Lord who is beyond the gunas and imperishable. It then draws the immediate consequence: for one deluded by these three gunas there is no crossing the wilderness of transmigratory existence by oneself, and so it cites the next verse, that the Lord's divine guna-made maya is hard to cross, but those who take refuge in him alone cross it. The veil and the only escape are held together as one teaching.

Śrī Bhāskara

Śuddhādvaita

The pure non-Dualist reading holds that the guna-states, though they are transformations ('parinama') of the Lord's own maya, nonetheless serve a double covering function: they veil the Lord's own form and cast the creature outward, becoming the very form of bondage in which the soul's ignorance-made false identification ('adhyasa') is held fast. One source argues that this misidentification cannot be removed by weak or merely clever speech, nor by direct perception which is itself maya-made and uncertain; it is dissolved only by the rising of true knowledge ('vidya') through scripture well considered, and what the chapter finally leaves standing as the means is loving surrender ('prapatti') alone, since knowledge and the rest are themselves dependent on the Lord. The other source adds a distinctive note: the qualities are manifested in the Lord's loving play for the sake of 'rasa', sacred relish; the world, beholding these playful manifestations, falls into delusion and fails to see the Lord who stands beyond them, of pure 'rasa', and so 'avyaya', without any falling-off or diminution.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Bhakti

The devotional reading keeps the gunas as truly coming from the Lord while the Lord stands wholly above them. The natural states named are kama, lobha, and the like, or tranquility, restraint, joy, sorrow, and delusion, which have become the creature's very nature. The Lord is called 'avyaya' because he is the controller of these very gunas yet is untouched by what he controls, free of all change. One source explicitly registers this as the maya teaching stated in fully Bhagavata terms. Another draws the Lord as the object of meditation distinct from his two potencies, the ocean of infinite auspicious qualities, the dense mass of knowledge and bliss, and adds that the deluded world actually slights him. A vivid extended treatment dwells on the relation of the world to the Lord: created beings emanate from him as pearls are shaped from water yet are not dissolved in it, or as a fired pot becomes a thing distinct from clay; they are of him yet not one with his essence, blinded by sense-objects through self-forgetfulness, attachment, and delusion.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Modern

The modern voices restate the verse for the present-day reader and converge on the practical mechanism of delusion. One reads it through a non-dualist lens: maya or ignorance belongs to the senses and the body in which the three constituents are embodied, not to the Atman, which is knowledge-formed and permanent and is merely thrown into confusion by the senses. Another stresses what the delusion costs: deluded by the three qualities, beings cannot break worldly ties or turn the mind toward the Supreme Soul, the Lord of the three qualities, who is immutable and free of the body's six changes. A third gives the inner psychology in detail: the mental movements ('vrittis') of the three gunas keep arising and dissolving, and by identifying with them ('tadatmya') a person superimposes them on himself, saying 'I have become sattvic, rajasic, tamasic'; so deluded, he cannot even imagine that he is the Supreme's own part ('amsha'), and joining himself to vrittis that are born and die, he forgets that his bond with the Supreme is eternal.

Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas